ODC English Site
Court drops Wutty case
Five months after the fatal shooting of forestry activist Chut Wutty, Koh Kong Provincial Court dropped his case yesterday morning, saying they would only be looking into the shooting of the man who allegedly killed Wutty – a trial that wound up lasting less than ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012100559135/National-news/court-drops-wutty-case.html
New Judge Appointed to Keat Kolney Land Dispute Case
The Ratanakkiri Provincial Court will appoint a new judge to process complaints filed by ethnic Jarai minority villagers against a firm owned by Keat Kolney, the sister of Finance Minister Keat Chhon, regarding a land dispute that has now dragged on for more than five ...
CAMBODIA: Rural poor lose out in land deals
Land governance policies in Asia, especially concessions made to private companies, are leaving the region’s poorest vulnerable to human rights abuses, experts say. “Land-grabbing by the rich and powerful continues,” Suson Bunsak, executive secretary of the Cambodian Human Rights Action Committee, said at the recent Asia ...
http://www.irinnews.org/Report/96452/CAMBODIA-Rural-poor-lose-out-in-land-deals
Mass Eviction Looms Ahead Of East Asia Summit
Hundreds of families living near Phnom Penh International Airport are facing imminent eviction from heir homes as security preparations begin for world leaders who will attend next month’s Asean and East Asia summits. A total of 387 families living on 6.3 hectares of land to the ...
Cambodia needs markets to export remaining 3 million tons of cassava products
Cambodia, the export of cassava in Cambodia is in low cost this year due to low demand and local farmers grow high production Prime Minister Hun Sen said: In Pursat and Battambang provinces alone have three million tons of cassava products for export Most cassava product exported ...
European Anti-Corruption Law Could Reach Cambodia’s Oil, Forestry Sectors
New European legislation passed last month could help transparency in the extractive industries, by forcing companies to declare payments to foreign governments rich in resources For resource-rich countries like Cambodia, that means much more transparency, she said. More than 95 percent of the world’s major extractive ...
Civil engineering students on the rise
Students finishing their secondary education this year are carefully looking at market demand to decide what to study to ensure solid future earnings. Many educators say the recent growth of the construction sector in Cambodia is encouraging parents and students to enroll at the universities of ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/Real-Estate/civil-engineering-students-on-the-rise.html
Cambodian Resorts on the Increase
International tourist arrivals into Cambodia have soared in the past year, with arrivals into Siem Reap up 30 per cent in the first eight months of 2012 over the same period the previous year. The tourist industry was hit hard by the global economic crisis in ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/Real-Estate/cambodian-resorts-on-the-increase.html
Protesters Employ New Tactic At Eviction Demonstrations
Protester’s from Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak and Borei Keila communities demonstrated outside the Ministry of Justice yesterday by employing a new tactic: locking themselves up inside a cage. With about 100 people in attendance, two protesters crouched inside a small cage to protest against the detention ...
Villagers in Land Disputes With Firm Don't Show for Questioning
Villagers accused of incitement in a long-running land dispute with a company owned by the wife of a government minister did not show up for scheduled questioning yesterday at the Kompong Chhnang Provincial Court, officials said. On September 17, KDC Development company, owned by Chea Kheng, the wife of Minister of Industry, ...
Cambodian Activist Monk Receives Swiss Human Rights Award
The country’s foremost campaigning monk, Loun Sovath, received the Martin Ennals Award in Geneva on Tuesday for his efforts to document the plight of people fighting against eviction in Cambodia. The award, which honors one human rights defender each year, is valued at $21,300, a purse ...
Vietnamese fishermen snared in local waters
Provincial authorities arrested eight Vietnamese fishermen who illegally crossed into un-demarcated Cambodian waters in Kampot province on Tuesday. The two boats were intercepted by river police in the early morning while they were trawling, Touch Poleak, deputy director of the water border protection department, said. Sar ...
Life on the edge of eviction
A group of families in the capital’s Por Sen Chey district gathered in their sludge-filled street yesterday, fearing authorities were moving in to evict them – for a second time. Many of the Andong village residents had taken the day off work; if anyone was coming ...
'Multimedia Monk' is honored for activism
Activist monk Luon Sovath has been named the recipient of this year’s Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders for his work promoting villagers’ land claims and publicising rights abuses. A familiar figure at protests in Cambodia, including the widely decried May trial of the Boeung Kak 13, ...
Striking the right balance
The number of strikes in Cambodia’s garment industry could be set to dip and workers could be on their way to free lunches after both sides of the industry signed a two-year memorandum of understanding (MoU) yesterday. The MoU – inked by the Garment Manufacturers Association (GMAC) in ...
No Effective Voice for Those Facing Land Issues
Despite the government embarking on a nationwide land-titling program, there is still little space for communities affected by economic land concessions to voice their concerns with the government, members of civil society said at a conference in Phnom Penh yesterday. “We’ve observed that there is limited ...
Tropical storm threatens to extend floods
The Ministry of Water Resources and Meteorology yesterday warned that a tropical storm, which is forecast to hit the coast of Vietnam this weekend, will worsen flooding across much of Cambodia. ...
By Aun Pheap, P. 18
Increase in civil servants' salaries
The salary for Cambodian civil servants has seen an average increase of 540 per cent compared to salaries in 2001, according to a report from the national news agency Agence Kampuchea Presse last Thursday. Yim Serey Vathanak, national project coordinator on trade unions for social ...
Ethnic Bunong Groups Granted New Land Titles
The government has completed the communal land-titling process for three ethnic Bunong communities in Mondolkiri province living on 1,000 hectares of land in Keo Seima district, villagers and a rights group said yesterday. The three new titles-which will bring to six the total number of communal titles granted ...
Report Shows Advanced Illegal Timber Trade
Cambodia is among the tropical countries whose forests are being cleared using increasingly advanced methods to feed a growing global trade in illegal timber worth at least $30 billion a year, according to a new report. The report, Green carbon, black trade, a joint effort by ...
Govt hits back at critics
The recent deluge of comments critical toward the Cambodian government is an attempt to sow political chaos, a senior official said yesterday. At a press conference held at the Council of Ministers, Keo Remy, deputy chairman of the Press and Quick Reaction Unit, blasted several individuals ...
Ministry official under scrutiny
Svay Rieng Provincial Court officials are investigating an employee of the Ministry of Interior who is accused of fraudulently selling his land to someone and not honouring the deal. Ros Sithan, a logistics department officer at the ministry, was arrested on the evening of September 28, ...
Oxfam urges freeze of land investments
Global development group Oxfam on Wednesday called on the World Bank to suspend financing for large-scale land acquisitions to ensure that its practices do not encourage foreign land grabs in developing countries. Oxfam urged Jim Yong Kim, the lender’s new president, to announce a six-month moratorium ...
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/04/worldbank-oxfam-land-idUSL1E8L2LKF20121004
Group awaits eviction No. 2
Families in the capital’s Por Sen Chey district face a tense morning as they prepare for the familiar sound of authorities moving in to evict them. Nineteen families in Andong village were told in a letter from district authorities that today was the deadline for them ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012100359062/National-news/group-awaits-eviction-no-2.html