ODC English Site

A draft agricultural land law threatens to eliminate property rights and effectively remove all limitations on the size of economic land concessions, a coalition of civil society groups said in a statement released.The draft of The Law on the Management and Use of Agricultural Land, ...

Villagers locked in a land dispute in Pursat province’s Veal Veng district no longer pose a secessionist threat, and those remaining in the contested area will receive new plots of land on which to live, the district governor said yesterday. District governor Chhe Chhiv said that ...

Two months after government security forces evicted hundreds of families from Kratie’s Broma village at gunpoint, residents who were permitted to remain there took their first steps toward legal land tenure. Scores of volunteers last week began to collect data of families in Chhlong and Snuol ...

A spike in factory faintings contributed to a 65 per cent increase in the number of workplace injuries reported in 2011, a Ministry of Labour official said yesterday. Leng Tong, director of the occupational health and safety department, said the ministry plans to introduce specialist safety ...

More than a hundred supporters of imprisoned Beehive Radio owner Mam Sonando gathered at the Preah Ang Dang Keu Shrine in front of the Royal Palace yesterday morning to offer prayers for his release. Sporting shirts printed with photos of Mr. Sonando, the group lit candles ...

Ministry of Interior officials announced yesterday that three more villagers accused of involvement in a “secessionist plot” in Kratie province turned themselves in and confessed their guilt on Saturday, taking advantage of the prime minister’s offer of immunity for those who agree to act as ...

Banteay Ampil district, Oddar Meanchey province – The families of Beng commune have new neighbors: a battalion of Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) soldiers building a military base inside one of 13 pockets across the province aiming to be the first forest-based carbon trading scheme ...

Cassava plantings in Battambang province dropped more than 18 per cent in the first half of the year compared to the same period in 2011, according to agriculture officials. The decease is a result of that previous year’s yield fetching a low price and farmers ...

Strikers from Kandal province’s Tai Yang and Camwell factories, which supply Levi’s and Gap, will converge on the capital again today to keep pressing for seniority bonuses, Cambodian Confederation of Unions president Rong Chhun said. The 150 workers who remain on strikewill deliver a petition to ...

A decision on whether to build the Xayaburi dam on the Mekong River in northern Laos is a life and death one that will affect Cambodians downstream, according to Foreign Minister Hor Namhong. Speaking to reporters on Friday, Namhong said the controversial 1,260-megawatt hydropower dam has ...

The Cambodian government has cancelled a 14,981-hectare concession in the Cardamom mountains granted to an Australian firm for a banana plantation, the conservation group Wildlife Alliance has reported. Wildlife Alliance has long lobbied against the concession in Koh Kong province’s southern cardamom forest on which Indochina ...

Two more people in Pursat province’s Veal Veng district have been arrested in conjunction with what local authorities are calling a secessionist plot, while provincial authorities threatened to demolish more homes if residents do not leave a disputed area, officials said yesterday. Deputy provincial court prosecutor ...

Before the big dinner with Hillary Clinton, Prime Minister Hun Sen and the leaders of Thailand and Myanmar on July 13 in Siem Reap, Tom Whitcraft of RMA Group, which owns the Ford dealership in Cambodia, sat down for an interview. Whitcraft said Ford has about ...

The biggest US trade delegation to Cambodia in decades joined Secretary of State Hillary Clinton here as the two countries look to expand their economic relationship beyond exports of cheaply produced garments. “On the economic front, there is much more room for us to grow ...

The Kompong Chhnang Provincial Court questioned four villagers among 12 summoned for questioning over a land dispute in Samakki Meanchey district, which has pitted some 80 local families against the owner of a private company they accuse of taking their land. While the dispute stems from alleged land grabbing, ...

Foreign Minister Hor Namhong on Friday put the blame for last week’s failure among Asean countries to release a joint communiqué on territorial disputes in the South China Sea firmly back on Vietnam and the Philippines. More than a week since discussions related to the territorial dispute between Asean’s members ...

Cambodia is mulling over a nuclear power option to feed its anemic energy sector, although private sector pundits called the rough plan a dream – a dangerous one at that. The government plans to use atomic energy in the future as oil, coal and biomass power ...

Oil imports to Cambodia in the first half of the year increased 22 percent to nearly 1 million tons compared to the same period last year, according to figures obtained yesterday from the Ministry of Commerce. According to the data, Cambodia imported 922,860 tons of gas ...

Police in Battambang arrested six villagers embroiled in a land dispute with a local businessman on Wednesday after 10 other villagers accused them of defrauding families in the area, deputy provincial governor Uy Ry said yesterday. However, villagers and rights workers in Kors Kralor district said ...

More than 100 villagers protested in front of Banan district hall in Battambang province yesterday, demanding the release of six villagers who were arrested on Wednesday for allegedly accepting money to illegally divide state land. The six suspects have been accused of advertising land and then ...

Villagers from Svay Rieng province’s Krasaing commune have vowed to continue their protests to preserve a patch of community forest earmarked for clearing, despite receiving an official warning yesterday. Residents said it would affect over 2,700 people. ...

The World Bank has blacklisted an arm of the company that carried out a much-criticised study into the Xayaburi hydro dam project, it has confirmed. According to the bank’s website, Pöyry Management Consulting Oy Finland has been banned from conducting business with the bank for three ...

In the first six months of the year, 26 Cambodians have been shot dead by the Thai military while illegally logging along the border, nearly double the number killed in all of 2011. “According to the Cambodian-Thai Relations Bureau documents for the semester, there were 26 ...

The number of Cambodian workers passing through Poipet international checkpoint to work in Thailand decreased by 10 percent during the first six months of the year compared to 2011, an immigration police officer said yesterday. Leak Romnea, chief of administration of Banteay Meanchey province’s Poipet immigration ...