An American owned company with a track record of illegality and links to private equity giant Blackstone Group is threatening to destroy rainforests and dislocate local communities in Cameroon, Africa.

New York venture-finance firm Herakles Capital has withdrawn its application for membership of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil after complaints by environmental groups about its $350 million project in Cameroon.

It is understood the agricultural division of the $163 billion Canada Pension Plan Investment Board has been sniffing around Australian agricultural land recently and has had discussions in Australia with landholders such as PrimeAg.

The approved sale of sprawling Australian cotton farm Cubbie Station to Chinese interests has sparked a political row as Nationals Senator Barnaby Joyce insists foreign ownership is not in the national interest.

Australia approved a Chinese company's bid for giant (100,000 ha) cotton farm, including entitlements to a massive 537,000 mega litres of water, or enough to fill Sydney Harbour.

Foreign purchases of land in New Zealand have dropped off significantly over the last seven months, after Chinese investors became embroiled in a long-running land dispute and declining carbon-credit prices made forestry assets less attractive.

Soy farming in Argentina is often linked to land-grabbing and displacement of small-scale farmers. Aid organizations are demanding action from German Agriculture Minister Ilse Aigner during her trip to South America.

The Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development has published a special issue of its bulletin on landgrabbing, its impacts on women and their resistance, across the Asia Pacific region.

Investment firms describe it as the next golden opportunity. They say they're taking and using underutilised and uncultivated land. But as MaraPost's *Charles Mkula* reports, simply put, it's land-grabbing and somethings has to be done about it

Water drawn from rivers, dams or underground to irrigate new farms in Africa may severely affect users downstream

The Asian Peasant Coalition, the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas and the Danggayan dagiti Mannalon ti Isabela say that because of farmers’ militant actions a bio-ethanol plant was victoriously shut down in San Mariano, Isabela, northeastern Philippines

Threatening to worsen the rural crisis in Burma are two new land bills supposedly designed to alleviate it: the Farmland Law and the Vacant, Fallow and Virgin Lands Management Law.