News

During his speech last week at the swearing-in ceremony of Phnom Penh’s new governor, Pa Socheatvong, Interior Minister Sar Kheng noted that managing Cambodia’s capital is by no means an easy task. While critics of [former Phnom Penh governor] Mr. [Kep] Chuktema note his failure ...

“I don’t know what I was expecting, but I wasn’t going expecting to look out the bus window and see all the blue bags along the roads and in the fields,” said 27-year-old Christopher Convery, who is currently backpacking for the first time in Cambodia. ...

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 ...

Three families protesting the fencing–off of the Phnom Penh building in which they have lived for decades were assured yesterday by City Hall-which “swapped” the property and the land on which it is built earlier this month-that they will not be evicted from the building ...

Around 20,000 workers from the garment, construction, tourism, banking, service and agriculture sectors want to march to present a petition to the National Assembly on International Labor Day, May 1, but Phnom Penh City Hall did not approve the rally. City hall asked them to wait ...

As air-conditioning units slow to a halt, computers die and the lights go out, the frustration of local business owners and organizations in Phnom Penh is boiling over once again as the annual hot season blackouts have arrived. The 190-megawatt, Chinese-built Kamchay hydropower dam in ...

The Phnom Penh Municipality and delegates from Cleveland, Tennessee, yesterday signed a memorandum of understanding to establish sister-city status, officials said. “While we are welcoming [the delegates], there are people outside who are demanding that we solve their housing problems,” said Phnom Penh Governor Kep ...

The U.N.’s expert on housing rights has cited the World Bank’s failure to help thousands of families evicted from Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak neighborhood as a prime example of why the bank needs to make human rights a focus of its land sector programs worldwide. At ...

Nagacorp will build an underground road and retail space linking its casino complex in Phnom Penh to nearby Koh Pich, according to the announcement released by City Hall yesterday. The underground road, which will be 23 meters wide and 447 meters long, will connect to National ...

About 100 women forcibly evicted from Phnom Penh’s Boeung Kak neighbourhood protested outside City Hall yesterday asking for upgrades to the compensation they accepted under duress to give up their homes. The women said they were representing 739 of the more than 3,000 families forced out ...

Phnom Penh could have a public bus system operating under a single company before the end of 2013 at the earliest, Phnom Penh governor Kep Chuktema said yesterday. Global (Cambodia) Trade Development, a joint venture between Cambodian and Chinese investors, had originally been chosen alongside South ...

A group of Phnom Penh residents locked in a long-running land dispute with a real estate project owned by CPP Senator Lao Meng Khin are pitching City Hall a plan they hope will prevent them from being evicted and keep them close to home. “We ...

Despite the massive spike in development underway in Phnom Penh, a new report says that the public interest is becoming marginalised in favour of the political and business elite. The report, from NGO Sahmakum Teang Tnaut (STT), says that currently “commercial interests are driving the urban ...

Phnom Penh City Hall had signed a contract with the French company Citelum on Monday to broaden and modernise its public lighting system over the course of a 20-year agreement, the French embassy announced yesterday. ...

Capitalising on recent worldwide attention to their plight, some 200 villagers who say they’ve been robbed of their homes and land staged a vivid and stylised protest yesterday aimed at President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, calling for intervention in Phnom Penh’s land-titling ...

Authorities in Daun Penh district have rounded up more than 120 so-called homeless people, drug users and sex workers ahead of next week’s high-level meetings for Asean and international delegates in Phnom Penh, a district official said yesterday. Phnom Penh City Hall has also focused ...

Authorities in Phnom Penh’s Meanchey district continued to demolish houses in Niroth commune yesterday, despite 46 families appealing to the municipality and Prime Minister Hun Sen’s Cabinet to intervene. On Tuesday, three houses were torn down as part of efforts to clean up a stretch of ...

Representatives of 19 families facing the eviction from their homes in Phnom Penh’s Pur Senchey district submitted a petition to City Hall yesterday, demanding land as compensation. The families claim that the eviction is doubly bitter because they had been relocated to Andong 3 Village, Kouk ...

At least 100 varieties of cakes and desserts were displayed at the riverside park in front of Wat Ounalom, drawing in hundreds of locals and tourists eager to sample the local delicacies. The three day event, which concluded on Saturday, was organised by Phnom Penh City ...

Workers from the Ocean Garment factory, who have been protesting outside the plant in Pur Senchey district for weeks, will file a request with Phnom Penh City Hall today to allow them to continue their demonstrations in front of the Ministry of Social Affairs and ...

Two months after their release from Prey Sar prison, members of the so-called Boeung Kak 13 were yesterday at the forefront of more calls for authorities to mark out land promised to their community. About 50 Boeung Kak women and children gathered outside to urge authorities to ...

Phnom Penh City Hall has installed five new surveillance cameras at major intersections around the city in order to help traffic police monitor increasingly congested roads, police and an official at an Internet service provider (ISP) said this week. Paul Blanche-Horgan, CEO of ISP Ezecom—the firm which set up the ...

Nearly 100 Boeung Kak lake villagers took to city hall yesterday carrying mattresses, umbrellas and food to protest what they called government inaction on the long-standing land dispute over their eviction from the lake. ...

The Overseas Cambodian Investment Corporation (OCIC) is conducting a feasibility study to construct a 272-meter-long underpass that will run beneath the intersection of Phnom Penh’s Russian Boulevard and Monivong Boulevard, City Hall announced on its website Friday. “It’s a new plan and another solution to ...