Khadija Sharife

The issue of ‘blood diamonds’ has once again made the news: Farai Maguwu, director of Zimbabwe’s Mutare-based Centre for Research and Development (CRD), languishes under the long arm of Zimbabwe’s law, on alleged charges related to his research on Zimbabwe’s Marange mines.

South Africa's 2010 World Cup 'feel good' factor is addictive. At taxi ranks, street bazaars and tea-rooms, South African citizens everywhere are filled with elation - and pride.

In perhaps his most famous anti-imperialist essay ‘To the Person Sitting in Darkness’, Mark Twain critiques the self-evident truth of American imperial policy in Africa, China and the Philippines:

East Africa's looming 'eco-genocide', set to impact one million people, is about to become a reality in Ethiopia and extending to Sudan and Kenya if Gilgel Gibe III mega-dam – the second largest in Africa – continues along its destructive path.

The Beijing drago breathes, and as it does – given that China has since become the world’s major emitter of carbon dioxide (CO2), overtaking even the gaseous US economy that has historically led the polluters pack – we expect raging fire.

For many of Africa's rent-seeking regimes, China's entrance as a resource-hungry global creditor is manna from the ancestors.

All carbon is not created equal: One ton of carbon dioxide (CO2) generated in New York from several McDonalds burgers, for instance, clocking in at 16kg per 1kg of meat, is not the equivalent of one ton of CO2 emitted in a country like South Africa, where energy generated from coal provides basic

The water is crystalline, the sand is whiter than white and elegantly bent palm trees sway in the breeze. This is how the Seychelles markets itself: As ‘another world’. Tourism is the mainstay of this heavenly island, generating around 20 per cent and 60 per cent of foreign exchange earnings.

For the first time since the fall of the Berlin Wall, Africa has a counterweight, and the United States a rival: China. Similar to the Soviet Union, China approaches rulers of resource-rich countries through the ethos of brothers-in-arms rather than client states.

If the gorillas inhabiting the Kahuzi Biega National Park located in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a World Heritage site and ecological sanctuary, could read, the bible may have come handy.