News

Six months after Prime Minister Hun Sen ordered a moratorium on the granting of economic land concessions (ELCs) and a legal review of the concessions that already exist, the Agriculture Ministry has yet to begin the review process due to rain, and the danger of ...

Villagers in the Prey Lang forest in Kompong Thom province have filed the complaint with the provincial court and the Forestry Administration accusing a commune police chief of involvement in logging high-grade timber, officials and villagers said yesterday. The complaint, thumbprinted by 210 people, alleges that ...

More than 30 families living in Pursat province’s Dangkeab village have filed complaints with their village chief against environmental officials, whom they claim extorted money from them to pass illegal checkpoints as they transported firewood from a nearby forest to the village, authorities said yesterday. “Since ...

The court investigating the murder of a journalist has questioned a notorious former Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) colonel, who was last heard of serving a 10-year prison sentence for attempted murder, a court official said yesterday. The Ratanakkiri Provincial Court has this week questioned a ...

The Ratanakkiri Provincial Court has summonsed for questioning Kim Seanglay, a military policeman who was the subject of one of slain journalist Hang Serei Oudom’s articles on the illegal timber trade, Chhay Thi, an investigator for the rights group Adhoc, said yesterday. According to their ...

An expected verdict in the unintentional murder case of the man accused of shooting slain environmentalist Chut Wutty’s killer was delayed at Koh Kong Provincial Court yesterday because the presiding judge was ill. Neang Boratino, Koh Kong provincial coordinator for the rights group Adhoc, said a ...

The Ratanakkiri Provincial Court yesterday questioned four people- including a military police official and a police officer- in relation to the killing of journalist Hang Serei Odom, whose body was discovered hacked to death last month in the trunk of his car,a court official and ...

Three members of the family of murdered journalist Hang Seri Oudom will appear in Ratanakkiri provincial court on Wednesday, according to their lawyer. Oudom, who exposed illegal logging in the area for the Virakchun Khmer newspaper, disappeared last month when he left his house at night ...

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 ...

Just two weeks after a journalist’s bludgeoned corpse was discovered in Ratanakkiri province, a human rights group yesterday identified two more recent cases of violence or intimidation against reporters in the northeastern province. The report from Adhoc said the pressure from local journalists has occurred alongside an increase ...

An American-made army truck that was allegedly used to smuggle illegal timber through SIem Reap province, and which crashed and killed a family of three on Friday, was not a U.S. government donation, the embassy confirmed yesterday. A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy said an inspection ...

Military officials are attempting to squelch a potential lawsuit from relatives of three people killed Friday when Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) soldiers smuggling wood through Siem Reap province drove a military truck, donated by the U.S. government, into the family’s motorbike, police officials said. ...

The director-general of Unesco on Thursday spoke out against the murder of journalist Hang Serei Odom in Ratanakkiri province, and called for the authorities to provide justice for the victim and his family. “I am deeply concerned by the killing of Hang Serei Odom,” Irina Bokova ...

The Prey Long People’s Network yesterday said it found 121 cubic meters of cut wood and seven chainsaws belonging to illegal loggers after a coordinated patrol across four provinces that was prematurely aborted due to heavy rains. In a statement, the community group said it discovered ...

A local journalist and a forestry officer who were arrested by military police forces in Kratie province last week for beating a man and firing a gun into the air were released on Monday as part of a compromise between the victim and his attackers. Srey ...

The Ratanakkiri Provincial Court will soon summon a number of people for questioning in its investigation into the brutal murder of journalist Hang Serei Odom earlier this month, a court official said yesterday. Former military police Captain An Bunheng and his wife, Sim Vy, were ...

A journalist murdered in Ratanakkiri last week took a call from his accused killer on the night of his disappearance, his family has claimed in a complaint to the rights group Adhoc. Ken Sovann, 63, the mother of slain journalist Hang Serei Oudom, whose body was found in his car in O’Chum district ...

Villagers have found more than 100 cubic metres of timber and three chainsaws in Prey Lang forest during a six-day patrol for illegal logging, community officials said yesterday. Scouring the forest on motorcycles and on foot, more than 300 villagers from four provinces found 100 cubic ...

A Ratanakkiri provincial court has charged a married couple with premeditated murder in the grisly killing of Vorakchun Khmer newspaper reporter Hang Serei Oudom, whose body was found axed to death in the back of a car last week. The suspects, An Bunheng and his wife, ...

A forestry officer and a reporter from a little-known newspaper were arrested Friday on allegations of attempted extortion and assaulting a man they caught illegally transporting luxury timber, but were released on Saturday, military police officials said yesterday. Seng Chandaron, the chief of Sandan commune Forestry ...

A local journalist and a forestry official were arrested by military police in Kratie province’s Sambo district on Friday night for allegedly discharging a weapon into the air and beating a man with a boat oar in an extortion bid gone awry. According to district military ...

The Ratanakkiri Provincial Court yesterday charged a military police captain and his wife with the murder of journalist Hang Serei Odom, officials said. Hang Serei Odom, who worked for the Virakchun Khmer Daily newspaper, was found dead in the trunk of his car on Tuesday. He ...

Police investigating the murder of a journalist whose battered body was discovered in Ratanakkiri province on Tuesday have unearthed key clues to who may have carried out the killing, an official said yesterday. Hang Serei Odom, 42-who had written exposes on the involvement of powerful people in forest ...

A local newspaper stringer who had written about illegal logging was found dead in the back of a car yesterday in Rattanakiri province’s O’Chum district. Hang Serei Oudom, 44, was a stringer for Vorakchun Khmer, or Khmer Hero, newspaper. Police said his body was covered in blood ...