Agriculture and fishing
'Threats' made over farmland
About 200 families in Koh Kong province’s Botum Sakor district were threatened with legal action yesterday by the district governor, who told them their 100-hectare plantation had been earmarked for development by a Chinese firm, a village representative alleged. Two days later, Botum Sakor district ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012102259338/National-news/threats-made-over-farmland.html
Runoff From Illegal Gold Mines Cause Cow Deaths
Toxic runoff from small-scale gold mining operations in Battambang province killed two cattle on Wednesday, the latest casualties from pollution in the area led to the closing of more than 100 mines earlier this year. Officials from the provincial mines department yesterday said they were unaware of ...
Indonesian Trader Close to $1.5b Cambodia Sales Deal
Trading company Galuh Prabu Trijaya is closing in on a deal with Cambodia that could boost sales of Indonesian fertilizer and agricultural machinery by $1.5 billion over five years. The deal would double Indonesia’s annual exports to the Mekong country, as the largest economy in Southeast ...
http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/business/indonesian-trader-close-to-15b-cambodia-sales-deal/550207
Rice mills need to show solidarity, minister says
At the Cambodian Rice Forum 2012, Agriculture Minister Chan Sarun said that if the Kingdom wants to reach the government’s goal of exporting 1 million tons of rice annually by 2015, rice mills need to join forces and work closely together. Such an association [of rice ...
Russian border guards seize vessel flying Cambodian flag off coast of Primorye
The coastal guard has seized a fishing vessel flying the flag of Cambodia off the cost of Primorye, the press service for the Border Guard Department of the Federal Security Service for the Primorye Territory has reported. The vessel Anteus (registered in Cambodia, owned by the ...
Wagering on warm fronts
A busty woman with a scratchy voice shrieks into an intricate set up of radios, microphones and walkie-talkies, her tone not unlike that of a breathless Flemington race-caller. The woman is in continuous contact with up to 100 men peppered over rice fields fringing Battambang, analyzing the ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/7days/1848-wagering-on-warm-fronts
Climate action plan needed
World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said yesterday that climate change will be a concern in some Asian countries, including Cambodia. He encouraged the countries to find ways to manage any affects on their economies. Economists recognize it will lower growth in some main sectors of the economy – ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012101259257/Business/climate-action-plan-needed.html
Cambodia, Vietnam agree to details of cross-border fisheries project
Cambodian and Vietnamese officials agreed Thursday to details of a proposed cross-border project to improve fisheries management between Prey Veng Province and Dong Thap Province in Vietnam. The agreement came during a two-day meeting chaired by So Sophort, deputy secretary general of the Cambodian National Mekong ...
Rights Workers Questioned by Court on 'Incitement' Charge
The Ratanakkiri Provincial Court questioned two well-known human rights workers yesterday in an incitement lawsuit brought against them by a CPP commune chief, one of those questioned said. About 200 ethnic minority Tumpuon villagers, embroiled in a land dispute with the DM Group rubber company, protested ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/rights-workers-questioned-by-court-on-incitement-charge-3712/
Businesses Look for Opportunities in Tourism Industry
More than 150 businesses and associations from around the world gathered on Phnom Penh’s Koh Pich yesterday for the launch of the country’s annual food and hospitality exhibition. Two events, the International Food, Drinks and Wine Show and the Cambodian International Hotel, Restaurant and Catering Industry ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/business/businesses-look-for-opportunities-in-tourism-industry-3714/
Thai prices ease as intervention distorts regional trade
Thailand’s rice intervention scheme is distorting trade around Southeast Asia, attracting rice smuggled from neighbouring countries into Thai government stockpiles, but genuine business remains slack and Thai prices have fallen this week. Cheap rice from Cambodia and Myanmar is finding its way into Thai government warehouses ...
Villagers along Cambodia's Tonle Sap Lake Livelihood Threatened
Villagers on Tonle Sap Lake in Cambodia, who depend on fishing for subsistence, say their livelihoods are threatened by illegal commercial fishing, which continues after a government ban. And they say authorities in charge of enforcing the ban are being bribed to look the other ...
Renewable energy used for rice milling
The Federation of Cambodian Rice Millers Association in Battambang province will establish a biomass-generated electricity plant in Battambang, an insider said. The plant will cost up to US$10 million and generate 10 megawatts of electricity. Phou Puy, president of the Federation of Cambodian Rice Millers Association (CRMA) and the ...
Investment needed to reach rice goal: experts
More investment is needed as well as additional assistance for farmers if the government wants to meet its export goal of 1 million tons of rice a year by 2015, according to experts at a recent rice sector meeting in Phnom Penh. Participants said rice millers would need substantial access ...
Hun Sen Questions Motive Behind Criticism
Prime Minister Hun Sen again addressed recent criticism from [Surya Subedi] the U.N.’s human rights envoy to Cambodia , during a speech yesterday in Bateay Meanchey province that focused on land disputes. Mr. Hun Sen was speaking in Thma Puok district’s Banteay Chhmar commune, where he ...
Protesting villagers ordered home
Officials from Prime Minister’s Hun Sen’s cabinet yesterday accepted the petition of 110 Preah Vihear villager representatives seeking intervention in a land dispute with defunct NGO DARPO. Hun Sen cabinet member Nov Ra told villagers who protested in front of the prime minister’s house to return ...
Living with the enemy
Four years after they began fighting the well-connected concessionaire DM Group, members of the ethnic Tampuon who remain in Svay Sor village are exhausted. While the DM Group has seen its complaints against villagers and activists routinely heard at court, those filed by the affected families ...
Habitat Day Marked by capital's evictees
Evictees wearing small model houses on their heads to symbolize their struggles marched to the National Assembly yesterday to ask authorities to intervene to stop more forced evictions. About 400 representatives of 40 communities across the capital joined human rights activists at the former Dey Krahorm eviction site ...
Concerns over Cambodia's use of students in land titling scheme
Hun Sen’s titling plan was announced in June and is intended to resolve land conflict stemming from the Khmer Rouge regime’s ban on private property in the 1970s. Around 1,600 students have been sent around the country to demarcate 4.4 million acres of uncontested territory, which ...
Details on cancelled concessions sought
A week after Prime Minister Hun Sen announced that he would be cancelling an unknown number of economic land concessions in Prey Lang forest, activists called for details on the annulled concessions, saying such revocations would be meaningless unless they could be policed. On September ...
Subedi objects to Cambodian PM's remarks
UN Human Rights Envoy to Cambodia Prof Surya Subedi has taken a strong exception to the scathing criticism of him by Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, saying it was unbecoming of a person of the prime minister´s stature to “descend to the personal level”. In a ...
http://myrepublica.com/portal/index.php?action=news_details&news_id=43140
In Speech, Hun Sen Implicated His Cousin in Land Grabbing
Prime Minister Hun Sen on Friday implicated his cousin as being behind an attempt to sell land in Svay Rieng province that was set aside by the government in 2009 to provide hundreds of land titles to villagers on a social land concession. Speaking at a ...
RPT-World Bank cuts East Asia GDP outlook, flags China risks
The World Bank cut its economic growth forecasts for the East Asia and Pacific region on Monday and said there was a risk the slowdown in China could get worse and last longer than expected “Economic projections for EAP (East Asia and Pacific) are surrounded by ...
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/08/worldbank-asia-outlook-idUSL3E8L81IN20121008
Hun Sen Adds Voice to Reactions Against UN Envoy's Report
Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday appeared to add his voice to the strong government reaction against criticism from U.N. human rights envoy Surya Subedi. Mr. Subedi last month delivered reports on human rights and economic land concessions in Cambodia to the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva. His ...