Land-grabbing behind India's new caste wars
By: Bill Weinberg
Date: March 15th 2016
Source: World War 4 Report
FACTBOX-Women's land rights around the world
By: Chris Arsenault
Date: March 17th 2016
Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation
TORONTO, March 16 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Women account for nearly half of the developing world's farmers, yet they own far less land than men despite growing evidence that increasing female land ownership can boost food production, education levels and child nutrition.
South Sudan army says land grabbing not official policy
By: ST
Date: March 16th 2016
Source: Sudan Tribune
March 16, 2016 (JUBA) - South Sudan’s national army, the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), has distanced itself from reports charging that some of its soldiers and officers have been grabbing land in and around Juba in a manner indicative of the practice having become an official policy of the government and the army.
Women forced to trade sex for land rights, global research finds
By: Paola Totaro
Date: March 16th 2016
Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation
WASHINGTON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - One in five people worldwide report having paid a bribe for land, with rates even higher in sub-Saharan Africa where women say they are forced to trade sex for property rights, according to research by a top global anti-corruption watchdog.
Indonesia: Land disputes: Lessons from West Papua
By: Richard Welford
Date: March 16th 2016
Source: CSR Asia
A new report compiled by the Brisbane Catholic Justice and Peace Commission’s Shadow Human Rights Fact Finding Mission to West Papua, has documented human rights abuses and the complicity of businesses in West Papua.
The report documents religious, social and economic discrimination, including how the use of land for major developments has benefited multinationals has excluded Papuans from ownership and jobs. The government is accused of carving up land and giving it to some 50 multinational companies.
India: Chennai loses green space as urbanization goes up: study
By: Trushna Udgirkar
Date: March 15th 2016
Source: Live Mint
Chennai has lost more than one-fifth of its greenery in 20 years as the city urbanized rapidly, according to a study by IISc
Hyderabad: Chennai lost more than one-fifth of its greenery in 20 years as the city urbanized rapidly, a study found.
EU turns back on Cambodian sugar exports
By: Lauren Crothers
Date: March 15th 2016
Source: News Fulton County
Since 2013, exports of sugar to European Union plummeted by nearly 95 percent on back of litany of rights abuses
PHNOM PENH — Cambodian exports of sugar to the European Union have plummeted by nearly 95 percent since 2013, as alarm raised by news of gross human rights, labor and land rights abuses bit into the sector.
Thinking about scale in land information systems
By: Devex Editor
Date: March 15th 2016
Source: Devex.com
This week in Washington, D.C., the World Bank is hosting its Annual Conference on Land and Poverty, a professional meeting that has swelled considerably in the past five years. Attendee numbers have expanded to a downright packed 1,200 people from governments, development agencies, academia, nongovernmental organizations and technology firms.
Mind the gap - Uganda, Ethiopia show good laws don't always work in practice
By: Paola Totaro
Date: March 15th 2016
Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation
WASHINGTON, March 15 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Uganda's constitution of 1995 is known worldwide for pioneering and gender-sensitive provisions to protect women and their rights.
However the reality on the ground, even two decades later, is an entirely different story, according to a report presented on Tuesday at a World Bank Conference on Land Rights and Poverty.
For Indigenous Peoples, Megadams Are ‘Worse than Colonization’
By: Philippa de Boissière and Sian Cowman
Date: March 14th 2016
Source: Foreign Policy in Focus
These mega-projects expropriate land, spoil environments, and pollute democracies. Berta Cáceres gave her life resisting them.