Latest edition: emerging powers news roundup

1. General

Zambia Lures Vale, Vedanta in $6 Billion Copper-Mine Expansion
Zambia, Africa’s largest copper- mining nation, is set to enter the world’s top five producers as Vale SA, First Quantum Minerals Ltd. and Vedanta Resources Plc lead more than $6 billion of investment in the country’s mines. “If all the planned projects take off, Zambia is expected to overtake Australia and Indonesia to become the fifth-largest copper-producing country in the world by 2013,” Sophie Chung, an analyst at Wood Mackenzie unit Brook Hunt, said yesterday in an e-mail. The country’s “positive” investment climate sets it apart from its neighbors, Brook Hunt said in a separate note.
Read More

2. China in Africa

China pledges Africa support in renewables
Beijing is ready to share its green energy successes with Africa, as the world's least developed continent strives to tap into its renewable energy resources, a visiting Chinese minister said in Nairobi on Monday. Speaking at the UN Environment Programme (Unep) headquarters in Nairobi, Environment Minister Zhou Shengxian said the Chinese government was committed to the growth of green energy.
Read More

China trains petroleum workers in S Sudan
China has started a welder training course to help South Sudanese master knowledge and techniques relevant to the petroleum industry in which the newly-born nation has a large potential. A total of 30 trainees selected from about 800 applicants are under the vocational training, the first of its kind in South Sudan, and are expected to be backbone workers in the petroleum industry in the future. The project is conducted by the China Engineering and Construction Corporation (CPECC), an affiliate of the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), in conjunction with South Sudan's Ministry of Energy and Mining.
Read More

Nigeria, China sign Kainji hydro plant modernization contract
The Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) has signed a contract with Sinohydro Corporation and Harbin Electricity Corporation of China for the rehabilitation of Kainji hydropower station in Nigeria. The contract, valued at $82 million, is scheduled to be completed within 42 months, when the refurbished hydro plant will generate 340 MW, media outlets reported.
Read More

Chinese ambassador to Mozambique formally hands over agricultural research centre
China’s Centre for Agricultural Research and Technology Transfer in Mozambique, located in the district of Boane, Maputo province was formally handed over by China’s ambassador to Mozambique to the country’s government, Mozambican daily newspaper Notícias reported. The project cost over US$6 million funded by the Chinese government as part of cooperation between the two countries in the science and technology sector.
Read More

China to hold education exhibition in Kenya
China will open a two-day education exhibition on Friday in the Kenyan capital Nairobi to promote local understanding about the Asian country's higher education and attract more Kenyan students to study in China. The exhibition has attracted 122 representatives from 55 famous Chinese colleges and universities, who will make introductions, distribute brochures and answer questions about education in China.
Read More

3. India in Africa

Museveni urges Indians to invest in export sector
PRESIDENT Yoweri Museveni has urged the Indian business community in Uganda to invest more in the country, especially in the export sector. He told them that the Government has negotiated regional and international markets and is now levelling the investment field in the country. ‘The Government has negotiated markets of 130 million people in East Africa. South Sudan wants to join; there is COMESA, AGOA, the European Union, Japan and China. So, you will be producing for all these markets,’ he said.
Read More

India looking to boost ties with East Africa
India is looking at increasing engagement with different economic groupings in Africa, particularly East Africa, with the emergence of South Sudan over the weekend as an independent nation and indicating a desire to integrate with the East African region. This is also a part of India’s overall strategy to deepen engagement with the mineral- and resource-rich continent. India recognized South Sudan as an independent nation on Saturday, with India’s ambassador to Khartoum A.K. Pandey handing over a letter to newly inaugurated South Sudan President Salva Kiir from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Sanjay Singh , secretary, east, in the ministry of external affairs, told reporters over the weekend.
Read More

WHO lauds India's effort to combat HIV in Africa, S America
International health organisations today lauded India for providing effective and affordable medicines to combat Meningitis and HIV/AIDS in Africa and South America. Appreciating India's role, the Director General of World Health Organisation, (WHO), Dr Margaret Chan made a particular mention of the supply of medicines at an affordable cost by Indian pharmaceutical companies to help dealing with the outbreak of Meningitis in Africa at the first BRICS Health Ministers conference here.
Read More

4. In Other Emerging Powers News

The quiet rise of Turkey’s influence in Africa
WHILE all eyes in Africa have been firmly focused on such fellow Bric countries as China, Brazil and India, Turkey has emerged, almost unnoticed, as a major investor on the continent. A report released by the African Development Bank last week shows that Turkey is now counted among the top five emerging market economies with a sizable interest on the continent. China still commanded the biggest share of the African market, accounting for 38% of the continent’s total trade with emerging countries. This was followed by India at 14,1%, South Korea at 7,2%, Brazil at 7,1% and Turkey at 6,5%.
Read More

SA’s own aid agency ‘a threat to foreign funding’
SA RISKS losing millions of rand in development aid from its traditional trading partners when the South African Development Partnership Agency (Sadpa) is established later this year, says an expert . International Relations Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane said in her budget speech in May that a bill was being drafted to create the agency before the end of the department’s financial year, in March next year.
Read More

India, China to oppose barriers to affordable drugs
India, China and other members of the BRICS group of countries have agreed to stand together to oppose any moves by developed nations to tighten Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) rules that could threaten access to affordable drugs in developing countries, officials said on Tuesday following two days of talks. China had also agreed to look into India's requests to expedite the registration process for Indian pharmaceutical companies seeking to enter the China market, officials said, with growing momentum among the BRICS countries to expand trade in pharmaceuticals and reduce reliance on more expensive Western drugs.
Read More

Russia to open embassy in South Sudan
Russia will open its embassy in South Sudan, the world's youngest state. "Russia is planning to open its embassy here," the Russian President's Special Representative for Cooperation with Africa Mikhail Margelov said on Russia Today television on Monday. "But first, it is necessary to complete the entire bureaucratic procedure, which is up to the Russian Foreign Ministry to do under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations," he said. Moscow is concerned about developing relations with South Sudan, Margelov said.
Read More

South Korea’s Exim Bank Eyes Ethiopian Investments
The Exim Bank of South Korea has concluded an agreement with the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development (MoFED) in order to support Ethiopian agriculture, infrastructure and manufacturing investment sector. Sufian Ahmed, minister of MoFED, signed the agreement with Kim Sung Hwan, South Korea’s minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
Read More

5. Blogs, Opinions, Presentations and Publications

GERRIT OLIVIER and MAXI SCHOEMAN: Foreign policy
In his inimical way, Joseph Stalin berated an upstart comrade for allowing his "brains to go to his head". Needless to say, the poor guy ended up in the Lubyanka. Having become the "s" in the Brics (Brazil, Russia, India, China, SA) configuration, SA seems to be courting a similar infliction. While the new status is both flattering and overwhelming, the question is how to use it to advance SA’s interests.
Read More

India's foreign policy has not grown out of its static position
The one big actor which is missing in action in the Libyan drama is India, which has yet again proved that the word 'proactive' does not exist in its diplomatic dictionary. According to inside sources privy to the Indian government, Nato has sounded out New Delhi to offer a ceasefire based on existing lines of control between the pro-Gaddafi and anti-Gaddafi forces, which could be converted in the long run into a partition of the country into east and west. India did not latch on to this opening and has instead burrowed its head, ostrich-like, without any sign of inventiveness or initiative.
Read More