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Laos yesterday released seven of 23 Cambodians who have been apprehended across the border since the start of the year on suspicions of illegal logging, according to a military and district official. ...

Opening statements started yesterday in a trial pitting Kompong Chhnang province villagers against the wife of Minister of Industry Suy Sem over a long-standing land dispute. However, the plaintiffs and human rights workers monitoring the trial criticized yesterday’s proceedings, which were allowed to proceed despite ...

One of five families facing eviction from their island home off the coast of Koh Kong province has written to the provincial governor, urging him to intervene to stop a Chinese company developing their land. “If the companies want to take over villagers’ land, they ...

A government lawyer has written to the Phnom Penh municipal court to again ask it to allow land belonging to fugitive former Cambodian ambassador to Brunei Nan Sy to be sold at auction. ...

The government last month granted four companies a total 23,000 hectares of land concessions for agro-industry projects and a special economic zone (SEZ), according to human rights groups, which said it obtained the information from government documents. An additional 500 hectares inside a wildlife sanctuary were ...

The first trial in a long-running land dispute with the wife of Industry, Mines and Energy Minister Suy Sem will start today at the Kompong Chhnang Provincial Court, a human rights worker and court officer said yesterday. Court prosecutor Penh Vibol confirmed that the court would ...

After being found guilty yesterday, the Phnom Penh Municipal Court handed four men prison sentences and fines for their involvement in a smuggling ring, which brought more than two and a half tonnes of illegal cold medicine into the Kingdom from South Korea. Both men ...

Forestry officials in Ratanakkiri province, along with provincial officials, have carried out several operations in three districts this month that netted about 100 cubic meters of various types of luxury wood, but no suspects were arrested, officials said yesterday. ...

Cambodia’s first association for expanding business opportunities and financing for women was launched on Saturday. The Cambodia Women Entrepreneurs Association would seek to enhance the competitiveness of businesswomen in the growing ASEAN market, which was set to integrate by 2015, Seng Takakneary, president of the new ...

Svay Rieng Provincial Prosecutor Hing Bunchea said yesterday that he had summoned two of the three women shot at a Bavet City special economic zone (SEZ) for questioning next week, and denied accusations that investigators were dragging their feet on the case. Rights groups continued to ...

The government has chosen representatives of two obscure NGOs to send to an annual meeting between civil society groups and regional leaders during next month’s Asean summit in Phnom Penh, sparking an outcry among other non-governmental groups that say this will prevent critics from being ...

For the second time in a month, Forestry Administration officials in Kratie province’s Snuol district have found hundreds of cubic meters of first-grade wood that had been smuggled to a site near the tributary of the Prek Pao river, officials said yesterday. As in previous wood ...

More than 600 villagers from four provinces and civil society organisation officials would em­bark on the largest community crackdown yet on the “anarchic logging” of Prey Lang forest in Kampong Thom, representatives said yesterday. ...

One woman was killed, several villagers injured and more than 80 houses destroyed or badly damaged by storms that swept through the provinces of Siem Reap, Banteay Meanchey and Mondulkiri over the weekend, provincial officials said yesterday. “I have never seen this kind of storm ...

Two workers were blinded and three others were injured on Saturday after a fire they built on a cassava plantation in Kratie province set off an unexploded ordnance (UXO), Pi Thnou commune police chief Sum Hon said yesterday. ...

The court prosecutor investigating last month’s shooting of three female factory workers at a special economic zone (SEZ) denied a newspaper report claiming the chief suspect, former Bavet City Governor Chhouk Bundith, had confessed to shooting the women. Svay Rieng Provincial Court prosecutor Hing Bunchea said ...

For hundreds of years, the ancestors of Vam Sovann have lived in Koh Kong province’s remote Araeng valley. Some 70 km from the nearest national road, Mr. Sovann’s village has no electricity or phone coverage, no paved roads or running water; instead, it has access ...

A suspect was questioned on Thursday over a grenade attack on the home of a military police officer in Kandal province’s Mok Kampoul district, which appears to have been motivated by a dispute over 3 meters of land, police said. No one was injured when the ...

A casino complex on top of Kampot province’s Bokor Mountain will open in less than two weeks – but environmental groups are strangely quiet about the effects the development, the size of a small city, could have on Cambodia’s natural heritage. The complex, in the Preah ...

The Forestry Administration’s proposal to create a conservation zone for Prey Long, one of Cambodia’s largest remaining primary forests, has been scaled down by more than 20 percent and now covers about 480,000 hectares, an official said. During consultation workshops in Phnom Penh last month, the ...

Despite admitting yesterday to firing his pistol during last month’s protest at a Svay Rieng province special economic zone (SEZ), where three women were shot, Bavet City’s former governor Chhuk Bundith was free to return home after making his confession to the court. “[Mr. Bundith] came ...

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court yesterday tried a Vietnamese-Canadian national, four Cambodians and a Vietnamese national, the latter in absentia, for their roles in smuggling about 3 kg of drug precursor chemicals from India to Cambodia using the FedEx shipping service. ...

The construction of a new $17.5 million women’s cancer hospital specializing in gynecological services will break ground this summer, one of the co-founders said yesterday. Janne Ritskes, the director of Tabitha Cambodia, an organization that works to improve the lives of poor Cambodians, said the 220-bed ...

The Free Trade Union (FTU) yesterday filed a complaint with Labor Minister Vong Sauth on behalf of nearly 4,000 garment workers in Kompong Chhnang province against Chinese-owned M&V International Manufacturing Ltd, alleging that they had been forced to work on International Women’s Day, which is ...