News

The US “pivot to Asia,” which will be punctuated next week with the Cambodian visit of US President Barack Obama, will likely put Cambodia in a tough spot in the region, caught between the renewed focus of the United States and the increased influence of ...

One thing President Barack Obama will not see in Cambodia is pleas for help painted on rooftops near the airport. Authorities on Thursday arrested eight villagers who had hoped to attract the attention of Air Force One by plastering the U.S. president’s picture on their rooftops ...

Newly re-elected US President Barack Obama will attend a series of top-level Asian meetings next week, with Cambodia hosting an Asean summit, and China in attendance with new leadership. The high-profile meetings will present challenges for the US president, whose administration has become more deeply ...

Kratie province – Cambodia’s transformation from war-torn basket-case to one of Asia’s most promising emerging economies is being overshadowed by a backwards lurch in human rights and land policies that critics say are entrenching poverty. Next week’s visit by Barack Obama, the fist by a U.S. ...

Cambodia’s transformation from war-torn basket-case to one of Asia’s most promising emerging economies is being overshadowed by a backwards lurch in human rights and land policies that critics say are entrenching poverty. ...

As Asian and European leaders gather for high level meetings this month in Cambodia and Laos, the luxury living quarters and extensive security arrangements made for their arrivals have come at considerable human and environmental expense. Government authorities went on a building spree ahead of this ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen on Saturday accused unnamed individuals of attempting to grab land in Kompong Thom province by invoking his wife’s name and ordered one of his sons to investigate and give back any misappropriated land. According to Mr. Hun Sen, unscrupulous individuals were ...

Drawing from a long list of human rights abuses, the European Parliament has urged the Cambodian government to stop forced evictions, called on the European Commission (E.C.) to investigate the country’s controversial land concessions policy, and raised the prospect of sanctions. In a resolution passed Friday ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen on Friday implicated his cousin as being behind an attempt to sell land in Svay Rieng province that was set aside by the government in 2009 to provide hundreds of land titles to villagers on a social land concession. Speaking at a ...

Global development group Oxfam on Wednesday called on the World Bank to suspend financing for large-scale land acquisitions to ensure that its practices do not encourage foreign land grabs in developing countries. Oxfam urged Jim Yong Kim, the lender’s new president, to announce a six-month moratorium ...

Among thousands of residents in the Boeung Kak Lake district of the capital whose land has been targeted for redevelopment by a Chinese-financed real estate company, Tep Vanny carried a letter explaining the “sadness and suffering” caused by the project — which has turned Phnom ...

With national elections less than a year away, ruling party officials have begun a publicity campaign to show they are tackling tough issues facing the country, such as border delineation and land grabs, but opposition leaders say the Cambodian People’s Party cannot claim it has ...

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, ...

An EU scheme to boost trade with developing nations is fuelling land grabs in Cambodia, activists say, with thousands evicted from their property to make way for a booming sugar industry. Campaigners are taking their fight to European supermarkets, encouraging a boycott of Cambodian sugar, which ...

The European Union should immediately remove trade preferences it gives to Cambodian sugar companies accused of human-rights violations including land grabs, representatives of the affected communities told a press conference in Phnom Penh yesterday. Community representatives from Koh Kong, Kampong Speu and Oddar Meanchey provinces said ...

The number of protests over land disputes increased in 2011 as forced resettlement, restrictions on freedom of assembly and the harassment of peaceful protesters continued to tarnish Cambodia’s human rights record, Amnesty International said in its annual report released yesterday. Noting the huge impact of economic ...

The government yesterday lashed out at a letter sent by opposition lawmakers to the World Bank that urged the bank to increase pressure on the government to end forced evictions, land grabbing and threats against community members involved in land disputes with well-connected companies. Council ...

The evictions and so-called “land grabs” have angered aid donors, putting at stake hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign aid as well as a trade scheme that gives Cambodian produce tariff-free access to the EU. International donors and lenders such as the World Bank ...

Phnom Penh–Kong Song’s farmland was his family’s livelihood for three decades until the bulldozers moved in and tore down his home in rural Cambodia to make way for a multimillion dollar foreign-led business. His family was one of 253 forcibly evicted five years ago in southern ...