News

A $300,000 sum to repair Siem Reap City’s fire-ravaged Doeum Kralanh market, originally billed on Monday as a donation from Prime Minister Hun Sen, will actually be taken from the national budget, according to a senior ruling-party official. Less than three weeks before the July 28 ...

Two days before a land activist’s scheduled sentencing, about 400 people affected by land grabs demonstrated at Pursat Provincial Court in support of the man who frequently protests against the Pheap Imex Company. About 12,000 families are now involved in land disputes around a Pheap ...

A controversial land titling program set up by Prime Minister Hun Sen has been suspended ahead of the July 28 elections, but critics say the program should not be restarted. The titling program itself began in December 2012 and is expected to end after elections scheduled ...

In the past few years, the explosive events at Boeung Kak lake – including violent evictions and arrests – have gone largely unreported outside the Kingdom’s independent media outlets. Outspoken community representative Tep Vanny has been under attack from her fellow Boeung Kak residents, who ...

Representatives of a Vietnamese rubber firm that has been accused of contributing to the illegal deforestation of vast tracts of land in northeast Cambodia joined local CPP-aligned government officials in Ratanakkiri province on Friday to hand out rice, salt and sugar to more than 400 ...

Ahead of elections 10 years ago, people across the country would hoard rice in case the vote sent the country spiraling into a state of turmoil. Businesses across the country would bide their time before making any major investments. And those who could afford to ...

Three men locked in a land dispute with Phnom Penh authorities were questioned both by the police and the municipal court Wednesday after they were accused of destroying property on land the government has swapped with a private firm. Ly Bun Heang, said that he, his ...

Lawmakers from the opposition SRP and Human Rights Party who were expelled from Parliament earlier this month have called on the foreign diplomatic corps and international donors to stop signing agreements and conducting other business with the government of Prime Minister Hun Sen. In a letter ...

More than 700 villagers from five provinces yesterday protested in front of the provincial government headquarters in Kompong Chhnang after losing their community forests to large agro-industry firms. Organized by the Cambodian Grassroots People’s Assembly- a network of communities that includes forestry and land activists as ...

A land titling campaign in Cambodia launched and financed by Prime Minister Hun Sen’s lacks transparency and could leave thousands of people landless, a human rights group said Wednesday, urging the country’s donors to push for reform of the program. The campaign, which employs volunteer youth ...

Oddar Meanchey province deputy governor Lon An yesterday confirmed CPP Senator Ly Yong Phat’s involvement in a trio of sugar cane plantations that rights groups took to the National Human rights Commission of Thailand last week, but denied their allegations of rights abuses. The deputy ...

More than 100 people from two communes in Kratie province’s Sambor district gathered yesterday for a three-day protest in front of the provincial office of Think Biotech, a Korean-owned timber company villagers say is encroaching on their land. As of yesterday evening, 10 armed policemen ...

Despite the apparent spontaneity of a protest against U.N. human rights envoy Surya Subedi at a university in Phnom Penh on Tuesday night, it emerged Wednesday that one of the apparent leaders of the demonstration is associated with a youth organization aligned with the ruling ...

Satiating the demands of the global sugar industry is big business for Cambodia’s sugarcane plantations. Yet accusations of human rights abuses and land grabs in the Kingdom have left a bitter aftertaste for many on the ground as companies vie for a larger slice of ...

The Boeung Kak community and a land rights NGO yesterday released a proposed demarcation plan they say could solve the long-standing land dispute. In a map presented yesterday, villagers said they had agreed on a land division that would make room for 70 families locked out ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen on Saturday asked some 4,000 garment factory workers for their votes in July’s national elections at a rally in Phnom Penh attended by members of several CPP-aligned unions, according to those in attendance. Cambodian Union Federation president Choun Mom Thol said ...

Four of Cambodia’s independent and opposition-aligned unions have informed the Phnom Penh municipality that they plan to gather 20,000 people on May 1 to march from Olympic Stadium to the National Assembly. ...

Hun Sen said salaries for civil servants and garment workers will increase yearly coinciding with the growth in the economy. Speaking at a graduation ceremony for the Royal University of Phnom Penh (RUPP) at the Koh Pich center on Tuesday, he said during the general assembly ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen warned thousands of villagers yesterday that his most popular initiatives, including his far-reaching land-titling scheme, will simply disappear if he is not re-elected in July’s national election – amid suggestions his campaigning has unofficially begun. In a marked shift from his apparent ...

Faced with widespread evictions and opaque private sector deals, activists in Cambodia are calling on the government to be more open and transparent about land concessions, beef up mechanisms for resolving land disputes, and abide by the rule of law. It is estimated that ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen said yesterday that the government has no role in setting the minimum wage, as Cambodia is a market driven economy, and shot down unnamed people who have been calling for the government to significantly raise the country’s floor wage of $61. “For ...

Speaking to hundreds of garment workers yesterday in Phnom Penh, Kem Sokha, deputy president of the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), appealed to those in attendance to vote for the newly formed opposition party, promising higher wages, social security and free access to schools and ...

Less than five months from the national elections, Prime Minister Huns Sen yesterday warned the public that his ruling CPP party would stop making charitable donations towards infrastructure and national development if the party is not re-elected. Speaking at the inauguration of a Chinese-funded expansion of ...

The Cambodian National Rescue Party (CNRP) has submitted a new law to the National Assembly for consideration that would institute a minimum monthly wage of $150 for garment workers and $250 for civil servants, the newly formed opposition party announced at a press conference yesterday. The ...