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Report on Worldwide Land Grabbing Zeroes In on Cambodia
A new report on land grabbing around the world highlights Cambodia as a prime example of the ill effect of the growing global appetite for farmland by industrial scale operations. Released Wednesday in Stockholm by three Swedish NGOs, The Race for Land offers Cambodia as one ...
No loans until poll: World Bank
Discussions on restarting World Bank loans to Cambodia will not commence until after the 2013 elections, a bank official said yesterday. After a landmark freeze on loans announced in December 2010, a response to the forced evictions by the government of residents of the Boeung Kak ...
Government Defends Chinese Dams
Following a dam breach in Pursat province, ruling CPP lawmakers yesterday defended the government’s primary plan to tackle its energy crisis by contracting Chinese companies to build hydropower dams on the country’s rivers. A section of concrete tunnel at the Stung Atai dam in Pursat province ...
Electronics Supplier Files Complaint Against Mfone
Electronic equipment supplier Eltek Valere Ltd. filed a complaint Wednesday with the Phnom Penh Municipal Court against mobile operator Mfone, demanding the company pay the $3.7 million it owes to Eltek from a previous GSM contract, a lawyer for Eltek said. ...
Two More Families Drop Sugar Suit for Cash Payout
CPP Senator and business tycoon Ly Yong Phat has convinced to more families in Koh Kong province to take a cash payout in exchange for dropping out of a lawsuit involving two local sugarcane plantations he once co-owned, official said. More that 200 families in Sre ...
Angkor Wat site in danger: Deputy PM
In a rare acknowledgement of deforestation concerns, Deputy Prime Minister Sok An, chairman of the National Commission for UNESCO, said the widespread clearing of forests around Angkor Wat was harming views of the historic temple complex. Sok An made the remarks in Siem Reap at a ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012120760153/National-news/temple-site-in-danger-dpm.html
Cambodia inaugurates China-funded 121-km road in northeast
Cambodia on Thursday inaugurated a China-funded national road No. 78 in the country’s northeastern provinces, which is expected to contribute to developing economy and poverty reduction. The 121-kilometer road, extending from Ratanakiri province to Stung Treng province, was built by China’s Shanghai Construction ( Group) General ...
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2012-12/06/c_132023652.htm
Peace Palace petitions sent to Prime Minister
Eight representatives of Phnom Penh communities involved in land disputes were allowed to present their petitions to the Council of Ministers yesterday after authorities blocked about 200 of their fellow petitioners from gathering in front of the Peace Palace. During a meeting with the representatives, Bun ...
Cambodia Retains Its Reputation for Corruption
Cambodia continues to rank among the most corrupt countries in the world and much needs to be done to enforce the Anti-Corruption Law and investigate allegations of corruption, Transparency International (T.I.) Cambodia said yesterday. According to T.I.’s 2012 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), Cambodia ranked 157th among ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/cambodia-retains-its-reputation-for-corruption-6475/
Chinese officials to dam site
China has reportedly dispatched embassy officials to investigate a major breach at the Chinese-built Stung Atai dam in Pusat province on Saturday, which swept away four men, three of whom are still missing. Yang Tian Yue, spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Phnom Penh, told local ...
Mixed results for oil firm's search off coast
The first well drilled by a major Chinese company looking for oil and gas in Cambodian waters has been completed, though hydrocarbons in the firms offshore block are proving elusive, an official at the Cambodian National Petroleum Authority (CNPA) has said. ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/business/mixed-results-for-oil-firms-search-off-coast-6489/
Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia develop trade, tourism
The seventh investment–trade–tourism promotion conference for the Cambodia–Laos–Vietnam development triangle took place in the Central Highlands province of Kon Tum on December 5. The event attracted the participation of representatives from over 400 domestic and foreign businesses. Vietnam is investing in 50 projects worth close to ...
Opposition party calls for land concession tax raise
Opposition party whip Son Chhay reiterated his call at a press conference yesterday for the government to raise taxes on economic land concessions from $5 to $7 a hectare up to $70 through an amendment to the draft of the 2013 budget. The Sam Rainsy Party ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012120560103/National-news/up-land-concession-tax-srp.html
Cambodia's mangroves under threat
Cambodia’s vital southern mangrove systems are choking as rising sea levels, agitated by climate change, inundate them with sand, while sand dredging sucks them dry of sediment, a study by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has found. Stressed by a host of ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012120560112/National-news/mangroves-threatened.html
Government Silent on Atai Dam Damage
With three workers still missing after a major breach at a chinese built hydropower dam in Pursat province on Saturday, the Government’s investigation into what went wrong and why appears to be moving slowly. A large set ion of a concrete tunnel at Stung Atai ...
Next Apparel factory sues employees for damage
Next Apparel has filed a lawsuit against its workers for damaging factory property during their ongoing strike. More than 200 workers smashed windows, bikes, cupboards, flower pots and other items in the factory last Saturday. “We demand that the court find justice for the company,” Chea Sovann ...
Major Gap Emerging Between Labor Market and Job Seekers
PHNOM PENH – As more and more Cambodians enter the job market, with a growing population of young people, there still remain plenty of job opportunities with foreign investors at home, according to a new study by the Ministry of Labor. But people either don’t ...
Kratie Protest Puts Brakes on Land Demarcation
More than 100 people in Kratie province staged a peaceful protest on Sunday after excavators mobilized by a South Korean timber firm tried to clear and demarcate concession land, a commune official said yesterday. The company, Think Biotech, was granted 34,000 hectares of land on May ...
One Safe, Three Missing in Hydrodam Accident
PHNOM PENH – Authorities are searching for three missing construction workers at a Chinese hydroelectric dam in Pursat province, after pipes burst there on Saturday, causing a flash flood. One man, who had been fishing nearby and was thought missing, has been found “safe and alive” ...
http://www.voacambodia.com/content/one-safe-three-missing-in-hydrodam-accident/1557685.html
Boeng Kak Evictees Continue Fight for Land Titles
About 50 Boeng Kak residents protested outside Prime Minister Hun Sne’s Peace Palace yesterday and submitted a petition to the Council of Minister asking for land titles in their long-running dispute with a company part-owned by CPP senator Lao Meng Khin. ...
Villagers refuse $500 compensation for damaged houses
Local authorities in the capital’s Russey Keo district had offered residents living along the banks of the Tonle Sap $500 compensation in the wake of sand dredging that began a week ago and has already caused structural damage to their homes, villagers told the Post ...
Malaysia frees 105 foreign maids 'held against will'
Malaysian authorities have freed 105 mostly Indonesian maids who were forced to work without pay by day and held against their will at night, local media reported on Monday. The women were freed Saturday in a raid on a building near the capital Kuala Lumpur where ...
Land activists welcome Hun Sen’s position on outsiders
About 60 land activists including children marched to the Peace Palace Monday to welcome Prime Minister Hun Sen’s position on outside involvement in land disputes. The residents of two property development sites and Thmor Kol community near Phnom Penh International Airport also presented a list of ...
Landmines kill 41 Cambodians, injuring 121 others in 10 months
Cambodia on Monday recorded 162 landmine casualties in the first ten months of this year, down 4 percent from 155 casualties at the same period last year, showed a report from the Cambodian Mine and Explosive Remnants of War Victim Information System. The report said that ...
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2012-12/03/c_132016467.htm