Barza, the online community for radio broadcasters has been launched. The site wants to make available to rural radio broadcasters useful resources like radio scripts, audio clips and advice from peers with the click of a mouse. Through the online community, it aims to increase the extent to which rural radio helps African small-scale farmers meet their food security, farming and livelihood goals.

Placing workers at the heart of 21st struggles for social, economic and political emancipation is the objective of the newly launched ‘Global African Worker’. Bill Fletcher, leader of the project, sets out the importance of building ‘real links between individuals and social movements who are conducting similar and sometimes overlapping struggles against racism and global capitalism.’

A recent article in Kenya’s Africa Review cited sources in the African Union (AU) disclosing that the 28-member North Atlantic Treaty Organisation is preparing to sign a military partnership treaty with the 53-nation AU. The author of the article, relaying comments from AU officials in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia where the AU has its headquarters, wrote that although 'the stated aim is to counter global security threats and specifically threats against Africa, some observers read the pact as aiming to counter Chinese expansion in Africa'.

The US army provided counter-insurgency training to Nigerian troops battling a rise in attacks by Islamist militants, the Nigerian military has revealed. More than 100 people have been killed in recent days by the radical Muslim sect Boko Haram, dubbed the 'Nigerian Taliban', in Nigeria's north-east. Nigeria has sought to crush the group with military force but faces criticism from human rights activists for alleged extra-judicial killings. The military said some battalions had received training in the US.

George Clooney gets clobbered in an activist takedown of his advertisements for Nescafe’s Nespresso brand, reports 'The advertisement – featuring a Clooney lookalike – is aimed at getting Nescafe to commit to using only fairly traded coffee throughout its Nespresso and other product ranges. They were commissioned by Swiss non-profit Solidar Suisse, which undertakes humanitarian and development work in 12 countries.' Watch the advert through the link provided.

The situation in Italy has become critical as investors lose faith in the eurozone's third-largest economy and charge more to lend it money, says this Associated Press article. 'Italy is too big to be bailed out like Greece, Ireland and Portugal were. A default on its euro1.9 trillion ($2.6 trillion) in debt would threaten the euro and the global financial system with collapse.'

'Debtocracy' is a 2011 documentary film by Katerina Kitidi and Aris Hatzistefanou. The documentary mainly focuses on two points: the causes of the Greek debt crisis in 2010 and possible future solutions that could be given to the problem that are not currently being considered by the government of the country. The makers resorted to crowd-funding and collected 8,000 euros in just 10 days.

This video is a collage of comments made by US President Barack Obama and his Secretary of State Hilary Clinton on protests in Libya, Egypt and Syria. Meanwhile, footage of police action against protestors in New York City is edited into the collage with the intention of showing the hypocrisy of the US administration.

The Group of 20 leading economies (G20) have called on 11 secrecy jurisdictions to substantially increase their cooperation on tackling tax evasion, but failed to address the main users of tax havens by not committing to mandatory country-by-country reporting by multinational companies, says Transparency International. 'Non-cooperative jurisdictions offer safe havens for the proceeds of corruption, tax evasion and organised crime. Greater transparency in the activities of multinational companies (in every country they operate in) would reduce opportunities for hiding the proceeds of illegal activity that ends up in tax havens.'

Research on drug development for neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), tuberculosis and malaria will receive a boost from a major initiative launched by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO). 'Re:Search' will provide free access to research on medicines, vaccines and diagnostics, based on patents and research held by a consortium of eight major global pharmaceutical companies, the US National Institutes of Health and other organisations. But only the 49 least developed countries will be able to get a free licence to develop products based on the initiative, a limitation which has been criticised by key organisations in the field such as the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative (DNDi) and the aid organisation Doctors Without Borders.

The global output of heat-trapping carbon dioxide jumped by the biggest amount on record, the US department of energy has calculated, in a sign of how weak the world's efforts have been at slowing man-made global warming. The new figures for 2010 mean that levels of greenhouse gases are higher than the worst case scenario outlined by climate experts just four years ago. But the developed countries that ratified the 1997 Kyoto Protocol greenhouse gas limiting treaty have reduced their emissions overall since then and have achieved their goals of cutting emissions to about eight per cent below 1990 levels. The US did not ratify the agreement.

Submissions are invited to explore the politics of contention and social movements in the postcolonial world (Africa, Asia, and Latin America), with particular regard to the ways in which race and ethnicity relate to identities and claims revolving around class, gender, nationality, and religion. Comparative discussions of social contestation in different societies are welcome.

In this week's edition of the Emerging Powers News Round-Up, read a comprehensive list of news stories and opinion pieces related to China, India and other emerging powers...

Prison Radio’s mission is to challenge unjust police and prosecutorial practices which result in mass incarceration, racism, and gender discrimination by airing the voices of men and women victimized by an unjust criminal justice system. Sign up for Prison Radio's email newsletter to receive regular updates including links to Mumia Abu-Jamal's latest essays, upcoming events, and breaking news about the case.

Earlier this week, Kimberley Process experts meeting in Congo agreed to allow Zimbabwe to sell diamonds from the controversial Marange fields. Khadija Sharife writes about documents which reveal the conditions that Zimbabwean diamond miners operate under.

The United Nations Working Group on the use of mercenaries has warned of an alarming resurgence of the use of mercenaries in armed conflict –'often in new and novel ways'. The expert panel also noted in a report to the UN General Assembly that the growing activities of private military and security companies raise numerous human rights challenges, and called for international regulation. 'Recent events in Africa clearly demonstrate that the problems posed by mercenaries are still a live issue,' said Ms. Faiza Patel, who currently heads the Working Group. 'Mercenaries pose a threat not only to security, but also to human rights and potentially to the right of peoples to self determination. It is crucial that States cooperate to eliminate this phenomenon.'

Bribing public officials when doing business abroad is a regular occurrence, and companies from Russia and China, which invested US$120 billion overseas in 2010, are seen as most likely to pay bribes abroad, according to Transparency International’s 2011 Bribe Payers Index. The index, which involves a survey of 3,000 business executives from developed and developing countries, also shows that companies from the Netherlands and Switzerland are seen as least likely to bribe.

At a recent conference on statelessness and gender discrimination organised by Refugees International (RI) at the US Institute of Peace (USIP), international human rights advocates urged countries around the world to take action on issues of statelessness, a legally invisible status that United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Antonia Guterres, said is 'probably the most forgotten global human rights problem in today's international agenda'. According to RI, about 12 million people worldwide lack effective citizenship, a status that deprives them of rights such as legal representation, identity documents, and access to public schools. And in many countries, discrimination against women in nationality laws aggravate or actively create statelessness.

A website has been launched to promote transparency in the Democratic Republic of Congo's mining sector, which is plagued by conflict and corruption. The Carter Center said it helped launch congomines.org to give people more information about the mining sector, including contracts and payments. Hundreds of mining documents and maps will be published on the site, it said.

Commonwealth leaders have ignored warnings that their decaying association will die without urgent reforms and have failed to reach significant agreement on how to ensure its member nations abide by human rights principles and the rule of law. The development came Saturday, as the leaders spent the second day of their biennial gathering - known as the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) - debating the merits of a report delivered by an advisory group established two years ago. But instead of endorsing the report, the leaders adopted a distrustful view about its contents - even deciding that it should be kept secret and not be published.