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A dam project set to flood thousands of hectares of protected forest and displace about 1,500 indigenous minority villagers in one of Koh Kong province’s most precious ecosystems should be scrapped, opposition Sam Rainsy Party MP Son Chhay said yesterday. The 109-megawatt dam project in the ...

An environmental impact assessment (EIA) for the controversial Stung Chheay Araeng hydropower dam in Koh Kong province has been completed, representing a major step forward towards construction, officials said yesterday. Koh Kong deputy governor Sun Dara said he had yet to see a hard copy of ...

A large North American union has called on US retail giant Walmart to take immediate action against one of its seafood suppliers in Thailand accused of holding Cambodian workers in debt bondage while barely providing them with enough money to eat. The United Food and Commercial Workers ...

The controversial Xayaburi hydro-electric dam project in northern Laos may have already begun, despite countries, including Cambodia, requesting further studies to assess possible negative effects on Lower Mekong communities.Thai development firm Ch.Karnchang said it was due to begin building the dam on March 15 after finalising a ...

About 1.8 million Cambodians traveled to the coastal and northeastern provinces to celebrate Khmer New Year, a 50 percent increase compared with last year, Tourism Minister Thong Khon said yesterday. Mr Khon said Cambodians are starting to seek out other vacation spots besides the coastal provinces ...

Opposition parliamentarian Mu Sochua has taken aim at Australian mining companies eyeing the Kingdom’s resources, travelling to their home soil to lobby the halls of power. Mu Sochua cited fears that Australian companies awarded exploration concessions in Ratanakkiri and Mondulkiri provinces will treat ethnic minorities there ...

A Cambodian opposition leader, [Mu Sochua], has urged the federal government to stop Australian companies from accepting land concessions in Cambodia, saying they are contributing to a pressing humanitarian crisis displacing up to one million people. ...

The leaders of seven major unions and labor confederations announced yesterday in a joint statement that they will form an inter-union committee to rally the government on raising the country’s minimum wage of $61, with the unions believe is too low. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday told senior officials to stop investors from using land concessions as a pretext for logging and to discuss the possibility of reducing the amount of time such concessions can last. The government placed a moratorium on logging concessions in 2002 to ...

The Philippines’ Cebu-Pacific Airlines will launch direct flights to Siem Reap from Manila on April 19, according to a Cambodian civil aviation official. The Philippine airline sought to take advantage of Siem Reap’s status as a big tourist destination, Soy Sokhan said. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday blasted local officials for not working hard enough to curb illegal fishing in and around the Tonle Sap lake, where fisheries crimes are still rampant despite 90,000 hectares of protected areas. “Don’t do illegal fishing, use illegal equipment to fish, or ...

Thai and Cambodian foreign affairs officials have pledged to step up their efforts to stem the fatal shooting of Cambodians who illegally cross the border into Thailand to cut down rosewood trees, which fetch thousands of dollars per cubic meter on the black market. At a ...

Cambodia migrant workers seeking to leave allegedly exploitative conditions at the Phatthana Seafood factory in southern Thailand said yesterday that they were still being forced to pay to get their passports back. The factory, which exports fish to buyers across the world including Walmart, has come ...

About 70 villagers in Pursat province’s Krakor district held a daylong prayer ceremony yesterday to request help from spirits to curse the powerful Pheapimex company for destroying their farmland, villagers said. Pheapimex, owned by the wife of CPP Senator Lao Meng Khin, has maintained a 316,000-hectare ...

Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen announced plans Thursday to encourage rubber smallholdings in a bid to expand production as the country promotes the cash crop as the number two commodity after rice. Hun Sen said the government will support not only large-scale rubber plantations but also ...

No mistake was made when former Anco Brothers executive Heng Chheang and his wife, Tep Kolap, were arrested last year, the Supreme Court ruled yesterday. Pin Vannak, a defence lawyer for the couple, had argued they had been arrested illegally because the Phnom Penh municipal court ...

About 40 former Borei Keila residents yesterday pushed back roughly 100 police and military police who threatened to demolish temporary shelters belonging to 16 families still clinging to their land, residents and rights groups said. Prampi Makara district police armed with riot shields, military police and ...

Arrivals at Cambodia’s two biggest airports increased by about 20 percent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2012, according to Cambodia Airports. Industry insiders said economic progress in the region coupled with increased flights added to the passenger count at Phnom Penh International Airport and Siem ...

Representatives from US sports brand Nike yesterday visited the company’s supplier factory in Kompong Speu province to investigate the cause of last week’s mass faintings, officials from the Ministry of Labor said. Pok Vanthath, deputy director of vocational safety for the Labor Ministry’s health department, said ...

The Kampong Chhnang provincial court yesterday ordered the KDC company to produce proof of ownership for 105 land titles in the Kampong Tralach district, the subject of a land dispute that dates back to 2007. ...

About 100 tuk-tuk drivers, motorcycle taxi drivers, vendors and other informal transportation workers protested against the high price of gasoline yesterday at the National Assembly, claiming the high petrol prices are cutting into their small profits. Vorn Pao, president of the Independent Democracy of Informal Economy ...

Representatives from US sports brand Nike will arrive today to investigate last week’s mass faintings at their supplier factory in Kompong Speu province, officials from the Labor Ministry and an International Labor Organization (ILO) representative said yesterday. Pok Vanthath, deputy director of vocational safety for the ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday implored authorities along Cambodia’s northern border to redouble their efforts at stopping illegal loggers from sneaking into Thailand, where more than a dozen have been shot dead by Thai soldiers so far this year. The 13 Cambodians fatally shot by Thai ...

The government plans to review fuel import taxes in the wake of soaring prices at the pump over the past few weeks, an official said yesterday. Cheam Yeap, Cambodian People’s Party lawmaker and chairman of the finance and banking commission, said the government will look into ...