| Rights groups are calling for a full government investigation into the shooting death of a prominent land rights activist in Cambodia. Chut Wutty, an outspoken critic of illegal logging, died after being shot by military police. His son is asking the international community to find justice for his late father. One police officer also died in the incident which is still under investigation. Wutty's colleagues say the activist had previously received threats. |
| Family members and activists vow to follow a prominent environmentalist's footsteps after his shooting death in Koh Kong province last week. Chut Wutty, director of Natural Resource Protection Group, was shot and killed in a forest while escorting two journalists covering illegal logging. A military policeman was killed in the same incident and the Cambodian government says it will establish a joint committee to investigate. |
About half of Cambodia’s population of 14 million is aged between 15 and 30.
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Cambodia’s youth are often regarded as useful to politicians, but seldom are they given the chance to vie for elections such as those scheduled for this year and next.
This has made them “political slaves,” Yong Kim Eng, president of the People’s Center for Development and Peace, told “Hello VOA” on Monday. “They are just supporters, not decision-makers who can determine their own fates.” |
 at a hospital in Siem Reap. |
Eight-year-old Nan Kini remains in the hospital, after his heart
was repaired recently at a hospital in Siem Reap. He is frail, but he is
alive.
It has been a long journey for the family, one that often seemed hopeless. Nan Kini’s father, Huy Nan, says there were times he wanted to see his son die rather than suffer so much from heart disease. The 42-year-old motor-taxi driver says he could not afford to have Nan Kini treated and often had to borrow money to send him to the hospital. |
| Loun Sivaey has been working for years on this plot of land in Kra Lanh village, Pursat province, 170 kilometers from the capital. Now, a local company has come in to clear her and hundreds of other villagers from the land. The company has brought in bulldozers and security guards. Loun Sivaey says she and others are preparing to resist them. (Say Mony interviews residents in Pursat province.) |
Nearly 200 families were moved here from the city, following a forced eviction at
Borei Keila, a Phnom Penh neighborhood slated for development by the company
Phan Imex.
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Far from the Asean ministerial meetings underway on Monday, victims of forced evictions in Cambodia say they need regional leaders to help enforce human rights.
At a squalid relocation camp at Phnom Bath mountain, where many displaced families live in poverty, Nhim Sopha, 29, told VOA Khmer she needs Asean’s leaders “to help solve the problems, so that I can have a plot of land.” |
China claims the highlighted portion of the South China Sea. Many other governments
also claim all or part of the South China Sea.
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Political analysts say Cambodia should take advantage of its
chairmanship of Asean this year in disputes over the South China Sea,
but the country is reluctant to do so for fear of a damaging its
relationship with China. Arata Mahapatra, the director of the Center for Asian Strategic Studies in India, told VOA Khmer Thursday that playing the role of neutral mediator would help raise Cambodia’s international prestige at a time when it is seeking a non-permanent seat at the UN Security Council. |
An unidentified garment worker lying on a hospital bed with multiple gunshot wounds to her back.
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Victims of a shooting in the eastern province of Svay Rieng last month say they are now living in fear, as local authorities have failed to detain the man accused of shooting them, the former governor of Bavet city.
Chhouk Bandith remains free, after he allegedly shot into a crowd of garment workers who had gathered to protest working conditions at a special economic zone in Svay Rieng in front of Kaoway Sports factory.
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Sok Touch, rector of Khemarak University, on “Hello VOA” Monday.
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The Royal University of Law and Economics has issued a ban on more than a dozen research topics for students, but the head of a local institution says this will only hurt the country’s development.
The ban bars research on topics like drug abuse, land disputes, labor disputes and the stock market, as well as the Cambodian Red Cross, which is led by Bun Rany, the wife of Prime Minister Hun Sen. |
Results from a recent survey of 377 university students in the capital by the NGO
Forum found a majority did not know about the management and usage of those funds.
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Most Cambodian university students have heard of their country’s fledging extractive industry. But with little access to information, few are aware of how revenue from this industry is being managed. Most of this information remains unavailable, and some are now voicing their concerns about corruption and misuse of those revenues. “The news on television tells us little about mining extractions,” student Saing Kanha told VOA Khmer. |
