This year's Super Bowl Halftime show is sponsored by the Bridgestone Firestone tire company. For over 80 years, Firestone has exploited workers and the environment on its rubber plantation in Liberia. After a long campaign for justice, workers on the plantation finally signed their first contract negotiated by an independent and democratically elected union leadership in August 2008, but the company has not implemented many of the important improvements in the new contract.

The Open Society Justice Initiative, an operational arm of the Open Society Institute (OSI), pursues legal reform activities grounded in the protection of human rights, and contributes to the development of legal capacity for open societies worldwide. The International Justice program supports and enhances the work of all international and hybrid tribunals. The Justice Initiative is seeking to recruit a Consultant to be based in New York, USA, or The Hague, The Netherlands, for 3-5 months, to help develop programs aimed at expanding and deepening its focus on International Criminal Court (ICC) related issues.

Chinese premier Wen Jiabao will arrive in Europe on Tuesday (27 January) for a visit that Chinese foreign ministry officials have described as a 'Journey of Confidence.' His first stop will be the World Economic Forum annual gathering in Davos, Switzerland, ahead of a number of scheduled meetings with European leaders in a bid to mend fences following the postponing of last month's EU-China summit.

China on Thursday said it would extend Senegal aid worth 8.9 million euros (11.5 million dollars) for sports, cultural and sanitation projects. "The Chinese government will provide the Senegalese government aid totalling 80 million yuan for cooperation projects," Chinese Ambassador Lu Shaye said. This would be used to build or refurbish 11 stadia, a museum, a national theatre in Dakar and a children's hospital, Senegalese Finance Minister Abdoulaye Diop said.

Government has moved to put in place trade laws that will ban Chinese traders from dealing in clothes. The Chinese traders were given 24 months from May last year to rearrange their businesses or face being sent back to China. The government's decision to bar non-citizens - especially the Chinese traders - from dealing in clothing comes at a time when the Chinese traders are found at every corner of the country, selling all types of clothes, mainly fake overseas clothing brands.

The government of India has made available a partnership programme to the value of about E50 billion ($5bn) over a five-year period to African governments. On the other hand, the Exim Bank of India has expressed interest in partnering with local indigenous financial institutions to provide accessible financial resources.

In an effort to hold back the domestic effects of the global downturn, China is starting to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on new highways, railroads and other infrastructure projects. The stimulus plan, one of the world’s largest, promises to carry the modernity of China’s coasts deep into the hinterlands, buying the kind of great leap forward it took the United States decades — and a world war — to build, and priming China for a new level of global competition.

The ongoing international financial crisis has landed the world economy in the most difficult situation since last century's Great Depression. In the face of the crisis, countries and the international community have taken various measures to address it. These measures have played an important role in boosting confidence, reducing the consequences of the crisis, and forestalling a meltdown of the financial system and a deep global recession.

The roulette tables at the Great Wall casino have suddenly fallen silent. A few miles away, Lusaka’s most popular Chinese restaurant is virtually empty, the only guests a handful of wealthy Africans. The ripples from the global economic meltdown have finally washed up on African shores. Nowhere is that more noticeable than in Zambia,

China is considering including more African goods in a list of products excluded from import tariffs as a way of further boosting trade with the continent, state media said on Sunday. China already levies no import tariffs on more than 10 types of goods imported from 31 African countries, including textiles, machinery and farm products, the official Xinhua news agency said.

China will fully implement the eight measures for China-Africa practical cooperation agreed at the Beijing Summit of Forum on China-Africa Cooperation despite the ongoing global financial crisis, Assistant Foreign Minister Zhai Jun said Thursday.

As China enters the “Year of the Ox”, there is much to reflect on from the past 12 months and even more to speculate about regarding the coming year. 2008 began with devastating snowstorms that paralysed most of central and southern China’s transport system, interrupting lives and causing severe material damage. Then came the riots in Tibet, which caught the government off guard, followed by embarrassing protests over China’s Olympic torch relay in several Western and Asian countries.

The Liberian government has signed a $2.6 billion agreement with a Chinese company, China Union, to excavate for iron ore at the country's western former Bong Mines. The agreement, signed Thursday, is said to be the biggest ever investment in Liberia.

Brazil hopes to supply drivers worldwide with the fuel of the future - cheap ethanol derived from sugarcane. It is considered an effective antidote to climate change, but hundreds of thousands of Brazilian plantation workers harvest the cane at slave wages.

The South-South Experience Exchange Facility is a new multi donor trust fund that promotes the idea that the development successes in one country can be replicated in another. The trust fund has identified other areas suited for this financing including managing commodity windfalls; developing efficient tax systems; adapting to new technologies; creating social safety nets that benefit the poor; and trade integration and investment climate.

The World Bank’s decision to shut out four Chinese firms from taking part in any of its projects around the world is likely to draw a cold reaction from African countries, many of which have turned to the Far East for economic partnerships. Political analysts say the World Bank’s move against the firms – three of which have lucrative infrastructure contracts in Kenya – is bound to be interpreted as a move against China’s growing political and economic clout in Africa by Western economic powers.

The work to establish three to five economic and trade cooperation zones in Africa has proceeded smoothly, China’s Minister of Commerce Chen Deming said recently. The China-Africa Development Fund, aimed at encouraging and supporting Chinese enterprises investing in Africa, has also already invested nearly 400 million USD.

The first has to do with commodity prices. The second is the seeming retreat from Africa of investors and entrepreneurs from China, which is surprising. Until recently, it appeared that Africa's dependence on commodity exports would not hinder its economic rise. Growth rates of more than 5 percent for the last few years have been fuelled by the large increases in international commodity prices.

India expects to triple trade with Africa over the next five years to reach $100 billion, officials said on Wednesday, as it tries to strengthen ties in a region where Asian rival China has made rapid inroads. Despite an economic slowdown, India is planning a slew of projects in agriculture, small industry, mining, Information and Communication Technology (ICT), oil pipelines, chemical industry, power generation and transmission among others.

China has lost its first ever WTO dispute on auto parts and faces a new challenge on alleged export subsidies to a broad range of consumer goods. On the offensive side, Beijing has initiated a case against US countervailing duties on steel and other products.