A day after a judge suspended operations of a palm-oil company suspected of causing a massive fish die-off on a Guatemalan river, three community leaders were abducted by company workers and an outspoken local teacher was murdered.

The leftist World Social Forum yesterday denounced land grabbing in Africa by foreign groups as a form of neo-colonialism in a day devoted to debates on the continent.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said Wednesday that he would visit the Gulf states of Kuwait and Qatar in January to discuss rice exports in a bid to corner the Gulf market. His announcement came one day after Kuwaiti Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser al-Mohammed al-Ahmed al-Jaber al-Saba ended a three-day visit to Cambodia and discussed swapping his country’s technical assistance for arable land for cultivation of quality rice for Kuwait.

Plantations et Huileries du Congo, the DRC’s leading palm oil producer, plans to exponentially increase its palm oil production, but this strategy could exacerbate land conflicts.

What can possibly be wrong about planting trees? This investigation digs deeper into a conflict unfolding in southern Madagascar, between the local community and an Italian multinational. As similar green projects multiply, this case highlights a critical challenge.

Farmers and researchers in Canada say this trend could speed up rising costs and force smaller, local farmers to expand or get out of the industry altogether.

If the plantation model in itself is understood as a violent, destructive, structurally racist and patriarchal one, can corporate gender-specific policies do more than cover up this violence and destruction?

On the occasion of International Indigenous Peoples Day August 9, Arkilaus Kladit, a member of the Knasaimos-Tehit people in West Papua Province, Indonesia, writes about the importance of his tribe’s customary forests and the fight to protect it from logging and palm oil.

Oil palm plantations have sprung up at breakneck speed across Indonesia’s ravaged hinterlands, eating away at the forests and propelling this country of 250 million to become the world’s sixth-largest emitter of greenhouse gases.

"Behind the impetus for this law are the interests of Monsanto, Nestlé, Syngenta, Cargill and other corporations that want to take our lands."

"Agribusiness is a priority sector for CDC and this facility is an important step in Feronia's long-term financing."

Africa’s agriculture and food industries are attracting increasing interest from investors. This trend is largely fuelled by the fact that the continent has 60% of the world’s uncultivated arable land, with favourable weather conditions in many countries.

This article is part of a series of feature stories on land grabbing in selected countries in Asia, as part of an awareness-raising campaign on how land grabs worsen hunger, in commemoration of 'World Foodless Day' on October 16 by PAN AP and its partner organisations. (http://www.panap.net/wfd)

One of the greatest threats Africa has ever faced is the impact from this new phenomenon of land-grabbing

The World Food Program intends to buy some of the grain produced in Ethiopia by foreign investors in order to assist hungry people. Ironically, this group of intended food aid recipients will include those working to produce it in the first place. Ethiopia's government is calling this sustainable development.

On Earth Day plus one, we need to ask: what can stop this speculative juggernaut? And how can we support the rural farm communities – half of our humankind – who are fighting for sustainable food production.

A one-day workshop on the scramble for land, ‘investment’ and environmental degradation in Oromia: consequences for the future (City University London, 3 July 2010)

Not a day goes by without new acreage being signed over. "For Sale" ads for agricultural property are now featured in the international financial press. And there's no dearth of clients.

“This is uncommon. The Governor allocated the land to us without asking for any bribe or commission,” the CEO of Tiamin told China's Ambassador about the 10,000 ha allocated to his company by Bauchi state government.

The student group Divest Harvard hosted a day of events calling attention to Harvard’s ownership of Brazilian land and reigniting its calls for the school to sell those holdings in the name of environmentalism.

On the 8th of March - International Women's Day – we join women across the world who are affected by the violent expansion of industrial oil palm and rubber plantations and who are calling for action to stop the harassment, sexual violence and abuse against women in and around plantations IMMEDIATELY!

“No leasing land to China even for one day,” read a banner hoisted during the recent protests.

On 8 March, International Women’s Day, hundreds of organizations and individuals demand an end to the violence against women living in and around large-scale oil palm plantations expansion.

12.4 per cent of Australia’s agricultural land has some level of foreign ownership, with 95 per cent of this land in the hands of just 45 overseas companies.

An ex-Wall Street banker jets off to South Sudan to show how investors are rushing to Africa in a modern-day land-grab. Watch Al Jazeera 'Witness'.

Action Aid International Sierra Leone (AAISL) and its partners have successfully ended a four day strategic conference and campaign planning meeting on ‘Land-Grabbing’ in Freetown.

Today in the lead up to World Habitat Day on October 1st Witness are proud to announce a new video People Before Profit – bringing communities across the world together to tell the global story of forced evictions.

This one-day multidisciplinary workshop will examine the scale of the problem and the environmental degradation, economic, social and health problems facing the Oromo people as the result of the farmland wholesale to foreign investors and will aim to formulate a consensus on how to mitigate its burden on the Oromo people.

The firms plan to develop 187,000 hectares of sugar cane plantations and build several sugar factories which will have total capacity to process 76,000 tonnes of cane per day

Trade minister Stockwell Day said that Canada stands to benefit from the Saudi Kingdom’s overseas agricultural investment initiative and that the Canadian Parliament is studying it.