In this week's roundup of emerging powers news, Tougher Chinese bank regulations weakens South african rand, Zambian miners reinstated at Chinese mine, Zain signs deal with India's Bharti, and Tanzania seeks to protect seed genetic heritage.

Zimbabwe's power-sharing government has made no real progress in implementing political reforms and ending human rights abuses after a year in office, Human Rights Watch has said. The government has demonstrated little political will or capacity to enact meaningful changes to improve the lives of Zimbabweans.

Moremi Initiative for Women’s Leadership in Africa is pleased to announce its call for applications for the 2010 Moremi Leadership Empowerment and Development (MILEAD) Fellows Program for young African women leaders. The MILEAD Fellows Program is a one-year leadership development program designed to identify, develop and promote emerging young African Women leaders to attain and succeed in leadership in their community and Africa as a whole.

This five-day training, offered by Minority Rights Group International (MRG), aims to equip minority and indigenous peoples activists (individuals and NGOs) with media skills to generate their own information and to interact with local, regional and international media especially in the European Union.

Egypt will invite bids in March for 50,000 acres of land in North Sinai for agro-business projects, the agriculture minister said yesterday. Egypt said this month it planned to lease farmland for agro-business projects during 2010 but was waiting for the agriculture ministry to allocate suitable plots.

Zimbabwe's Supreme Court has ordered two government mining firms to stop operations on British-owned diamond mining fields plagued by human rights abuses, state newspapers have reported. The case was brought to the court by British-based African Consolidated Resources (ACR) in a bid to win back its mining rights which were suspended in 2006. The government is appealing a court ruling returning the fields to ACR.

International prosecutors have promised there will be "no impunity" for anyone suspected of taking part in the killing of Guinean activists last September. The International Criminal Court's Fatou Bensouda, who is visiting Guinea, told the BBC victims' families would have justice.

"Hidden Herstories: Women of Change" is a youth-led heritage project which looks at 4 influential women who haven't had their rightful place in the history books. 20 young people from west London have set out to right this wrong; using their film-making and writing skills, they have made a one hour documentary and published a magazine. The film exposes the plights and determination of Octavia Hill, Amy Ashwood Garvey, Claudia Jones and Jayaben Desai. For more information on these women, click below to view the 28 page magazine featuring contributions from Tristram Hunt, Jenny Bourne, Nzingha Assata and Marika Sherwood.

Communities, environmental groups, academics and NGOs are calling on the World Bank to cease and desist from a proposed loan of R29 billion ($3.75 bn) to Eskom. If this loan – which may come up for a Board vote in March or April – goes through, poor South Africans will have to bear the burden of Eskom’s debt and the World Bank’s cost recovery programme, and climate change will intensify.

The aim of the Summer School is to provide its participants with an comprehensive understanding of the immigration and asylum policy of the European Union from a legal point of view. The programme is organised by the "Academic Network for Legal Studies on Immigration and Asylum in Europe", founded with the financial support of the Odysseus Programme of the European Commission and co-ordinated by the Institute for European Studies of the Université Libre de Bruxelles.

Officials are appealing for calm during the campaign period ahead of upcoming historic elections in April as insecurity remains a major concern in Southern Sudan. Electoral campaigning in the highly charged contest opened on 13 February, two months before three days of polling from 11 April, with the results due a week later.

The health department is redesigning the new ARV tender in the hope of procuring cheaper antiretroviral medicine amid claims that South Africa is paying around 30% more than the global rate for the drugs.

Environmental Film Festival of Accra is currently accepting films and videos made about the environment or about issues around the environment throughout the world. We also accept films and videos that explore the relationship between the environment and other socio - economic, political and cultural themes. Whilst we give preference to films about Ghana and Africa, we screen highly acclaimed international films. Films should preferably depict positive and realistic images and can be of any genre - drama, comedy, horror, adventure, animation, romance, science fiction, experimental, etc.

Ahmed Maher and Amr Ali, both leaders in the April 6th Youth Movement, were arrested in the early morning on 16 February as they were driving home from a meeting regarding the welcoming reception planned for Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Mohamed Elbaradei, who many activists are calling on to run for presidency in Egypt's upcoming election. Maher and Ali were stopped at a security checkpoint, forced out of their car, and taken to jail.

You are invited to join us a screening of ‘’, a documentary that features the voices of women speaking in the aftermath of Kenya's 2007 post-election crisis.

The film (30 minutes) will be followed by a Q&A session with Firoze Manji, editor of Pambazuka News. Titles from Pambazuka Press will also be on sale.

DATE: Tuesday 2 March
TIME: 7pm
PLACE: Oxford Brookes University Human Rights Film Festival.

Over the years many Big Ideas have been imposed on Africa from outside. The latest is that the region should sell or lease millions of hectares of land to foreign investors, who will bring resources and up-to-date technology. None of the blueprints has worked, and African farmers have become increasingly impoverished. It is time for Africans to turn to their own histories, knowledge and resources.

The African Union has condemned a coup in Niger, where soldiers have detained President Mamadou Tandja. AU chief Jean Ping said he was watching developments "with concern" after a day of gun battles culminated in a takeover led by Colonel Salou Djibo.

Kenyan police have released five people arrested for planning a "gay wedding" north of Mombasa, saying there was no evidence to prosecute them. But police spokesman Martha Mutegi told the BBC the men had been advised to leave the area for their own safety and to avoid angering the local community.

In 2005, the 15 governments that comprised the EU before its eastward expansion the previous year undertook to allocate at least 0.51 percent of their gross national income to development aid by 2010. But estimates published Feb. 17 project that the average aid allocation given by these countries this year will be just 0.48 percent of income. As a result, the amount being given by wealthy countries to poor ones will be 21 billion dollars less this year than the amount foreseen in 2005.

While the political agenda at the IMF is shifting back to mandate and governance reform, there are growing calls that the Fund needs to fundamentally rethink the monetary and fiscal policies it demands of borrowers if the institution is to retain legitimacy and renew its mandate.