ODC English Site

More than 180,000 hectares on 28 of Cambodia’s 64 islands were reclassified as state private property for 31 companies seeking land concessions between 2008 and 2010, government sub-decrees reveal. The reclassification sub-decrees, compiled by investigators at the rights group Adhoc, pave the way for firms to ...

Thai construction company Ch Karnchang has continued work on the controversial Xayaburi dam in Laos, even as the Lao government has assured other Mekong River nations that the project is postponed pending further environmental studies, the company’s CEO said yesterday. Ch Karnchang’s CEO Plew Trivisvavet told ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen has called investors from China’s Anhui province to invest in numerous sectors across Cambodia in an effort to spur two-way trade between the Kingdom and China in order accomplish their joint target of US$5 billion in trade by 2015. Meanwhile, Cambodia’s opposition party ...

Villagers who have spent recent days patrolling Prey Lang forest would file a complaint to the prime minister alleging government officials and private companies are clearing parts of the forest, a spokesman said yesterday. The 70-strong citizen patrol team who scoured the forest this week ...

Construction of the main structure of the supposedly on-hold Xayaburi dam could begin by the end of this year, the Thai company contracted to build it said yesterday. Ch Karnchang chief executive Plew Trivisvavet said preparatory work at the site of the proposed US$3.8 billion, 1,285-megawatt ...

With the number of tourists visiting the country increasing rapidly, hotels are coming under strain due to lack of skilled chefs and waiters in the industry, according to hotel managers. In the first six months of 2012, international visitors reached 1.75 million, a 26.8 percent ...

Drought has been hitting 11 out of the 24 cities and provinces in Cambodia and affecting tens of thousands of hectares of rice seedlings, Keo Vy, spokesman and chief of the Cabinet of the National Committee for Disaster Management, said Thursday The drought-hit provinces are Kampong ...

Work has resumed on a controversial $3.5 billion dam across the Mekong River in Laos, its Thai developer said on Thursday, contradicting Laotian assurances it had been suspended following protests over its environmental impact. Laos agreed in December to suspend the Xayaburi dam project and said ...

After a brief détente, a fight over the Prey Trolach community forest in Battambang province that has its citizen guardians and the Forestry Administration pitted against the military is back on, those working to protect the area from illegal logging said yesterday. Since it was deemed ...

Election monitoring groups are questioning the National Election Committee (NEC) recent decision to let a Phnom Penh casino fund its new multi-million dollar headquarters, a move they said would cast further doubt on the body’s independence. NagaCorp, the owner of Phnom Penh’s only licensed casino, NagaWorld, ...

Authorities in Stung Treng province have confiscated some 651 pieces of “luxury timber” from three communes in Se San district over the past week in an ongoing operation to crack down on illegal logging in the area, police said. The goods were confiscated just as a ...

Two land dispute protesters disappeared yesterday after being stopped by the police and detained while driving from Kratie province to Phnom Penh with a large group who intended to stage a protest in front of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s house. About 200 villagers from Snuol district ...

All but three of a group of 20 Cambodians who were held against their will on a fishing boat in Thailand had returned after agreeing to pay a fee for “transportation”, a police official said yesterday. The men, believing they were heading to jobs in Koh ...

Taiwanese food supplier Ve Wong, one of two sugar company owners locked in a long-running battle with villagers in Koh Kong’s Sre Ambel district, has made an eyebrow-raising offer – to give the disputed land back. The company’s offer, posted to the non-profit Business and Human ...

Members of the Prey Long People’s Network ended a three-day patrol of the forest yesterday and said they had discovered about 300 cubic meters of illegally logged timber and swathes of state-owned forest being encroached on by private companies. “Authorities are paying no attention to itthey ...

Thirty-four garment factory workers fainted yesterday morning in Kompong Chhnang province, making it the third time in a year that a mass fainting has occurred at the factory, workers said yesterday. M&V International Manufacturing LTD. factory, which is a supplier to Swedish clothing brand H&M, experienced two incidents ...

Charges against outspoken Adhoc head of monitoring Chan Soveth are baseless, politically motivated and threaten to undermine human rights work in Cambodia, a coalition of NGOs said yesterday. Soveth, who has been summonsed to court on August 24 over the vague charge of assisting “specific perpetrators”, ...

More than 100 families in Preah Sihanouk province were forcefully removed from their homes yesterday morning by at least 100 armed police officers  who dispersed the crowd by firing shots into the air from AK-47 rifles and spraying villagers with water cannons, accoring to provincial ...

Community activists patrolling the Prey Lang forest for a second day yesterday claimed to have found more evidence of illegal logging – in the form of hundreds of cubic metres of timber and several hectares of cleared land. Prey Lang network representative Hoeun Sopheap said villagers ...

Four Land Management Ministry officials charged with corruption last week were released on bail yesterday, less than five days after arriving at Prey Sar prison for detention ahead of trial, officials said. Srung Leang, director of the prison’s center no. 1, said he received the written release order ...

T & P, the notorious labour recruitment firm that was closed down last year because of its appalling record of abuse scandals, is continuing to receive and pocket remittances from maids stranded in Malaysia, a coalition of rights groups told a press conference yesterday. At the ...

The sole provider of water and electricity in Koh Kong province’s Khemerak Phumin town, LYP group, was demanding that all rental buildings install water meters at exorbitant rates for the region, residents said yesterday. Building managers sent intervention papers to provincial governor Bun Leut on July ...

Four officials from the Ministry of Land Management, Urban Planning and Construction arrested last week on bribery charges involving millions of dollars would be freed on bail in the next few days, officials said yesterday. Kuy Bunson, director of the Ministry of Interior’s prisons department, said he had ...

In a mysteriously vague citation, Adhoc monitoring head Chan Saveth has been called to the Phnom Penh Municipal Court to face charges of “providing assistance to specific perpetrators”. Although the court’s summons, which asks Saveth to appear on August 24, provides no specifics as to the ...