A journalist's visit to South Omo, where rights groups say police have raped women and otherwise pressured locals to leave an area tagged to become a huge sugar plantation, was quickly curtailed by authorities.

If what is going on in Gambella was happening in New Delhi, India; in Oxford, England; in Bismarck, North Dakota; in Saskatoon, Canada; this would be unthinkable.

GRAIN speaks with Nyikaw Ochalla, an Anuak living in exile, about the consequences for the Anuak and other local communities from the land grabs happening in Gambella province and the rest of Ethiopia.

Runaway farmland and borderland giveaway deals need to be publicly scrutinized to ensure transparency (detect corruption and criminality) and to make certain that private interests (sweetheart deals) have not overtaken the public interest, or secret deals are not made to harm the Ethiopian national interest.

Kenyans near world’s largest desert lake predict conflict, hunger and cultural devastation when hydroelectric project and sugar plantations are completed.

The host country government of the international conference is arguably one of the worst offenders when it comes to forced displacement resulting from land grabs.

New documentary film shows how sales of huge land areas of Ethiopia, by the Ethiopian government, to foreign investors, have led to starvation and forced displacement, and how the World Bank is complicit.

The Commercial Bank of Ethiopia is pressuring Karuturi Global Ltd to repay a credit provision of 65 million birr (US$3.3 million).

Giant dam and irrigated sugar plantations mean people in lower Omo valley face starvation and conflict, says US thinktank

Last week a Saudi delegation has requested 100,000 hectares to invest in alfalfa plant (livestock food) integrated project and in livestock processing.

Addis Abaaba has decided to withdraw from the regional governments the right of attributing leases of over 1,000 ha. However, the 2010 federal budget lists no income whatsoever, and no information on this subject appears in the quarterly reports of the National Bank of Ethiopia.

Charges against Pastor Omot Agwa, an indigenous land rights defender from the Gambella region of Ethiopia are finally dropped by an Ethiopian court.

Indigenous Peoples are being forced to become dependent on aid handouts having lost their land and their ability to produce their own food.

The flooding that breached specially built barriers near Karuturi’s plantations couldn’t have been predicted, Karuturi claims.

According to the Kerala press, Sai Ramakrishna Karuturi, managing director Karuturi Global Ltd, has been arrested for fraud.

High Court says Karuturi's Honorary Consul of Ethiopia status does not provide immunity from tax authorities and says he violated the sanctity of the consulate by carrying on his other business activities on the premises.

Karuturi's 15 John Deere tractors plough 500 hectares a day on its 300,000 land concession in the Gambella region of Ethiopia. This is land clearance on a gigantic scale.

A group of farmers from Punjab are planning to take 1 lakh hectare land on lease in the African nation of Ethiopia for cultivation.

The Ethiopian Agricultural Investment Land Administration Agency has terminated its lease contract with the controversial, Indian based agribusiness giant - Karuturi Global Ltd.

Jenaan, which has agricultural investments from Spain to Ethiopia, said it changed its policy in part because it had been losing money in Egypt and in part due to advice from the government of Abu Dhabi.

Huge delegation lead by Ethiopian prime minister Hailemariam is on a tour at Shabelle region to inspect lands prepared for investors.

People from Oromiya, a region at the heart of Ethiopia's industrialisation efforts, accuse the state of seizing their land and offering tiny compensation, before selling it on to companies, often foreign investors, at inflated prices.

Gambela’s new tag as a land grabbing hub comes as BHO Agro Plc becomes the third Indian firm to begin operations in the region after two other Indian companies, Karuturi and Ruchi Group, moved into Gambela in 2008 and early 2010, respectively.

The Development Bank of Ethiopia suspending loans for commercial farms because of the failure of numerous farms in Gambella, where the Bank was even tricked into giving two loans for a single agriculture project.

Short video documentary about a massive takeover of agricultural lands in the Gambela Region of Ethiopia.

Hedge funds and bankers are buying everything from farmland to mines across the Global South. Mark L Thomas looks at how speculators here fuel exploitation half a world away

The race by food-importing countries to secure farmland overseas to improve their food security risks creating a “neo-colonial” system, the United Nations’ top agriculture official, Jacques Diouf, has cautioned.

“We are in big trouble with the government of Madagascar,” said Shin Dong-hyun, the general manager of planning and finance at Daewoo Logistics Corporation.

ROPPA, Actionaid, Oxfam and EAFF have urged Nigerian and other African leaders to guarantee transparency in the management of large-scale land transactions and freeze acquisitions which do not conform to rules, regulations and the framework of the land declaration of the African Heads of States and Government of 2009.

As Indian businessmen bet on cash crops, it’s unclear whether food security issues are being tackled