ODC English Site
Cambodia releases 600,000 fry, shrimps to observe 10th National Fish Day
At least 500,000 baby fish and 100,000 young shrimps had been released into a reservoir in the Eastern part of Cambodia on Sunday to mark the 10th National Fish Day. Annual event is aimed at encouraging people to actively join forces to preserve fish species ...
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/business/2012-07/01/c_131687674.htm
Hundreds Protest Lao Dam Project
The Venerable Sann Leang, executive director of NGO Environmental More than 500 villagers held a march in eastern Cambodia Friday to protest a controversial dam project on the Mekong River in Laos they say is undergoing construction despite a pledge to halt progress while officials ...
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/cambodia/dam-06292012165509.html
PPWSA shuffle no surprise
Officials and securities firms yesterday showed little distress at the imminent retirement of Ek Sonn Chan, the man credited with straightening out and preparing the capital’s public water utility for its initial public offering in April. A letter from the Ministry of Industry, Mines and Energy ...
http://Phnom Penh Water Supply Authority shuffle no surprise
Cambodian villagers protest controversial Laos dam
Cambodian villagers demonstrated on Friday against a controversial Lao hydropower dam that activists say is being built in defiance of an agreement to assess its potentially damaging impact on millions of people first. About 200 villagers whose livelihoods depend on the Mekong River urged a halt ...
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/29/us-cambodia-laos-idUSBRE85S0FX20120629
Hun Sen Son Tapped for Land Dispute Role
Prime Minister Hun Sen’s June order that land be cut from economic land concessions and returned to displaced villagers – a move that has alternately inspired gratitude and scepticism – now has a high-profile public face: one of his sons. Hun Manith, deputy chief of Hun ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012062857077/National-news/hun-sen-son-land-dispute.html
Equipment Seized From Plantation at Center of UK Fraud Probe
Forestry Administration officials have seized equipment valued at $1.5 million from a Banteay Meanchey province biofuel plantation, which is being investigated for fraud in the UK, company and forestry officials said yesterday. Sustainable Agro Energy’s assets were frozen in February and investigators at the U.K.’s ...
Court frees 13 Cambodian land eviction protesters
An appeals court Wednesday ordered the release of 13 women who were jailed for protesting being evicted from their homes without adequate compensation, in a case that had critics had highlighted as an example of injustice. The women cheered in the courtroom, their supporters applauded and ...
Hun Sen Lauds Land Project, Lashes Media
Decked out in camouflage military uniforms shipped fresh from Indonesia and wearing soldier’s caps emblazoned with the Ministry of Land Management’s logo, 1,100 students who have volunteered to measure land in an ambitious titling project attended a speech by Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday. The uniformed ...
Experts Question New Trade Goal with Vietnam
Officials and experts yesterday questioned the likelihood of Cambodia and Vietnam’s proposal to hike bilateral trade by more than US$2.5 billion by 2015. The pledge of $5 billion in total trade, made by Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen and his Vietnamese counterpart, Nguyen Tan Dung, last ...
PM Defends ELC Signings
Prime Minister Hun Sen has fiercely defended his right to grant economic land concessions after issuing a moratorium on the leases in May, pointing to a loophole in the ban which exempts ELCs that already had in principle approval. Hun Sen attacked the Post and the ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012062757048/National-news/pm-defends-elcs.html
Premier has deal for 'secessionists'
An alleged accomplice of “secessionist” leader Bun Ratha has confessed and been granted immunity as a witness, Prime Minister Hun Sen said yesterday, a deal he left on the table for any of the four remaining fugitives who are willing to co-operate, including Ratha. Warrants for ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012062757047/National-news/pm-deal-for-secessionists.html
Judgment day for B Kak 13
Thirteen Boeung Kak lake women who were sentenced to two and a half years in jail on Thursday following a lawyer-free trial that lasted just three hours will appeal their convictions, their distraught supporters said yesterday. As the reality of the trial, which rights groups have ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012052856427/National-news/boeung-kak-13-to-appeal.html
Property prices jump in the first half of the year
Property prices in both in Phnom Penh and the surrounding suburbs have increased around 10 percent in the first half of 2012 as more foreign investors buy up new condominiums and banks provide more housing loans, say real estate experts. After years of flat prices due to weak demand in the wake of ...
Radio Station Owner Implicated in 'Secessionist' Movement
Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday implicated Mam Sonando, owner of the independent Beehive Radio station, in an alleged secessionist movement in Kratie province and announced the government’s intentions to arrest him. “Now, we compete with the ringleader of the Democrats Association, which created the state ...
Garment Worker Demonstrations Pay Dividends
At the M&V International Manufacturing Factory in Kompong Chhnang province last week, 5,000 workers filed through the gates, sat behind their neat rows of sewing machines and refused to work. A year earlier, hundreds of female workers had fainted at the factory after complaining of ...
Cambodia approves land concessions, despite ban
Cambodia’s government has ignored a suspension on new land concessions to private companies, announcements in an official publication showed, despite ordering a freeze after growing discontent over forced evictions and illegal logging. Prime Minister Hun Sen signed off on 12 sub-decrees on June 7 and 12 ...
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/26/us-cambodia-land-idUSBRE85P0G520120626
Hun Sen Denies Breeching Ban on Land Concessions
Prime Minister Hun Sen has denied media reports he violated his own ban on economic land concessions, saying he only signed contracts that had been agreed upon prior to his decision. Local media have reported in recent days Hun Sen’s signature on multiple land concessions ...
Inspiring tech entrepreneurship
The arrival of Startup Weekend in Cambodia marked a new beginning for high-tech entrepreneurship as more than 80 people worked on all kinds of new business ideas all weekend at Yellow Tower across the Tonle Sap from The Riverside. Chief Marketing Officer Joey Pomerenke of Startup ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012062556987/Business/tech-entrepreneurship.html
Villagers, Soldiers Tussle Over Land
Villagers from Chum Kiri commune in Banteay Meanchey province appealed to Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday to intervene in a land dispute concerning roughly 30 hectares of land they say was taken by district soldiers. Doeu Chay, a representative of 25 local families, said that land ...
Prisoners 'utilised' in violent eviction
Twenty convicts in Preah Sihanouk Provincial Prison were employed by military and local authorities to tear apart a nearby village on land slated for a second prison compound, villagers and rights groups alleged yesterday. However, prison authorities denied that any incarcerated people were involved in the ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012062557001/National-news/prisoners-in-eviction.html
Hun Sen grants four economic land concessions
Prime Minister Hun Sen has signed off on four more economic land concessions (ELCs), all in protected areas, despite placing a moratorium on granting such leases on May 7. Since the May 7 sub-decree, the premier has now signed off on seven concessions totalling 56,586 hectares ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012062557006/National-news/hun-sen-grants-elcs.html
Mining firm expects quick silver exploits
A mining outfit in Battambang province will begin copper and silver extraction within two years, the company’s chief executive said yesterday. Wild Bull Resources, an Australian firm partnering with local miner Angkor Thumopich Resources (ATR), would join a small group of companies claiming a quick turnaround ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012062556990/Business/mining-silver-exploits.html
Maid’s Death Believed Linked to Abuse
A Cambodian maid who recently returned home from work in Malaysia fell ill and died over the weekend, highlighting ongoing concerns over the treatment of impoverished Southeast Asian women who seek work abroad but are often abused by their employers. Kuy Lyda, 17, died at a ...
Sok Serey
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/cambodia/maid-06252012155226.html
Soldiers cry foul over ‘land grabbing’
About 1,500 representatives of military families in Oddar Meanchey province are planning to file a complaint directly to Prime Minister Hun Sen’s office accusing a high-ranking Royal Cambodian Armed Forces general of selling a large chunk of their land to two Vietnamese rubber companies. The soldiers, ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012062557004/National-news/soldiers-land-grabbed.html