An estimated 1,000 land disputants from Koh Kong and Kampong Speu provinces gathered in Phnom Penh on Tuesday to petition national state institutions, seeking their intervention to drop court actions against community representatives.
The government has appointed a slew of deputy provincial governors across the country. A Preah Sihanouk court charged four people for allegedly encroaching on private land.
Though the Kampong Speu provincial governor has promised to demarcate the boundaries of the contested Metta forest of Oral district, residents say loggers have continued to clear-cut the vanishing woodland.
Kampong Speu governor Vei Samnang promised to demarcate the boundaries of Metta forest in Trapeang Cho commune, even though teams of workers have completely deforested the area, save for trees around a pagoda.
Girls as young as 12 say they are working in garment factories in Kampong Speu, some with the knowledge of their employers and others with false identification documents issued by their local officials.
The Transport Ministry has “never allowed” anyone to use the under-construction Phnom Penh-Sihanoukville Expressway — but motorists are using it anyway, leading to repeated accidents including a head-on collision on Monday that injured six people.
Just a fraction of the country’s garment factories, predominantly staffed by women, have a child-care center. With reduced fees, healthy meals and a strict no-phone policy, a Kampong Speu child-care center is trying to fill the gap and ease the burden on working women.
After a few months of rapid deforestation, tree-cutting activity at Kampong Speu’s Metta forest has slowed down in recent days as clearings reach the boundary limits of land allocated to families from the military’s tank unit.
Prom Thomacheat, living in Oral district’s Metta forest, said the small hut where he had slept was burned to the ground on Monday.
Palm sugar production is barely meeting half of this year’s target output because of early rains and unpredictable weather, an industry association said.
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