ODC English Site

For hundreds of years, the ancestors of Vam Sovann have lived in Koh Kong province’s remote Araeng valley. Some 70 km from the nearest national road, Mr. Sovann’s village has no electricity or phone coverage, no paved roads or running water; instead, it has access ...

A suspect was questioned on Thursday over a grenade attack on the home of a military police officer in Kandal province’s Mok Kampoul district, which appears to have been motivated by a dispute over 3 meters of land, police said. No one was injured when the ...

A casino complex on top of Kampot province’s Bokor Mountain will open in less than two weeks – but environmental groups are strangely quiet about the effects the development, the size of a small city, could have on Cambodia’s natural heritage. The complex, in the Preah ...

The Forestry Administration’s proposal to create a conservation zone for Prey Long, one of Cambodia’s largest remaining primary forests, has been scaled down by more than 20 percent and now covers about 480,000 hectares, an official said. During consultation workshops in Phnom Penh last month, the ...

Despite admitting yesterday to firing his pistol during last month’s protest at a Svay Rieng province special economic zone (SEZ), where three women were shot, Bavet City’s former governor Chhuk Bundith was free to return home after making his confession to the court. “[Mr. Bundith] came ...

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court yesterday tried a Vietnamese-Canadian national, four Cambodians and a Vietnamese national, the latter in absentia, for their roles in smuggling about 3 kg of drug precursor chemicals from India to Cambodia using the FedEx shipping service. ...

The construction of a new $17.5 million women’s cancer hospital specializing in gynecological services will break ground this summer, one of the co-founders said yesterday. Janne Ritskes, the director of Tabitha Cambodia, an organization that works to improve the lives of poor Cambodians, said the 220-bed ...

The Free Trade Union (FTU) yesterday filed a complaint with Labor Minister Vong Sauth on behalf of nearly 4,000 garment workers in Kompong Chhnang province against Chinese-owned M&V International Manufacturing Ltd, alleging that they had been forced to work on International Women’s Day, which is ...

A man fled his home in Kratie province’s Snuol district after three men threatened to kill him for confiscating their chainsaws during a patrol against illegal logging, he told the Post yesterday. Village representative Chea Horn said he was scared to return home after the men ...

More than 30 families living near the Siem Reap River in Siem Reap’s Aranh Sakor village have sent a letter to Prime Minister Hun Sen and member of parliament Seang Nam, asking not to be evicted from their land because of the planned widening of ...

Two protests by garment factory workers in Phnom Penh yesterday achieved very different outcomes. One strike will continue today, but the other ended when company management agreed to workers’ demands. Din Sam Ath, president of the Cambodian Federation of Labour Unions, said the company would comply ...

The water company that sparked four days of protest in Prey Veng province last week has once again drawn criticism, this time from teachers in Kratie province, who say the firm is building a road across their school’s land. Forty-nine teachers at Preah Kossamak High School ...

About 100 residents of Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak area protested in front of City Hall yesterday to demand that 58 more families be given titles to homes from which they are being evicted. In August, Prime Minister Hun Sen ordered that a 12.44-hectare section of the ...

Four former workers at the Angkor Villa Hotel and Resort appeared in the Appeal Court yesterday for questioning in relation to allegations that they ransacked the hotel during a strike last year. Korng Kimlean, union president of the Cambodian Tourism and Service Workers’ Federation and the ...

Faced with the rapid loss of vast tracts of forest across Cambodia, local communities have begun to fight back, and a growing number of villagers are now organizing their own aggressive forest patrols in order to save the forests on which they have relied for ...

A South Korean government agency and Korean investors in CamKo City are locked in an ownership dispute at the Phnom Penh Municipal Court over the half-built residential development project in Russei Keo district, according to court documents obtained yesterday. Following the collapse of the Busan Savings ...

When Reaksmey (not his real name) was in high school two years ago, he and his classmates were urged to attend the supplementary classes taught by their teachers before and after regular school hours. For an hour before school and two to three hours after each ...

In a rare siding with villagers, government officials earlier this week rejected a proposal by tycoon Kith Meng to develop the area surrounding Boeung Prek Tub lake in Preah Sihanouk town and instead vowed to issue proper land titles to residents. ...

A Thai military official said yesterday 38 Cambodians arrested in Thailand on Monday were among a group of about 70 allegedly attempting to smuggle luxury rosewood out of Sisaket province. A source close to Thai defence spokesman Col Thanatip Sawangsaeng, who spoke on condition of anonymity, ...

Two female garment workers who were shot last month during a protest at a Svay Rieng province special economic zone (SEZ) filed a complaint with the provincial court yesterday accusing former deputy Bavet City Governor Chhuk Bundith of attempted murder. Bun Chenda, 21, and Nuth Sokhorn, ...

The negotiations between Cambodia and Malaysia over a bilateral agreement on improved working conditions for Cambodian migrant maids are slowly progressing as both governments are exchanging draft agreements, according to officials from both countries. Ministry of Labor Secretary of State Othsman Hassan said that Cambodia recently ...

About 400 villagers in Kratie province’s Chhlong district protested yesterday in an effort to stop Kasten agro-industrial company from building houses on contested farmland, the protesters said. The company used red paint to demarcate its boundary and started building houses on the farmland in January, said ...

Following a three-hour debate at the National Assembly, lawmakers passed a draft law approving the $2.5 billion the government spent in 2010. During the debate, CPP lawmaker Cheam Yeap presented a 10-page document that he said justified the $2.5 billion in spending, which was 25 percent ...

Economy and Finance Minister Keat Chhon yesterday urged consumers to limit their gasoline consumption in the face of rising prices, saying the Cambodian government would not boost the hundreds of millions of dollars he claimed it already offered in fuel subsidies. Speaking at the Ministry of ...