China’s contribution to the International Monetary Fund will exceed Japan’s when new quotas are implemented, making it second only to the U.S., under a new formula agreed by the IMF last year, a People’s Bank of China official said. The central bank official, who declined to be identified, told Caijing that the IMF passed a resolution in 2008 to adopt the new formula this year. But the implementation was postponed after G20 finance ministers agreed in London last month conduct the next IMF quota review in 2011, bringing it forward from the original schedule of 2013.

Thank you for the attention you have brought to the country of Haiti. In response to your New York Times op ed piece I wanted to widen your perspective a bit. I don't pretend to represent anyone. I've been living in Haiti since 1985. I grew up in New England with my Haitian mother and my American father during the 1960's and 1970's. Though my parents were both teachers, I'm nothing more than a musician/innkeeper. When I arrived in Haiti, the Creole pig, an indigenous Haitian pig which was the backbone of Haitian peasant life, had recently been wiped out because of a supposed threat of swine flu.

is one of the most coherent and cogent analysis of the current global crisis, its impact on Africa and most important of all, the necessary African response. It is no exaggeration to say that all of us and particularly those of us who aspire to a leadership role in Africa must study this document very, very closely indeed!!! This is no less than a key component of the new econo-political architecture of a 'Liberated, Unified and Transformed Africa!!!

China’s continuing African trade investment and aid could act as a buffer for African economies, a recent report suggests. And if China can steer its way through the crisis it could become a ‘development partner of choice’, increasing its ‘soft power’ influence in the developing world and acting as a steadying factor in trade and investment compared to the West, writes Stephen Marks.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy, on a three-nation tour of Western Africa, pledged to break from his predecessors’ “neo-colonial” policies and forge business ties in the region. “We are still being reproached for neo-colonial interference,” Sarkozy said in Brazzaville, the capital of Republic of Congo, where he stopped after visiting the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo. “I’ve already started bringing things back toward greater transparency and common interests.”

cc The Group of 20 (G20) is making a big show of getting together to come to grips with the global economic crisis, writes Walden Bello. But here's the problem with the upcoming summit in London on April 2: It's all show. What the show masks, says Bello, is a very deep worry and fear among the global elite that it really doesn't know the direction in which the world economy is heading and the measures needed to stabilise it.

cc Barack Obama's claim that people of colour are ‘90 per cent of the way to equality’ with whites in the US is false, says activist Juan Santos in an interview with Il Manifesto’s Andrea Luchetta. Citing figures on unemployment, poverty and imprisonment, Santos suggests that the US operates under a caste system in which race plays a key part in determining social class. Obama's silence on the question of race in the run-up to the elections was tactical, says Santos – to dare to talk openly about race and oppression would alienate the millions of white centre-right voters whose support he needed to win the election. Racism, says Santos, rewards the powerful: 'They have no reason to stop racism unless its continuance results in a level of resistance that endangers the system of profit itself'.

Governments made their pledges over the Millennium Development Goals agreed in 2000, but it is civil society that could, more than anyone else, hold them to that promise. Salil Shetty, a civil society man coming as the head of ActionAid to head the UN millennium campaign, believes civil society has moved in from the margins; it is now at the heart of the world campaign for delivering these, and other rights.

Nigeria and China have signed a contract for a new communications satellite that will replace one sidelined by a power failure, a newspaper reported Wednesday. According to the contract signed in Beijing on Tuesday, the replacement satellite has been named NIGCOMSAT-1R and is due to be launched by 2011 with no cost to Nigeria, the Lagos-based Guardian reported. The new space vehicle will replace NIGCOMSAT-1, which was launched on May 14, 2007, but was displaced on Nov. 10, 2008, because of a solar power failure that occurred on one edge of the satellite.

On April 10th, family members of the Cuban Five imprisoned in the United States have an appointment in the U.S. Interests Section in Havana , Cuba , to request their visas. This will be the tenth time that Adriana Perez, wife of Gerardo Hernandez, will request a visa to see her husband in a prison in the U.S. where he is serving an unjust sentence. During a decade, the United States government has denied this couple the possibility of seeing each other.

The number of chronically hungry people has surpassed the 1bn mark for the first time as the economic crisis compounds the impact of high food prices, the United Nations’ top agriculture official has warned.In an interview with the Financial Times, Jacques Diouf, director-general of the Food and Agriculture Organisation, warned that the increasing numbers of undernourished people could trigger political instability in developing countries.

The SACP fully appreciates and accepts the decision by the South African government not to grant a visa for the Dali Lama visit at this time. We stand by our government on this matter. It is a well known fact that the month of March is a particularly sensitive period as it is associated with the Dalai Lama's putsch for cession of Tibet from China.

China will import 1.8 million barrels of African crude in April for the government's strategic reserve, said a trade source familiar with the transaction, as it capitalises on low prices to add to already swollen state stockpiles. The purchase, news of which comes after an industry official said in early March that China's emergency tanks are already filled to the brim, may suggest that stock levels have begun to ease after two months of low crude imports.

At the time when financial storm hit the entire world economy, China came to emerge in the global spotlight viewed as the Salvager to rescue the deepening downward spiral from meltdown, as it boasts bulky foreign exchange reserves and the steadily growing economy, decelerating right now, though.

China’s central bank on Monday proposed replacing the US dollar as the international reserve currency with a new global system controlled by the International Monetary Fund. In an essay posted on the People’s Bank of China’s website, Zhou Xiaochuan, the central bank’s governor, said the goal would be to create a reserve currency “that is disconnected from individual nations and is able to remain stable in the long run, thus removing the inherent deficiencies caused by using credit-based national currencies”.

The west's leading economic thinktank expects "very negative" growth this year, its head has warned. However, Angel Gurría, secretary-general of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, said in Beijing that China's gross domestic product would expand by 6-7% – below last November's forecast of 8%. The World Bank cut its growth forecast for China to 6.5% this week.

A delegation of the China Council for Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT) arrived in Abidjan, the capital of Cote d'Ivoire, on Saturday for a three-day visit to follow up a blueprint set in 2006 between China and West African countries. The Chinese delegation headed by CCPIT Vice-Chairman Zhang Wei has been on a mission since March 14 to boost cooperation with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), according to a communiqué released by the regional bloc.

President Isaias Afwerki has received and held talks at the Denden Hall with a delegation from the People's Republic of China (PRC) headed by Mr. Lu Quingcheng, Vice President of the China-Africa Development Fund. Briefing the delegation on the available wide-ranging investment opportunities in Eritrea in various sectors, the President pointed out that the Government has been giving top priority to the task of laying conducive ground for investment, and that encouraging accomplishments have been registered as regards putting in place the necessary infrastructure.

Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister Zhai Jun arrived in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo) for a two-day visit during which he unveiled humanitarian aid to refugees in the central African country. Zhai and his Congolese counterpart Ignace Gata Mavita held talks before signing economic and trade agreements between the two countries, including 4 million RMB (about 600,000 U.S. dollars) in humanitarian aid to the refugees in the eastern part of the country.

More opportunities for Chinese investment into Africa are to open up soon, with the announcement that China is to bolster its China-Africa Development Fund by an additional US$2-billion. The state-run equity fund has already invested in 20 projects, totalling a massive $400-million, in Africa since it was established in June 2007.