Protected areas in Kirirom National Park and the Keo Seima Wildlife Sanctuary are being privatized for companies run by family members of notorious tycoon Choeung Sopheap as well as the wife of the country’s finance minister.
Mondulkiri prosecutors are questioning four people arrested after a confrontation between authorities and residents over an alleged land grab in Keo Seima district.
Indigenous Bunong families from Mondulkiri are petitioning government institutions about 255 hectares of community land transferred to a tycoon amid nationwide state-land privatizations.
The Environment Ministry has ordered provincial officials to fire the Srepok Wildlife Sanctuary chief in Mondulkiri province over alleged abuses of power, including threatening local people who were collecting firewood.
Hundreds of hectares in Mondulkiri were sold to a major tycoon’s family for as low as 600 riel per square meter, a government document suggests, and is facing protests from existing residents.
CPP Ratanakiri lawmaker Bou Lam died on Monday of chronic illness, said a National Assembly spokesperson.
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.
Mondulkiri villagers say a local road has been blocked by a private landowner, but they are not sure who is behind the development and a commune chief says he is unaware of the dispute.
Nann Mara is at university studying law: only the third person from the indigenous communities in her district in Ratanakiri to seek a higher education. Less than 1% of all indigenous people aged 15 and over have even completed high school.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday called for a retrial for three indigenous Bunong women who were convicted of removing fence posts on purportedly private property while trying to protect ancestral lands.
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