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Thais to urge transport push
Thailand will propose to Cambodia that they jointly develop border areas and transport links between the two countries, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Surapong Tovichakchaikul said yesterday. Thailand will also develop roads, railways and border checkpoints, he said. Proposed road projects include improving roads Nos.5, ...
http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/352101/thais-to-urge-transport-push
10 Tons of rosewood seized
Ten tons of rosewood have been uncovered under cassava roots in a raid late night Monday. The raid took place in the village of Ou Klakmom in the Song commune of the Samlot district and was made with the collaboration between park preservationists, military officers and ...
http://www.thecambodiaherald.com/cambodia/detail/1?page=15&token=MWUwZWI1ODNmNjQ
Firms’ Timber Trade Decried
Two firms holding concessions in rapidly disappearing northern forests are amassing stockpiles of tens of thousands of luxury logs cut both within and outside their leases and trucking them on to Vietnam, the Cambodian Center for Human Rights has alleged. CCHR investigators that tracked logging operations ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013052865880/National/firms-timber-trade-decried.html
Factories Asked to Voluntarily Assess Safety
The Garment Manufactures Association of Cambodia (GMAC) and International Labor Organization’s (ILO) Better Factories Cambodia yesterday asked factory owners to voluntarily conduct structural audits on their buildings in light of building collapses at two garment factories that killed two people and injured 23. “In the ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/factories-asked-to-voluntarily-assess-safety-27319/
Villagers Seize Trucks in Protest
More than 300 protesters seized two company trucks outside the Kratie office of Korean-owned timber company Think Biotech Co yesterday as protests by villagers who allege land-grabbing continued for a second day. “We have seized the company’s two trucks to ask the company to come ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013052865873/National/villagers-seize-trucks-in-protest.html
Cambodia’s students to get schooled in tourism
Young Cambodians will now learn about tourism in grades 11 and 12, according to the new curriculum for public education that was launched yesterday. The development is aimed at enhancing quality in the tourism sector, officials said during a press conference. The new curriculum covers the ...
Tampuon File Complaint Over Forest Clearing
A community of ethnic minority Tampuon people in Ratanakkiri province yesterday filed a complaint with the provincial court against six people they believe illegally cleared 80 hectares of community forest land and sold it to a rubber investor, villagers and court officials said. The land in ...
Vietnam invests in largest sugar project in Cambodia
The largest complex of sugarcane, ethanol and thermal power plants in Cambodia was inaugurated in Okrieng commune, Sombour district, Kratie province on May 26. Addressing the ceremony, Cambodia’s Deputy Prime Minister Yim Chay Ly emphasized that the complex inauguration in Kratie was the outcome of the ...
Govts agree to intensify logging fight
Thailand and Cambodia have agreed to intensify the suppression of the illegal logging of Phayung, or Siamese rosewood, along their border areas. Thai ambassador to Cambodia Touchayoot Pakdi said officials of the two countries have agreed to increase cooperation on the suppression of local gangs in ...
http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/351937/govts-agree-to-intensify-logging-fight
Land Battle Headed to Court
Eight ethnic Tampuon villagers from Ratanakkiri’s Bakeo district will file a lawsuit at provincial court today alleging that more than 70 hectares of protected forest have been illegally cleared by a police official and six villagers from a neighbouring commune. Ting Kham Se, 52, of Laminh ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013052765851/National/land-battle-headed-to-court.html
Call for Arsenal to Drop Links With Rubber Firm
An online petition has been launched calling on English Premier League football club Arsenal to break its ties with a Vietnamese rubber company accused of land grabbing and deforestation in Cambodia. A report by London-based Global Witness this month named Hoang Anh Gia Lai (HAGL) as ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/call-for-arsenal-to-drop-links-with-rubber-firm-26801/
ODC Presents at BarCamp Battambang!

A four-member delegation from the Open Development Cambodia team attended the two-day international technology conference BarCamp, held in Battambang. Through its theme “Empowering Youth through Technology”, BarCamp brings together information-technology enthusiasts, innovators, bloggers, students, community organizers, and data journalists such as ourselves to share our ...
Villagers Camp Out to Protest ‘Land Grab’
More than 100 people from two communes in Kratie province’s Sambor district gathered yesterday for a three-day protest in front of the provincial office of Think Biotech, a Korean-owned timber company villagers say is encroaching on their land. As of yesterday evening, 10 armed policemen ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013052765854/National/villagers-camp-out-to-protest-land-grab.html
Blackouts to end soon: EdC
Blackouts in Phnom Penh will no longer be a problem after an energy source near Sihanoukville starts providing an extra 50 megawatts of coal-fired power to the city next month, the director-general of Electricite du Cambodge (EdC) said. Keo Rottanak said by mid-June at the latest ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013052765845/Business/blackouts-to-end-soon-edc.html
NEC Says Statement on Bloggers Not an Attack on Free Speech
Despite fears that a warning to users of social media and Internet blogs will dampen free speech, the head of National Election Committee (NEC) has insisted the intention was not to limit expression ahead of July’s national election. The NEC last week issued a statement requesting ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/nec-says-statement-on-bloggers-not-attack-on-free-speech-26791/
Banong Families Receive Communal Land Titles
More than 70 ethnic minority Banong families from two separate villages in Moldolkirri province’s Keo Seima district received communal titles to a combined 1,031 hectares of ancestral land from the Land Management Minister Im Chhun Lim on Saturday. Communal land titles were established under the 2001 ...
Cambodian greens see red in upcoming dams
For Meach Mean, a veteran campaigner against hydropower dams in Cambodia’s northeast, this year has brought a double dose of bad news. First, he says, two Chinese hydropower companies have begun feasibility studies into a pair of dams planned for tributaries of the Mekong River ...
http://www.gulf-times.com/environment/231/details/353963/cambodian-greens-see-red-in-upcoming-dams
Cambodia: A rising star with a falling reputation?
Cambodia’s reputation as a standard-bearer for apparel workers’ rights is wearing thin – and yet the country is a rising star when it comes to attracting foreign investment and increasing exports. There are many reasons to deter brands and retailers from sourcing clothing in Cambodia. The Kingdom ...
http://www.just-style.com/analysis/a-rising-star-with-a-falling-reputation_id117944.aspx
Wildlife group busts illegal loggers in Cambodia
An illegal logger in Cambodia has dropped an address book during a bust, leaving behind details of corrupt government officials and spying rangers. The man fled after being intercepted by police over an illegal haul of rare rosewood in Koh Kong province earlier this month. . “We ...
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-05-23/an-wildlife-group-busts-illegal-loggers-in-cambodia/4709882
NGOs Assessing Development Goals for Coming Years
As Cambodia assesses its development goals, a study has found that many Cambodians want to see an improved judicial system, better education, improved agriculture and more human rights. A broad consortium of local and international development agencies spent the early part of the year conducting conferences ...
http://www.voacambodia.com/content/ngo-assessing-development-goals-for-coming-years/1667239.html
Rice Boss in Pre-trial Detention ‘13 Months’
The general director of a local rice wholesaler accused of defrauding business associates in a deal has lashed out at the judiciary – claiming delays in legal processing have left him imprisoned for 13 months without trial. Sovann Veasna is accused of cheating three businessmen ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013052465829/National/rice-boss-in-pre-trial-detention-13-months.html
Regional pharma producers eye Kingdom
International pharmaceutical companies are increasingly looking to sell their products to Cambodia, although the market is full of obstacles, according to experts. After several big international players announced sales expansion plans, two companies from Indonesia, a major manufacturing hub in Southeast Asia, are planning to follow. Kalbe ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013052465819/Business/regional-pharma-producers-eye-kingdom.html
Electricity co-operation crucial
Co-operation on the exchange of electricity will be very important in making the 10-country ASEAN bloc move forward to a single market by 2015, experts said, but a shortage of power supply in each country remains a challenge. Speaking to reporters yesterday after the opening of ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013052465820/Business/electricity-co-operation-crucial.html
Families Say Land Was Taken
Nearly 90 representatives of 137 families in Battambang province, some of whom include former Khmer Rouge cadres, protested for a second day in Phnom Penh yesterday, claiming authorities had seized land they had held since the late 1990s. Ul Yan who was among protesters at Butom ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013052465825/National/families-say-land-was-taken.html