Men, women, children and infants are piled on mats in overcrowded cells. Food is strewn all over the kitchen and the toilets are overflowing. Children dig in rubbish bins. Yellow biohazard bags are piled high just outside the door, suggesting serious medical issues and there's no sign of proper medical facilities. Conditions in the centre amount to inhuman and degrading treatment.

Should the amount of aid that African countries receive from Europe be linked to their efforts to prevent their nationals moving to this continent? France, the outgoing holder of the EU's rotating presidency, has suggested that it should. During recent discussions involving both African and European governments, the French have advocated a two-year cooperation programme that would simultaneously try to encourage legal migration -- normally that involving skilled or highly-educated professionals, whose services are desired by European firms -- and curb 'irregular' movement.

Berghof Conflict Research (BCR) is offering opportunities for supervised PhD social science research starting in 2009, on topics related to BCR's programme areas. Applications, including a research outline (maximum 6 pages), references, CV, and supporting documents should be sent to [email][email protected] by 31 March 2009. Please note that due to the forthcoming holidays we will be able to reply to your requests by 12 January 2009 at the earliest.

Metropolis TV is an innovative global media project that is about discovering similarities and differences between people and cultures in a globalizing world. A network of more than 50 correspondents from all over the world contributes to
The project on a weekly basis. Until now, Metropolis TV has explored 25 world wide themes and more than 200 reports have been produced from countries such as Nicaragua, Bolivia, Kenia, Zambia, Iran, India and Indonesia.

Hong Kong may be in a recession, and China's fast-paced growth is rapidly slowing, but that has not diminished the attractiveness of China to foreign companies. That is one of the conclusions to be drawn from the latest figures from InvestHK, the Hong Kong department that promotes the city as a place to do business. Hong Kong is a often bridgehead for those wanting to set up a business in mainland China.

Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping has announced in China that his country was ready to promote bilateral ties with Sierra Leone. In a meeting with foreign affairs minister Zainab Bangura, Jinping said China would assist Sierra Leone in the area of trade, education and health, adding that diplomatic ties between the two countries started 37 years ago.

Practical application of and academic interest in human rights has grown exponentially over the last decade. Activism – its ethical imperatives, its particular constituencies, its social and political impact, and even its organisational structure - has become the subject of rigorous scrutiny. This journal aims to capture learning and communicate the lessons of practice across professional and geographical boundaries, within and beyond the human rights mainstream, and to provide a vehicle for innovative national and local practitioners world-wide who currently lack a platform for sharing their expertise internationally.

This 66-page report describes how laws in over three dozen countries, from India to Uganda and from Nigeria to Papua New Guinea, derive from a single law on homosexual conduct that British colonial rulers imposed on India in 1860. This year, the High Court in Delhi ended hearings in a years-long case seeking to decriminalize homosexual conduct there. A ruling in the landmark case is expected soon.

Sanusha Naidu provides a round up of this week's developments on China and Africa, at a time when China celebrates 30 years of market reforms.

In what would be the first active deployment of its warships beyond the Pacific, China appears set to send naval vessels to help in the fight against hijackers in the pirate-infested Gulf of Aden. A vice foreign minister and a leading naval strategist were quoted in Chinese state media on Wednesday as saying that Beijing is close to mounting a naval mission in the gulf.

Five major events are planned to take place over 10 days with speakers from: Bolivia, Canada, England, Guyana, Haiti, India, Iraq, Ireland, Palestine, Peru, Spain, Tanzania, Trinidad & Tobago, Turkey, US, Venezuela. These events are organised by the GLOBAL WOMEN'S STRIKE and INTERNATIONAL WOMEN COUNT NETWORK. All are welcome.

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.