Critics are concerned that private military contractors are positioning themselves at the centre of an emerging "shock doctrine" for earthquake-ravaged Haiti. Next month, a prominent umbrella organisation for private military and logistic corporations, the International Peace Operations Association (IPOA), is co-organising a "Haiti summit" which aims to bring together "leading officials" for "private consultations with attending contractors and investors" in Miami, Florida.

With often preventable, non-communicable diseases such as heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, cancer and chronic respiratory illness accounting for 60 percent of all global deaths, experts from around the world gathered at a United Nations forum to draw up plans to reverse the trend.

In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, the West moved quickly to crack down on the money laundering and secret banking systems that fund much of the terrorism in the world. But as evidence in both the U.S. and Europe suggests, illicit finances continue to circulate around the globe — and quite often the money has nothing to do with violence, but plain greed.

The handling of Tibetan and Uighur protests, as well as concerns over environmental damage, and curbs on information and opposition have dented China’s image, raising questions about its role as a global power and how this will affect Asia and the world.

Bharti has entered exclusive talks with Kuwait based Zain, in a deal that would give Bharti a presence in 15 other African countries.

With Ghana on the verge of an oil 'boom' in 2010, Mawuli Dake considers the steps and measures needed to ensure the country derives full and equitable benefit from the resource. While Ghana's mining industry has historically been characterised by a lack of transparency and the dominance of foreign multinational interests, Dake stresses that the burgeoning oil industry must not be allowed to go the same way.

In this week's roundup of emerging powers news, Tougher Chinese bank regulations weakens South african rand, Zambian miners reinstated at Chinese mine, Zain signs deal with India's Bharti, and Tanzania seeks to protect seed genetic heritage.

Reporters Without Borders condemns the Zimbabwean authorities' repeated harassment and intimidation of "The Zimbabwean", a privately-owned newspaper that is edited in Britain and printed in South Africa.

Even though the global economy appeared to start growing again during the closing months of 2009, labour markets showed little sign of improving. The number of unemployed persons is estimated at 212 million in 2009, representing an increase of almost 34 million over the number of unemployed in 2007, with the bulk of this increase occurred in 2009.

With hundreds of thousands of girls and women believed to be at risk of female genital mutilation (FGM) in Europe, rights groups have mounted a campaign to get EU leaders to stop what they see as a barbaric and dangerous procedure. FGM – an umbrella term for procedures involving partial or total removal of the female external genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons – has been condemned by governments, rights groups and health organisations across the world.

Education systems in many of the world's poorest countries are now experiencing the aftershock of the global economic downturn. The 2010 Education for All Global Monitoring Report, released on 19 January, argues that the crisis could create a lost generation of children whose life chances will have been irreparably damaged by a failure to protect their right to education.

More than 100 human rights advocates, dissidents and government officials will gather in Washington, DC February 17-19 for a groundbreaking summit to tackle global challenges to fundamental freedoms of expression and association.

While the political agenda at the IMF is shifting back to mandate and governance reform, there are growing calls that the Fund needs to fundamentally rethink the monetary and fiscal policies it demands of borrowers if the institution is to retain legitimacy and renew its mandate.

In 2005, the 15 governments that comprised the EU before its eastward expansion the previous year undertook to allocate at least 0.51 percent of their gross national income to development aid by 2010. But estimates published Feb. 17 project that the average aid allocation given by these countries this year will be just 0.48 percent of income. As a result, the amount being given by wealthy countries to poor ones will be 21 billion dollars less this year than the amount foreseen in 2005.

Zimbabwe's Supreme Court has ordered two government mining firms to stop operations on British-owned diamond mining fields plagued by human rights abuses, state newspapers have reported. The case was brought to the court by British-based African Consolidated Resources (ACR) in a bid to win back its mining rights which were suspended in 2006. The government is appealing a court ruling returning the fields to ACR.

'If Africa is the antelope in the global jungle it must learn that just because the leopard is beautiful does not make it less dangerous than the hyena', writes Julius Gatune.

Evidence of grand corruption is mounting in Beijing’s showcase $6 billion barter deal with the Kinshasa government.

As the great and good of the mobile industry browsed the exhibits at the Mobile World Congress trade show in Barcelona this week, they may have overlooked a couple of watershed moments in emerging-market telecoms, writes Matthew Reed.

The World Bank president Robert B. Zoellick just ended an African tour that took him to Sierra Leone, Cote d’Ivoire, and Ethiopia. He told the African Union meeting in Addis Ababa that an estimated 64 million people worldwide will fall into extreme poverty because of the global financial meltdown crisis and some 30,000-50,000 babies may die in Sub- Sahara Africa in 2010. He later addressed African journalists via video conference, which was attended by The Independent's Patrick Kagenda.

Africa’s bargaining power has been increased, as Chinese interests open up alternatives to US and European investment in the continent, writes Khadija Sharife. But while China is free from colonial stigma and approaches resource-rich countries through the ethos of brothers-in-arms, a closer look at Beijing’s approach suggests that the benefits it brings to Africa do not include ‘justice and real development’.