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Nationality Rule Swayed NEC Decision: Licadho Chief
Pung Chhiv Kek, the president of rights group Licadho who on Tuesday turned down her nomination to the National Election Committee (NEC), said Wednesday that the ban on dual nationals sitting on the body made it difficult for her to accept the role. In an email, Ms. Chhiv Kek, who holds Cambodian, Canadian and French nationality, reiterated that the NEC’s lack of independence was the “main reason” she declined but that the controversial ban also influenced her decision.
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Mass Patrol Of Prey Long Forest Begins
About 400 community activists on Thursday set out on a five-day patrol of Cambodia’s sprawling— and unprotected—Prey Long forest to root out illegal loggers and the illicit clearing of the area’s commercial farms, making for the largest patrol by the Prey Long Community Network in more than a year.
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UN concerns plentiful in Geneva postmortem
A UN rights panel that grilled government delegates in Geneva last month yesterday handed down its concluding observations on how Cambodia has implemented the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which it acceded to more than two decades ago. The only positive aspects outlined by the UN Human Rights Committee related to the passage of rights-related laws – such as those dealing with the prevention of domestic violence, suppression of human trafficking and promotion of the rights of the disabled – as well as Cambodia’s accession to international conventions.
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IFC criticised for abusive investments
Rights groups yesterday took aim at the private-sector arm of the World Bank for investing money into companies that are responsible for human rights abuses around the world, highlighting a Vietnamese rubber firm accused of illegal logging and land grabbing in Ratanakkiri province as a prime example. In a report titled The Suffering of Others, Oxfam, along with other NGOs including Global Witness and Equitable Cambodia, say the International Finance Corporation (IFC) has “little accountability” for billions of dollars of investments into banks, hedge funds and other financial intermediaries that are awarded to projects responsible for such abuses
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Election Expert Vows Reform As ‘Neutral’ NEC Member
Hang Puthea, the presumptive “neutral” candidate on the new National Election Committee (NEC), said Wednesday that he would accept the nomination in order to pursue electoral reforms that the CPP and CNRP have failed to achieve. Mr. Puthea, the long-serving executive director of the Neutral and Impartial Committee for Free Elections in Cambodia (Nicfec), was named by the parties as their selection for the role on Tuesday after Licadho president Pung Chhiv Kek declined her nomination.
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Progress, hurdles for education
Despite the fact that Cambodia is slated to reach the six internationally agreed-upon education goals set by Unesco for 2015, the Kingdom’s education system continues to face systemic problems, according to the Ministry of Education’s annual report. The report’s final draft, which was released to the ministry’s annual education congress on March 24 to 26 and obtained yesterday, noted largely incremental improvements that education officials say will enable the country to reach the Education for All (EFA) goals set by Unesco in 2000. However, observers were quick to point out that without increased budgets and shifts in cultural attitudes toward schooling, longstanding problems like high dropout rates will continue to persist.
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Eviction fears: Villagers on notice over flood remedy
The filling in of a canal in the capital’s Chbar Ambpov district has prompted local villagers to push back against looming displacement, district officials and community representatives have told the Post. The move, which will replace the Prek Barang canal with a new road and sewage system, is intended to relieve endemic flooding in the area.
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One Killed, Four Injured in Severe Storms in B’bang
One woman died and three other people were seriously injured when strong winds and rain hit Battambang province on Monday, the day before a similar storm destroyed homes in Oddar Meanchey province, officials said Wednesday. Tim Dareth, governor of Battambang’s Bavel district, said that 64-year-old Heng Soeun died during the storm that struck Ampil Pram Doeum commune Monday night, destroying 21 homes and damaging 19 others, as well as a Buddhist temple and a school.
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CCHR calls for transgender rights
Marking the sixth annual International Transgender Day of Visibility yesterday, the Cambodian Center for Human Rights (CCHR) called on the government to protect transgender people and end discrimination. While Cambodia has no laws that directly condemn the LGBT community, the government also lacks any formal legislation able to protect the historically vulnerable group. In yesterday’s statement, CCHR cited the murder of 1,509 transgender people worldwide between 2008 and 2014, according to a project conducted by Transgender Europe, and noted that the community is particularly at-risk to suicide.
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Head of election watchdog tapped for NEC post
Hang Puthea, head of election-monitoring group Nicfec, has been selected as the ninth member of the reformed National Election Committee (NEC), it was announced yesterday, just hours after Licadho president Pung Chhiv Kek officially turned down the role. A letter obtained yesterday, which was signed by Prime Minister Hun Sen on Sunday and sent to opposition leader Sam Rainsy, revealed the decision. “[As per] the conversation between you and me on the phone on March 29, our parties have agreed to take Mr Hang Puthea, executive director of Nicfec, as the ninth candidate of the NEC,” the letter says.
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Villagers, gov’t, UDG at table
An end to the long-running land dispute in Koh Kong province between China’s Union Development Group and more than 1,100 families may have inched closer to a resolution yesterday as all parties discussed an equitable resolution in Phnom Penh yesterday. Though participants still didn’t see eye-to-eye at the close of yesterday’s meeting, the event still represented a rare direct negotiation between villagers, the company and authorities.
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Police Burn Down Mondolkiri Minority Community’s Shelters
Police in Mondolkiri province on Tuesday burned down more than 130 shelters belonging to a community of ethnic Bunong families in Keo Seima district that authorities accuse of squatting on a Vietnamese rubber plantation, a local official said. The more than 200 Bunong families, however, claim that the Binh Phuoc 1 company—which was granted a 5,100-hectare concession in the area—has been encroaching on land they have been farming for generations.
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Democracy ‘dragging’: NGO
While bipartisanship and democratic governance appear to be slightly on the upswing in Cambodia, an annual report by local election watchdog Comfrel says democracy in the Kingdom is still dragging its feet, often taking two steps backward for every one step forward. “Democratisation in Cambodia is on a slow path,” Comfrel executive director Koul Panha said Tuesday at a roundtable discussion on the organisation’s annual democracy report. “In 2014, there was some progress, [but] there are lots of crises and barriers slowing down democratisation.”
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Ratanakkiri Teenager Charged With Raping 8-Year-Old Neighbor
The Ratanakkiri Provincial Court on Monday charged a 17-year-old boy with raping his 8-year-old neighbor at her home in Veun Sai district the night before, local police said Tuesday. “The provincial court charged him yesterday evening with rape under aggravating circumstances,” said deputy provincial police chief Phen Dina. “We put him in pretrial detention at the provincial prison.”
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Head of election watchdog tapped for NEC post
Hang Puthea, head of election-monitoring group Nicfec, has been selected as the ninth member of the reformed National Election Committee (NEC), it was announced yesterday, just hours after Licadho president Pung Chhiv Kek officially turned down the role. A letter obtained yesterday, which was signed by Prime Minister Hun Sen on Sunday and sent to opposition leader Sam Rainsy, revealed the decision.
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CCHR calls for transgender rights
Marking the sixth annual International Transgender Day of Visibility yesterday, the Cambodian Center for Human Rights (CCHR) called on the government to protect transgender people and end discrimination
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Villagers, gov’t, UDG at table
An end to the long-running land dispute in Koh Kong province between China’s Union Development Group and more than 1,100 families may have inched closer to a resolution yesterday as all parties discussed an equitable resolution in Phnom Penh yesterday. Though participants still didn’t see eye-to-eye at the close of yesterday’s meeting, the event still represented a rare direct negotiation between villagers, the company and authorities. Representatives of more than 300 families embroiled in the sometimes-violent dispute in Kiri Sakor and Botum Sakor districts implored government and company officials to apply the so-called “tiger skin policy”, which would allow them to keep their land while the company would have to build around them.
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Head of election watchdog tapped for NEC post
Hang Puthea, head of election-monitoring group Nicfec, has been selected as the ninth member of the reformed National Election Committee (NEC), it was announced yesterday, just hours after Licadho president Pung Chhiv Kek officially turned down the role. A letter obtained yesterday, which was signed by Prime Minister Hun Sen on Sunday and sent to opposition leader Sam Rainsy, revealed the decision. “[As per] the conversation between you and me on the phone on March 29, our parties have agreed to take Mr Hang Puthea, executive director of Nicfec, as the ninth candidate of the NEC,” the letter says.
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As Refugees Spurn Cambodia, Locals Voice Opposition to Deal
As refugees being held by Australia on the South Pacific island of Nauru continue to spurn the prospect of resettling in Cambodia, many Cambodians likewise say they do not want to see any of the refugees sent to their country. In September, Canberra and Phnom Penh signed a deal that would allow the refugees, who had been sent to an offshore detention center on Nauru to have their asylum applications processed, to resettle in Cambodia on a voluntary basis. In return, Australia pledged an additional $35 million in aid over four years.
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American Journalist Defends Coverage of KR
An American journalist who interviewed Pol Pot while visiting Cambodia defended himself at the Khmer Rouge tribunal Monday over articles he wrote suggesting stories of mass murder by the regime were exaggerated, but conceded that his coverage was inaccurate in hindsight. Richard Dudman—who is 96 and appeared via video link from the U.S.—traveled with journalist Elizabeth Becker and scholar Malcolm Caldwell on a highly orchestrated trip around the country in 1978, during which Malcolm Caldwell was shot dead in their lodgings in Phnom Penh.
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