The African Centre for Biosafety (ACB) learned today (28 May) that US multi-national seed company Pioneer Hi-Bred has been granted permission by the Competition Appeal Court, to acquire the nation’s last major independent seed company, Pannar seed. The ACB was an intervening party, opposing the merger in the public interest.

In a sign of their rising cooperation on key international economic issues, members of the BRICS grouping (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) have decided to disclose their contributions to the $430 billion global fund that was created by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to shield the world economy from the European debt crisis. Countries including Brazil, Russia, India, China, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand did not disclose their contribution to the fund created in April during the IMF-World Bank spring meeting. IMF had, however, said that the amount put together by the emerging economies was close to $68 billion.

Donor governments and multilateral institutions have provided grants and loans to private companies operating in developing countries for decades. However, since the 1990s the scale of this support has increased dramatically. In 2010 external investments to the private sector by IFIs exceeded $40 billion. This report assesses whether external (non-domestic) public finance for private investments in the South lives up to promises to provide finance to credit-constrained companies in developing countries and to deliver positive development outcomes.

One month after human rights defender Mr Biram Dah Abeid was arrested, a peaceful anti-slavery march was violently cracked down. Several activists were severely injured and the wife of Mr. Abeid, Leila Mint Ahmed Khliva, was injured by a grenade. Since Mr. Abeid, president of the ‘Initiative de Résurgence du Mouvement Abolitionniste de Mauritanie’ (IRA) was arrested on 29 April 2012, his whereabouts continue to remain unknown.

Last week five of the UN's smallest member states, describing themselves as the 'small five' (S5), challenged the five permanent members (P5) of the Security Council, namely the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia, over the misuse of their veto powers. But hours before it was to be debated and voted in the 193-member General Assembly, the resolution unceremoniously disappeared from the hallowed precincts of the United Nations.

The reality of Indian and Chinese investment in Africa is much more complex than the good cop, bad cop image of Asia’s two emerging economic giants. China and India have caused an explosion of trade and investment in Africa in the past decade. Yet they are perceived quite differently: China has a reputation for economic ruthlessness, while India’s business interests are generally seen as beneficial to Africa. But their investment in Africa needs to be viewed in the context of broader investment trends on the continent, trade experts said at the 'Money, Power and Sex: the Paradox of Unequal Growth' conference organised by the Open Society Institute of Southern Africa, which took place from May 22 to 24 in Cape Town, South Africa.

Every year, the International Lesbian and Gay Association produces maps on Gay and Lesbian rights in the world as well as its State Sponsored Homophobia report. Most material is available in English, Spanish, Portuguese and French, this year the world map has been also produced in Chinese, Hindi and German. You can download them at the page accessible through the web address provided.

Twenty pan-EU networks have called on the EU to ensure implementation of the Family Reunification Directive for all migrants. According to the Family Reunification Directive, all Member States are obliged to guarantee family reunion which signifies ensuring that there are no legal or practical obstacles to this practice. The full statement is available through the web address provided.

Poor countries can expect to see their debt repayments to the rest of the world increase by an average of a third by 2014, as they battle with the consequences of the financial crisis in the west, according to a new report by the Jubilee Debt Campaign. In its report 'The State of Debt', Jubilee uses predictions from the IMF and World Bank to show that among 61 poor countries it analysed, total debt repayments are expected to rise by a third on average over the next two years as a result of the slower growth and shaky financial system in the rest of the world.

As Russia’s new president Vladimir Putin begins a new phase of economic growth, trade experts are keeping a watchful eye on Moscow’s policies with the African continent, which they see as a huge, untapped source of economic opportunity. But experts like Dmitri M. Bondarenko, vice director for research at the Institute for African Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences and a long-time critic of Russia’s stagnant relationship with Africa under Dmitry Medvedev’s administration, is not very hopeful that a new president will bring any change.

'The world economy is no less fragile today than it was on the eve of the 2009 Conference. And Developing Economies are just as exposed to downside risks from Advanced Economies as they were then, but their policy space has narrowed in the interim. There can be little doubt that there is a lot Developing Economies could do to strengthen their own fundamentals and reduce dependence on foreign markets, capital and commodities to gain greater autonomy.' This is according to The South Centre's Chief Economist, Dr. Yilmaz Akyüz, who took part as a speaker at the UN General Assembly's two-day Thematic Debate on the State of the World Economy, held in New York on 17-18 May 2012. The presentation can be accessed from the South Centre's website.

European leaders in Brussels failed to agree on any concrete measures to deal with the continent’s rapidly worsening economic crisis, reports 'Following last night’s six-hour summit, leaders of the major economies were unable to paper over sharpening disagreements on economic policy, particularly the proposal backed by France’s new Socialist Party President Francois Hollande and reportedly the majority of those present for the issuance of euro bonds, pooling state-backed European debt, and the closely related question of propping up the continent’s crisis ridden banks.'

The Rendition Project website is the product of a collaborative research project funded by the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council. Working closely with Reprieve, a legal action charity which has led the way in investigating secret prisons and representing victims of rendition and torture, the Rendition Project aims to bring together and analyse the huge amount of data on rendition and secret detention in the US-led ‘War on Terror’.

Migration, especially when it is forced, is always stressful and very often traumatic. Reaching a place of relative safety does not mean the trauma of having survived rape, torture or the loss of loved ones is over. Studies have found that migrants are far more likely to suffer from chronic anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorders (PTSD) than non-migrants. Yet the psychosocial needs of migrants and refugees are usually overlooked as governments and NGOs focus on meeting their more obvious need for food, shelter and documentation.

This article from looks at the changing meaning of privacy in the online world. 'None of what you transmit - however personal - through a digital wireline or wireless network is “private.” Rather, through the spectacle of post-modern capitalism, the private has become public, the property of the corporation that owns your keystrokes. The digital revolution has morphed the personal into an electronic commodity; the electronic commodity is the exchange currency of an encroaching, 21st-century digital feudalism.'

The UN has found asylum-seekers increased by 20 per cent in 2011. The Guardian UK has mapped the countries where asylum-seekers are coming from and the countries they are going to.

This special program of Africa Today is on the case of the Angola 3 - Herman Wallace, Alert Woodfox and Robert King. Woodfox and Wallace have served more than 14,500 days in solitary confinement in the Louisiana Prison System. A discussion on the issues of incarceration and solitary confinement with Robert King of the Angola 3, Marina Drummer of the Angola 3 Support Committee, Everette Thompson of Amnesty International and Professor Allen-Bell.

Brazilian diversified mining major Vale has confirmed that its portfolio includes investments of $7.7-billion in projects in nine African countries. Speaking at a recent seminar on Africa hosted by Brazil’s National Economic and Social Development Bank (better known by its Portuguese initials, BNDES), Vale CEO Murilo Ferreira reaffirmed the importance of Africa in his company’s strategy.? He highlighted that Vale continued to be interested in the continent and specifically cited coal and copper as sectors in which Vale continued to make investments in Africa.

As central bankers from China to Venezuela and from Argentina to Japan are seeking ways to exit from the contagion of the speculative trading of US bankers, progressive forces must renew the call for the nationalization of the big banks, which are supposed to be too big to fail.

‘I find myself marking these dates as if they were personal milestones because they are two of many landmarks, not only for the entire modern world, but for my own family’.