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Meeting Between Koh Kong Families, Development Firm Fruitless
Representatives for some 200 families in a yearslong land dispute with the Union Development Group (UDG) in Koh Kong province met for the first time with both company and government officials Tuesday but left with little to show. A group of local NGOs brought the three sides together at Phnom Penh’s Cambodiana Hotel hoping to get them to reach a resolution to the dispute over a massive 45,000-hectare, $3.8 billion tourist complex the Chinese firm is building in the middle of Koh Kong’s Botum Sakor National Park.
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Women’s Caucus meets UK rep
Female members of the National Assembly sat down with a representative of the UK Parliament yesterday to discuss female participation in politics, on the final day of a consultative meeting hosted by the British Embassy. There were no men among the 11 lawmakers in attendance, with the chairperson of the Women’s Caucus Khuon Sudary saying they would take part in future events.
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NGO Director Appointed New ‘Neutral’ NEC Member
Hang Puthea, executive director of the Neutral and Impartial Committee for Free and Fair Elections, was selected Tuesday as the “neutral” candidate for the National Election Committee (NEC) following Licadho president Pung Chhiv Kek’s announcement that she would not accept her nomination. Seven months of negotiations led to the adoption last week of two new laws paving the way for the new NEC, which will consist of four candidates from both the ruling CPP and opposition CNRP, as well as a final member acceptable to both parties.
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Pung Chhiv Kek out of NEC running
PUNG Chhiv Kek, president of local rights group Licadho, has officially turned down a position as the ninth member of the reformed National Election Committee. In a statement released this morning, Chhiv Kek, who was offered the role in July, says that “although it was a great honor to have been chosen for this very important position, I deeply regret I have to decline the offer”. “I apologize to my fellow compatriots who had faith in me and whom I may have disappointed,” she adds.
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Idea exchange: UK clerk tells MPs of Brit system
Members of the National Assembly sat down with a representative of the UK Parliament yesterday to discuss political party groups and the legislative system in the UK as part of a two-day consultative meeting that ends today. The event saw senior clerk Gosia McBride deliver four seminars to the 14 Cambodian lawmakers in attendance, covering party structure, parliamentary oversight, the legislative process and support for government and opposition members.
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Amend judicial laws: Kem Sokha
During yesterday’s 18th annual memorial of the 1997 grenade attack on an opposition rally in Phnom Penh, Cambodia National Rescue Party acting president Kem Sokha called for the amendment of three controversial judicial laws passed last year that critics claim have further compromised the independence of the Kingdom’s courts. Sokha’s comments on the judiciary came as he was summonsed to the Phnom Penh Municipal Court for questioning on April 8 in connection with an unspecified case, his lawyer confirmed. The summons arrived just weeks after Prime Minister Hun Sen called on the courts to take action against the firebrand deputy CNRP leader for supposedly having admitted that he tried to topple the government following the 2013 election.
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Rights Leader Turns Down Position in Cambodia’s Reformed Electoral Body
A leading human rights activist in Cambodia on Tuesday declined an offer to join the country’s reformed National Election Committee (NEC) as a ninth, neutral member in the electoral body otherwise split between members of the ruling and opposition political parties, calling the job “impossible.” Pung Chhiv Kek, founder of local rights group Licadho, was offered the post on July 28, 2014, shortly after reforms to the NEC were first proposed, she said in a statement. “At the time, the role of the ninth member was described to me as ‘an independent member who will bring to this institution the neutrality it needs to organize elections in conformity with the constitution and the national laws,’” Pung Chhiv Kek said.
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Unexpected NEC nomination from PM
Hang Puthea, head of Cambodian election-monitoring group Nicfec, has been selected to fill the ninth position of the reformed National Election Committee, according to a letter sent from Prime Minister Hun Sen to opposition leader Sam Rainsy. The letter, dated Sunday, says that, as per “the conversation between you and I on the phone on March 29, our parties have agreed to take Mr Hong Puthea, executive director of Nicfec, as the ninth candidate of the NEC.”
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Activist’s trial abruptly stalled
The trial of a political activist charged with multiple offences for his alleged role in a violent Phnom Penh protest was dramatically adjourned yesterday, as the defendant refused to continue with questioning unless his accusers also came to the court. Ouk Pich Samnang was arrested in late October after driving his tuk-tuk through a security barricade near Prime Minister Hun Sen’s house during a protest with evictees from Preah Vihear province, which saw clashes with the notorious Daun Penh district security guards.
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Kem Sokha Says Judicial Laws Need Changing
Deputy opposition leader Kem Sokha told supporters Monday that the CNRP’s 55 lawmakers will soon ask to revisit the three controversial judicial reform laws passed by the National Assembly last year during the opposition party’s post-election parliamentary boycott.
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Activist Demands Plaintiffs Show Up in Court
A judge at the Phnom Penh Municipal Court suspended the trial of an opposition activist Monday after the defendant demanded that his alleged victims face him in court and declared that his trial was a politicized sham.
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Pung Chhiv Kek out of NEC running
PUNG Chhiv Kek, president of local rights group Licadho, has officially turned down a position as the ninth member of the reformed National Election Committee. In a statement released this morning, Chhiv Kek, who was offered the role in July, says that “although it was a great honor to have been chosen for this very important position, I deeply regret I have to decline the offer”. “I apologize to my fellow compatriots who had faith in me and whom I may have disappointed,” she adds.
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Rights Group Asks Gov’t to Disclose True Land Figures
At least 272 companies own plantations covering some 2.14 million hectares across the country, more than when Prime Minister Hun Sen placed a freeze on the approval of new economic land concessions (ELCs) three years ago and despite a spate of recent cancellations, according to rights group Licadho.
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KOICA aid program under way
After a kickoff ceremony last Wednesday, a five-year development project in 30 villages, funded and supervised by South Korea’s International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) begins work this week. The New Village Movement, which is funded by an $8 million grant from South Korea, is starting as a pilot project in Takeo, Kampong Speu and Tbong Khmum provinces, project director Song Joo Kim said. This week, KOICA staffers will travel to participating villages to survey village needs and to explain to local leaders the types of projects allowed, Joo Kim said.
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Grave sites a concern at Sesan
Ethnic minority villagers who live in the planned reservoir zone of the Lower Sesan II hydropower project along the Sesan and Srepok rivers have said they will not move from their homes unless the dam company and authorities pay for the removal of their ancestors’ remains. Many of the affected villagers are ethnic Phnong, Lao and other minorities, and revere the spirits of their forebears through ritual and ceremonial burial.
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‘Same Faces’ Protest Against PM’s Comments
Incensed by the prime minister’s assertion last week that the “same faces” always show up at protests, a group of Phnom Penh’s most prominent anti-eviction activists picketed City Hall on Monday to vent their anger
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Firm accused of ‘taking over’ community forest
Villagers in Ratanakkiri province’s O’Yadav district have filed a complaint with rights group Adhoc against a logging company they say has claimed more than 9,000 hectares of community forest as its own and threatened residents against using the land. According to the complaint, which four community members filed yesterday, Cambodian company Prampimakara Powery entered the area last year and declared ownership of the community forest. The land covers three villages in O’Yadav’s Sesan commune, where more than 300 ethnic Jarai families live, said Sal Hlob, 36, one of the four who filed the complaint.
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NGO: Data shows gov't in ‘wholesale sell-off’ of land
Cambodia should urgently disclose all information about land ownership and rethink its “wholesale sell-off” of the country’s natural resources, a local rights group said yesterday. The call to release information about Cambodia’s land sector, including a declaration of revenues, came as Licadho released an analysis of concessions showing that three-fifths of all of Cambodia’s arable land is under the control of mostly foreign-owned plantation firms.
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Hun Sen Meets With Nancy Pelosi, US Delegation
Prime Minister Hun Sen on Monday met with a visiting delegation of U.S. Congress members, including House of Representatives minority leader Nancy Pelosi, a government spokesman said. Phay Siphan, spokesman for the Council of Ministers, said Ms. Pelosi’s delegation met Mr. Hun Sen at his office in Phnom Penh on Monday mornin
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Lawmakers to sit down with UK rep
Members of Cambodia’s National Assembly will today sit down with a senior clerk from the UK Houses of Parliament as a two-day consultative meeting gets underway in Phnom Penh. Today will see a discussion of political party groups, while women in parliament is on the agenda for tomorrow.
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