Open source document manager, KnowledgeTree, has released a new community edition of its application with a new text extraction engine and stability improvements. This latest release of the application, version 3.6 Community Edition, also includes a new core API and RESTful interface to improve application integration

4strugglemag is an independent non-sectarian revolutionary voice. We are unapologetically anti-imperialist and solidly in support of progressive National Liberation, especially the struggles of New African/Black, Mexicano/Chicano, Puerto Rican and Native American Nations presently controlled by U.S. imperialism. Reflecting the work and principles of political prisoners held by the United States, 4strugglemag advocates for Justice, Equality, Freedom, Socialism, Protection of our Mother Earth, Human Rights and Peace.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the dapper former French finance minister who runs the International Monetary Fund, is finding it hard to conceal a certain swagger in Washington this weekend. If there is one big winner from the wrenching financial crisis of the past year, and the scramble by shell-shocked governments to tackle the turmoil, it is the IMF.

The battle between the Ministry of Finance and Reserve Bank over the allocation of cars to MPs has left ministers open to charges of hypocrisy by the legislators as they have more than two vehicles each while trying to block their colleagues in parliament from taking any from the central bank.

The global economy, which is experiencing the most severe recession since World War II, is projected to shrink by 1.3 percent in 2009, with a slow recovery expected in 2010, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) reports in its April World Economic Outlook (WEO) released on Wednesday. Although the rate of contraction should ease from the second quarter of this year, output per capita is still projected to decline in countries representing 75 percent of the world economy. It is expected that growth will re-emerge in 2010 at a pace of 1.9 percent, which is sluggish in comparison to past recoveries.

The nature of China's investment in Africa is changing, as the global economic crisis opens up new opportunities, writes Stephen Marks. Broad packages bundle infrastructure investment with aid and commodity purchase help Chinese firms enter African markets and gain a foothold. A US$5 billion China-Africa Development Fund will focus on infrastructure and mining, and target industrial parks and commercial agriculture. The Chinese government has said however that it has ruled out outsourcing of food production by investing in overseas farmland.

China’s long-awaited medical reform plan arrived as spring flowers bloomed around Beijing. It consists of two documents: an “opinion on deepening health care reform” from the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the State Council; and “key points for implementing medical and health reform (2009-’11).”

Petrochemical group Sasol and India's Tata are considering investing in a multibillion-dollar coal-to-liquid (CTL) plant in India that could produce up to 80 000 barrels of liquid fuel a day. The companies are launching a prefeasibility study on the viability of the project, which a securities company analyst said last week could cost $5bn-$7bn, about the same as the estimated value of the proposed CTL plant in China, which would also produce 80 000 barrels a day.

A group of Chinese tourists have announced a travelling expedition from Ghana across the Sahara desert to help them learn more about Africa and also promote Ghana and the continent as a good tourist destination for other Chinese. The tourists will also serve as goodwill ambassadors for China by creating awareness among Chinese people about tourism opportunities and investment potentials on the continent.

China has unveiled an investment guide book to help domestic firms make foreign investments. The first batch of the guide book released Friday by the Ministry of Commerce covers 20 countries, such as Pakistan, Thailand, Malaysia and Japan. The guide book includes investment laws and regulations of the 20 countries and statistics about individual countries among other useful information such as advice on problems that firms may encounter.

Dozens of Chinese students who saw little prospect of getting into a top medical school have secured admission by becoming nationals of the tiny west African country of Guinea-Bissau, a newspaper said on Thursday. Among the 112 international students that entered Peking University Health Science Center in 2007 and 2008 were 48 from Guinea-Bissau -- all ethnic Chinese from Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, the Shanghai Morning Post said.

The Ministry of Commerce released its first guidelines for overseas investment by Chinese companies on Friday. The document, encompassing some twenty countries approved by the central government to receive Chinese investment, are part of the ministry’s strategy to assist Chinese companies abroad and come on the heels of last month’s relaxing of government requirements to invest abroad.

The ANC’s T-shirt suppliers are all South African, the ruling party protested yesterday after reports that its election campaign T-shirts, totalling millions of rands, are from China. “We needed two million T-shirts, that was the order. We used the services of a group of people who buy and print them. The suppliers bought the T-shirts, not the ANC,” said ANC spokesperson Jessie Duarte. “All our suppliers are South African. I don’t know anything about the Chinese.”

On April 6, “Win Far 161,” which is a deep sea fishing vessel home-ported in Kaohsiung, was hijacked by Somali pirates at gunpoint near an island in the Seychelles in the Indian Ocean. Maj. Gen. Lee Yueh-chang, who is deputy assistant chief of staff for operations at the Ministry of National Defense, responded by saying that the ROC’s navy was “carefully considering” whether to escort and protect the island’s fishing vessels in the Indian Ocean.

The Democratic Republic of Congo was born into crisis and, for its nearly 50 years of existence, it has more or less stayed there. From a civil war that nearly destroyed the newborn nation in the wake of independence, it descended into decades of parasitic rule at the hands of a strongman, Mobutu Sese Seko. As he raided the coffers of state mining companies, the desperate and starving masses occasionally looted what was left of the country’s rotting infrastructure. In 1994 inflation hit nearly 10,000%: small by today’s standard in Zimbabwe, but enough to help end Mr Mobutu’s rule three years later.

The title of this article is borrowed from what President Isaias Afwerki said in an interview with China Business Weekly Magazine in 2007, talking about Chinese and Eritrean relations and with particular reference to what Chinese investors see when they look at Eritrea. Indeed, Sino-Eritrean relationship goes far beyond what appears on the surface. Eritrea and China's friendly relationship dates back to 1993. China was in fact the first country to establish diplomatic relations with sovereign Eritrea in May 1993, and it has been contributing a great deal to various aspects of the Eritrean endeavors for economic rehabilitation and national reconstruction.

At the G20 meetings in London, finance ministers agreed on an unprecedented package of financial support for emerging countries: US$250 billion in new direct G20 financing commitments to the IMF, with a commitment to come up with another US$250 billion; around US$100 billion in new Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) for emerging market (EM) countries as a part of a US$250 billion global allocation (at the risk of oversimplifying, the IMF is essentially “printing money” and handing it out in proportion to member quotas.

The biggest winner at the G-20 summit in London on April 2 was the International Monetary Fund, which received pledges for US$ 1.1 trillion, including US$ 500 billion from member countries and US$ 250 billion through the IMF’s special drawing rights (SDR) currency. But rounding up the cash and overcoming political obstacles within IMF-member countries will be difficult. Despite the summit’s grand promises, some funding details are fuzzy.

At least 20 million rural migrants have lost their jobs and returned to their home villages over the last year. Many have subsequently returned to the cities to look for new employment, but for many of those who remain behind, readjusting to life in the countryside can be a real challenge.

The establishment of not-for-profit, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in China is becoming increasingly popular as the necessity of providing private alternatives to social, economic, political, and cultural issues becomes apparent. Indeed, if China is to continue to flourish and expand, NGOs will play a critical role in making sure that it is done in a socially healthy and constructive manner that will be beneficial to all.