Land

Cambodia and Thailand yesterday reiterated their commitment to restart negotiations over an expansive and resource-rich section of the Gulf of Thailand known as the Overlapping Claims Area – but the two countries have yet to set a date for the talks. In 2001, officials from ...

Legal experts and officials agree that negotiations with Cambodia about overlapping maritime claims should resume under the 2001 memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Thailand. The MoU was revoked by the previous Abhisit Vejjajiva government. Vasin Teeravechyan, head of the Thai-Cambodian joint boundary sub-committee, said many related officials ...

Economic land concessions strewn over the remote Western Siem Pang forest, in Stung Treng province, are threatening the survival of Cambodia’s national bird, the giant ibis, a report reveals. The forest, flanking the Kingdom’s border with Laos,  is home to five critically endangered bird species, yet ...

A journalist murdered in Ratanakkiri last week took a call from his accused killer on the night of his disappearance, his family has claimed in a complaint to the rights group Adhoc. Ken Sovann, 63, the mother of slain journalist Hang Serei Oudom, whose body was found in his car in O’Chum district ...

Villagers have found more than 100 cubic metres of timber and three chainsaws in Prey Lang forest during a six-day patrol for illegal logging, community officials said yesterday. Scouring the forest on motorcycles and on foot, more than 300 villagers from four provinces found 100 cubic ...

Community groups have aborted their coordinated patrol of Prey Long forest in search of illegal logging because of heavy rain, a community member said yesterday. The Prey Long People’s Network had planned to continue its patrol-which began Friday and had already found at least 65 cubic ...

The future of a pond that sparked controversy last Monday, when about 400 people stopped authorities from filling it with sand in preparation for the construction of a military police base, remains in question, locals said yesterday. The residents of 10 villages protested last week in ...

Community patrols of Prey Long forest by local villagers over the last few days have uncovered at least 65 cubic meters of illicitly cut timber and three chainsaws believed to belong to the illegal loggers. Soem Sean, a member of the Prey Long People’s Network, dedicated ...

A Ratanakkiri provincial court has charged a married couple with premeditated murder in the grisly killing of Vorakchun Khmer newspaper reporter Hang Serei Oudom, whose body was found axed to death in the back of a car last week. The suspects, An Bunheng and his wife, ...

A forestry officer and a reporter from a little-known newspaper were arrested Friday on allegations of attempted extortion and assaulting a man they caught illegally transporting luxury timber, but were released on Saturday, military police officials said yesterday. Seng Chandaron, the chief of Sandan commune Forestry ...

Resident of Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak neighborhood burned straw effigies symbolizing corrupt government officials yesterday to make the one-year anniversary of demolition of eight homes at the contest site. Roughly 100 protesters gathered at the site of the demolitions and set fire to eight scarecrow-like effigies ...

A local journalist and a forestry official were arrested by military police in Kratie province’s Sambo district on Friday night for allegedly discharging a weapon into the air and beating a man with a boat oar in an extortion bid gone awry. According to district military ...

Residents of Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak neighborhood burned straw effigies symbolizing corrupt government officials yesterday to mark the one-year anniversary of the demolition of eight homes at the contested site. Roughly 100 protesters gathered at the site of the demolitions and set fire to eight scarecrow-like effigies- one ...

Villagers living in raised houses on the capital’s Boeung Tumpun lake fear their eviction is on the horizon as sand pumping increases at the site, they said yesterday. In recent months, heavy machinery has been at work at the Boeung Tumpun site. Sand pumping has ...

Employee at timber company Angkor Flywood in Kampong Cham province will return to work today after their bosses agreed yesterday to all but one of their demands: an increase in wages. Sok Kin, vice president of the Building and Word Workers Trade Union Federation of Cambodia ...

The Ratanakkiri Provincial Court yesterday charged a military police captain and his wife with the murder of journalist Hang Serei Odom, officials said. Hang Serei Odom, who worked for the Virakchun Khmer Daily newspaper, was found dead in the trunk of his car on Tuesday. He ...

Heavy machinery is pumping millions of tonnes of sand from the river into the Boeung Tumpun lake in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The area is home to some 2000 families and rumours suggest they will be evicted to develop the land once the lake is filled. The ...

Once a majority ethnic minority province where Tampoun, Jarai and Kreung speakers outnumbered the Khmer, Ratanakkiri is now one of the country’s fastest growing provinces where inhabitants of lowland provinces, particularly Kompong Cham, Svay Rieng and Prey Veng, are flocking in search of a better ...

Ethnic Bunong villagers in Mondolkiri province’s Pech Chreada district are bitterly divided over how best to protect their ancestral land amid efforts by authorities to map it in preparation for property titles. Bosra commune chief Yoeth Sarin said that since student volunteers-deployed across the country as ...

International human rights groups added their voices to the chorus of criticism over the detention of two female anti-eviction activists from the Boeng Kak and Borei Keila communities, accusing the court of failing to honor fair trial standards. In a statement issued late Thursday, Amnesty International, ...

More than 200 motorcycle-taxi drivers gathered in Phnom Penh’s Freedom Park yesterday, for the third time, to protest against human rights groups who have characterized the recent arrest of two anti-eviction activists as politically motivated. The little known taxi drivers’ union, Cambodia for Confederation Development Association ...

Police investigating the murder of a journalist whose battered body was discovered in Ratanakkiri province on Tuesday have unearthed key clues to who may have carried out the killing, an official said yesterday. Hang Serei Odom, 42-who had written exposes on the involvement of powerful people in forest ...

Thai Beverage’s stake in Fraser & Neave (F&N) is another piece of the strategic jigsaw as ThaiBev moves to become an international giant, benefiting from the Singapore-based beverage firm’s regional distribution network and management know-how Not only has its beverage business expanded regionally and globally, the ...

A local newspaper stringer who had written about illegal logging was found dead in the back of a car yesterday in Rattanakiri province’s O’Chum district. Hang Serei Oudom, 44, was a stringer for Vorakchun Khmer, or Khmer Hero, newspaper. Police said his body was covered in blood ...