News
Alleged rosewood loggers shot dead by Thai troops
Three Cambodians were shot and killed early on Saturday morning after engaging in a firefight while illegally logging along the Thai border, officials said yesterday. The three are believed to have been shot after crossing from Battambang’s Samlot district into Thai territory while logging luxury rosewood “The ...
Commerce Official Denies Luxury Wood 'Logs' Exported to China
A Commerce Ministry official yesterday denied that Cambodia was exporting luxury wood logs to China, insisting that any wood leaving the country was in a “processed” form. The China Customs data also states that each year, just under 10,000 cubic meters of “logs” and about ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/commerce-official-denies-luxury-wood-logs-exported-to-china/
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 ...
More R'kiri Journalists Threatened Amid Illegal Timber Trade
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 ...
US Says Army Truck in Crash Not a Donation
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 ...
Police Say RCAF Trying to Bury Fatal Crash With Cash
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. ...
Army Truck Carrying Illegal Timber Kills Family
A family of three, including an 18-year old girl, died when the driver of a military truck carrying illegally cut wood slammed into their motorbike in Siem Reap province, officials said yesterday. The family died at the scene while the occupants of the military truck, seen ...
'Threats' follow Prey Lang patrol
The Prey Lang community patrol network faced threats from illegal loggers after reporting the loggers’ names to authorities, along with the discovery of more than 120 cubic metres of illegally felled timber and seven chainsaws, a patrol representative said yesterday. Chheang Vuthy, a community representative from Kampong ...
Court to Summon Witnesses in Journalist's Killing
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 ...
Payment demanded for journalist's death
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 ...
Villager efforts reveal illegal timber activities
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 ...
Patrols in Prey Long Forest Find Signs of Illegal Logging
Community patrols of Prey Long forest by local villagers over the last few days have uncovered at least 65 cubic meters of illicitly cut timber and three chainsaws believed to belong to the illegal loggers. Soem Sean, a member of the Prey Long People’s Network, dedicated ...
Forestry Official, Reporter Arrested and Released
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 ...
Timber Firm's workers back
Employee at timber company Angkor Flywood in Kampong Cham province will return to work today after their bosses agreed yesterday to all but one of their demands: an increase in wages. Sok Kin, vice president of the Building and Word Workers Trade Union Federation of Cambodia ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012091758737/National-news/timber-firms-workers-back.html
Journalist Murdered in Ratanakkiri
A Cambodian journalist, who reported on forest crimes in Ratanakkiri province for a little-known newspaper, was found murdered in the trunk of his car yesterday, police said. Hang Serei Odom, 42, a journalist at the Khmer-language Virakchun Khmer Daily, had been missing since Sunday, when he ...
Police: farmers intended to log
Royal Cambodian Armed Forces soldiers arrested 18 Cambodian farmers trying to cross the border in Oddar Meanchey province to illegally log in Thailand on Saturday. The farmers, between 20 and 40 years old, were travelling in a rented van equipped with axes, saws and other tools, ...
Crackdown yields major timber haul
Authorities in Stung Treng province have confiscated some 651 pieces of “luxury timber” from three communes in Se San district over the past week in an ongoing operation to crack down on illegal logging in the area, police said. The goods were confiscated just as a ...
Forestry Activists Find Illegal Timber Haul
Members of the Prey Long People’s Network ended a three-day patrol of the forest yesterday and said they had discovered about 300 cubic meters of illegally logged timber and swathes of state-owned forest being encroached on by private companies. “Authorities are paying no attention to itthey ...
Timbergreen principal denies illegal logging
The majority shareholder of Timbergreen, a firm that has been the centre of illegal logging allegations, has denied the company is in any way involved in the illicit trade of timber. The company has gained significant attention since prominent environmental activist Chut Wutty, who had made ...
Cambodia closes probe into activist's shooting
The Cambodian government on Saturday said it had closed its investigation into the fatal shootings of a well-known activist and a military police officer after the arrest of a security guard. Ran Boroth accidentally shot dead In Rattana, a military policeman who had just gunned down ...
Court questions Koh Kong shooting suspect
One week after the shooting deaths of forestry activist Chut Wutty and military police officer In Rattana, a suspect was sent to the Koh Kong Provincial Court for questioning late yesterday evening before being remanded to military police custody, a court official said. “The prosecutor hasn’t ...
Timbergreen official questioned in Chut Wutty shooting
The “company” that military police have declined to identify but said sent staff to confront activist Chut Wutty shortly before he was shot last Thursday is Timbergreen, a firm the slain activist had attempted to expose for illegal logging. Documents obtained by the Post yesterday and sources have ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012050355957/National-news/company-man-arrested.html
Families of slain men question official version
Amid mounting calls for further investigation, officials said yesterday they were establishing a task force to look into the death of outspoken forestry activist Chut Wutty, while the family of the military police officer who allegedly killed Chut Wutty before turning the gun on himself ...
Suicide Cited in Military Police Officer’s Death
The military police officer who killed well-known anti-logging campaigner Chut Wutty, 46, on Thursday in Koh Kong province then died by his own hand after turning his AK-47 assault rifle on himself in an apparent act of instant suicide following the slaying of the forestry ...