China will host a summit between Iran and the Gulf Cooperation Council later this year, reports the Wall Street Journal. The summit with the six-country bloc (made up of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar and Kuwait) will further solidify the normalization of diplomatic ties between Iran and Saudi Arabia, brokered by China this weekend.
The announcement follows December’s first summit between China and Arab states, where GCC leaders welcomed President Xi Jinping’s ...
Category: Timber
Undercutting the Amazon? Deregulation in the Wake of South America’s Chinese Investment Boom
By Rebecca Ray As Brazilians head to the polls at the end of this month for a presidential runoff between current President Jair Bolsonaro and former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, one of the many issues on the table is ...
Chinese Demand for Illegal Rosewood Leads to Deforestation in Cameroon
Cameroon is just one of a growing number of African countries that is facing a deforestation crisis due in part to the trade in illegal Rosewood. Large organized crime syndicates are felling vast numbers of these prized trees, smuggling them across ...
“Fishermen Are Suffering, Families Are Starving” Due to Illegal Overfishing by Chinese Trawlers in Sierra Leone, Says Report
Illegal overfishing by Chinese trawlers in Ghana's coastal waters has been well documented, but now stakeholders in other West African countries including Sierra Leone are sounding the alarm. “The Chinese fleet has been taking the profits of the fisheries for 30 ...
Biden-Tshisekedi Meet on Sidelines of G20
DR Congo President Félix Tshisekedi met one-on-one with his U.S. counterpart, Joe Biden, on Friday in the run-up to the G20 summit that took place over the weekend in Rome. There's been a lot of interest in recent months
Q&A: How Illegal Chinese Logging Fuels the Islamic Insurgency in Mozambique
This Spring’s crackdown on illegal mining activities in Ghana, including by some Chinese nationals, and the recent high-profile incidents of illicit mining by Chinese companies in the eastern DR Congo have put a spotlight on the issue of unregulated Chinese resource extraction in other ...
Analysis from Cobus van Staden
China Tries to Maintain Mideast Diplomatic Momentum With Summit Planned for Later This Year
The Global Marketplace Versus the Global South
This week The Guardian carried two articles about China’s growing influence in the Pacific Island region. The first, under the headline “Pacific Plunder,” highlights how China imports more wood, fish, and minerals from Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, and elsewhere than any other major ...
25 “Massive” Illegal Chinese Gold Mines Discovered in a Remote Region of Sierra Leone
A group of unknown Chinese entities has reportedly been operating a large-scale illegal gold mining operation in one of the poorest and most remote regions of eastern Sierra Leone, according to an investigative report published in Sunday's edition of the Sierra Leone Telegraph newspaper. ...
A Zambian Ambassador Issues Forceful Denial That Senior Lusaka Leaders Involved in Illegal Timber Racket
Ambassador to Ethiopia and Permanent Representative to the African Union, Emmanuel Mwamba, published a scathing rebuttal to allegations made by the London-based Environmental Investigation Agency that accused senior government leaders of running a "cartel" to illegally harvest and export endangered mukula timber, largely to China.
Investigation: High-Level Corruption in Zambia Fuels Illegal Timber Trade with China
The Environmental Investigation Agency published a damning report last week that alleged Zambian President Edgar Lungu, his daughter and several high-ranking ministers are all allegedly involved in the illicit trade of rare mukula wood. Mukula is a rare African tree and one of the rosewood species protected under ...
Gabon Takes Action Against Chinese Logging Company Following Damning Report
The Gabon government has suspended the logging license at two sites run by a large, privately-owned Chinese logging company that allegedly engaged in widespread illegal activities, according to a report by Agence France Presse. The Dejia Group was singled out last month in ...