The Chinese government has donated US$500,000 humanitarian aid to Somalia through the World Health Organization (WHO) in Nairobi. China and Somalia enjoy cordial relationship, and the friendship cherished by the two countries and peoples have been developed continuously since China and Somalia established diplomatic ties in the year of 1960, said Zhang Ming, Chinese Ambassador to Kenya, at the hand-over ceremony.

Crude oil exports from Sudan to China more than doubled last year to top 200,000 barrels a day, with official data showing that China now takes 40 percent of the east African producer’s total output. Sudan exported 10.31 million tonnes to China in 2007, or 113 percent above 2006, ranking as Beijing’s sixth-largest crude supplier, with 6 percent of the total crude imports to the world’s second-largest oil user, data from the General Administration of Customs showed.

UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, calls for stronger commitment to end female genital mutilation/cutting. We call on governments to protect the rights of women and girls. We call on leaders to take action to end female genital mutilation in line with the United Nations resolution adopted last year. In the resolution, governments reiterated that female genital mutilation violates the rights of women and girls. They said the practice constitutes an irreparable, irreversible abuse.

Campaigners from War on Want, Friends of the Earth and the World Development Movement staged a demonstration today (Friday, 25 January) against European Union policies which they warn threaten millions of livelihoods in developing countries. The London protest at the European Commission office came on the eve of trade ministers’ special lunch on Saturday at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss resort Davos.

The Palestine Solidarity Committee is proud to participate in the fourth consecutive International Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW), the key event being a public rally with Azmi Bishara on the 3rd of February at the Careers Centre in Soweto. The rally will be broadcast to the other participants of the global Israeli Apartheid Week in the US, Canada, UK, Palestine amongst other countries and will serve as the international launch pad for their respective IAW campaigns.

Commonwealth environment ministers will discuss the benefits of ‘carbon financing’ when they meet in February 2008. The ministers will meet next month in Monaco to look at how carbon financing can best be used to protect forests. They will also discuss the political and capacity constraints countries face when developing carbon finance initiatives.

World leaders have issued a joint statement at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos vowing to make 2008 a turning point in the fight against poverty. The world is facing a “development emergency”, they said. “We pledge to work together to help the world get back on track to meet the MDGs.”

For 14 years, Mathabo Mabekhla was one of Lesotho's most successful entrepreneurs. Her ladies' clothing boutique sold dresses, blouses and slacks imported from neighbouring South Africa, and boasted a client base that included cabinet ministers and their wives. But dwindling sales forced her to shut down last year, for which she blames the country's growing community of Chinese retailers. "Chinese are selling very cheap and not good quality things, and they are killing Basotho businesses," said Mabekhla, 59.

Fahamu is a pan African organisation committed to building a strong human rights and social justice movement. In a unique collaboration between Oxford University’s Department for Continuing Education, Fahamu is pleased to announce a course on Investigating and monitoring human rights violations. This facilitated workshop-based training will run from the 23 April 2008 to 4th May 2008 (2 weeks). Cost per person for this course is USD 1,000 per week. Participants will in addition get a CDROM of the distance learning course ABSOLUTELY FREE for personal study and reference. Booking deadline: February 8, 2008. For more information on these and other Fahamu courses, including how to enroll, call us on 020 2 319 635/6 or email us on [email][email protected] More information can be found on our websites www.fahamu.org and www.pambazuka.org

Fahamu is a pan African organisation committed to building a strong human rights and social justice movement. In a unique collaboration between Oxford University’s Department for Continuing Education, Fahamu is pleased to announce a course on Leadership and Management for Change. This facilitated workshop will run from the 4th-8th February 2008 in Nairobi. Cost per person for this course is Kshs 85,000.00. Participants will, in addition, get a CDROM of the distance learning course ABSOLUTELY FREE for personal study and reference. Booking deadline: January 30, 2008 (very few spaces remaining. For more information on these and other Fahamu courses, including how to enroll, call us on 020 2 319 635/6 or email us on [email][email protected] More information can be found on our websites www.fahamu.org and www.pambazuka.org

The Advisory Group on Civil Society and Aid Effectiveness (the AG) has mandated CCIC (the Canadian Council for International Co-operation) to organize an AG International Forum in Gatineau, Québec, on 3-6 February 2008, on the roles of civil society organizations (CSOs) as development actors within the current Aid Effectiveness Agenda. The AG is a body created by the Working Party on Aid Effectiveness of the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the OECD.

Former Ghanaian President, Jerry Rawlings, has said that the violence that erupted in Kenya over alleged rigging of the election by the incumbent President, Mwai Kibaki, is a protest against neo-colonialism and the imposition of leadership by the West. According to him, Kenyans do not want to go through the same kind of experience again hence their insistence on change.

As the Global Day of Action and Mobilization in January 26th approaches, the number of participants in WSF 2008 international journey increases. Men and women from all over the world will take the streets, promote discussions, protests, music concerts, video exhibitions and several other activities to show that another world is possible and necessary.

Sun Microsystems has agreed to buy MySQL AB, the developers of the popular open source MySQL database, for “approximately” $1 billion. Both MySQL AB and Sun issued press releases today announcing the surprise deal.

Malawi has cut diplomatic ties with Taiwan after 41 years and switched allegiance to China, which has become a major economic power in Africa. The decision, announced on Monday, reduced Taiwan's allies to just 23 countries, most of which are small and impoverished nations in Latin America, Africa and the South Pacific.

The year 2007 was marked by a notable setback for global freedom, Freedom House reported in a worldwide survey of freedom released this week. The decline in freedom, as reported in Freedom in the World 2008, an annual survey of political rights and civil liberties worldwide, was reflected in reversals in one-fifth of the world’s countries. Most pronounced in South Asia, it also reached significant levels in the former Soviet Union, the Middle East and North Africa, and sub-Saharan Africa.

The European Union (EU) parliament has recommended an immediate aid freeze on Kenya to push President Mwai Kibaki to urgently kick-start efforts to end the East African country's post-election political stand-off. EU parliamentarians, meeting almost 20-days into the country's post-election political crisis, also recommended an urgent re-run of the presidential elections if a recount of the disputed presidential votes was not possible to determine the winner.

On Wednesday, January 16, Reuters and the Financial Times (FT) reported that Suzanne Rich Folsom resigned as chief of the World Bank's anti-corruption unit. Folsom's appointment to lead the Department of Institutional Integrity (INT), the Bank's internal, anti-corruption unit, was highly controversial since her appointment in 2005 by former Bank President Paul Wolfowitz.

According to this study by the Royal Society, it is vital that policies that promote biofuel development also address the environmental, economic and social impacts, so that they are made to perform their task effectively. The study concludes that biofuels are potentially an important part of the future is therefore tempered with careful consideration.

EU development commissioner Louis Michel has revealed that the European Commission wants to build a partnership between the EU and China on Africa. His comments come amid Europe's growing concern that China is exercising too much influence on the resource-rich continent and that the EU has been too slow off the mark.