'Global Witness exposes violence, threats and false GVL promises', 23 Jul 2015:…[A] new Global Witness exposé…details how state officials are…helping…palm oil company Golden Veroleum (GVL) harass communities into signing away their land and crush dissent. The report…documents the huge foreign investment, state-sanctioned violence, and regulatory black holes that are making this possible. Global Witness reveals how GVL accelerated its operations at the peak of Liberia’s 2014 Ebola outbreak. The company held meetings with hundreds of people and encouraged illiterate citizens to sign away their land rights when community support groups were staying home for risk of contagion. At this time GVL almost doubled the size of its plantation. This behaviour hasn’t discouraged the world’s major banks…[including] Standard Chartered, HSBC, and Citibank [from investing] in GVL parent company – Golden Agri-Resources (GAR)…Global Witness is calling on Liberia’s government to investigate acts of violence, pass a law recognising that rural communities own their land, and regulate the country’s agriculture sector…