GUINEACHINA Blood and money in the streets 19th October 2009 Image courtesy of Panos Pictures View site China's business ties to the loathed Camara junta could quickly backfire Beijing's Foreign Ministry officials are energetically distancing themselves from a US$7 billion minerals deal announced on 9 October by the increasingly isolated military regime in Guinea with the Hong-Kong based China International Fund. Without some fast diplomatic footwork, China could again face excoriation for helping to finance a murderous regime, five years after an international campaign began pressuring Beijing over military and financial links to the Sudanese regime and massacres in Darfur.
ANGOLAGUINEACHINA The faces behind the funds 19th October 2009 Image courtesy of Panos Pictures View site The business people, politicians and state officials behind the China International Fund (CIF) and China Sonangol International (CSI) entered the public eye in 2008 with the purchase of the publicly traded...
ANGOLAGUINEACHINA How the Sino-Angolan alliance works 19th October 2009 Image courtesy of Panos Pictures View site The China International Fund (CIF) was born in the aftermath of Angola's civil war as the Luanda government embarked on Africa's costliest post-war reconstruction, fuelled by oil, gas and mineral resources....
CHINA Graphic: China International Fund's web of public and private backers 19th October 2009 Despite the protestations of China's Foreign Ministry, the China International Fund is linked to an array of private entrepreneurs and Chinese state-owned enterprises.
TANZANIASOUTH KOREA The next great land sale 19th October 2009 Seoul is trying to buy into Tanzania's farm sector shortly after Daewoo precipitated a political confrontation over the same issue in Madagascar South Korea is desperately trying to manage the political fallout as it negotiates the acquisition of 100,000 hectares of farmland with the Tanzanian government. It is trying to avoid a...
CHINAWEST AFRICA Abuja writes the playbook, Beijing brings the players 19th October 2009 Who is fooling whom in the scheming over oil and gas reserves? On the face of it, the speculation that China could take over US$50 billion worth of Nigeria's oil reserves currently licensed to Western oil majors is on the outer reaches...
CAMEROONASIA Cameroon/Asia: New farmers from the East 19th October 2009 Asian companies have recently started negotiations to secure Cameroonian land to cultivate rice and other staples, but local civil society groups are already sounding warnings about the implications. At the end...
UGANDACHINA The race to give Museveni what he wants 19th October 2009 In Uganda, the China National Offshore Oil Corporation has taken the pole position in discussions to buy out part of Irish oil company Tullow's interests in more than one billion barrels...
ETHIOPIACHINA Power surge in Addis 19th October 2009 The Ethiopian government is launching one of Africa's most ambitious cooperation programmes with China to build several new power stations Ethiopia has signed contracts with Chinese construction companies to build two huge dams as part of a US$12 billion, 25-year Power Sector Master Plan to harness the country's hydropower potential. It...
CHINA Zhao Jianping 19th October 2009 Chairman, China-Africa Development Fund China Development Bank Vice-Governor Zhao Jianping has taken the reins of the China-Africa Development Fund from CDB colleague Gao Jian. Zhao's career is marginally more cosmopolitan than that of the man...
TAIWAN Chin-tien (Timothy) Yang 19th October 2009 Minister of Foreign Affairs, Taiwan One of the Taiwan's most experienced Africanist diplomats now appointed as Foreign Minister, Chin-tien (Timothy) Yang keeps carefully to the new script which paradoxically downplays the importance of Taipei's African allies....
INDIA Shashi Tharoor 19th October 2009 Former Minister of State, External Affairs, India Appointed as Minister of State for External Affairs for Africa, Latin America and the Middle East, Shashi Tharoor brings his experience in the United Nations to the post. As a...
VIETNAM Phung Dinh Thuc 19th October 2009 President and CEO, Petrovietnam The new president of Vietnam's state oil monopoly is increasingly looking overseas to shore up the country's reserves. Phung Dinh Thuc is a Soviet-trained engineer with a long career at Vietnam...