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.

China’s increasing African involvement often appears to generate more journalism than scholarship, and its coverage all too often tells us more about Western fears and myths than about Chinese intentions and African needs and priorities. African voices, and informed international scholarship are both heard too little. An initial step to remedying the first defect was Fahamu’s 2007 publication African perspectives on China in Africa edited by Firoze Manji and the present reviewer. Chris Alden, Daniel Large and Ricardo Soares de Oliveira's volume goes a long way to remedying the second - though the three editors and many of their contributors are both already known for their substantial individual contributions.

Chinese President Hu Jintao and Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki exchanged congratulatory messages on Sunday to mark the 45th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations. Hu said in his message that the friendly and cooperative connections between the two sides have experienced sound, steady development in the past 45 years since the establishment of diplomatic ties, despite changes in the international political arena and the respective situation in the two countries.

Reviewing the efforts of the acclaimed US playwright Eve Ensler and the former UN special envoy for AIDS in Africa Stephen Lewis to sustain international attention on the DRC crisis, Stephen Leahy highlights the centrality of women and girls’ rights in the ongoing conflict in the east of the country.

China Nonferrous Metal Mining Group Co (CNMC) said it is raising 1 billion yuan ($145 million) through bonds to finance its Chambishi copper project in Zambia and Tagaung Taung nickel project in Burma.

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.

The Chinese government will fund major infrastructural projects to promote investment, that would see Kenya elevated into a middle level economy, Prime Minister Raila Odinga has said. Speaking during a Commemorative Scholarship Awarding ceremony in Kibera, Mr Odinga said the China African Development Bank (CADB), which runs a multi-trillion shilling investment base, has expressed interest in the construction of the Lamu-Juba standard rail-line project, whose completion would link countries in the horn of Africa to the sea port.

KBR Inc., the U.S. engineering firm that split from Halliburton Co. last year, and Sonangol, Angola’s state oil company, signed an agreement to build a refinery in the port of Lobito, KBR said. The Houston-based company got involved in the project after Sonangol in March last year said it ended talks with China Petroleum & Chemical Corp. over the $3.7 billion, 200,000- barrel-a-day refinery project, known as Sonaref.

China has promised to train 15,000 African personnel in the next three years to strengthen the cooperation in human resources development between China and Africa.

China Inc is unlikely to assist Rio Tinto with a major cash injection any time soon, despite what Chinese officials say is a top-level Government directive for state-owned companies to go out and buy international resources assets at current discount prices. Rio Tinto has announced it will slash 14,000 jobs, cut $US5 billion ($7.6 billion) in capital spending next year and accelerate asset sales to repay $US10 billion of debt by the end of 2009 as the global financial crisis curbs demand for metals.

After the break in the 1990s, Russia is making a comeback to the African continent. Effective penetration into Africa requires an integrated approach. We need to make our political contacts in Africa more active. Russia has economic interests on all continents where it is encountering active competition from the United States, European Union nations, or China. Of late, the economic and political interests of these players have intersected in Africa.

On December 9, 2008, Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Liu Jianchao held a regular press conference and answered questions on China-France relations, the Six-Party Talks, the situation in Zimbabwe, etc.

Stephen Marks looks at the rising influence of China in the global economy in the wake of the financial crisis. China’s top economic decision-makers, gathering for a key meeting in Beijing, were reported to be planning a new tax boost to the economy, as support was pledged to recession-hit firms from airlines to carmakers. But latest figures showed the recession’s impact was worse than expected. Officials began their annual three-day Central Economic Work Conference in Beijing, which sets the tone for policies for the coming year. Informed sources suggested they could by 1 percentage point from the current 5 percent which would amount to a 120 billion yuan ($17.5 billion) boost.

With more than 1.3 billion people, China has the largest population and one of the fastest growing economies in the world. While much has been written about the country’s overall economic growth, much less is known about the companies helping to generate it. Scheduled to be published by World Scientific in 2010-11, A Guide to Top 100 Companies in China will provide up-to-date and comprehensive coverage of key corporations as ranked by revenue size. Edited by Professors Wenxian Zhang and Ilan Alon of Rollins College, this reference guide will highlight the major enterprises in China, which as a gauge of the country’s overall economy have made significant contributions to the economic growth of recent years.

We, representatives of peasant organizations, women, migrants, workers, consumers, urban and rural poor, fisherfolks, social movements and civil society organizations are writing to express our alarm that efforts are being made to conclude the Doha “Development” Round of negotiations.

The close-down of several copper and cobalt mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo's (DRC) southern Katanga Province has now developed into "an economic crisis", according to UN sources. According to the UN's peacekeeping mission in the DRC, MONUC, has expressed its concern over "the current economic crisis in south-eastern DR Congo’s Katanga province, which has led several mining companies to stop their operations."

The debate over reducing greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation is dominating the United Nations Climate Change Conference taking place in Poznan, Poland, Dec. 1-12. At issue is the best way to deal with the 20 percent of greenhouse gas emissions caused by deforestation.

Human rights as we know them today are based on the principles of equality, liberty and solidarity which emerged during the French Revolution and were embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. While all human rights must be interpreted taking into account all three of these guiding principles, due to historical reasons, each principle has in turn generated a different set of rights.

As the world celebrates the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the UN General Assembly will hear a statement in mid-December endorsed by more than 50 countries across the globe calling for an end to rights abuses based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

China has promised to train 15,000 African personnel in the next three years to strengthen the cooperation in human resources development between China and Africa. This is a classroom to train for Ethiopia telecommunication engineers. The teachers and the equipment worth more than 10 million US dollars are all from a Chinese telecom company.