Land grabs in everything: couldn’t you have just have bought
your daughter a pony edition  By most accounts, the recent swath
of large scale land acquisitions are being driven by investors
wishing to capitalize on rising food prices or expectations of
greater demand for land. However, some just want to give their
daughter a nice birthday present:  Within months, Heaton was
journeying through the desolate southern stretches of Egypt and
into an unclaimed 800-square-mile patch of arid desert. There,
on June 16 — Emily’s seventh birthday — he planted a blue flag
with four stars and a crown on a rocky hill. The area, a sandy
expanse sitting along the Sudanese border, morphed from what
locals call Bir Tawil into what Heaton and his family call the
“Kingdom of North Sudan.” There, Heaton is the self-described
king and Emily is his princess.  Uh, what?  Heaton says his
claim over Bir Tawil is legitimate. He argues that planting the
flag — which his children designed — is exactly how several
other countries, includin