ខេមបូឌា ដេលី
S'ville Families Get New Court Eviction Order
More than 100 families who had their evictions delayed on Thursday in observance of a nationally broadcast speech by Prime Minister Hun Sen have once again been ordered to move out, according to local officials. Provincial governor Sboang Sarath said yesterday that the provincial court had ...
Land Ministry Officials Charged With Corruption
The Phnom Penh Municipal Court has charged four senior officials at the Ministry of of Land Management with corruption and placed them in pretrial detention at Prey Sar prison on Thursday evening, officials said. On Monday, Sa Reth Boramy, deputy director of the ministry’s department of land ...
With No Faith In Courts, Embattled Turn to Prayer
Clutching bunches of incense, mouths moving in tandem, those gathered before the Preah Ang Dang Keu Shrine on Sisowath Boulevard late last month migth have passed for any group of supplicants save for a notable exception: The prayer was aimed at the judiciary. When supporters of ...
Cham Families On Riverbank Told to Leave
More than 100 Cham fishing families who moor their boat homes on the banks of Phnom Penh’s Chroy Changva peninsula have been ordered to relocate, with one official saying the fishing boats were spoiling the beauty of the riverbank and the area around the new hotel. “We already ...
Small Signs Show Investors Slowly Diversifying in Cambodia
The lastest investment data from the government shows that Cambodia’s economy is moving away from the long-trusted staple of the garment sector and into more compplex industries. For more than a decade, garments have accounted for the lion’s share of the country’s export market as investors shied away ...
Nat'l Assembly Approves UN Conventions
National Assembly voted Friday to ratify the U.N. Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities and the U.N. Rotterdam Convention, which promotes the responsible labeling nd export of hazardous chemicals and pesticides. The assembly also voted in favor of an agreement with Qatar to ...
Effects of Last Year's Flooding Still Being Felt by Scavengers
Large dump trucks with beds full of rusted, twisted metal and aluminium canss rolled in, one after another, to unload their cargo at Phnom Penh’s largest scrap yard in Dangkao district. “All the metal must be exported because there are no recycling factories here [in Cambodia],” ...
Minorities Press Gov't for More Communal Titles
Hundreds of indigenous people called on government to pick up the pace in granting them communal land titles at a ceremony marking the U.N.-sponsored International Day of the World’s Indigenous People in Kompong Thom province yesterday. “The gathering today is to mark the 8th anniversary of Indigenous Day ...
Gov't Approves Nearly $500M in Investments
Cambodia approved a total of $479.68 million in new investment projects between January and June with more than 70 new ventures in the pipeline, according to date released yesterday by the Council for the Development of Cambodia (CDC). Investments in the garment sector continued to dominate new investments, comprising 49 of ...
Loans from China Still Welcome, Hun Sen Says
The Chinese government is considering loaning an unspecified amount of money to cover the cost of constructing 20 new national roads, Prime Minister Hun Sen said yesterday. Speaking at the inauguration of 128-km stretch of National Road 62 linking Kampong Thom and Preah Vihear provinces, also primarily funded by ...
Officials Halt Clearance of Community Forest
Forestry administration officials in Battambang province have stepped in to stop the destruction of a community forest area by military and police, officials said yesterday. Over two past months, soldiers, police and military police have destroyed part of the 1,335-hectare Prey Tralach forest in Rokha Kiri district, which ...
Rights Groups File Lawsuit Over Land Meeting Breakup
Two local human rights groups filed lawsuits yesterday at the Ratanakiri Provincial Court accusing commune and village officials of defamation and intimidation after they disrupted land-rights training session last month. On July 26, a group of armed officials stopped Adhoc and the Cambodian Center for Human Rights (CCHR) ...
Gaming Company Posts Record Quarter of $5.2M
Entertainment Gaming Asia Inc. (EGA), which owns a number of casinos in Cambodia, as well as provides gaming machines to other local gambling venues, announced on Tuesday that quarterly revenues from April through June reached a record $5.2 million, up 14 percent compared to the ...
Micro-lender Plans to Become Commercial Bank
Amret, one of the largest micro-finance institutions (MFIs) in the country, has announced that it is making plans to raise the capital required to become a full commercial bank by 2015, an official at the institution said yesterday. Chea Phalarin, CEO of Amret, said the decision to expand ...
Hun Sen Says Land Program Proving a Success
Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday said that the government had identified nearly 100,000 families who are now considered eligible for land titles, and that plans were in store to locate hundreds of thousands more in the coming month. Speaking at the inauguration of a new 128-km stretch of ...
Thailand Dam Deal Spurs Court Complaint from Thai Villagers
Villagers belonging to a Thai activist group filed a complaint to Thailand’s Administrative Court yesterday for the cancellation of an agreement form the country’s Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand to buy power from a controversial mainstream Mekong dam in Laos, an NGO representative said yesterday. “According ...
Phnom Penh Land Prices Slow Growth
Property prices in Phnom Penh increased by about 15 percent at the end of June compared to the same period in 2011 , according to data released yesterday by local realty firm Asia Real Estate Cambodia (ARC). The average price of commercial property in Phnom Penh ...
Senator Tries to Settle Court Case With Cash
CPP Senator Ly Yong Phat visited families embroiled in a long-standing land dispute with a Thai-owned sugar company on Monday in an attempt to convince them to drop their complaints against the firm at the court, villagers and officials said yesterday. The visit comes as pressure ...
Court to Question 4 Bavet Shooting Witnesses
The Svay Rieng Provincial Court will question four new witnesses to the February shooting of garment workers in Bavet City allegedly committed by former city governor Chhouk Bundith, a court official said yesterday. “We are preparing to schedule the questioning of four new witnesses. It ...
Rice Production Down Due to Limited Rainfall, Report Says
After rising significantly in recent years, Cambodia’s rice production will fall this year because of a shortage of rain, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said in a new report. In its second quarter Rice Market Monitor report for 2012 published on Monday, the FAO ...
Donors End Bonuses for Civil Servants
Foreign donors have spotted a multi-millon dollar salary supplement scheme for civil servants falter failing to work out the details of the plan’s future with the government, several donors said yesterday. “Some of the government’s partners decided to end the payments at the end of June”, ...
Villagers Protest Loss of Local Crematorium to Private Firm
More than 100 villagers in Russei Keo district’s Prek Liep commune protested outside the Pur Thiproek pagoda on Saturday against plans to remove the crematorium, claiming the head monk had agreed to sell the land to a local property company. “That crematorium was built by ...
Preah Vihear Villagers Protest Clearing of Farmland
About 300 villagers living inside a social land concession in Preah Vihear province’s Kulen district protested at Phnom Penh’s Wat Botum yesterday, requesting that Prime Minister Hun Sen stop provincial authorities from clearing their farmland in preparation for the area to be used to house ...
Calls Mount for the Release of Beehive Radio Station Owner
A trio of international NGOs representing lawyers and journalists added their voice last week to the mounting calls for the government to release radio station owner Mam Sonando and drop all charges against him “immediately and unconditionally.” Authorities arrested Mr. Sonando, owner of the independent Beehive ...