ព័ត៌មាន
Hundreds Protest Against Land Clearing by Pheapimex Co
About 300 villagers in Pursat province’s Krakor district yesterday protested to stop the powerful Pheapimex Company from clearing their farmland after armed military police arrived in the area to guard the firm’s government-awarded land concession, villagers said. The company used two excavators and nine bulldozers to ...
Indonesia, Philippines Skip Civil Society Meeting
Some of Southeast Asia’s most acute problems were left unmentioned yesterday when government-sanctioned civil society groups met with Asean leaders at the regional bloc’s summit in Phnom Penh. NGOs from eight of the 10 Asean states attended the meeting, but the Indonesian delegation pulled out, complaining ...
ASEAN hits troubled waters
Prime Minister Hun Sen pushed regional unity at the opening ceremony of the ASEAN Summit yesterday, but criticism directed at Cambodia over the South China Sea ensured the dispute remained front and centre. As heavily armed guards lined the streets outside the Peace Palace in Phnom ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012040455423/National-news/asean-hits-troubled-waters.html
Gaming firm to expand Poipet operations
American Stock Exchange-listed Entertainment Gaming Asia Inc has announced it will build and operate a slot hall as an addition to an existing casino in Poipet city on Cambodia’s border with Thailand, according to a company statement. ...
Kratie villagers seek accord
Kratie provincial authorities met with more than 500 Pi Thnou commune families seeking a social land concession yesterday, making good on a promise made last week in order to get villagers to end their blocking of national road 6A. ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012040455417/National-news/kratie-villagers-seek-accord.html
More Than 65% of Registered NGOs Inactive, Report Shows
Approximately 65 percent of the country’s 3,492 registered international and local NGOs are inactive, leaving only about 1,350 active NGOs in the country, according to a report issued yesterday by NGO network Cooperation Committee for Cambodia (CCC). The report, “CSO Contributions to the Development of Cambodia ...
Borei Keila evictees ‘will die’ without aid
Borei Keila evictees sleeping under stairs at the site where their houses were bulldozed in January would die unless more aid organisations provided them with food, an NGO representative said yesterday. Amnesty International paid for the Housing Rights Task Force (HRTF) to deliver more than 1,200 ...
Forum Calls on Governments to Halt Laos, Stung Treng Dams
Participants at the Asean Peoples’ Forum have called on regional leaders to halt plans to construct two controversial hydropower dams in Laos and Cambodia because of the large number of people who will be affected and the lack of public consultation. The forum in Phnom Penh, ...
Asean Leaders Say Sanctions on Burma Should Be Lifted—Now
Asean leaders urged the lifting of economic sanctions against Burma, while the Burmese president made his first public statement on the nation’s recent by-elections, calling them “very successful” at the Asean Summit in Phnom Penh yesterday. “Asean has consistently spoken of lifting sanctions, but now, more ...
Cops ejected from Boeung Kak press event
Boeung Kak lake residents yesterday accused commune police of not fulfilling their duty of keeping them safe, forcibly expelling a number of officers from a press conference called to highlight the problem. ...
Cambodia Bets Casinos Can Boost Tourism
Cambodian developers are betting that casinos can make the tiny Southeast Asian country a bigger draw for high-spending tourists. The nation of 15 million people has more than 25 casinos, but most are small affairs in rough-and-tumble border towns that cater to hard-core Thai, Chinese and ...
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304750404577317094266574870.html
South China Sea surfaces
The Philippines thrust the South China Sea dispute to the forefront of the ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting yesterday, causing the topic to dominate discussions. Myanmar by-elections and North Korea also featured prominently on the eve of today’s ASEAN summit, overshadowing the foreign ministers’ planned focus on ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012040355401/National-news/south-china-sea-surfaces.html
NGOs Send Letters to Prime Ministers to Halt Dam Project
Two environmental organizations sent letters to Prime Minister Hun Sen and Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung on Friday appealing for them to halt the planned construction of the Lower Sesan 2 Dam in Stung Treng province. The Sesan 2, a Vietnamese-funded hydropower project, will cause ...
Families Evicted by Railway Project File Complaint With Bank
More than 150 residents evicted from Phnom Penh’s Russei Keo district to make way for a railway rehabilitation project filed a complaint yesterday with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) office in Phnom Penh, one of two principal financiers for the project, saying their relocation site ...
China stalls Cambodia’s first rice exports at border
Cambodia had made its first direct shipment of rice to China, an official revealed yesterday, but the test run, which was hoped to open the vast Chinese rice market to local exporters, was largely unsuccessful. Golden Rice Co Ltd shipped 48 tonnes of milled rice to ...
Hu gone with Boeung Kak petition hopes
Hu Jintao had already left the day before, but five Boeung Kak villagers were undeterred yesterday as they attempted to leave a petition for China’s president, only to be turned back by police. The quintet, whose petition requests that Hu intervene in their land dispute with ...
Hun Sen says ASEAN instrument for workers a priority for 2012
Prime Minister Hun Sen said Tuesday that establishing a regional instrument to protect migrant workers in Southeast Asia should be a priority for ASEAN this year. “The free flow of skilled workers is a key condition for the ASEAN Economic Community,” he said in an opening ...
Water treatment JV plans $200 million investment
Cambodia’s Heng Development Co Ltd, in co-operation with Thai and Chinese companies, plans to invest about US$200 million in a water-treatment project this year, according to the company’s general director. ...
Replacement for Toll’s Kerr has arrived in Phnom Penh
Toll Royal Railways chief executive David Kerr is on track to leave Cambodia by the end of the month, according to his expected replacement. Bobby Luow, a 40-year veteran of the rail industry, mainly in South Africa, told the Post he had been brought in to ...
Railway evictees seek ADB aid
Families forced to move by the rehabilitation of the Phnom Penh stretch of the national railway petitioned the Asian Development Bank yesterday for help with their livelihoods. About 50 people gathered outside the ADB’s office to submit a petition representing more than 160 families relocated to ...
Civil Society Group Issues List of Grievances to Asean Leaders
Representing more than 1,200 delegates from the 10 Asean countries, the Asean Peoples’ Forum issued a highly critical statement yesterday to visiting Asean leaders concerning issues such as land evictions, effects of large-scale hydropower projects and the opaque nature of drafting the Asean Human Rights ...
Cambodia gives region ‘export’ advice
Cambodia’s garment sector yesterday looked more like a teacher to regional economies such as Myanmar than a student of China and other export juggernauts. With more than 500 garment and shoe factories – adding a new one every 10 days, according to the Garment Manufacturers Association ...
Cambodia to aid ASEAN’s small states
Cambodia’s Minister of Economy and Finance Cham Prasidh yesterday said the Kingdom would push forward with efforts to eliminate development gaps among ASEAN member states during its chairmanship this year. ...
Relocation deals unfair, say families
More than 400 families in Kampong Cham province’s Chup commune had filed a complaint yesterday to local authorities over relocation orders issued last week, villagers said. Hom Hon, 55, a retired rubber plantation worker and former employee of Sopheak Nika Investment Group Company, said that on ...