Riot police from mainland France have arrived on the French Caribbean islands as protests threaten to paralyse tourism and spread further afield. Strikes on Guadeloupe and Martinique have closed shops and schools and the reinforcements will help local police.

The Durban Review Conference, to be held in Geneva, Switzerland, 20-24 April 2009, will evaluate progress towards the goals set by the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance in Durban, South Africa, in 2001.

The return and reintegration of refugees and IDPs is one of the most pressing challenges faced by the international community today. Recently back from a visit to the Great Lakes region, UNHCR’s Assistant High Commissioner for Operations will discuss the local settlement of refugees in Tanzania and the return and reintegration of refugees in Burundi.

The Center for Global Development (CGD), an independent Washington-based think tank, invites applications from leading scholars in developing countries for a visiting fellows program sponsored by Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC). The program offers one-year sabbatical support for a senior researcher from a developing country on leave from his or her host institution.

Trade between China and Africa reached a record 106.84 billion U.S. dollars in 2008, up 45.1 percent from a year earlier, customs figures showed Wednesday. Exports to Africa reached 50.84 billion U.S. dollars, up 36.3 percent. Imports from Africa hit 56 billion U.S. dollars, up 54 percent.

The president of the Republic of Congo, Denis Sassou, inaugurated a Chinese-built project for national radio and television broadcast in the capital city Brazzaville on Thursday, according to reports reaching here. Chinese Ambassador in the central African country Li Shuli attended the inauguration of the cooperation project of 7.5 billion FCFA (15 million U.S. dollars).

Chinese companies set foot in Ethiopia with state-run construction firms such as China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC), clinching road projects in the country and offering sub-contracts to private Chinese contractors. Over the last several years, however, Chinese private companies have swarmed in almost every major investment area in the country, including manufacturing, real estate development, restaurant and hotel business and agro industries, among many others.

The visits by Chinese leaders to African, Latin American and some other nations would promote China's friendship and cooperation with these countries, while Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's latest European trip has boosted confidence in jointly tackling the global financial crisis. Chinese President Hu Jintao will visit Saudi Arabia, Mali, Senegal, Tanzania and Mauritius from Feb. 10 to Feb. 17. Vice President Xi Jinping left here Sunday morning for official visits to Mexico, Jamaica, Colombia, Venezuela, Brazil and Malta.

Botswana's troubled diamond industry could find solace in the Chinese market where prices and demand are expected to remain relatively stable, Chinese ambassador to Botswana Ding Xiaowen has said.

Somali pirates released a Chinese fishing vessel and its multinational crew Sunday from nearly three months of captivity, as Japan announced plans to dispatch two destroyers to the African coast to protect its commercial vessels from piracy, reports said.

China welcomes and appreciates South Africa's decision of termination on its countervailing investigations into China-made stainless steel sinks, said Yao Jian, spokesman of China's Ministry of Commerce. The International Trade Administration Commission of South Africa (ITAC) announced that decision on Jan. 30, 2009.

Chinese President Hu Jintao's upcoming visit to Tanzania will further enhance bilateral economic cooperation and help both countries tide over global financial crisis, said a senior Tanzanian investment official in a recent interview with Xinhua. Emmanuel Ole Naiko, executive director of Tanzania's Investment Center, said Tanzania and China will not only overcome the international financial crisis through cooperation of mutual benefit, but also deepen long-standing friendship between the two countries.

Chinese ambassador to Botswana Ding Xiaowen has assured the country that China’s stable market could be the saving grace for Botswana’s under pressure diamond industry. The representative of the world’s third largest economy, has urged the Botswanan government to turn to the Chinese diamond market.

President Hu Jintao is currently on a five nation to Saudi Arabia, Mali, Tanzania, Senegal and Mauritius The visit comes at a time when speculation is rife as to whether China’s Africa engagement, especially delivery of the FOCAC commitments will be threatened as a result of the global financial crisis., President Hu’s visit, - his fourth to the continent since becoming China’s leader - is therefore intended to demonstrate that Africa remains a strategic player in China’s overall foreign policy and to emphasise both to Africa and to China’s detractors that China’s interest in Africa is not

After some five years of research, Hans Fässler's book on Switzerland's links with slavery and the slave trade was published in 2005 under the title "Reise in Schwarz-Weiss. Schweizer Ortstermine in Sachen Sklaverei" (Rotpunkt-Verlag, Zurich). It has since been translated into French and been published in France under the title "Une Suisse esclavagiste. Voyage dans un pays au-dessus de tout soupçon" (Duboiris, Paris) with a preface by Doudou Diène, special rapporteur to the UN on contemporary forms of racism.

In September 2007, the International Humanitarian Law Project at the London School
of Economics and Political Science held a Symposium to discuss the content of the
Pact and its Protocols. The follow-up Conference on 29-30 May 2009 will focus on
the implementation and enforcement of the Protocols. Individuals who played an
integral role in drafting the Pact and Protocols as well as those responsible for its implementation have been invited to participate during the course of the first day.

This conference forms part of a collaborative project between the British Institute in Eastern Africa (BIEA) and the British Association of South Asian Studies (BASAS). Compared to the rapidly proliferating work on China in Africa, India, the other great ‘Asian Driver’, has been rather neglected in academic and policy circles. This event will bring together a series of papers on India’s changing relations with one region of sub-Saharan Africa.

On February 21 - 22, 2009, the All African People’s Development and Empowerment Project (AAPDEP) will hold it’s second annual International Conference in St. Petersburg, Florida. The Conference will open with a presentation by African Socialist International (ASI) Chairman Omali Yeshitela, who is credited with keeping alive the vision of Kwame Nkrumah and Marcus Garvey for a united prosperous Africa and forging a practical 21st century program for its achievement.

World Pulse Media is pleased to announce a Call for Applicants for Voices of Our Future, an exciting new international women's correspondent network. World Pulse will choose up to 30 applicants who are beginning to use new media to speak for themselves to the world, transform their communities, and change their own lives.

High on the agenda for developing countries at the Accra High Level Forum on aid effectiveness was a commitment to use developing country systems (alignment) and to regulate division of labour (harmonisation). Regarding alignment donor governments agreed to channel at least 50% of aid through developing country systems. As for ‘donor harmonisation’, no specifics were given except for a call for donors to ‘harmonise their assistance proactively’.