Stephen Marks does a roundup of this week's China-related news from Africa and around the world.

In response to , I just can't believe how this things happen in modern world. That Western worlds preach democracy, human rights but do atrocities to other people is hypocrisy. Anyways i also blame those Africans that don't see the interest of their country, region, and people.

How can company own 75% of anything without challenge from anyone? That is is really sad.

The International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA) hosted its 24th world conference in Vienna, Austria on 3 to 6 November 2008. This assembly, which was attended by more than 80 member countries of the world aimed to, among other objectives, create and strengthen networks between activists campaigning in all regions of the world.

SOUTH Africa's cabinet says it will withhold $28m of agricultural aid to neighbouring Zimbabwe until a representative government is in place. South Africa's cabinet said the impasse was creating a humanitarian crisis. The current outbreak of cholera was a clear indication that Zimbabweans were becoming "victims of their leaders' lack of political will", it said.

The Human Rights Advocates Program (HRAP) is a capacity building program designed to strengthen the skills, knowledge, and networks of proven human rights defenders from the Global South and marginalized communities in the United States.

Stephen Marks does a roundup of China-related news for Africa and around the world.

cc. The time when Canada's presence on the African continent was primarily characterised by numerous missionaries and food donations is well and truly over! In countries such as Congo, Mali and Tanzania, when it is learned that you are from Canada, you are immediately asked if you work for the ‘mining’, a perception entirely consistent with reality. Canada is now a superpower in the African mining sector, a position the country intends to maintain and develop using all means at its disposal.

The salient presence of Canadian mining is relatively new in Africa and is rooted principally in the programmes of liberalisation of the sector from the early 1990s. These programmes have been driven by the World Bank, which from 1992(1) had begun defining the extractive sector as the main engine of development for many countries.(2) The privatisation of state enterprise – promoted as a means of encouraging the entry of foreign investment – has opened the door to foreign companies. At the head of this development, especially with regard to the smaller exploration companies known as ‘juniors’, are Canadian companies. These companies have an immense commercial presence in Canada: of the 1,223 mining companies listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange, the largest in the country, more than 1,000 are juniors!(3)

A HUGE EXPANSION

Currently, according to the Ministry of Natural Resources Canada (NRC), only the Republic of South Africa, with over 35% of assets and investments, is just ahead of Canada in the African mining industry. But with South Africa’s assets concentrated on its own territory, Canada dominates the rest of the continent.

The data compiled by the NRC demonstrates the speed with which the value of Canadian mining assets in Africa has grown over the last twenty years: at US$ 233 million in 1989, this figure grew to $635 million in 1995, and $2.8 billion in 2001, growing further to $6.08 billion in 2005, and $14.7 billion in 2007.(4) This total value is estimated to reach $21 billion by 2010.
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(1) World Bank, Strategy for African Mining, World Bank Technical Paper no. 181, Africa Technical Department Series, Mining Unit, Industry ands Energy Division, Washington D.C., World Bank, 1992
(2) For a deeper analysis of the World Bank's political orientation, please consult the work of the Groupe de recherche sur les activités minières en Afrique (GRAMA) at the University of Québec in Montréal (UQAM).
(3) Without exception, the majority of the statistics mentioned in this article come from the Ministry of Natural Resources Canada (NRC) and have been taken from Fode-Moussa Keita, 'Les sociétés minières canadiennes d’exploration et de développement du secteur de l’or; les impacts de leurs activités en Afrique de l’Ouest', political science thesis at the University of Québec in Montréal (UQAM).
(4) September 2008 estimate.
(5) Fode-Moussa Keita, op. cit. p. 123.
(6) Ibid., p. 125.
(7) Paula Butler, 'Canada’s 21st Century Colonial Interests in the "Good Governance" of African Minerals', 2003, pp 24-30.
(8)

With vivid examples of the unapologetically exploitative approach of multinational mining corporations in Tanzania, Evans Rubara highlights some of the glaring malpractice of rapacious foreign companies operating on Tanzanian soil. In a sector supported by lax tax collection by the country’s government and whose only concern is for profit, companies such as Barrick Gold Corporation have much to answer for in the face of widespread environmental degradation, the displacement and forcible removal of local people, and criminalisation of local mining activities. Drawing on the information collected within damning reports such as A Golden Opportunity?, Rubara documents the extent to which mining companies operate with impunity in Tanzania, an impunity giving rise to sustained abuse of local people’s rights and wholesale stealing of national resources.

Mikhael Missakabo reveals the extent to which Canadian mining companies are benefiting from instability and weak institutions in the Democratic Republic of Congo to reap huge profits while paying little attention to the ecological and human cost of their actions. These companies have become adept at hedging their bets in the ongoing conflict and negotiating contracts that literally impoverish the host country. All that remains in their wake is environmental and economic and social ruin.

In late 2006 South Africa imposed quotas on the importation of selected clothing lines from China. In the past 18 months tralac has been monitoring on a periodic basis, the changes in the selected quota imports and making preliminary assessments as to whether they may be indicating that they are meeting their specific goal of slowing the trade flows of clothing imports from China.

The current question on most peoples lips within South Africa's clothing industry is will the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) extend the quotas on Chinese apparel and textiles that are due to end this year? However, I feel extension or no extension will make very little difference to the economics of this industry sector. Admittedly, if the quotas do end we may see a sudden influx of imports from China as they offer price incentives to our clothing importers in order to recapture market share.

Manufacturers' Association of Nigeria (MAN) and Nigerian Textile Manufacturers Association (NTMA), has raised alarm over the systematic and deliberate destruction of the Nigerian textile industry and economy by unscrupulous Chinese textile exporters and called on the Federal government to engage the Chinese government over the matter.

Portuguese-speaking countries are focussed on improving economic and business communication with Beijing, via the Forum Macau, which they see as strengthening relations between China and the Portuguese-speaking world. The overall positive balance and the promise of greater future efforts came from the Session on Mutual Investment between China and Portuguese-speaking countries, organized in September by the Forum Macau, which recently published the speeches made by the participants.

China’s $586 billion package will be spent on affordable housing, rural infrastructure, railways, water provision, environmental protection and its power grid, things that will boost domestic consumption. To do this it will have to import resources found in Africa, which could be of some comfort to our ailing resources sector.

Chinese companies are shopping for companies in Europe and around the world, undeterred by the global financial crisis. In fact, they are hunting for bargains. Analysts and business leaders say the economic meltdown that has pummelled global stock markets may be bad news for the West, but it could be a boon to Chinese companies flush with cash and looking for places to put it — despite being burned on earlier investments.

China will work together with African countries to give full play to the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), a senior official said before leaving for the 6th FOCAC senior official meetings in Egypt. “Promoting the China-Africa new type strategic partnership serves as the common aspiration of the two sides,” Xu Jinghu, director-general of the Department of African Affairs of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said in an interview with Xinhua News Agency.

China's economy is huge and expanding rapidly. In the last 30 years the rate of Chinese economic growth has averaged 8 percent per annum. The economy has grown more than 10 times during that period, with Chinese GDP reaching US$3,42 trillion by end of last year.

A UNHCR-chartered aircraft carrying vital shelter aid for thousands of displaced civilians arrived in the Democratic Republic of the Congo's (DRC) troubled North Kivu province on Thursday. The flight touched down in the provincial capital, Goma, after leaving Entebbe Airport in Uganda earlier in the day carrying 1,500 bales of plastic sheeting and three giant portable warehouses, known as Rubb halls, from UNHCR's regional stockpile in Dubai.

The lack of HIV prevention campaigns for Chinese workers in Angola is remarkable, considering how far away they are from their families, the length of time they spend away from home, and the extra cash they have left at the end of the month. Angola has an HIV prevalence rate of 2.5 percent, but it can reach 10 percent in some border areas.

Stephen Marks looks at the increasingly important role of China and other southern powers as evidenced by the recently-announced stimulus package in the face of the current global financial crisis.