Land
Stung Treng villagers caught in forestry racket
SIEM PANG DISTRICT, Stung Treng province – For the elite few granted the right to level swathes of woodland in the north of this remote province, the timber trade is worth a fortune. For the Forestry Administration—the government body charged with policing logging—business is also booming. While ...
Phann Ana and Matt Blomberg
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/stung-treng-villagers-caught-in-forestry-racket-60017/
Villagers defy ban, march to Gov’t buildings
More than 200 people from the group Land Communities for Peace marched from the Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) to the National Assembly on Thursday in defiance of a ban issued by City Hall. Phnom Penh deputy governor Khuong Sreng said the protest would not be allowed after ...
Mech Dara
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/villagers-defy-ban-march-to-govt-buildings-60037/
Cross at your own risk
Since he began making the perilous journey to Thailand to log rosewood 10 years ago, Sao Sophon* has had plenty of time to calculate the cost of dying. “When we cross the border to Thailand, our lives are equal to $80 or $90, because that is ...
May Titthara and Alice Cuddy
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/cross-your-own-risk
Families in Kampong Speu await payments
Representatives of some 250 families who lost their land to a company in Kampong Speu province filed a complaint with Adhoc yesterday, saying they have yet to receive compensation, even after land measurement volunteers allegedly promised a resolution if villagers voted for the ruling party ...
Sen David
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/families-kampong-speu-await-payments
Villagers vow to defy fresh ban on marches
More than 1,500 villagers plan to march to the Anti-Corruption Unit and National Assembly in Phnom Penh on Thursday in defiance of a fresh ban issued by City Hall prohibiting them from doing so. The villagers form a group known as the Land Communities for Peace ...
Joshua Wilwohl
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/villagers-vow-to-defy-fresh-ban-on-marches-59966/
Villagers await water
Hundreds of families in Koh Kong province have since early May been affected by drought and a lack of clean water, which is supposed to be provided by tycoon and ruling party senator Ly Yong Phat. Due to the annual drought in the province, two reservoirs ...
Khouth Sophak Chakrya
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/villagers-await-water
NGOs lobby China, companies over Sesan dam
A group of 15 local and international rights groups Tuesday sent a slew of letters to the Chinese government and companies involved in the Lower Sesan II hydropower dam in Stung Treng province seeking a halt to dam construction due to serious environmental and social ...
Simon Henderson
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/ngos-lobby-china-companies-over-sesan-dam-59807/
Villager in land row denied character statement by police
A villager involved in a long-running land dispute in Kompong Chhnang province with the wife of Mines and Energy Minister Suy Sem has accused his commune police chief of discrimination after he was refused a character statement he needed to apply for a garment factory ...
Kuch Naren
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/villager-in-land-row-denied-character-statement-by-police-59726/
Northeast primed for colonisation: Rainsy
Cambodia National Rescue Party president Sam Rainsy yesterday called on residents in the northeast provinces to defend their land lest the area be turned into a Vietnamese “colony”. Rainsy’s comments were quickly condemned by both the Cambodian and Vietnamese governments. Speaking to hundreds of people in Mondulkiri ...
Meas Sokchea
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/northeast-primed-colonisation-rainsy
Villager travels to Parliament over land row
A representative of villagers involved in a land dispute in Mondolkiri province appealed to the government Tuesday to address their displacement after their shelters were destroyed by police and soldiers in a forced eviction Monday. Chan Rithy stood outside the National Assembly in Phnom Penh on ...
Ben Sokhean
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/villager-travels-to-parliament-over-land-dispute-59795/
March to PM’s house halted
Representatives of more than 400 families who watched as their homes were burned during an eviction this month in Kratie’s Snuol district were blocked by authorities yesterday as they attempted to take their grievance to Prime Minister Hun Sen’s doorstep. Though tensions initially ran high, the ...
May Titthara
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/march-pm%E2%80%99s-house-halted
Phnom Penh pagoda offers haven for the marginalized
When 200 villagers from Kratie province walked into Samakki Raingsey pagoda seeking safety and shelter early this month, they weren’t the first to do so. The villagers, whose homes in Snuol district had been torched by authorities just days earlier, were walking a well-trodden path—a path ...
Mech Dara and Matt Blomberg
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/author/matt-blomberg/
HAGL called out at the UN
A Cambodian delegation to the United Nations last week used the stage to shame the World Bank’s financial arm for failing to adequately monitor investments in a Vietnamese rubber giant accused of illegal logging, forced evictions and sexual harassment. Representing 17 indigenous communities in Ratanakkiri that ...
Laignee Barron
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/hagl-called-out-un
Suspected land scam artists sent to court
Eight huts were torn down and about 50 families were ordered to vacate land yesterday in Mondulkiri province’s Koh Nhek district as the couple whom police said illegally sold them the plots was arrested and sent to court. ...
Khouth Sophak Chakrya
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/suspected-land-scam-artists-sent-court
Sanctuary ‘protected’
More than 2,000 hectares of the decimated Lumphat Wildlife Sanctuary in Ratanakkiri province have been classified by the Ministry of Environment (MOE) as the sanctuary’s first community protected area. Surrounded by three economic land concessions in Kon Mom district, the protected area is populated by a ...
Phak Seangly and Amelia Woodside
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/sanctuary-%E2%80%98protected%E2%80%99
Lawmaker blasts illegal logging in Stung Treng
Two draft laws on judicial reform were easily passed by the single-party National Assembly on Friday but the session was overshadowed by a rookie lawmaker’s attack on lax enforcement of forestry laws in Stung Treng province. On the fourth day of the third plenary session of ...
Khy Sovuthy
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/lawmaker-blasts-illegal-logging-in-s-treng-59494/
Activist ‘threatened with knife’
A forest activist in Kampong Thom province yesterday claimed to have been threatened with a knife by a soldier after reporting that the officer was behind a number of forest crimes in the area. Pen Bunkear, a soldier with the Kampong Thom military research unit, yesterday ...
May Titthara
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/activist-%E2%80%98threatened-knife%E2%80%99
Grenade attack kills 1, injures 5
A man, 18, was arrested in Kampong Chhnang province on Friday after a grenade attack killed a 69-year-old man and seriously injured five others. [Khov] Thim [the suspect] allegedly found the grenade in a field some months ago when tending to his cows and kept ...
Khouth Sophak Chakrya
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/grenade-attack-kills-1-injures-5
Hun Sen returns from fruitful week in China
Prime Minster Hun Sen arrived back in Phnom Penh on Sunday after a weeklong visit to China for an international summit during which Chinese Premier Xi Jinping pledged $145 million in aid and soft loans to Cambodia. On Monday, AKP reported that China promised to ...
Phorn Bopha and Simon Henderson
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/hun-sen-returns-from-fruitful-week-in-china-59560/
WWF petitions to halt Don Sahong dam
World Wildlife Fund is taking to the internet to halt a hydropower project it claims will serve as the nail in the coffin for the critically endangered Irrawaddy dolphin. On Friday, WWF launched an online petition calling on the developers of Laos’s 120 megawatt Don Sahong ...
Laignee Barron
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/wwf-petitions-halt-don-sahong-dam
Chamkar Mon Hospital land for sale online
The land on which the former Chamkar Mon Referral Hospital sits was put up for sale for $12.1 million on Friday, just days after a municipal health official denied that the property would be sold. According to an advertisement posted on the Khmer24 classified advertising website, ...
Khuon Narim
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/archives/chamkar-mon-hospital-land-for-sale-online-for-12-1m-59503/
Cambodian woman dies, 5 others injure after old mortar shell explodes
A war-left mortar round exploded on Friday morning, killing an old woman and seriously injuring five others in northern Kampong Thom province, a provincial military police chief said. “The explosion occurred at 7:40 a.m. local time in Kampong Svay district when a man was hitting ...
Xinhuanet News Staff
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2014-05/23/c_133355659.htm
Villagers in R’kiri dispute block road
Villagers in Ratanakkiri province blocked National Road 78A on Thursday for more than three hours as authorities tried to push through to evict them in favor of a rubber company, police and villagers said. About 400 villagers blocked the section of the road that links O’Chum ...
Ben Sokhean
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/villagers-in-rkiri-dispute-block-road-59442/
City Hall offers final warning to displaced farmers
A group of about 200 farmers from Kratie province refused on Thursday to leave a pagoda in Phnom Penh—their home base for protests against their eviction at the hands of a Vietnamese rubber company—as the city’s deputy governor warned them that the municipal government would ...
Aun Pheap and George Wright
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/city-hall-offers-final-warning-to-displaced-kratie-farmers-59436/