ODC English Site
Fish prices soar in Stung Treng
Prices for the highly-prized fish known as pa sa-see (Mekongina erythrospila) have more than doubled to $50 a kilogram, sources said. ...
Phnom Penh’s new commune prices steady
Land prices in Meanchey district’s four communes that had been transferred into Phnom Penh municipality’s control from Kandal province have held steady, despite the construction of Prek Samroung Bridge and the extension of roads to the area. Meanchey Governor Kuch Chamroeun said that he is ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2012122760489/Real-Estate/phnom-penh-s-new-commune-prices-steady.html
Illegal Cambodian Workers in Thailand Could Be Deported
Thailand is warning it will expel 1.5 million illegal workers from the country, a move that could affect around 160,000 Cambodians. Rights workers in Cambodia say the migrant laborers deserve assistance from both Thai and Cambodian authorities to help them work and travel legally. ...
Car sales sharply rise in Cambodia in 2012 due to strong economic growth
Demand for brand new cars in Cambodia has remarkably increased in 2012 thanks to robust economic growth, enhanced social security and political stability, major automobile dealers said Monday. “We sold about 800 units this year, up from 500 units last year, “Kong Nuon, president of ...
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/business/2012-12/24/c_132060341.htm
Unions to Protest Court Ruling in Triple Shooting
Union leaders are planning a demonstration in January to protest the Svay Rieng Provincial Court’s decision last week to drop charges against the former Bavet City governor, Chhouk Bundith, who was the chief suspect in the shooting of three garment factory workers during a violent ...
Cambodia's turf war
After 28 years in the capital, eating like “a king” and enjoying the perks one receives as the son of high-ranking CPP officials, Sophal’s* move to the countryside was as jarring as it was eye-opening. Until the day in June when he traded his designer threads ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2012122460443/National/cambodia-s-turf-war.html
World Bank Tight-Lipped on Resumption of Financial Assistance
The World Bank has declined to say whether it will resume providing financial assistance to Cambodia, despite a bank official allegedly telling anti-eviction protesters last week that the organization planned to do so next year. In August 2011, World Bank country director for Southeast Asia Annette ...
Inner Development Gap
When Sok Kheurn travels to the city of Siem Reap, some 32 kilometers from her home in Banteay Srei district, Siem Reap Province, the 58-year-old woman is always astounded by the differences she sees. While in her village, everyone gets water from wells and light at ...
Ministries’ different interpretations, wood imports get stuck
The Vietnam Agriculture and Forestry Investment and Development Company in Hanoi is one of the two enterprises that signed a contract on importing 20,000 cubic meters of wood from Cambodia. Cambodian authorities approved the export of the volume of wood to Vietnam in 2011-2012. The ...
Seven Vietnamese Arrested for Logging Inside Land Concessions
Seven Vietnamese men have been arrested for illegally felling trees inside two government-granted economic land concessions in Ratanakkiri province’s O’Yadaw district, where a Jarai ethnic minority community is fighting to preserve the forest and their ancestral lands. ...
Cambodia seeks $57m Indian loan
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen asked for $57m concessional loan from India for two development projects and urged India to consider direct flights to Cambodia. He said the two projects are the electricity transmission line from Kratie province to Stung Treng province with an estimated ...
http://thepeninsulaqatar.com/india/218944-cambodia-seeks-57m-indian-loan-.html
‘Croc grandma’ gets four years
The Phnom Penh Municipal Court yesterday convicted local tycoon Chhin Sokountheary of encroaching on public lands and sentenced her in absentia to four years and six months in prison. Phnom Penh Municipal Court judge Ly Lipmeng said yesterday that Sokountheary, who is also known as ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2012122160412/National/croc-grandma-gets-four-years.html
Chinese Steel Giant Gets Ready for Cambodian Arm
A massive Chinese steel firm, with which Prime Minister Hun Sen signed a $2 billion deal to build a steel mill in September, has formed a subsidiary company in Cambodia, according to a company announcement. Delong Holdings Limited, which is listed on the Singapore Stock Exchange but has ...
Cambodia exposed to large fiscal risks from disasters
Cambodia, Laos and the Philippines are the three Southeast Asian countries most heavily exposed to fiscal risks from disasters, the World Bank warned yesterday. In its annual economic update on East Asia and the Pacific, the bank said the region was the most disaster-stricken in the ...
http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2012-12/20/content_16035026.htm
Jarai Call for Vietnamese Rubber Companies to Cease Logging
Representatives of an ethnic Jarai community in Ratanakkiri province’s O’Yadaw district, along with local human rights group Adhoc, have called on two Vietnamese rubber companies to cease the clearing of forests on their ancestral land and exporting the logs to Vietnam. The companies, Day Dong Yoeun ...
China is top dam builder, going where others won't
Up a sweeping jungle valley in a remote corner of Cambodia, Chinese engineers and workers are raising a 100-meter- (330-foot-) high dam over the protests of villagers and activists. Only Chinese companies are willing to tame the Tatay and other rivers of Koh Kong province, ...
http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2012/12/18/2809176/china-is-top-dam-builder-going.html#storylink=rss
Cambodia exposed to large fiscal risks from disasters
Cambodia, Laos and the Philippines are the three Southeast Asian countries most heavily exposed to fiscal risks from disasters, the World Bank warned Wednesday. In its annual economic update on East Asia and the Pacific, the bank said the region was the most disaster-stricken in ...
The Cambodian Herald Staff
http://www.thecambodiaherald.com/cambodia/detail/1?page=15&token=NzMyZGM3M2ZiN2Y4ODU1ZDM0ODJjYmI5NDQwMTM3
Cambodia acquits ex-governor of shooting at protesting factory workers
A former Cambodian governor accused of shooting three garment workers during a labour protest was acquitted in a ruling that prompted outrage Wednesday from rights groups who say it highlights the impunity surrounding the country’s political elite. Former official Chhouk Bandith was governor of Bavet town, ...
Families May Lose Farmland To Social Land Concessions
More than 100 families face the loss of their rice fields over a social land concession that was granted to the families of military veterans in Stung Treng province, local authorities and villagers said yesterday. Seven families, who depend on their rice and mango harvest in ...
Cameras blocked by cops: CCHR
The Cambodian Center for Human Rights says that a company with a controversial economic land concession in Koh Kong province banned the centre’s officers from photographing the area and ordered police to grab their cameras. Officers from CCHR traveled to Sre Ambel district on December 14 ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2012121960362/National/cameras-blocked-by-cops-cchr.html
Job losses ‘discrimination’
More than 60 union leaders lost their jobs at garment factories in the past nine months for trying to unionise co-workers, their representatives claimed yesterday. Fourteen members of the Cambodian Alliance of Trade Unions endured threats, discrimination and ultimately a message they were no longer welcome ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2012121960367/National/job-losses-discrimination.html
New species, old threats to wildlife: WWF
From a devilish-looking bat to a frog that sings like a bird, scientists have identified 126 new species in the Greater Mekong area, the WWF said Tuesday in a new report detailing discoveries in 2011. But from forest loss to the construction of major hydropower projects ...
Kreung Minority File Complaint Over Land Clearing
Ethnic minority Kreung villagers filed a complaint against commune level authorities on Saturday for allegedly accepting money from a businessman to clear their ancestral land for a new rubber plantation in Ratanakkiri province, local NGOs and villagers said. ...
$500M Leaves Cambodia Illegally Each Year
Almost $500 million a year was taken out of Cambodia in “illicit financial flows” between 2001 and 2010, a report released yesterday in the U.S. claims. People in the Cambodian finance sector, however, expressed doubts about the accuracy of the figure, which appears in a report ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/business/500m-leaves-cambodia-illegally-each-year-6748/