The resource grab continues. . .

While pledges abound at the APEC Summit for non protectionist measures, and the pious affirmation of free trade, we are left with the classic example of: "Don't listen to what a politician says, watch what he does.

South Korea's Daewoo Logistics has just leased 50% of the arable land on the island of Madagascar in the name of "food security." To wit:

"South Korea's Daewoo Logistics this week announced it had negotiated a 99-year lease on some 3.2 million acres of farmland on the dirt-poor tropical island of Madagascar, off southern Africa's Indian Ocean coast. That's nearly half of Madagascar's arable land, according to the U.N.'s Food and Agricultural Organization, and Daewoo plans to put about three quarters of it under corn. The remainder will be used to produce palm oil - a key commodity for the global biofuels market."

Alarm bells have already gone off at the FAO regarding this development, however, little if anything will happen amid the international hand wringing. Simply because this is straight up corporate/nationalist land grab to secure resources for the home country. The United States pioneered this type of arrangement in the 1920's in Honduras when the United Fruit company turned Honduras into a literal banana republic so America could have its Chiquita bananas.

So what will the new Obama administration do? Well, with no foreign policy team in place, nothing. It will prove interesting to see how much change will really come into U.S. foreign policy.

Mr. Obama are you listening?

Again. . .stay tuned.