In a new wave of outsourcing, Indian firms are acquiring swathes of farmland in poor African countries to produce food meant to be exported to India. But food policy experts are lambasting the strategy as “ neo- colonialist”. They say such deals exploit the natural resources of poor countries who are themselves facing acute food shortages.

Sanusha Naidu does a roundup of the week's Sino-African news

China's veto of proposed sanctions against Zimbabwe by the United States and Britain last year has been vindicated by the formation of the inclusive government, outgoing Chinese Ambassador Yuan Nansheng has said. Addressing a press conference on the eve of his departure to a new posting in Suriname, Yuan said it was likely that Zimbabwe could not have proceeded to form an inclusive government without the vetoes by China and Russia.

The purpose of the Fellowship program is to offer a possibility for human rights defenders at risk to take some time out from their normal work to undertake a project which will further develop their capacities and contribute to the protection of human rights defenders internationally. Front Line Fellowships will now be offered on a more flexible basis for periods of one to six months.

cc In a wide-ranging summary of China's activity on the African continent, Anthony Yaw Baah and Herbert Jauch of the African Labour Research Network (ALRN) argue that African governments must develop a more strategic approach if their countries are to truly benefit from the Asian giant. Now Africa's third largest trade partner after the US and France, China's no-strings-attached approach to aid and investment has made the country popular with many African leaders. While China's demand for raw materials has pushed up the global prices of several commodities extracted in Africa, limited processing takes place on the continent. If African countries are to avoid the role of mere material suppliers, they must look to shape relations with China more to their own advantage, Yaw Baah and Jauch contend. With serious doubts over working conditions within much of Chinese-run industry, the need for workers' collective bargaining and direct action is becoming ever greater. If governments are not to subordinate social and labour issues to economic growth for fear of losing foreign investment, Yaw Baah and Jauch conclude, they will need to develop their own agenda and positions of negotiation.

China’s economy has continued to feel the brunt of the global crisis. Global economic activity continued to decline in the first part of 2009, even as tentative signs of stabilization have emerged recently in several countries. However, very expansionary fiscal and monetary policies have kept the economy growing respectably. Fiscal stimulus is centered on the infrastructure-oriented “RMB 4 trillion” stimulus plan and the monetary stimulus has led to a surge in new bank lending. Government-influenced investment has soared.

During the 1960s and 1970s, Chinese relations with African countries were driven by ideological considerations, with China presenting itself as an alternative to both the West and the Soviet Union. During that time, China’s support consisted mainly of moral and material support for liberation struggles. During the 1980s, the relationship shifted towards economic co-operation based on common aims. After the end of the “Cold war”, China attached importance to both political and economic benefits and portrayed itself as an attractive economic partner and political friend.

Sanusha Naidu does a roundup of the week's Sino-African news

This is a practical, do-it-yourself guide for leaders and facilitators wanting to help organisations to function and to develop in more healthy, human and effective ways as they strive to make their contributions to a more humane society. It has been developed by the Barefoot Collective.

Submit your essay on democracy, and get your free ticket to the world’s largest gathering of democracy and human rights activists in Jakarta, Indonesia, in 2010! The World Youth Movement for Democracy (www.wymd.org), a youth network of the World Movement for Democracy (www.wmd.org), is pleased to announce the launch of its Global Essay Contest. Fifteen winners (3 in each region: Asia, Central/Eastern Europe & Eurasia, Middle East & North Africa, Latin America & Caribbean, and Sub-Saharan Africa) will be invited to participate in the upcoming 6th Assembly of the World Movement for Democracy in Jakarta, Indonesia, in April 2010.

To celebrate World Humanism Day on June 21st Hivos and the Dutch public broadcaster VPRO made a selection of the best Metropolis TV movies on the theme ‘independent people’. The central idea of the movies is: 'people are in control over their own lives'. We have chosen beautiful movies from China (Jiang and his globe), Zambia (walking hunger striker), Burkina Faso (photographer of mad people), Kenya (anti-circumcision village) and Turkey (young ambitious politician).

It may be no surprise, in light of the global economic recession, that the world's richest nations have failed to deliver much of the aid they promised Africa four years ago. But campaigners are not letting the Group of Eight (G-8) industrialized countries off the hook. According to ONE, an advocacy group founded by U2 singer Bono, most of the blame for the shortfall in pledges made at the high-profile Gleneagles summit in 2005 rests on just two countries — Italy and France.

We are civil society organizations from throughout the world that have contributed to the Human Rights Council and its work since its establishment. We have observed with increasing concern developments in the Council, including at the current 11th Session, that are undermining the work of the Council’s Special Procedures. This session has seen extraordinary personal attacks by some States on the integrity of mandate holders and specific threats to their independence.

While China is yet to establish itself as a great power, it is certainly one in the making, writes Saliem Fakir. On the strength of global demand for its cheap goods, the Asian giant's rise has enabled it to accumulate considerable surpluses from Western capital flows. Just as this rise has somewhat dispelled the idea of no-development-without-democracy, China's willingness to regard its trading partners' policies as internal matters marks a clear contrast with the conditionalities stipulated by Western countries and institutions. Though unlikely to entirely displace the influence of the West in the immediate future, China's own prioritising of economic reform over political liberalisation is proving increasingly influential in a changing world order, Fakir observes.

In light of the rapid growth of China’s investment in Africa and bi-lateral trade worth US$100 billion in just two years, Sanusha Naidu, debates whether the country is promoting development across the continent, or is driven largely by mercantilist imperatives. The questions to ask, says Naidu, are which Africans are benefiting from Chinese money, and whether China will continue its large-scale investments in Africa as the financial crisis bites. Naidu cautions that Beijing may ‘become more strategic and perhaps more prudent around which of its investment projects it wants to initiate based on overall benefits and viability’, making it unwise to bank on China’s massive foreign reserves. If Chinese investment is to promote development, Naidu argues, it must take ‘a bottom-up approach that recognises the daily social justice struggles of ordinary Africans for socio-economic survival rather than intensifying them’.

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Mr. Olivier De Schutter, has proposed a minimum a set of principles and measures based on human rights in the elaboration of large-scale transnational land acquisitions and leases, more commonly referred to as "land grabbing". His call comes at a time when Governments are preparing to negotiate on responsible investment in agriculture at the forthcoming G8 Summit.

The financial crisis could force more girls into work as financially squeezed families withdraw their daughters from school to seek jobs, warns the International Labour Organization in a report released on 12 June, World Day Against Child Labour. “The root cause of child labour is poverty”, report author, Patrick Quinn told IRIN. "There is a strong likelihood that girls will be sent into work as families cannot afford school fees and need their children to help support them.”

In the course of his May 28 speech to the Leading Group on Innovative Financing for Development, to be chaired by France over the next year, Kouchner went so far as to pledge support for experimentation with a financial transactions tax, a proposal that was quickly dismissed by French Foreign Minister Christine Lagarde. But it is still true that the momentum for new forms of funding, for health, education, and climate change, continues to build, a recognition that financing for such global public goods should not depend on the political fortunes of official aid budgets.

Sudan has authorised four aid agencies expelled from the country in March to return to troubled Darfur, says the UN's humanitarian chief John Holmes. The four groups - named as Care International, Save the Children, Mercy Corps, and Padco - were among 13 organisations expelled in March.

East African states are seeking modest economic stimulus packages, aimed at steering their countries through the global economic turbulence, and outlining plans to increase agricultural production and increase regional trade. In the fiscal plans unveiled Thursday in Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Tanzania, the respective finance ministers unveiled plans aimed at steering their economies through the financial crisis and avoiding adverse tax measures likely to create social backlashes.