Land
Poipet to see new economic zone
Japanese investors will put $56 million into a joint venture with local company Sanco Investment Group (SIG) to build a new special economic zone in Banteay Meanchey province’s Poipet town, officials said yesterday. Chhour Vichet, executive director of SIG, said Thailand’s labour shortage, Cambodia’s ongoing political ...
May Kunmakara
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/poipet-see-new-economic-zone
Developer, soldiers ‘destroyed 29 homes’
Representatives of Chinese company Tianjin Union Development Group, backed by soldiers, annihilated crops and burned the homes of 29 families in Koh Kong’s Botum Sakor district last week, rights groups say. According to a report given to the Post yesterday, a two-day fact-finding mission spearheaded by ...
Sen David
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/developer-soldiers-%E2%80%98destroyed-29-homes%E2%80%99
Landmines kill 22 people in Cambodia last year, down 49 pct
Landmines had killed 22 people in Cambodia in 2013, down 49 percent compared with 43 deaths in a year earlier, a report of the Cambodian Mine Action Authority showed Tuesday. Besides the deaths, 89 others were injured, down 37 percent from 142 injuries, the report said. ...
Xinhuanet News Staff
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2014-01/28/c_133080433.htm
New protection for giant ibis
A newly demarcated wildlife and forest protection zone designed to safeguard Cambodia’s national bird, the giant ibis, along with a number of other endangered species, has been approved after more than 10 years in the making. A government sub-decree approving a protection zone spanning 66,932 hectares ...
Chhay Channyda
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/new-protection-giant-ibis
CPP Could Benefit From Newly Created Phnom Penh Districts
The CPP could win 37 more commune councilor positions than it would have done before the creation of three new districts in Phnom Penh last year, and the opposition CNRP could gain 14, if the city’s 810 councilors vote along party lines in elections set ...
Alex Willemyns
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/cpp-could-benefit-from-newly-created-phnom-penh-districts-51052/
Community Marks Fifth Anniversary of Violent Eviction
About 150 members of the former Dey Krahorm community in Phnom Penh’s Chamkar Mon district marked the fifth anniversary on Friday of the day mechanical excavators, security guards and authorities destroyed their homes to make room for a real estate project. Much like on past anniversaries, ...
Khuon Narim and Denise Hruby
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/community-marks-fifth-anniversary-of-violent-eviction-51017/
Chainsaws confiscated by villagers
Ethnic Phnong villagers in Mondulkiri province’s Sen Monorom district will file a complaint with rights group Adhoc today against three men who allegedly illegally logged 10 cubic metres of timber from their forest. ...
Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/chainsaws-confiscated-villagers
More Plots Readied for Land Titles at Boeng Kak
Phnom Penh deputy governor Khuong Sreng oversaw the demarcation of five more plots of land Thursday in the city’s Boeng Kak neighborhood, where at least 48 families are still fighting for formal land titles. Some 3,000 families have been evicted from the neighborhood since the city ...
Mech Dara and Matt Blomberg
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/more-plots-readied-for-land-titles-at-boeng-kak-51002/
Chinese Push Sesan Dam Talks With Hun Sen
The chairman of the Chinese company whose subsidiary will construct the Lower Sesan 2 dam met with Prime Minister Hun Sen on Wednesday to inform him that the dam would be completed in three years’ time, Mr. Hun Sen’s assistant said. Zhang Tingke, vice president of ...
Hul Reaksmey
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/chinese-push-sesan-dam-talks-with-hun-sen-50978/
ANZ Implicated in Sugar Plantation Evictions
Three NGOs on Wednesday called on ANZ Royal Bank to help the hundreds of families who have lost farmland to a sugar plantation that the bank helped to finance in Kompong Speu province. The NGOs also made public a 2013 social and environmental impact assessment of ...
Zsombor Peter
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/business/anz-implicated-in-sugar-plantation-evictions-50980/
Koh Kong families claim homes torn down
Representatives of Chinese company Tianjin Union Development Group, backed by soldiers, began tearing down villagers’ houses in Koh Kong province yesterday, community representatives and a district governor said. Botum Sakor district governor On Phearak said yesterday that company representatives had come to clear the residents’ ...
Sen David
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/koh-kong-families-claim-homes-torn-down
Try Pheap loggers sued
More than 200 families filed a complaint with the Preah Vihear provincial court yesterday against two employees of logging tycoon Try Pheap who allegedly cleared 15 hectares of community forest late last year before being stopped by villagers. Huon Kino, 39, a representative of the 203 ...
Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/try-pheap-loggers-sued
Miners encroaching: villagers
Hun Sen’s army of student land measurers may have marked ground for them in 2012, but representatives of about 20 ethnic families in Ratanakkiri province said yesterday that their combined 50 hectares of land has now been invaded by hordes of families digging for gems. Chhay ...
Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/miners-encroaching-villagers
Four charged over forest clearing
Four of six men arrested on Thursday for allegedly clearing more than three hectares of protected forest within Mondulkiri’s Seima Biodiversity Conservation Area were charged on Saturday, court officials and rights monitors said yesterday. Sou Sovichea, provincial deputy prosecutor, confirmed yesterday that the four suspects charged ...
Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/four-charged-over-forest-clearing
Governor Pledges to Help Evicted Families
Phnom Penh governor Pa Socheatvong on Friday visited evicted residents of the Borei Keila community, now living in a slum atop piles of garbage near their former homes, and promised, yet again, to build proper housing for the 150 families who refuse to move from ...
Aun Pheap
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/governor-pledges-to-help-evicted-families-50888/
Cambodia’s Human Rights in focus: Full text of UN envoy
The UN envoy concluded his six-day visit to Cambodia producing a concrete report, which reflects both the positive and negative aspects of human rights situation in the Kingdom. As for the post-election political impasse, Prof. Surya P. Subedi, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the ...
The Cambodia Herald News Staff
http://www.thecambodiaherald.com/cambodia/detail/1?page=11&token=ZWMwNTZmODliZTA
B’bang village heads for border
A village of 212 hectares in Battambang’s Bavel district has nearly become a ghost town after an alleged land grab by three tycoons has forced hundreds to find work abroad, locals and a rights group said yesterday. ...
May Titthara
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/b%E2%80%99bang-village-heads-border
US House passes B Kak bill
A draft US law that would require the World Bank to regularly report to congress about the condition of families displaced or still living in the Boeung Kak lake area was approved Wednesday by the House of Representatives. The bill includes language that specifically requires the ...
Sean Teehan and Khouth Sophak Chakrya
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/us-house-passes-b-kak-bill
Muddy Waters Have Authorities Singing the Blues
Authorities in Kratie and Stung Treng provinces on Thursday said that they were investigating an unusual change of color in the Mekong River to a muddy, dark brown that was unnatural for this time of the year and was worrying residents. Since the beginning of this ...
Ben Sokhean and Denise Hruby
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/muddy-waters-have-authorities-singing-the-blues-50792/
Land dispute results in shooting
A Japanese national is being accused by a Preah Sihanouk farmer of shooting him over a logging dispute in Kampong Seila district, the alleged victim and a rights monitor said yesterday. Kanha Phan, 32, is alleging that Peter Ly, 39, shot him in the waist after ...
Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/land-dispute-results-shooting
Villagers seek $275k payout
Villagers living in Mondulkiri’s Sen Monorom district are demanding hundreds of thousands of dollars in compensation for the loss of thousands of protected resin trees, alleging that a land concessionaire company has been illegally razing community forest since 2012. ...
Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/villagers-seek-275k-payout
Activists to be questioned in meddling suit
Ten land activists are set to be questioned today by Preah Vihear provincial court over their involvement in halting the drilling of a well in a community forest in November last year, rights monitors said yesterday. Lor Chhan, provincial coordinator for rights group Adhoc, told the Post the ...
Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/activists-be-questioned-meddling-suit
Lon Nol-era explosives found
An unscheduled bathroom break led to the discovery of 27 pieces of unexploded ordnance in Kampong Speu’s Samrong Tong district on Monday, military police said yesterday. ...
Khouth Sophak Chakrya
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/lon-nol-era-explosives-found
Villagers in Land Dispute Detain Workers, Confiscate Equipment
Villagers involved in a land dispute in Battambang province on Monday temporarily detained six men working for an agribusiness firm who were preparing the disputed land to be cleared, residents and police said. The six workers were using mine detectors to check for unexploded ordnance in ...
Kuch Naren
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/villagers-in-land-dispute-detain-workers-confiscate-equipment-50594/