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Hundreds Protest Dam Plans
More than 500 ethnic minority residents of riparian communities in northeastern Cambodia held a peaceful protest Tuesday against the construction of a Vietnamese-led hydroelectric dam that will relocate them from their ancestral land. The villagers, who live along the Se San River in Stung Treng and ...
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/cambodia/dam-02282012135535.html
Opposition Party Highlights Illegal Logging Near Dam Site
The Opposition SRP has asked the government to halt plans to proceed with the next hydropower dam slated for Koh Kong, saying that experiences with dams currently in construction in the province suggest the government has been unable to control the attendant illegal logging. In ...
Villagers in capital to protest development
Representatives from five communes in Koh Kong province are scheduled to hold a press conference in the capital today, appealing for government intervention in a land dispute with a Chinese development company that has spanned nearly four years. Lov Hov, a representative from Thmar Sar commune, ...
Building 10 rises at Borei Keila
Another building is rapidly rising on the plot of land reserved for the tenth and last building promised to evicted Borei Keila residents. Behind 100 protesting evictees, construction workers continued pounding away yesterday at a steel structure that started coming up last week, along ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012022854753/National-news/building-10-rises-at-b-keila.html
Gov't Launches Campaign to Clean Up Cities Nationwide
Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday said all of the country’s cities would compete with each other to beautify urban zones and attract more tourists in the newly devised Clean City contest. Nine Phnom Penh districts and 26 cities nationwide will be assessed on how clean ...
Former Borei Keila Residents Protest Apartment Rejections
About 40 evictees form the Borei Keila community blocked a road in Phnom Penh’s Prampi Makara district for nearly two hours yesterday, protesting a letter written by municipal governor Kep Chuktekma stating that they had no right to state-provided housing. According to a copy of ...
RCAF Soldiers Shoot to Intimidate Banteay Meanchey Protesters
Several RCAF soldiers sent by Banteay Meanchey provincial authorities to defuse a protest against an agro-industrial company Friday allegedly shot their weapons into the ground near a group of protesters, a villager and a rights worker said yesterday. The approximately 200 villagers were attempting to ...
11 Cambodian Loggers Killed In Two Months
The deaths of four more Cambodian over the past two weeks brings to 11 the number of people killed by Thai soldiers so far this year while illegally logging across the border. The death toll is fast approaching the 15 Cambodians killed in the entirety ...
EdC Power Rationing to Continue Until Rainy Season
A senior official at the state-owned Electricite du Cambodge (EdC) said yesterday that blackouts in Phnom Penh could persist until the onset of the rainy season in June. EdC last week began rationing power citywide, as Phnom Penh is currently short about 100 megawatts of ...
Protesters try new tactics
Rocks were hurled, fires lit, hostages taken and the message delivered in no uncertain terms last week: Cambodians are increasingly willing to use violence against companies that intimidate them or ignore their demands. Twice – in Svay Rieng and Kampong Cham provinces – garment workers pelted ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012022754739/National-news/protesters-try-new-tactics.html
Forestry Official, Soldiers Agree to Settle Case Out of Court
A Forestry Administration official has agreed to drop his complaint against three RACF soldiers he accused of shooting at him and fellow forestry officials in 2010 in exchange for $15,000, his lawyer said yesterday. However, officials for the Siem Reap Provincial Court and the Military ...
Pailin Looks to Put Longan Fruit on GI Map
Pailin’s juicy longans, a small beige-colored fruit renowned for its sweet taste, is on the way to becoming Cambodia’s third food product to attain Geographic Indicator (GI) status. The longan will join Cambodia’s only other GI-recognized food products: Kompong Speu palm sugar and Kampot ...
Villagers Claim Intimidation in Land Settlement
Villagers being questioned in relation to a land dispute with a powerful company said on Friday that a Ratanakiri court official had intimidated them by urging them to accept an out-of-court settlement with the firm or face a countersuit. Court officials denied the claims and said ...
No Investigation of OZ Minerals Deal, Police Say
The Australian Federal Police (AFP) have decided not to investigate the Australian mining company OZ Minerals, saying information that the firm paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to family members of officials in the Ministry of Industry, Mines and Energy (Mime) when buying out its ...
In Need of Power, Phnom Penh Blacks Out
Rolling blackouts that plagued Phnom Penh this week were the result of the city’s power supply being unable to meet demand as the country moves into the hot season, officials at state-owned Electricite du Cambodge (EdC) said on Friday. Power Outages rolled over the city this ...
Thai Firm Moves in to Build Koh Kong Power Plant
A Thai Company is conducting a feasibility study to build a coal-fired power plant in Koh Kong province and has already invested in a local firm with permission to develop the plant, according to officials and the company. In an announcement to the Thai Stock ...
Authorities Downplay Hostage-Taking in Land Dispute
Two days after Ratanakiri province villagers took hostage a group of local officials who were clearing land for a rubber plantation, authorities downplayed the incident, saying they had no plans to press charges and that “the problem has been settled.” A representative of the rubber company, ...
Villager Patrol Detains Seven Loggers, Confiscates Equipment
Tired of the rampant destruction of their forests by loggers, villagers in Kratie province on Tuesday took matters into their own hands by briefly detaining loggers and confiscating six chainsaws and a tractor, a forestry official and villagers said yesterday. San Sihan, one of the ...
Bulldozing stopped, for now
Ethnic minority Tumpoun villagers yesterday delivered a thumb-printed petition to commune, district and provincial authorities in Ratanakkiri demanding intervention in a Lumphat district land dispute after villagers held five rubber plantation company employees hostage on Tuesday. Five employees of Jing Zhong Ri Cambodia Co Ltd were ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012022454706/National-news/bulldozing-stopped-for-now.html
Gov't, NGOs Discuss Child Labor in Fisheries
Thousands of children are toiling in the country’s fisheries sector, living in conditions that are often hazardous to their health and depriving them of an education, government officials and UN representatives said yesterday at a workshop in Phnom Penh. Seventy-five percent of the 1.5 million ...
Four Men Arrested for Illegal Clearing of National Forest
Police in Kompong Chhnang Province arrested four men and confiscated two bulldozers Tuesday for illegally clearing more than 10 hectares of national forest in the Toek Phos district, officials said yesterday. District Police Chief Kim Sareth said that police apprehended the four laborers in Chorng ...
Businesses Feel Strain of High Gas Prices
The price of gasoline rose to a 5800 riel ($1.44) per liter Monday, a 14 percent rise since the beginning of the year. Economists and businesses yesterday said the high prices are having a negative impact on the economy, as everything from transportation companies to ...
Villagers take hostages
The clearing of land for a Ratanakkiri rubber plantation had been frozen after more than 300 Tumpoun ethnic minority villagers captured a quartet of company security guards and another staffer, tied them up and held them hostage on Tuesday, company officials said yesterday. Jing Zhong Ri ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012022354691/National-news/villagers-take-hostages.html
Puma officials go to Cambodia after factory shooting
German sportwear maker Puma sent officials to investigate working conditions in Cambodia after a local woman working for one of its suppliers was shot during a labour protest on Monday. The woman, who was employed by Kaoway Sports, was shot during a protest by employees of ...
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/23/puma-cambodia-idUSL5E8DN8S820120223