News on Land

The first class action lawsuit against a Thai firm for its actions in Cambodia is a test case for transboundary disputes

BANGKOK, July 31 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - A Bangkok court on Friday agreed to grant class action status to more than 700 Cambodian families suing a Thai sugar firm for evicting them from their homes, a lawsuit that human rights experts see as a test case for transboundary disputes.

Oddar Meanchey provincial authorities remain puzzled about the Thai Appeal Court’s recent ruling in favour of more than 700 families who claimed to have been locked in a land dispute with three Thai-owned sugar companies in Samrong town and Chongkal district.

Provincial deputy governor Vat Paranin told The Post on Sunday that the land dispute with the firms was resolved in 2010. He said because the case occurred in Cambodia, the complaint should have been filed in a regional court.

Tbong Khmum provincial police plan to release 20 of 21 protestors on Wednesday, after they were detained for occupying land owned by a Chinese company in Dambe district’s Trapaing Pring commune.

The release comes after two days of questioning.

One man will continue to be detained and sent to court based on a complaint by the company, Harmony Win Investment Co Ltd.

More than 100 policemen surrounded the disputed land on Monday, removing sheds and tents and evicting those living there.

Nearly 30 years after starting land reform, Namibia’s distribution of land ownership is still skewed. This is a colonial legacy. It is high time to return land to dispossessed communities. As a former colonial power guilty of terrible bloodshed, Germany should contribute to making that happen.

Main photo: People protest in front of the Dambe district hall in Tbong Khmum province on October 18, 2019. (Supplied)

Twenty villagers engaged in a dispute with a rubber plantation over more than 400 hectares of land in Tbong Khmum province were released from custody on Tuesday after they were arrested the day before for allegedly damaging the company’s land-clearing machinery, an official said.

Over 3.5 billion tree seedlings have so far been planted under this year’s Green Legacy campaign.

This was disclosed at a campaign where media leaders and professionals planted tree seedlings at Gulele Botanical Garden on Tuesday. 

Press Secretariat Head Nigusu Tilahun said on the occasion that the government and the people are pulling resources to fulfill very crucial national agendas.

Minister of Lands Kezzie Msukwa says there is a need to clean up the ministry and dismantle corruption syndicates involved in dubious sale of land.

Msukwa said this during a meeting with Vice President Saulos Chilima on the required reforms in the Ministry.

According to Chilima, Msukwa admitted that there are ministry officials who are involved in illegal sale of land.

We should recognise that people in informal settlements have the same right to share the city with the same dignity and equality as other residents. Without the active participation of informal settlement residents in upgrading projects, any upgrading plans proposed are destined to flop. Post the pandemic, we (Namibian planning practitioners, donors and private sector) should look towards the inclusion of people in informal settlements communities in planning and upgrading of the informal settlements. 

(July 31, 2020) – Today, Cambodian plaintiffs representing more than 700 farming families won a landmark appeal allowing them to move forward with their class action against Asia’s largest sugar producer, Mitr Phol. 
The transboundary class action Hoy Mai & Others vs. Mitr Phol Co. Ltd. is the first of its kind in Southeast Asia.  It was filed under Thai laws permitting a class action to be brought by foreign plaintiffs for abuses committed by a Thai company overseas.

Malawi Sun Hotel owners Mohammed Irshad Ahmed and Suhaik Irshad Ahmed are facing possible arrest following investigations into allegation of land grab in Blantyre City implicated together with former president Peter Mutharika’s personal bodyguard Norman Chisale.

Ahmed is accused of acquiring land through dubious means in Blantyre allocated to the developer by Ministry of Lands which was never for sale but through Chisale bulldozed to buy the land. Anti Corurption Bureau (ACB) has been investigating the matter and could possibly lead to Ahmed arrest for corruption offences.

Living in the Lesotho mountainlands comes with more than its fair share of rigors, and small-scale farmers like Mrs. Maitumeleng Mabaleka struggle to survive. Land degradation and climate change have upended traditional agricultural practices for her and many others like her who struggle to make a living or grow enough food to feed their children and build a better future.