Land

The parent company of U.S. apparel giant Timberland has launched an investigation into claims that security guards at a special economic zone in Kandal province viciously attacked the workers that make the brand’s clothing and footwear, a company representative said Wednesday. ...

Villagers in Cambodia’s Pailin province are accusing authorities of allowing a powerful local police officer to grab nearly two hectares of mountainous public land for his own use. ...

The government has warned Mong Reththy Group (MRT), an investor in agro-industrial crops such as palm oil and cassava, that it must pay all outstanding back taxes on its economic land concession in Sihanoukville’s Prey Nop district within three months, according to a document received ...

The government is refusing to release copies of letters it claims to have sent to timber traders Try Pheap and Lim Bunna giving them permission to collect already felled wood on a pair of canceled economic land concessions (ELCs) inside a wildlife sanctuary. ...

Roughly 30 villagers locked in a land dispute with Koh Kong Sugar protested at a construction site yesterday where they say the company was attempting to erect a concrete barrier on disputed land. ...

Mong Reththy Group, one of the Kingdom’s largest agro-industrial conglomerates, insisted yesterday that it had settled arrears on its palm oil concession more than six months ago, contrary to local media reports stating the company owed concession rental fees dating back nearly 20 years. ...

Cambodian tycoon Kith Meng’s Royal Group failed to persuade a high-level meeting of government and Preah Sihanouk officials to resume construction of a 40-metre port at Otres Beach, and will instead have to explore the use of other locations along the coastline. ...

Landmines and other old ordnance killed or injured 111 people in 2015, according to figures from the state-run Cambodian Mine Action Authority, as many as in 2013 but nearly a third less than last year, when casualties jumped to 154 people. ...

As a national crackdown on illegal logging rumbles on, Try Pheap, Cambodia’s most prominent timber tycoon, issued a public denial of reports that he was linked to an economic land concession (ELC) where authorities found hundreds of cubic metres of potentially illegal timber. ...

Around 50 people representing 83 households from Lor Peang village in Kampong Chhnang yesterday refused concessions offered to them during a meeting with the National Assembly’s Commission on Human Rights, Complaints, and Investigation. ...

In an open letter to the Ministry of Environment, the Cambodian Center for Human Rights (CCHR) asked yesterday for confirmation of a January 19 report in the Cambodia Daily that said new economic land concessions (ELCs) had been given to two tycoons despite a ban ...

Thirty-one evicted Borei Keila community families received flats and another four families got $15,000 buyouts on Saturday as part of a “lucky draw” organised to resolve their years-long land dispute. ...

Cambodia’s National Police have joined the fray in an ongoing crackdown against illegal logging, starting their own “mission group” following the creation of a military police task force last week. ...

Next week, Cambodia will join a conference focused on stopping the spread of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). The conference, to be held in Washington D.C. on January 27th, is part of the US-led Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), started in 2003 to keep bomb parts ...

After seeing a signing ceremony interrupted by protesters on Tuesday, officials from the joint committee for Borei Keila housing solutions yesterday inked compensation deals with 32 out of 56 evicted families. ...

Timber magnate Try Pheap and businessman Lim Bunna were granted economic land concessions (ELCs) on property inside a wildlife sanctuary confiscated from two other companies for violating their government contracts, a provincial governor told a meeting of officials on Monday. ...

A Kandal province businessman yesterday denied involvement in illegal land transactions after villagers in Khsach Kandal district last week alleged he illegally bought and filled parts of a seasonal lake used for communal fishing and farming. ...

Four Vietnamese military-controlled land concessions in Ratanakkiri province were downsized to a fraction of their original acreage as part of a government audit of land leased to private companies, officials said yesterday, amid opposition criticism of the concessions. ...

Police and government officials say they know nothing about a recent report published by the National Police accusing wealthy businessman Soeng Sam Ol of using government-approved economic land concessions in Mondolkiri province to illegally log a local wildlife sanctuary, but added that they would investigate ...

Some 1,500 hectares in social land concessions granted to families in Stung Treng province are being illegally cleared and sold by the community’s land broker, according to locals and rights group Adhoc. ...

In a rare move, the National Police on Monday leveled accusations of illegal logging against a number of government-granted economic land concessions (ELCs) in the eastern province of Mondolkiri, singling out a Chinese-owned rubber plantation and wealthy businessman Soeng Sam Ol. ...

The Siem Reap Provincial Court last week questioned a CPP village chief concurrently with a Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) commune chief after they signed documents allowing villagers to mortgage land claimed by the Apsara Authority, officials said on Monday, but charged and jailed only the ...

Factory owners and four jailed garment workers will be summoned today to appear at the Svay Rieng Provincial Court in the coming days to provide “clarification” over a series of walkouts and riots that struck two special economic zones (SEZs) in Bavet City last month, ...

After three years of processing, two Phnong villages in northern Kratie province finally received community land titles on Saturday, the first to do so in Kratie province. Currently, there are two more villages with community land titles in Ratanakiri, and seven in Mondulkiri, making eleven ...