The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has condemned the political backlash being mounted against the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks and accused the United States of attacking free speech after it put pressure on the website's host server to shut down the site. The website's host Amazon.com blocked access to WikiLeaks after United States officials condemned the torrent of revelations about political, business and diplomatic affairs that has given people around the world unprecedented access to detailed information from United States sources, much of it embarrassing to leading public figures.

Harvard School of Public Health and UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, will release a new manual on 9 December on how to apply and promote human rights in all development work - including in humanitarian emergencies and difficult contexts. Designed for use by development workers and others, the manual provides practical tools for designing and implementing a human rights-based approach, and illustrates the benefits of using such an approach in development work.

As online whistleblower WikiLeaks started publishing hundreds of thousands of classified U.S. embassy cables this week, from unflattering assessments of world leaders to secret plans to topple governments, here's what three IFEX members - ARTICLE 19, Index on Censorship and Reporters Without Borders (RSF) - had to say. 'We're more or less satisfied with WikiLeaks' evolution,' the head of RSF, Jean-Francois Julliard, told AFP. 'We like this partnership with the newspapers and this work to put things in context, verify the information and draw lessons from it,' he said. ARTICLE 19 reiterated its call for governments to improve the public's access to information, and only limit access if governments can demonstrate it would cause a specific and articulated harm.

Developing countries continue to drive the global recovery but are not in a position to make up for slowdown in the advanced countries. Consequently, 2011 does not hold out much hope for the world economy, says a new report by the United Nations. The UN report, titled 'World Economic Situation and Prospects 2011' (WESP), finds that because of the slowdown in the advanced countries and the phasing out of stimulus measures, output growth in the developing countries is expected to shrink to six per cent during 2011-2012, down from seven per cent in 2010.

While some have looked favourably on Essar Africa Holdings Ltd being selected as the preferred private corporation to take on 54 per cent of the Zimbabwe Iron and Steel Company (ZISCO), Khadija Sharife points out that it’s not all good news.

Patrick Bond’s ‘The Elite Transition: From Apartheid to Neo-liberalism in South Africa’ provides a useful framework for thinking about the effects of the country’s economy policy on the poor, writes Udo W. Froese.

‘There are two monetary systems fighting for control of the global markets,’ writes Ellen Dunn. ‘One system is controlled by US and western European private banks using debt and the other is managed by sovereign states.’

Last year, the world spent $1.53 trillion dollars on the military. We can’t afford this price tag. We have too many other priorities that require our money: poverty, climate change, job creation. It’s time for people all over the world to come together and say no to the generals and the military contractors. Visit the website to find out more.

With Samir Amin speaking in the UK this week, Pambazuka Press is pleased to announce the publication of three of his books, and [mp3].

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.

The majority of the world's child soldiers are involved in a variety of armed political groups. These include government-backed paramilitary groups, militias and self-defence units operating in many conflict zones. Others include armed groups opposed to central government rule, groups composed of ethnic religious and other minorities and clan-based or factional groups fighting governments and each other to defend territory and resources. This document from the Child Soldiers Initiative provides key facts and figures about child soldiers.

Villagers in Uzumba-Maramba-Pfungwe area in Mashonaland East province have expressed concern over mining activities by a Chinese company, which they accuse of endangering their lives and that of animals along the Mazowe river. The villagers in Zambu under headman Mushambi in Chief Chinhanga’s area complained of water pollution and siltation being caused by disposal of waste by a Mingehang Sino Africa Mining Investment gold milling plant, which is a few metres from the river.

Migrants who have crossed borders in search of work and a better life could exceed 400 million, or nearly 7 per cent of the present global population, by 2050, said a report issued on Monday. The report, by the Geneva-based International Organisation for Migration (IOM), said movement within countries is also climbing as people move into cities, and has taken the global migrant total to one billion this year.

Foreign aids inflow from donor countries are drying up and in the next 15 years, many poor African countries may not be able to access the window, Chief Economist of the African Development Bank Group (AfDB) Professor Mthuli Ncube has alerted. He attributed the new trend to several economic factors that are redefining economic relations around the world, some of which include the economic recession in Europe and America, and Africa's new economic partner - China.

What exactly can Twitter do for American imperialism? How is the US State Department deploying social media in their propaganda war? And is the contention that social media is a powerful tool for activists fighting against repressive regimes even true? In this review from the London Review of Books, these questions are answered through a look at three books: Death to the Dictator!: Witnessing Iran’s Election and the Crippling of the Islamic Republic by Afsaneh Moqadam; Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom by Evgeny Morozov and The Internet and Politics in Iran by Annabelle Sreberny and Gholam Khiabany.

Ahead of the United Nations climate talks in Cancún that start on Monday, November 29th, Friends of the Earth International calls on governments to reject the role of carbon markets in international climate agreements. Carbon trading does not lead to real emissions reductions. It is a dangerous distraction from real action to address the structural causes of climate change. Developed countries should radically cut their carbon emissions through real change at home, not by buying offsets from other countries.

The basic thesis for this edited book is that there is no postcolonial African state without its own ‘northern problem.’ By the ‘northern problem’ we mean the existence of an enclosed and disgruntled group claiming a particular history, particular myth of foundation, particular heroes, particular symbols and signs, and particular identity that is different from the dominant ‘ethnie’ around which postcolonial nation-states are constructed and imagined.

‘African countries that walk into the credit vaults of banks must be aware that if the plug can be pulled on Ireland or Greece, it can be pulled on them too. Only, in Africa's case, there will be no European Central Bank or friendly neighbours like Britain, to come to their assistance,’ writes Cameron Duodu.

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.

The economies of Africa, the world’s poorest region, are under severe threat from free trade agreements that they are under pressure to sign with the European Union, the world’s richest region. Under these economic partnership agreements (EPAs), Europe wants Africa to open up its economies to European goods, services and companies. But the African countries are understandably worried their small industries and service operators will not be able to survive free competition from giant European companies, banks and commercial firms, writes Martin Khor in The China Post.