Land

A Chinese academic with close ties to China’s state security apparatus has claimed that Beijing coordinated with the Cambodian government to influence the outcome of the Asean meeting in Phnom Penh, according to the Financial Times. In an interview with the Financial Times on Wednesday, Chen ...

More than 180,000 hectares on 28 of Cambodia’s 64 islands were reclassified as state private property for 31 companies seeking land concessions between 2008 and 2010, government sub-decrees reveal. The reclassification sub-decrees, compiled by investigators at the rights group Adhoc, pave the way for firms to ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen has called investors from China’s Anhui province to invest in numerous sectors across Cambodia in an effort to spur two-way trade between the Kingdom and China in order accomplish their joint target of US$5 billion in trade by 2015. Meanwhile, Cambodia’s opposition party ...

Villagers who have spent recent days patrolling Prey Lang forest would file a complaint to the prime minister alleging government officials and private companies are clearing parts of the forest, a spokesman said yesterday. The 70-strong citizen patrol team who scoured the forest this week ...

After a brief détente, a fight over the Prey Trolach community forest in Battambang province that has its citizen guardians and the Forestry Administration pitted against the military is back on, those working to protect the area from illegal logging said yesterday. Since it was deemed ...

Election monitoring groups are questioning the National Election Committee (NEC) recent decision to let a Phnom Penh casino fund its new multi-million dollar headquarters, a move they said would cast further doubt on the body’s independence. NagaCorp, the owner of Phnom Penh’s only licensed casino, NagaWorld, ...

Authorities in Stung Treng province have confiscated some 651 pieces of “luxury timber” from three communes in Se San district over the past week in an ongoing operation to crack down on illegal logging in the area, police said. The goods were confiscated just as a ...

Two land dispute protesters disappeared yesterday after being stopped by the police and detained while driving from Kratie province to Phnom Penh with a large group who intended to stage a protest in front of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s house. About 200 villagers from Snuol district ...

Taiwanese food supplier Ve Wong, one of two sugar company owners locked in a long-running battle with villagers in Koh Kong’s Sre Ambel district, has made an eyebrow-raising offer – to give the disputed land back. The company’s offer, posted to the non-profit Business and Human ...

Members of the Prey Long People’s Network ended a three-day patrol of the forest yesterday and said they had discovered about 300 cubic meters of illegally logged timber and swathes of state-owned forest being encroached on by private companies. “Authorities are paying no attention to itthey ...

More than 100 families in Preah Sihanouk province were forcefully removed from their homes yesterday morning by at least 100 armed police officers  who dispersed the crowd by firing shots into the air from AK-47 rifles and spraying villagers with water cannons, accoring to provincial ...

Community activists patrolling the Prey Lang forest for a second day yesterday claimed to have found more evidence of illegal logging – in the form of hundreds of cubic metres of timber and several hectares of cleared land. Prey Lang network representative Hoeun Sopheap said villagers ...

Four Land Management Ministry officials charged with corruption last week were released on bail yesterday, less than five days after arriving at Prey Sar prison for detention ahead of trial, officials said. Srung Leang, director of the prison’s center no. 1, said he received the written release order ...

Four officials from the Ministry of Land Management, Urban Planning and Construction arrested last week on bribery charges involving millions of dollars would be freed on bail in the next few days, officials said yesterday. Kuy Bunson, director of the Ministry of Interior’s prisons department, said he had ...

In a mysteriously vague citation, Adhoc monitoring head Chan Saveth has been called to the Phnom Penh Municipal Court to face charges of “providing assistance to specific perpetrators”. Although the court’s summons, which asks Saveth to appear on August 24, provides no specifics as to the ...

Cambodia annulled licenses to four private firms whose concession of 40,000 hectares threatens Prey Lang, one of the richest national forests. A letter from the Council of Ministers to the Ministry for Agriculture, Forestry and Mining, in charge of managing the forests and the natural resources, ...

The 30,000-square-meter expansion of Phnom Penh International Airport may be halved, saving some of the 262 families living on adjacent land from eviction, a government official said yesterday. Despite the possible change in plans, a majority of families could still face eviction because they live ...

Former residents of the Borei Keila community who are embroiled in a land dispute with the Phanimex firm gathered yesterday for  prayer service in an appeal to the government to resolve their dispute. The residents claim the company failed to provide replacement housing or land to ...

About 100 villagers in Kompong Thom province set out yesterday on a three-day patrol of Prey Long forest in search of illegal logging, their second since the April 26 shooting death of conservationist Chut Wutty. who was the organizer of the first patrols. Soem Sean, a ...

An expedition to expose illegal logging uncovered about 50 hectares of clear-felled forest yesterday that activists from the Prey Lang Community Network have filmed and photographed to lobby government officials, a group representative said. Chum Yin said more than 60 villagers had traveled to seven villages ...

The homes of 137 families in Pursat province’s Phnom Kravanh district have been demolished since Tuesday, when more than 60 police, military forces and forestry officials began evicting families from land claimed by Touch Hiv, an agricultural company, local officials and villagers said yesterday. “We ...

Nearly 100 Prey Lang villagers in Kampong Thom province’s Sandan district will today embark on a three-day “forest watch” mission to monitor what community representatives say are increased illegal logging activities in the jungle. This is the fourth time the community has conducted monitoring in the ...

Chinese firm Hainan Ruijin Investment Holding Company (HRIH) has announced an ambitious, US$5.8 billion property project including holiday resorts and high-rise apartments outside of Sihanoukville. Plans for the development, which has been dubbed Sihanoukville-Hainan City, have been approved by the Cambodian government. Further details, such as the ...

Children played along the banks of Phnom Penh’s Chroy Changva peninsula yesterday, while their parents napped under the shade of their bright yellow and blue boat homes. But members of this Cham fishing community overlooking Phnom Penh’s city space said it was a very different scene on ...