Families who built their stilted homes on Kiri Sakor district’s estuaries decades ago say their lives revolve around the antics of the Union Development Group, locked in a stalemate as they repeatedly rebuild the structures that the company’s guards dismantle.
A three-day teardown deadline handed to 69 families living along a canal in Boeng Kak I commune passed without a clash on Thursday, but after authorities previously allegedly ripped out their gardens and descended on their homes with axes, residents say they don’t believe an official’s offer that they will be allowed to resettle there if they temporarily move out.
A lion that was granted special permission to live in the middle of Phnom Penh escaped for a short time this morning, after which his owner told reporters that he was building a higher fence to prevent future escapes.
Subcontracted workers say they frequently lose money somewhere along the web of bosses above them who manage constructions, with labor advocates saying pay disputes appear to be increasing during Covid-19’s economic challenges.
Garment and footwear unions asked brands to make their Cambodian suppliers pay workers that they say were short-changed during lockdowns, suspensions and permanent closures, in effect asking brands to intervene on the way the Labor Ministry and factories interpret the law.
Both Nhung, 61, and Sok, 46, have lived their whole lives in Cambodia except to escape Khmer Rouge purges against ethnic Vietnamese. Now, alongside hundreds, they have been evicted from floating homes here, some told to cross a border blockaded by Vietnamese ships.
Srey Bandaul, 49, one of the founders of world-renowned art school Phare Ponleu Selpak, died from Covid-19 on Wednesday evening. “He passionately believed in arts as a tool to heal. Arts healed him and made him a more peaceful person. He truly embodied the arts,” the school’s director said.
Sre Ambel residents have long dealt with land issues related to infamous sugarcane plantations nearby. Activity on those plantations appears to be waning, but they are now bracing for more problems as an opaque state program privatizes swaths of protected areas across the province.
A new U.S.-funded fact-checking outlet for Cambodia has been challenged over methodology and an apparent email mishap in its first published assessment: that an international rights organization’s claims of concern over the government’s Covid-19 QR-code tracking system were “false.”
As part of a massive government campaign to privatize land, ostensibly for poor families, Cambodia has cut off nearly 127,000 hectares from Koh Kong’s protected parks. In part one of reports from the province, Tuol Koki commune residents laugh off the prospects of benefiting from the campaign.
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