Arab Economic, Development and Social Summit to be held in Kuwait next month would focus on the global financial crisis, infrastructure in the Arab world and social issues, coordinator general for the summit said on Tuesday.

The global food and financial crises have combined to create a new form of colonialism in which countries short of resources and corporations desperate for profits are buying up arable land in emerging nations, NGOs say. The non-governmental organisations have expressed concern at this "global land grab," which they say is threatening the survival of rural livelihoods in some parts of the world.

Pour la République populaire, il est un héros du programme Go Abroad. Sa mission, hautement stratégique : investir les terres africaines pour y cultiver la petite graine magique

The Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) has entered into a 25-year pact with a private investor to boost rice production.

Dependence on oil imports may be influencing the Ethiopian government’s decision to lease farmland to Saudi Arabia

Land acquisitions abroad are the only viable response, Mohammed Raouf, program manager of environment research at the Gulf Research Center, and others say.

Such blockbuster deals neglect to take into consideration the true interests of the farmers

Proposals to sell off around 16,200 hectares of land in the Tana River delta to Qatar to grow vegetables and fruit in return for a new port in Lamu have again raised concerns for the future of the environmentally important area.

The Pakistan government is all set to provide legal cover through parliament to protect foreign investors and their investment in all sectors particularly agriculture. “We are in talks with investors from Gulf states, particularly Saudi Arabia, for investment in corporate farming. Investors will be ensured repatriation of 100 per cent crop yield to their countries even in case Pakistan faces food deficit,” Federal Investment Minister Waqar Ahmad Khan said.

"Most observers here take the GOM denials at face value, and attribute the whole matter to Daewoo's extreme naivete in having concluded that a permit to look around for land here was anything more than the beginning of a long and still very uncertain process," writes the US embassy in Antananarivo in December 2008

Recent unconfirmed media reports suggest that these countries are seeking as much as 20 million acres on which to grow crops that can be shipped back home for domestic consumption.

It has now emerged that the land in question is part of the fertile Tana River delta in Coast Province, the same stretch where plans by Mumias Sugar Company to build a sugar factory have raised objections from pastoralists claiming that their animals will lack pasture and the environment will be destroyed.