As business, government and private sector leaders gather in the Swiss town of Davos this week for the World Economic Forum, global food security and poverty will be among the key challenges they will need to tackle.

At least 1,570 individuals were removed from the EU's territory in 31 flights coordinated by the bloc's external borders agency Frontex between Jan. 1 and Dec. 15 last year. This represented a tripling in joint expulsions - involving authorities from two or more EU states - since 2007. Some 428 migrants were flown out in such operations that year, with the figure rising to over 800 in 2008.

The book Urgency Required focuses on urgent issues of gay and lesbian liberation, taking a historical perspective and reflecting worldwide geographic diversity. Employing the term ‘LGBT-persons’, the acronym used for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender, it explores concepts and strategies for taking steps towards decriminalization and equal rights and treatment regarding sexual orientation and gender identity.

The WTO Secretariat has launched a new programme of support for teaching, research and outreach activities at 14 universities in the developing world. The WTO Chairs Programme (WCP) will assist national academic institutions in providing students with a deeper understanding of trade policy issues. Through analytical input into the formulation and implementation of trade policy, the WCP will help strengthen the participation of the beneficiary countries in international trade.

An echo that turns itself into many voices, into a network of voices that, before the deafness of power, opts to speak to itself, knowing itself to be one and many, acknowledging itself to be equal in its desire to listen and be listened to, recognizing itself as different in the tonalities and levels of voices forming it. A network of voices that resist the war that power wages on them. – Words of the Zapatistas at the “First Intercontinental Encuentro for Humanity and Against Neoliberalism.”

In this week's emerging powers news, south-south cooperation is cemented in new partnerships, Africa seeks frameworks for managing new resource-driven weatlh, BRIC and South Africa commit to mitigating climate change, and the AU keen to forge closer ties with China.

Activists and researchers in the United States are raising the alarm on what they call the “land grab” in Africa. Outside governments and foreign corporations have been turning increasingly to African countries to purchase large areas of land, to the dismay of activists, who say economic mistakes of the past should not be repeated.

The same kind of worldwide solidarity that helped bring down apartheid is necessary to free the global South from economic domination. "Global solidarity has proved to be the only sustainable mode of confronting global apartheid, as exemplified by the liberation struggles that were fought in the 20th century," says Dakarayi Matanga.

OLPCorps is OLPC’s official field volunteer program. It is a worldwide community dedicated to transforming education for children who have had little or no access to modern information technology. OLPCorps gives young people the opportunity to contribute their minds, bodies, time and skills to delivering better education for children living in some of the world’s most disadvantaged communities.

In only two weeks, four Afro-Colombian leaders have been murdered, and several subjected to death threats. Fumigations have caused the internal displacement of more than 100 Afro-Colombians. The violation of Afro-Colombian fundamental rights continues to escalate. Effective and structural measurements must be taken by Colombian government in order to guarantee the safety and integrity of Afro-Colombians, and promote the respect and observance of their rights.

The West wants to direct billions toward protecting forest lands, but the lack of any standardized rules and enforcement methods could lead to disaster. Experts warn that the wrong people might benefit from the money and argue indiginous peoples, not bureaucrats, should watch over the rainforests.

Relief agencies are struggling to help the some 18,000 displaced people in 17 makeshift camps in and around the central Nigerian city of Jos. Most of the displaced do not have enough food and they lack access to toilet facilities and safe drinking water, Nigeria Red Cross (NRC) head Auwalu Mohammed told IRIN.

The International Monetary Fund believes growth in sub-Saharan Africa will be 1 percentage point above the global average, and puts eight African countries in its top 20 fastest-expanding economies in 2010, write Ed Cropley and Ben Hirschler. Oil-rich Angola and Congo Republic will lead the charge with growth rates of more than 9 and 12 percent respectively, both beating China, according to the IMF's most recent projections.

Top Documentary Films offers direct or indirect access to hundreds of documentaries - many of them socially critical - with reviews from trusted sources. The content here is created with a passion for documentary films, the site is in open form and allows readers to add comments about documentary films they like or dislike. This is a useful resource for educators, the socially critical and, indeed, anyone bored out of their minds by the inanity and poverty of mainstream TV and commercial cinema.

Despite the financial crisis that has wrecked global economies, the volume of trade between Namibia and China has grown, resulting in commerce between the two countries exceeding US$550 million in 2009, writes Chrispin Inambao.

The global financial crisis threatens to deprive millions of children in the world’s poorest countries of an education, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, with a knock-on effect on future economic growth, poverty reduction and progress in health and other areas, according to a United Nations report.

Improving nutrition in the developing world has never been more important. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, more than a billion people — one sixth of the global population — have a diet so poor they may be severely underweight, have stunted growth, or lack the vitamins and minerals they need for good health (all are aspects of severe malnutrition, or undernutrition).

In the last three decades, changes in the global economy have led to debt and balance of payments crises in many African countries. They desperately needed foreign exchange which they could only get from the World Bank and the IMF. These institutions used this opportunity to expand their influence over the recipients' national policies. This paper discusses country ownership which is a central issue of the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness. It looks at the contradictory and competing usages of the term - ownership as commitment and ownership as control.

In this week's emerging powers news roundup, the forecast is positive for the South African economy in the wake of its first recession in 17 years, a WEF risk assessment counts sharp slowdown of China as a major threat to future prosperity, and the China-Africa Development Fund invests US$540 million in Africa.

The Tanzania government has signed a five-year livestock and fishing agreement with China that would see Chinese firms invest in aquaculture and livestock projects.