Questions are being raised about how Tanzania’s plentiful mining sector will be affected by a potential gold rush from Canadian extractive companies, after the two countries concluded a foreign investment agreement. Jamie Kneen, a spokesperson for Mining Watch Canada who deals with Canadian companies operating in Africa, said the agreement is mostly just 'a political gesture'. Some of the explorations are happening in fragile ecosystems, including a wetland area and a game reserve, he argued, and local community groups are already beginning to voice concerns.

South African police have arrested 90 people after a protest at a mine turned violen, officials say. The miners were from the Gold Fields KDC Kloof mine in Westonaria, about 45km west of Johannesburg. More than 5,000 workers reportedly staged a sit-in there to demand better pay.

Somali refugees across the world have passed the one million person mark, said the United Nations refugee agency, highlighting the growing need for an end to conflict in the Horn of Africa. The vast majority of those refugees are living in regional neighbours, such as Kenya, Yemen, Egypt, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti, Tanzania and Uganda, the UNHCR said.

Blog Africa is a Country has a post about the furore caused when one of Sweden’s most prestigious national dailies blew up an article on its front page about cultural director at Stockholm Culture House Berhang Miri (a Swede of Iranian descent) reshelving Hergé’s Tintin books because of their perceived colonial taint, generating heated press and internet debate. The blog post is an interview with Nathan Hamelberg, member of The Betweenship group (which probes racist structures from a young, mixed-heritage perspective), to explain the discussion and its wider implications in Swedish society.

Some 154 million people were reportedly driven further into poverty in Southern countries as a result of speculation-induced food price hikes in 2007-08. What are the best strategies for bringing about the structural change needed that progressive activists can lend their support to? asks this Corner House report. The workshop presentation, while endorsing regulatory measures including banning certain investment vehicles such as exchange-traded funds and vetting of derivative-based financial instruments, cautions against becoming focussed on regulation alone as an answer. Also crucial is the promotion of non-derivative, socially-based mechanisms to protect farmers and consumers from volatile food prices, as well as price interventions that do not pit Northern farmers against their Southern counterparts.

The last part of Africa to be decolonised, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region, remains one of the most peaceful. Yet, despite comprehensive protocols and agreements, SADC faces acute challenges characterised by tensions between member states, resource deficits, citizens’ exclusion, social discontent and limited internal and external coordination. Regional security cooperation requires adept infrastructures underwritten by political commitment; but the organisation’s Secretariat appears powerless to ensure policy implementation, says this International Crisis Group report.

Offering free education, making it compulsory and supporting it politically has been the winning strategy behind Burundi's successful bid to ensure that virtually all children get a primary school education. In this interview from the Africa Report website, UNICEF's representative in Burundi, Johannes Wedenig, expatiates on government's positive role in this development. There have been some major drawbacks to such an avalanche of new students, Wedenig admits. Not enough of qualified teachers, classrooms, desks and books has created real bottlenecks. So one of the 'side effects' to the surge in school attendance, notes Wedenig, has been overcrowding and an increase in the pupil-to-teacher ratio.

Countries where people lack adequate access to land rights, water and energy - are among the worst performers in the annual Global Hunger Index (GHI). 'We find there is a definite correlation between these resources and food insecurity,' said Claudia Ringler, a co-author of this year’s GHI study, which was produced jointly by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and the NGOs Concern Worldwide and Welthungerhilfe.

Francophone Africa is not as involved in the fight against AIDS as the rest of the continent, according to a report presented in Kinshasa, on the sidelines of the 14th Summit of the International Organization of la Francophonie (OIF) holding in the Congolese capital. The report notes that 43 per cent of people with AIDS have access to treatment in francophone countries, against 59 per cent in the English-speaking countries. Nearly 50,000 children are born each year with HIV in francophone Africa, the report said, noting that 60 percent of them are in DR Congo alone.

Ghana says it takes strong exception to the contents of the purported United Nations Group of Experts report on Cote d’Ivoire, which was prematurely leaked to the media. The state-owned Graphic on Saturday quoted a statement signed by Mr Chris Kpodo, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, as saying it was grossly abnormal for such a report to appear in the public domain before it was received by the Security Council Sanctions Committee, which was scheduled to meet to receive the report on 12 October. 'The Government of Ghana, therefore, takes strong exception to the contents and leakage as it sought to give credence to repeated allegations that Ghana is being used as a base by Ivorian refugees and exiles to destabilise the Ivorian Government.'

Earlier this year it was reported that the Zambian government had released K5 billion or US$1 million to send police and security staff abroad to learn to hack websites. In April, Zambian Watchdog listed several measures taken by the government to crackdown on Internet users in Zambia. Global Voices Online reports on the story.

Over 56 million young people in sub-Saharan Africa have not completed primary school and lack basic skills for employment, according to a report. These young people are aged between 15 and 24. The African leg of the UN Global Monitoring Report on Education was released by the UN Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) in Soweto.

Sudanese security forces burned and looted a village in the Nuba mountains of South Kordofan state in May and filmed the attack, a monitoring group said on Tuesday, providing satellite images, cell phone video and witness accounts to back its claims. The Satellite Sentinel Project, whose founders include Hollywood actor George Clooney and the Enough Project, said a joint unit of Sudanese police known as Abu Tira, the Sudan Armed Forces and the Popular Defense Forces militia attacked Gardud al Badry on May 18 and then bombarded it with artillery on July 29.

The Civil Society Associations Gambia (CSAG) has filed an application against the government at the ECOWAS Court of Justice regarding the West African country’s 38 death row inmates at Mile 2 Central Prisons. Banka Manneh, chairman of the CSAG, made the announcement in a statement released by the West African bloc ECOWAS on Monday in the Nigerian capital Abuja. The group accused the Gambian government of violating the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and Customary International law.

Ethiopian prime minister Meles Zenawi died in August after ruling the country from 1995 to 2012. Contrary to regime claims of economic development, he will be remembered for crushing all dissent to his rule.

This manual from the Association for Progressive Communications is based on success stories and challenges in communicating research for influence. APC translated their knowledge and expertise into tips that other organisations or campaigners may find useful.

Authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) say they are trying to arrange for the assembly and disarmament of rival ethnic militias implicated in the massacres of hundreds of people in Masisi territory in the eastern province of North Kivu. Congolese army spokesman Lt-Col Olivier Hamuli told IRIN that following a visit to Masisi in September, the commander of the DRC's land forces, Gen Amisi Tango Fort, called on the militias to ‘regroup’ and disarm. Regrouping refers to the assembly of combatants in specific locations where they can be monitored prior to disarmament.

For Zimbabwe’s gay community, voting season is a time of dread. As political temperatures rise ahead of expected elections next year, gays and lesbians are being targeted by police in an apparent strategy to win over voters. On 11 August 2012, police raided a book launch at the headquarters of the Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe (GALZ), an NGO based in Harare that promotes the rights of sexual minorities. The police arrested 44 people, and although none were formally charged, the incident followed a familiar pattern of harassment, beatings and threats against people who openly identify as gay.

The UN refugee agency said Tuesday 25 September that fresh air and ground attacks in Sudan's South Kordofan state are causing a renewed population influx to South Sudan. 'About 100 refugees a day are arriving in the border town of Yida, in Unity state,' a spokesperson said, adding that the 'refugees are in poor health and without any belongings.' Some refugees told UNHCR they had also fled because of acute food shortages in South Kordofan. Many said they planned to build a shelter in Yida refuge camp before returning across the border to fetch family members.

Brutal attacks against bloggers, politically motivated surveillance, proactive manipulation of web content, and restrictive laws regulating speech online are among the diverse threats to internet freedom emerging over the past two years, according to a new study released by Freedom House. Despite these threats, 'Freedom on the Net 2012: A Global Assessment of Internet and Digital Media' found that increased pushback by civil society, technology companies, and independent courts resulted in several notable victories.

Corruption in the water sector can mean that money intended to improve water infrastructure and increase people’s access to clean water is misused. When money gets diverted, people continue to rely on insecure and polluted water sources for hygiene, drinking and food preparation purposes. There are initiatives to address the problems associated with the lack of access to information. In Africa, for example, water journalists across the continent are taking action to increase water users’ knowledge about water, to improve participation, and to increase access to information by forming networks.

Kenyan fighter jets have bombarded an airport in southern Somalia, where they are fighting al-Qaeda linked al-Shabab fighters, officials have said. The strikes took place in the port city of Kismayo on Tuesday 25 September. 'Our forces have reached Kismayo with jets and they have destroyed the armoury and a warehouse used by al-Shabab at the airport,' Cyrus Oguna, a Kenyan army spokesperson, said. He could not provide figures on the number of casualties incurred.

Morocco has blazed a reputation as a can-do country when it comes to improving its maternal health statistics. But a birth attendant in the remote Atlas Mountains shows the steeper climb that lies ahead for the country as it tries to reach rural women who live far from any health clinic, reports

The Millennium Development Goals may not be perfect but they are simple and straightforward - qualities diplomats and others fear could be lost in the process of crafting new targets to replace the MDGs, which expire in 2015. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon underscored this in remarks to members of a high-level panel charged with working out what comes next. 'We need a clear post-2015 development agenda - an agenda with shared responsibilities for all countries, with the fight against poverty at the fore and sustainable development at the core,' he said.

The UN Human Rights Council (the Council) should not take a soft approach to the deteriorating situation in South Kordofan, Blue Nile and Darfur when it adopts a resolution on Sudan at the end of its 21st session this week. The Council should act in accordance with its mandate to address ongoing widespread and serious violations of human rights and prevent any further deterioration of the situation in the conflict areas. 'The Council should not turn a blind eye to the potential for further abuses, in particular in South Kordofan, Blue Nile. The African Centre for Justice and Peace Studies (ACJPS) and FIDH call on the Council to keep a close watch on the human rights situation in Sudan,' said ACJPS Director Osman Hummaida.

In this Peace and Conflict Monitor article, a researcher back from a trip to the Congo, shares her observations about the darker side of the peace industry in Kivu province. In a region where sexual violence is a prominent and ongoing issue, she provides a glimpse of how the UN Peacekeeping forces fuel a thriving underground sex industry.

This report describes and analyzes the enabling of tens of millions of individuals–as well as established news outlets–to attract wide global followings with Facebook and Twitter updates and YouTube videos about rapidly changing events. The widely diverse and pluralistic online communities in the Arab world are creating and sharing content, casting into question the future of the many state-owned or self-censored media that provide less in the way of engagement that Arab audiences have come to expect.

‘In our struggle to give concrete form to Pan-Afrikanism, it is clear that we must continue and advance our anti-oppressive struggles with an understanding that the union of Afrikan people worldwide is an emancipation-from-below project.’

For much of this winter, communities in shack settlements across Cape Town have taken to the streets in some of the most active civil disobedience protests since 1994.

What is the value of America’s military and humanitarian interventions? Just look at Mali: Its shattered democracy and roving rebel groups are a troubling picture of an AFRICOM partner state.

A group of Tunisian civil society organisations last week warned that the draft law on a new electoral body might put the country's democracy on a dangerous path. 'The government's project is awash with shortcomings and gaps; something which would lead to an election that is neither democratic nor transparent,' Kamel Gharbi, representative of Ofiya coalition, said at the September 19th conference in Tunis. The Ennahda-dominated government in July proposed a set of regulations to establish a new commission to supervise next elections. According to the proposal, members of the Independent High Electoral Commission (ISIE) will be selected by the two-thirds majority of the Constituent Assembly, while its head will be named by the governing troika.

A UNHCR project launched last month is aimed at providing an income for internally displaced people (IDP) while making it easier for people to travel to and from Halabokhad. UNHCR provided 11 tuk-tuks, the three-wheeled motorized rickshaws common in developing nations. Each vehicle was to be maintained and operated by four IDPs, who would pocket any money made from passengers.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has joined the Central African Press Union (USYPAC in French) to call on DRC President Joseph Kabila to grant presidential pardon for three journalists in prison. 'We call on authorities in DRC to release our three colleagues arrested after being accused of collaboration with the armed guerillas movements. Their place is not definitely in prisons. Their release would be a great act of press freedom promotion,' said Gabriel Baglo, IFJ Africa Director.

‘Racial quotas are hateful’. So says Sunday Times columnist Stephen Mulholland. I don’t agree. It is an undeniable truth that race and political affiliation rank above ability in the current dispensation. However, Mulholland cunningly equates Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) and Affirmative Action with Nazism and apartheid. It is devoid of any facts. Woolworths is driving a programme adhering to the country’s labour legislations. It is geared towards addressing the inherent socio-economic inequalities of the past. BEE is not a law that was designated for oppression. Rather, one for balancing the scale. Apartheid had its affirmative action for whites. This one is to redress such imbalances. It could lend itself to abuse by our political demagogues. In some instances it has degenerated to an STD (Sexually Transmitted Disease) by some public representatives and the ruling party elites.

Comrade Umshini Wam infamously declared most recently to the DA speaker: ‘..you have more rights because you’re a majority. That’s how democracy works.’ The remark questioned his understanding of constitutional democracy. Again, attempting to bring in another notorious spokesperson in the form of Jimmy Manyi, Mulholland fraudulently attempts to equate the plight of the Coloured people to the economic hegemony of the Jews the world over. Since history has always been written by the victors, there has always been a conspicuous effort to erase Africa in the discourse on civilization. As if it is only the preserve of Europe. Therefore we also owe it to ourselves to change his/herstory to be ourstory.

In the post-1994 dispensation, it is easy for privileged Mulhollands to point fingers at our broken education system, festering hospitals, rape of the defence budget, corrupt tenders and so on, as they remember their formerly legalized racial superiority, despite having lost nothing under the democratically elected regime. It is worth reminding such people that none from the down-trodden South African approves of cronyism, corruption and other shortcomings of the government. The question that begs an answer should be how to review these legislations to benefit all of us equally. Racial quotas, according to his own definition, were not meant to perpetrate crimes against humanity or for genocidal purposes.

As seen in Palestinians at the hands of the Jewish settlers who arrived a couple of decades ago. In contrast, the indigenous South Africans demonstrated their humane side by not chasing Mulholland and such melamin neither challenged nor orchestrated any mass killings against them. This is despite them having colonized us for more than three centuries. Yet you have people like him having the audacity to judge our country against Hitler’s Nazi regime.

*MP Khwezi ka Ceza is a freelance journalist and an independent political economist

Fearing mass arrests and deportations, a group of about a hundred desperate undocumented asylum-seekers have turned to the South African Human Rights Commission to seek redress. New applicant asylum-seekers in the province have been languishing in the cold by the Department of Home Affairs former Refugee Reception Office at the Foreshore after it shut down the Maitland Refugee Reception Office and ordered these asylum-seekers to travel up to Pretoria or Musina for documentation. The department’s refusal to process new-comers is in defiance of two recent Western Cape High Court orders ordering it to resume documenting new applicants at their refugee offices on the Foreshore.

The European Women's Lobby with the European Network of Migrant Women have launched a documentary aimed at breaking stereotypes of migrant women. The film follows the stories of three women of migrant background living in the Europe. While struggling for their equal rights, these women, like so many others, enrich their host communities in myriad ways.

Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria and Friends of the Earth International has warned against damaging industrial farming promoted by the Gates Foundation at the Agricultural Green Revolution Forum 2012, Arusha, Tanzania on 26-28 September. 'Donors controlling the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) are representing the interests of biotechnology corporations rather than African small farmers,' warns Friends of the Earth International on the eve of the annual AGRA Forum in Tanzania.

He was willing to pay the price that always comes with the courage to confront oppression. That is the meaning of standing with the poor.

Friends of the Earth International warns against damaging industrial farming promoted by the Gates Foundation at the Agricultural Green Revolution Forum 2012, Arusha, Tanzania on 26-28 September.