A Congolese man is trying to get a controversial Tintin book banned in the cartoon star's home country of Belgium. The ginger sleuth's "little (black) helper" in Tintin in the Congo is seen as "stupid and without qualities", Bienvenu Mbutu is quoted as saying. "It makes people think that blacks have not evolved," said Mr Mbutu, who lives in Belgium.

IBSA is a trilateral, developmental initiative between India, Brazil and South Africa to promote South-South cooperation and exchange.

In this week's roundup of emerging actors news, IMF and Africa agree on public investment borrowing modalities, China shifts its Africa investment strategy, Tata Africa to start assembly plant in Nigeria, and Vodacom’s DRC investment turns sour.

European Union governments want to develop a global code of conduct for foreign investments in agricultural land in developing countries, according to a draft paper on food security seen by Reuters. Food security concerns, driven by a sharp rise in global food prices in 2008, have prompted major importers such as China and the Gulf states to invest heavily in African farmland to secure supplies.

They go by different names: IBSA (India, Brazil and South Africa), BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) and BASIC (Brazil, South Africa, India and China). These formations all amount to more or less the same thing: The new 'emerging economies' seeking to redefine relations between themselves and the rest of the world. They are widely seen as new symbols of power in the global arena, writes Saliem Fakier.

Perched at the very top of an iniquitous global economic pyramid, the world's financial elite are nothing more than parasites leeching off the lifeblood of the world's poor and middle classes, writes Glenn Ashton. While the hold on wealth and resources of the top 20 per cent is deeply concerning, the power of an elite 1 per cent is simply perverse, Ashton stresses.

In this week's roundup of emerging actors news, Moroccan prime minister meets Communist Party delegation, China to embark on multi-billion dollar investment in Ethiopia, South Africa boosts coal supplies to China and India, and Korea has important lessons to teach Africa.

This year marks the 15th anniversary of the Beijing Platform for Action (BPfA). A 15-year Review of the implementation of the BPfA (Beijing +15) has seen civil society organisations contribute numerous studies, reports, statements and updates on whether or not commitments made have been met and to offer recommendations on how to improve policy and practice. This update from Siyanda brings together a selection of these materials.

On April 13 the number two in the Vatican hierarchy, the Pope’s Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, claimed that there is a link between homosexuality and paedophilia. The LGBT movement worldwide has risen up against this false, despicable and anti-scientific statement from the Vatican, which is trying to deflect attention from priests’ sex crimes by blaming LGBT people.

World Bank President Robert Zoellick is expected to formally release the World Bank Group’s request for an estimated $58 billion general capital increase (GCI) on Sunday, April 25th at the conclusion of the World Bank’s Spring Meeting this weekend. A broad and growing global coalition of environmental, faith-based, human rights, community, and indigenous rights groups are calling for an end to the Bank’s continued financing of dirty energy projects, withholding support for the Bank’s GCI request within member country capitals as a consequence.

A World Bank report said that some 64 million more people would be living in extreme poverty in 2010 due to global recession. "The economic crisis and recession have substantially increased the challenge of meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) targets," the World Development Indicator (WDI) 2010, released by the bank on Wednesday, stated.

The continent of Africa, already facing severe food shortages, has in recent years been targeted for land acquisition by countries from outside the region. The trend started in the 1990s when countries such as Sudan allowed rich Gulf countries to buy agricultural land in the areas irrigated by the bountiful waters of the White and Blue Nile. The oil bonanza had not yet materialised in Sudan. Under virtual sanctions from the West, it was facing severe economic constraints and was caught in a bloody civil war.

As Canadian and European trade negotiators gather in Ottawa for a third round of free trade negotiations, the newly formed Trade Justice Network has publicly released a draft text of the proposed Canada-European Union Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA). The network is raising serious concerns about the agreement’s potential impact on public and environmental policy, culture, farmers and public services in both Canada and Europe, and has issued a set of demands that it says must be met before negotiations are allowed to continue.

The IBSA Fund, which finances anti-poverty projects in the most vulnerable countries, is an example of the spirit in which India, Brazil and South Africa wish to build their partnership, their leaders say. The fund was set up in 2004, one year after the India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA) Dialogue Forum was created, with annual contributions of one million dollars from each member. It currently supports reconstruction in Haiti after the January earthquake, agriculture in Guinea-Bissau, and projects in other African and Asian countries like Burundi and Cambodia.

A so-called Vulture Funds bill - to stop finance companies using British courts to extort excessive debt repayments from some of the world's poorest countries - was passed in the frantic scramble to finish outstanding parliamentary business before Britain's general election in May.

Africa has been catapulted into the electronic age over the past decade and a half by an almost incomprehensibly swift growth in telecommunications technology driven primarily by a massive rollout of cell phones and wireless technology throughout the continent.

In this week's roundup of emerging actors news, Three steps to unleashing Africa's genius, China is ready for Ghanaian entrepreneurs, South Africa and China sign trade deals worth R2,3bn, Africa and India to boost cooperation in agricultural technologies for smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa.

TechSoup Global, the U.S.-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that provides technology resources and knowledge to NGOs around the world, and GuideStar International, a U.K.-registered charity that promotes transparency and civil society organization (CSO) reporting, have announced that they will combine operations in order to strengthen their respective capacity-building programs for civil society. The two organizations share a mission to benefit global civil society through the provision of technology, information, and resources.

When President Barack Obama took office in January 2009, it was widely expected that he would dramatically change, or even reverse, the militarised and unilateral security policy that had been pursued by the George W. Bush administration toward Africa, as well as toward other parts of the world.

Sanusha Naidu writes about the China-Africa joint research and exchange program that was launched at the end of March by the follow-up committee of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), in partnership with the Institute of West Asian and African Studies (IWAAS) of the Chinese Academy of Social Science (CASS).