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Commune authorities in Ratanakkiri province’s O’Yadav district have allegedly banished a local resident for persisting with a lawsuit that accuses them of selling 500 hectares of community forest to two Cambodian developers for $300,000. Romas Svang, who is a member of the ethnic Jarai minority, filed ...

The deaths of at least two Cambodian workers and injuries sustained by 10 colleagues at a shoe factory southwest of Phnom Penh once more shine a light on conditions in the global garment manufacturing industry. Thursday’s accident at the Wing Star Shoe factory in the Cambodian ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen said Wednesday that he hoped land being registered to rural families as part of the government’s nationwide land-titling program would be used to cultivate rubber trees in order to help the country compete with Vietnam as the world’s third-largest rubber exporter. ...

The Ratanakkiri Provincial Court yesterday charged two staffers of Vietnamese rubber concessionaire Hoang Anh Ratanakkiri (CRD) with causing intentional damage for allegedly setting fire to several homes belonging to a landowner with whom they were embroiled in a land dispute, deputy prosecutor Mom Vanda said. ...

A year to the day since armed soldiers stormed into the remote village of Pro Mar in Kratie province, killing a 14-year-old girl, arresting her husband and evicting hundreds of families, Sreng Pho still has nightmares. “I’m really scared when I think back to that day ...

Hundreds of families in Koh Kong province’s Khmara Phoumint City are suffering from a shortage of water, which is provided by a reservoir that dried up during the hot season, local officials said yesterday. Smach Meanchey and Dang Tong communes typically receive water from the Cham ...

With the potential for vast state revenues from oil extraction and mining in coming years, Cambodia is currently failing to manage its nascent extractive industries according to a think tank. New York-based Revenue Watch Institute yesterday launched its 2013 Resource Governance Index, which included Cambodia for ...

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen announced in late March that the nation was on target to move from the status of a low-income to a lower-middle-income nation by the end of 2013, ranking it the 15th country that obtained high economic growth in the world in the ...

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen on Wednesday inaugurated a rubber processing plant here, saying the factory would contribute to developing the country’s fast-growing rubber sector. The 7 million U.S. dollar plant, invested by Cambodia’s Sopheak Nika Investment Agro-Industry Company, was built on the area of 9 ...

Ratanakkiri provincial police on Monday arrested the chief of staff of a Vietnamese rubber concessionaire and his Cambodian translator who are believed to have burned down more than $5,000 worth of property related to a land dispute in O’Chum district, police said. Meas Pov Bora, chief ...

Cambodia’s cassava exports reached 245,438 tonnes in the first quarter this year, a 47 per cent decline quarter-on-quarter, from 465,640 tonnes in the final quarter of last year, according to statistics from the Ministry of Commerce released early this month. While most exports went to Thailand, ...

Provincial authorities in Ratanakkiri have warned ethnic Jarai villagers that they will be arrested if they continue to stop bulldozers belonging to a Vietnamese company from clearing forest in O’Yadav district’s Paknhai commune, community leaders said yesterday. Sav Finh, leader of Lom village’s forestry protection committee, ...

The Kingdom imported 412,190 tonnes of petroleum in the first quarter of 2013, compared with 471,000 tonnes in the same period the previous year, a decline of 12 per cent, according to the Ministry of Commerce. A private sector representative said the drop does not mean ...

A Vietnamese rubber tycoon has rejected accusations by Global Witness, a group that campaigns on resource issues, that it was involved in a land grabbing crisis in Southeast Asia. Doan Nguyen Duc, the chairman of Hoang Anh Gia Lai (HAGL) Group, told Vietnamese media the information ...

On May 13, we ran an interview with London-based NGO Global Witness accusing the Deutsche Bank and the International Finance Corporation of financing two Vietnamese rubber companies that are allegedly involved in land grabs in Cambodia and Laos. We asked both banks for a response ...

Koh Kong province’s mangrove forests have changed from being a source of charcoal to serving tourists who help to protect their biodiversity. The forests have now become a popular destination for Cambodian tourists. Yem Yan, Peam Krasorb commune chief in Koh Kong, said gradually visitors ...

Private car owners could soon be required to buy motor insurance if a planned law amendment gets the green light, stoking optimism that such a bill could put the brakes on Cambodia’s high rate of hit-and-run accidents. Currently, only commercial vehicles, such as buses, legally require ...

In the wake of a new report from environmental rights group Global Witness rebuking the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) and Deutsche Bank for investing in rubber plantations accused of illegal logging and forced evictions, both institutions have denied responsibility and deflected the blame ...

Three members of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) on Monday filed a complaint with police in Kompong Chhnang province, accusing irate villagers of torching a wooden shelter built for them by the well-connected KDC agro-industry firm. The soldiers have accused local residents, who have been ...

Around 30 residents from Boeung Kok, Borei Kei and Thmor kol communities gathered and knelt down Monday in front of the Royal Palace to seek intervention from the King to release jailed land activist Yorm Bopha. In the petition, they asked him to intervene the ...

Deutsche Bank and the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) have poured millions of dollars into Vietnamese rubber companies operating in Cambodia that have engaged in illegal logging and forced evictions of local farmers, the environmental rights group Global Witness says in a new report ...

Energy Minister Pongsak Ruktapongpisal has given the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (Egat) the green light to proceed with a plan to build coal-powered plants in Myanmar and Cambodia – providing Thailand with 10,000 megawatts of electricity. Egat has also been instructed to negotiate the ...

The government on Friday awarded CPP Senator Ly Yong Phat a $92.21 million contract to install power lines in Cambodia’s eastern provinces, the Council of Ministers said in a statement. During the weekly Cabinet meeting, senior officials including Prime Minister Hun Sen signed off on the ...

ODC’s Project Manager Terry Parnell at the Mekong ICT Camp, in ThailandThis morning, ODC’s Project Manager Terry Parnell presented on the panel “Open Data, Social Development and the Implementation Insights” at the Mekong ICT Camp, in Thailand. ...