On 28 March thousands will march through London as part of a global campaign to challenge the G20, ahead of its 2 April summit on the global financial crisis. Even before the banking collapse, the world suffered poverty, inequality and the threat of climate chaos. The world has followed a financial model that has created an economy fuelled by ever-increasing debt, both financial and environmental.

The DRC’s desire to choose its own mining trading partners, whether Chinese investors or Western corporations, calls the bluff of global financial institutions like the IMF and World Bank, writes Antoine Roger Lokongo. Negotiations the country has conducted reveal how these institutions are putting pressure on the DRC government to ditch the Socomin deal with China – a Beijing-based, joint-venture between the DRC’s Gécamines and a group of Chinese state-owned enterprises – as a condition to get its debt forgiven. That is clearly blackmail, Lokongo maintains, and is inconsistent with the spirit of free trade and globalisation.

The arrest warrant issued against the president of Sudan offers new hope to the people of Darfur because it will dissuade attacks, even though the immediate consequences are dire, a Darfur rebel leader said on Friday. The International Criminal Court issued the warrant on Wednesday for Omar Hassan al-Bashir to face charges of war crimes in Darfur, and Khartoum responded by expelling 13 foreign humanitarian organisations from Sudan.

The Sudanese government has ordered some aid agencies to leave the country after an arrest warrant was issued for the country's president, a UN official said. UN spokesperson, Michele Montas, who confirmed the development Thursday, said: " Sudan told up to 10 humanitarian groups to leave the country's Darfur region or cut back on services provided, as well as seized their assets''.

In a new report Yes we can? Options and barriers to broadening the scope of the Responsibility to Protect to include cases of economic, social and cultural rights abuse, the One World Trust explores the environment of human rights standards from which the R2P has in part emerged, and which are necessary to understand its potential of development.

China announced its latest double-digit rise in defence spending on Wednesday but sought to soothe concerns in Asia and the United States by insisting its expanding military posed no threat. The defence budget will grow 14.9 percent for 2009, a parliament official said, maintaining a string of double-figure annual increases, despite a punishing slowdown in the Chinese economy as worldwide demand for its exports sags.

Warning that China faces “unprecedented difficulties and challenges,” Prime Minister Wen Jiabao outlined a barrage of construction, increased subsidies and economic measures on Thursday aimed at continuing his nation’s modernization despite a world financial crisis.

The Chinese government has pledged a further 2.5 million US dollars to finance work to remove soil from the site where the new Mozambican national stadium is being built. The schedule remains unchanged, that is, that the stadium will be complete before the football World Cup to be held in South Africa, in 2010.

China plans to spend $9 billion on mining and infrastructure in the Democratic Republic of Congo and won’t bow to a demand from the International Monetary Fund to alter the accord, the Chinese ambassador to the country said. China’s biggest single investment in Africa will give Congo roads, railways, hospitals and schools in return for metals worth $50 billion at current prices.

Tullow Oil is the latest Africa-focused energy firm to draw Chinese takeover interest, but the $8 billion oil and gas independent, emboldened by its prospects, has snubbed potential buyers, dealmakers say. London-listed Tullow runs oil and gas projects in 23 countries across Africa, Europe, South Asia, and South America.

Kenya will sign an an MOU with the Chinese Government on anti-piracy measure which will entail a protocol on handing over of captured suspected pirates to the Kenya Government for prosecution purposes, Minister for Foreign Affairs Hon Moses Wetang'ula has said. The Minister also welcomed China's decision to send warships to patrol the Somali coast in an effort to combat piracy.

Even though the documents presented by the Indian firm to prove its acquisition of the Nigerian Steel Company was overlooked on Tuesday by the arbitrators that made up the London panel, the Nigerian government is furious at the Indian company over its possession of what is considered a classified document. According to Chief Michael Aondoakaa, the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, "The Federal Government’s dispute with Global Steel over Ajaokuta had to do with what the government felt that the contract was entered not in conformity with our laws here.

Not long ago, 20,000 textile and garment factories were bustling here, crowded with workers knitting and sewing for six, and sometimes seven, days a week to produce the wares sold at big American retailers like Gap and Wal-Mart. Now, demand is waning in the United States, and Shaoxing, a coastal city that is one of the world’s biggest textile centers, has fallen victim to the global downturn.

Don't look now, but capitalism - maligned in these bailout-ridden recessionary days - is reshaping Africa inexorably. What is different today is that it is emanating from China and India, rather than from the conventional bastions of capitalist prowess. Devi Shetty, a celebrated cardiac surgeon in Bangalore, brings health relief to India's masses through his Narayana group of hospitals. Some years ago, I witnessed his early experiments with rural telemedicine, especially in the Indian states of Karnataka and West Bengal.

"Trade between South Africa and India is projected to reach $12 billion by 2012 and South Africa is seeking cooperation with the Indian private sector to achieve this target", said South African Deputy Minister, Trade and Industry. While highlighting that the bilateral trade between both countries had risen exponentially from a negligible $ 45 million in 1993 to $ 6 billion mark in 2007-08, Elizabeth Thabethe, at an exclusive interaction and conference on South Africa: Trade and Investment Opportunities, organized by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in association with the Department of Trade and Industry, South Africa, Friday in Mumbai, remarked that various initiatives including establishment of the India-South Africa Joint Ministerial Commission had already been implemented.

India has launched a hi-tech project it says will provide medical education and better health care in Africa. Launched by Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee in Delhi, the project will at first connect 11 African countries with India. The services will include virtual classes for medical staff and online medical consultations.

The 105th Canton Fair, to be held between April and May 2009, has been formally introduced to South Africans in Johannesburg on Thursday by Zhang Zhigang, deputy director of the Committee for Economic Affairs of National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC). Zhang, also vice president of China Import and Export Fair and chairman of the Council of China Foreign Trade Center, told the meeting that China Import and Export Fair, also renowned as the Canton Fair, is held biannually in Guangzhou every spring and autumn.

The emergence of China as a force to be reckoned with on the African mining scene has altered the way contractors in the industry operate, with greater flexibility now required. Roger Dixon, a director and corporate consultant of SRK Consulting, says this was one of the observations that emerged at the Mining Indaba, which was held in Cape Town earlier this month.

Taiwan's trade promotion body has recently set up an office in Burkina Faso, the first in West Africa, in an effort to facilitate business exchanges with the African country as well as the nearby region, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) official has said.

In Guadeloupe and Martinique Africans have been protesting the colonial conditions imposed on them by the French government. These protests turned into rebellions in response to the French military occupation and deployment of troops to contain the people's struggle. The resistance involving more then 2.5 million people, which has been going on for over a month, has not stopped.