Agriculture and fishing

Prime Minister Hun Sen has fiercely defended his right to grant economic land concessions after issuing a moratorium on the leases in May, pointing to a loophole in the ban which exempts ELCs that already had in principle approval. Hun Sen attacked the Post and the ...

An alleged accomplice of “secessionist” leader Bun Ratha has confessed and been granted immunity as a witness, Prime Minister Hun Sen said yesterday, a deal he left on the table for any of the four remaining fugitives who are willing to co-operate, including Ratha. Warrants for ...

Thirteen Boeung Kak lake women who were sentenced to two and a half years in jail on Thursday following a lawyer-free trial that lasted just three hours will appeal their convictions, their distraught supporters said yesterday. As the reality of the trial, which rights groups have ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday implicated Mam Sonando, owner of the independent Beehive Radio station, in an alleged secessionist movement in Kratie province and announced the government’s intentions to arrest him. “Now, we compete with the ringleader of the Democrats Association, which created the state ...

Cambodia’s government has ignored a suspension on new land concessions to private companies, announcements in an official publication showed, despite ordering a freeze after growing discontent over forced evictions and illegal logging. Prime Minister Hun Sen signed off on 12 sub-decrees on June 7 and 12 ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen has denied media reports he violated his own ban on economic land concessions, saying he only signed contracts that had been agreed upon prior to his decision. Local media have reported in recent days Hun Sen’s signature on multiple land concessions ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen has signed off on four more economic land concessions (ELCs), all in protected areas, despite placing a moratorium on granting such leases on May 7. Since the May 7 sub-decree, the premier has now signed off on seven concessions totalling 56,586 hectares ...

Sitting in front of her small house in the Chey Thorn commune of Kandal province, 35-year-old Sokhun’s face is etched with worry. She would like to plant crops on her four hectares of land, but she only has enough money to cultivate two of them. She could go to a microfinance finance institution ...

About 1,500 representatives of military families in Oddar Meanchey province are planning to file a complaint directly to Prime Minister Hun Sen’s office accusing a high-ranking Royal Cambodian Armed Forces general of selling a large chunk of their land to two Vietnamese rubber companies. The soldiers, ...

HCM City plans further cooperation with Cambodia in all areas, including trade, healthcare, agriculture, and education and training, according to Le Hoang Quan, chairman of the city’s People’s Committee. The project to build the Cho Ray – Phnom Penh Hospital, with a capacity of 500 ...

Tens of thousands of families – many of them currently embroiled in land disputes – will be eligible for land titles under an ambitious policy announced by Prime Minister Hun Sen last week, government officials said yesterday. On June 14, Mr. Hun Sen announced an ...

Cambodia could attract an increasing number of Malaysian investors interested in food production and global export if moves to create a halal food recognition body were implemented, Malaysian ambassador Mond Tahir Nasruddin said yesterday. Officials were working together to establish the halal food product recognition ...

An abundance of illegal crocodile smugglers operating without a license and exporting animals to Vietnam has led to the price of crocodiles dropping by more than half compared to the same period last year, breeders said yesterday. Loun Nam, president of the Crocodile Feeder Association, ...

The World Bank has denied a report that it is preparing to fund a new education project in Cambodia, 10 months after the bank froze all new lending to Cambodia to protest evictions and Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak lake. In The, an undersecretary of state ...

Forestry Administration officials have confiscated 15 cubic meters of luxury-grade wood from a truck belonging to hotel and casino magnate Try Pheap in Kompong Thom province. Soth Mary, a division director for the Forestry Administration in the province, said yesterday that his staff stopped a truck ...

The privatization of state-owned land continued last month with several large government- owned plots in Phnom Penh transferred to state-private property, according to a sub-decree signed by Prime Minister Hun Sen. According to the document signed May 24, the state-owned properties, measuring 40,998 square meters in ...

Despite authorities turning a blind eye to their villages for more than 15 years, about 2,000 families living near Preah Sihanouk province’s Kbal Chhay waterfall face imminent eviction to make way for a clean-water processing plant, officials said yesterday. Prime Minister Hun Sen’s recent bold move ...

The Phnom Penh municipal authority has called on Borei Keila residents evicted on January 3 to present official documents proving they are eligible for housing. City Hall’s request came as part of a statement criticising NGOs and political parties that encouraged “poor” residents, who were not ...

Samdech Prime Minister Hun Sen on June 14 ordered line ministries to distribute land to landless and real poor people to contribute to strengthening social equity system in the kingdom. “Landless and real poor people will get a plot of land with land titles according to the obvious situation,” Premier said in the launching ceremony ...

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen has given approval to grant state-owned land to three private companies despite issuing a temporary ban on land concessions, drawing criticism from local NGOs concerned about increasingly frequent land disputes in the country. Copies of three subdecrees obtained by RFA showed ...

Less than a week after Prime Minister Hun Sen called for land to be returned to villagers embroiled in land disputes, a Pursat province villager has been summonsed by the court in a scenario many see as all too common in these disputes. Kuch Veng, a ...

The State Department on Tuesday cited abuses in Thailand’s huge fishing industry as part of an annual worldwide report on Trafficking in Persons. The report noted that men from Cambodia and Myanmar, also known as Burma, are trafficked aboard Thai ships and forced to work ...

Hundreds of people have ordered video compact discs (VCDs) of Thursday’s speech on land rights given by Prime Minister Hun Sen after an official at CTN offered on-air yesterday to send a copy to anyone who requested it Orders of the speech have been pouring in ...

Women’s economic roles in Cambodia have made slower progress than in many other countries in the Asia-Pacific region, World Bank economists said yesterday. The region as a whole has seen tremendous gains in the way of gender equality during the past 20 years, but increasing wages ...