Fiercely critical of the US's role and continued presence in Haiti in the wake of the country's earthquake, Kali Akuno highlights the dangers of the supposedly neutral term 'humanitarian intervention' and calls for solidarity with the Haitian people in the face of the 'militarisation of the relief and reconstruction effort'.

The NGO Branch of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs is pleased to announce an open call for oral and written statements for the 2010 ECOSOC High Level Segment (HLS) for NGOs in ECOSOC consultative status. The HLS will include sessions on the Annual Ministerial Review (AMR) and the Development Cooperation Forum (DCF).

A director at the Institute of West Asian & African Studies at Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Dr. He Wenping, has hailed the prevailing good relations between Rwanda and China. Wenping, who is in charge of African Studies, made the observation while presenting a paper on China-Africa Relations in the Era of Globalization during a public lecture at Kigali Institute of Education (KIE).

NuMobile, Inc. (OTCBB: NUBL) is scheduled to begin work on a project constructing a wireless broadband network in Nairobi, Kenya next month. Through the joint project with Greenfield Program Partners NewMarket Technology, Inc. (PINKSHEETS: NWMT), China Crescent Enterprises, Inc. (OTCBB: CCTR) and Nova Energy, Inc. (OTCBB: NVAE), NuMobile will take part in the implementation of the wireless broadband network, intended to provide a wireless metering capability to local utility companies.

China Mobile, China's largest mobile operator, is looking at possible acquisition and investment opportunities in Asia and Africa as profit growth slows at home, the Wall Street Journal reports, citing the company's Chairman and Chief Executive Wang Jianzhou. Meanwhile, Wang stressed that any expansion through acquisitions would be balanced with continued investments in its home market because there is still huge growth potential in mainland China.

As more aid groups pull out of camps for internally displaced people (IDPs) and more people flee Mogadishu to escape the violence, the plight of IDPs is at its most extreme, says a doctor-turned-relief-worker in Mogadishu. "[Relief] aid is at its lowest and the need is even greater than at any time," Hawa Abdi, who turned her 26ha property into an IDP camp, told IRIN on 29 March.

Johanna Jansson looks at the implications of Chinese market-driven engagement for the DRC, with a focus on investment in Katanga’s mining sector. Contrary to popular perception, says Jansson, there are no direct links between Chinese government-led engagement with the DRC and the market-seeking activities of private Chinese entrepreneurs in the country. If Chinese investments are to have a positive impact on development in the area, says Jansson, adherence to regulatory frameworks has to be radically improved, both by investors and by Katangese civil servants.

Use of cotrimoxazole, a cheap and widely available antibiotic, cut the death rate by half in the first 72 weeks on antiretroviral therapy in over 3,000 HIV-infected, symptomatic and severely immunosuppressed patients in Uganda and Zimbabwe, Sarah Walker and colleagues reported in an analysis of the DART trial published on March 29 in the online edition of The Lancet.

Experts from around the world are trying to attract attention to deadly but little-known illnesses, such as Chagas disease, visceral leishmaniasis and sleeping sickness, that have been neglected by the pharmaceutical industry. So-called neglected tropical diseases, which also include malaria, dengue fever and schistosomiasis, in conjunction with tuberculosis are responsible for 11.4 percent of the global burden of illness, but only 1.3 percent of the 1,556 new drugs registered between 1975 and 2004 were specifically developed for these diseases.

Human rights organisations have been demanding an independent inquiry into the death of a Nigerian asylum seeker died while being deported and a stop to all forced repatriations. Switzerland's sixth deportation flight of 2010, scheduled for the evening of Mar. 17 with 16 Nigerians on board, never took off. Among the prisoners was Alex Uzowulu, 29, whose asylum claim had been previously rejected.

The world's 49 least developed countries (LDCs), described as the poorest of the poor, could feel the effects of the global economic crisis for decades, a senior U.N. official warned this week. Under-Secretary-General Cheick Sidi Diarra told IPS that if the international community does not live up to pledges made under Brussels Programme of Action nearly a decade ago, even the small gains made during 2000-2008 could be reversed.

Scientists say they have identified a potential treatment for sleeping sickness, a killer disease that infects about 60,000 people in Africa a year. British and Canadian experts say drugs could attack an enzyme the parasite causing the illness needs to survive.

In this week's roundup of emerging actors news, Africa set to grow by 4.8 percent, Indian and Chinese investors identified as the worst violators of environmental regulation, South Africa eyes Uganda’s oilfields, and China and South Africa pledge to upgrade strategic partnership.

Torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment (“ill-treatment”), in almost all cases, happen in secret. Access to lawyers, as well as to doctors, and contact with friends or family members creates a more open detention environment which helps to prevent torture and other ill-treatment. The right to be protected from torture and other ill-treatment is a fundamental one from which no derogation is permitted. This briefing note is intended to outline the current state of the law in relation to access to legal counsel promptly after deprivation of liberty as a safeguard against torture and other ill-treatment.

For the first time, China led the United States and other G-20 members in 2009 clean energy investments and finance, according to data released by The Pew Charitable Trusts. Last year, China invested $34.6 billion in the clean energy economy – nearly double the United States’ total of $18.6 billion. Over the last five years, the United States also trailed five G-20 members (Turkey, Brazil, China, the United Kingdom, and Italy) in the rate of clean energy investment growth.

Today, China is indeed a world power in every sense of the word and it is unimaginable that up till now, the country is still being referred to as an emerging economic power. China seems not bothered about the appellation out of conviction that if she continues with her developmental efforts and gets more countries, especially those in the third world, to come along with her in terms of patronage; she too would continue to be a force to reckon wit

In this week's roundup of emerging actors news, CNN pioneers its Africa business programme Market Place Africa, China-Nigeria trade ties continue to strengthen, 60 Indian firms express interest in Zambia for investing, and BRICs unlikely to push for a new global reserve currency.

Countries across the globe have been challenged to better manage and conserve the forests in their areas as one of the commitments to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). According to a comprehensive forest review released today by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the rate of deforestation has slowed over the last 10 years, but each year an area roughly the size of Costa Rica is still destroyed.

As technological obstacles to the efficient use of solar energy diminish, economic and political challenges remain to its widespread adoption by the poor. "The sun occupies centre stage, as it should, being literally the original source of all energy," said India's prime minister, Manmohan Singh, describing an action plan for India's national strategy on climate change, in June 2008.

China will flesh out the details of its joint research programme with Africa at a meeting in Beijing next week. The Forum on China–Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), which includes 49 African countries, plans to implement several large-scale science and technology projects across Africa in the next three years