'As a movement we are struggling to build a society in which there is an economic system where human beings come before profit and a political system in which leaders take direction from below. We are struggling to build a society in which there will be a fair distribution of land and decent housing for all. But we are alive now, our children are growing now. We are living in the rain and with shack fires now. Therefore it is clear that we also have to take direct action to struggle for what land and housing we can get right now even as we continue the long struggle for a more democratic and just world.'

Millions of Egyptians are expected to head to voting polls Monday, in Egypt’s first parliamentary elections since the uprising that toppled the former Hosni Mubarak regime earlier this year. A sum of 70 people died and over 3,000 were injured in fighting leading up to the poll. Protesters demanded an end to military rule and a transition of power to civil elected authority. The week long protests brought down the cabinet.

Corporations have colluded with governments to capture climate change negotiations for their own interest. At the start of the ‘Dirty Energy Week’ in South Africa, participants called for real commitment to heal the Earth. More than 100 community, union and NGO representatives gathered on 23 November to kick of the ‘The Dirty Energy Week’ gathering, organised by the South African based environment justice NGO groundWork, together with 14 national and international NGOs and community organisations. On the eve of the UN negotiations, they gathered to discuss climate proofing communities and cleaner energy solutions.

Condom brand Durex has issued a hasty apology over an offensive, misogynist tweet apparently sent out by their public relations company on Friday. Blog memeburn.com breaks down the various reactions to the controversy over the tweets, which came just before the launch of 16 Days of Activism for No Violence Against Women and Children. The post quotes from another blog, FeministsSA: 'It’s sad though that Durex’s actions were able to bolster the opinions of those who already thought that using your penis to shut someone up is not rape, and to give them a small semblance of credence. I hope that everyone realises that in the first place, the sentiment that women need to be shut up at all is only valid or valuable in an extremely sexist society.'

The facts in much of Uganda and Sub-Saharan Africa present a harsh reality: only 28 per cent of all health centres have the required supplies and equipment to offer basic emergency obstetric care, while 32 per cent of hospitals in the districts have the supplies, equipment and staff to offer patients caesarean sections. Challenges for midwives with transportation, improper or non-functional medical equipment and lack of doctors and supporting medical staff are ongoing, says this article, which profiles a dedicated Ugandan midwife.

'Women in this second wave of the revolution are participating more, although it is more violent, they are challenging the protective circles that are built around them by the patriarchal society...On the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women we are asking for your support to the Egyptian revolution, in its second wave, to move into a peaceful stage and continue our role in building our country and continue playing our role.'

National planning commission chairperson Trevor Manuel has handed over a development plan to President Jacob Zuma that deals with nine national issues that the commission has identified as the country's top priorities. The nine challenges are: Too few people work; The standard of education for most black learners if of poor quality; Infrastructure is poorly located, under-maintained and insufficient to foster higher growth; Special patterns exclude the poor from the fruits of development; The economy is overly and unsustainably resource intensive; A widespread diseased burden is compounded by a failing public health system; Public services are uneven and often of poor quality, Corruption is widespread, South Africa remains a divided society. Visit this Mail and Guardian plan to download the full 430-page plan.

Human Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale’s support for African National Congress (ANC) Youth League president Julius Malema may see his presidential ambitions collapse as he is frozen out of the camps of both President Jacob Zuma and those seeking to oust him. Mr Malema, who faces suspension of five years from the ANC, is likely to sink Mr Sexwale’s aspirations and those of many senior politicians if he fails in his desperate campaign to retain his membership. Mr Malema’s known backers include ANC treasurer-general Mathews Phosa, Sport Minister Fikile Mbalula, former MP Tony Yengeni, veteran Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, Mr Sexwale, Northern Cape chairman John Block, and Limpopo Premier Cassel Mathale.

Regional leaders meeting for the Southern African Development Community (SADC) summit in Angola cornered President Robert Mugabe and told him Zimbabwe could not hold elections without reforms that would guarantee free and fair elections. He was also told last week the region would not accept violent elections. Mugabe suffered a double blow at the summit after his plan to have South African president Jacob Zuma toppled as facilitator to the Zimbabwe crisis was thrown out by SADC leaders, who felt Zuma had done well in trying to resolve the Zimbabwe crisis.

Climate change is likely to lead to increased average rainfall in the world's major river basins but weather patterns will be fickle and the timing of wet seasons may change, threatening farming and foodstocks, experts say. Furthermore, some river systems in Africa - southern Africa's Limpopo, north Africa's Nile and West Africa's Volta - are set to receive less rain than they do at the moment, hitting food production and fuelling international tensions.

Mauritanian forces killed a top official of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) during an air raid into Malian territory, a Mauritanian security source said. Mauritanian national Teyeb Ould Sidi Aly allegedly headed operations carried out with explosives-filled vehicles against Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz and the French embassy in Nouakchott.

This durbanclimatejustice.wordpress.com website is designed to provide logistical support for climate justice activists attending the COP17. With information on events, venues, actions, and essential activist advice on a cheap curry and decent beer after a long days changing the world.

Britain is being urged to help close down a legal loophole that lets financiers known as 'vulture funds' use courts in Jersey to claim hundreds of millions of pounds from the world's poorest countries. The call came from international poverty campaigners as one of the vulture funds was poised to be awarded a $100m (£62m) debt payout against the Democratic Republic of the Congo after taking action in the Jersey courts. Vulture funds legally buy up worthless debt when countries are at war or suffering from a natural disaster and defaulting on their sovereign debt. Once the country has begun to stabilise, vulture funds cash in their cheap debt deeds, at massively inflated cost to the countries.

Access to basic education in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) remains poor, with up to seven million children across the vast country out of school - despite a 2010 government decision to make primary education free. DRC is still struggling to overcome the effects of wars that raged between 1996 and 2003, compounded by continuing violence in the east of the country and decades of corruption and poor governance. The seven million figure was contained in the preliminary findings – reported by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs - of a study conducted by the DRC government with the UK Department for International Development and the UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF.

Rights groups in Nigeria fear a same-sex marriage bill being discussed in parliament could boost already prevalent discrimination against homosexuals. The bill goes much further than banning same-sex marriage; it threatens to ban the formation of groups supporting homosexuality, with imprisonment for anyone who 'witnesses, abet[s] or aids' same-gender relationships, and could lead to any discussion or activities related to gay rights being banned.

Nevanji Madanhire, the editor of the weekly Zimbabwe Standard newspaper, and reporter Nqaba Matshazi, were arrested in Harare on Tuesday 15 November and charged with theft, unlawful entry and criminal defamation. It is believed the journalists were taken to the Harare Central Police station. The duo’s arrest is over a story Matshazi wrote on 6 November that claimed a new health insurance firm, Green Card Medical Society, was reportedly on the brink of collapse. The story claimed that the company’s expenditure outstripped its income.

Damietta locals have vowed to continue their sit-in against MOPCO petrochemicals company despite a decree by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) to shut down the plant. One protester was killed in a military crackdown on the sit-in, according to eyewitnesses. Protesters are demanding that governorate officials finally heed their calls to shut down the factory, which they say is 'deadly and hazardous' to residents, marine life, as well as agricultural.

Heavy rains and an outbreak of cholera in Kenya’s Dadaab complex is exacerbating the situation in the overcrowded refugee camp, where aid efforts were already hampered by insecurity, the United Nations reported. There are now 60 cases of cholera in the camps, including 10 laboratory-confirmed cases and one refugee death, according to Andrej Mahecic, a spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Malawi is experiencing a drug shortage as the country’s international donors remain reluctant to release aid meant for the health sector. About 60 million dollars in funding has been withheld amid allegations of pilfering and corruption in the procurement of drugs at government’s Central Medical Stores. The Central Medical Stores procures and distributes drugs to government health facilities.

Nigeria has evacuated from Mali 104 of its citizens, mostly women, either made to work as 'sexual slaves' or suspected of involvement in human trafficking, officials said. The National Agency for the Prohibition of Traffic in Persons (NAPTIP) evacuated 93 alleged victims of human trafficking, nine suspected traffickers and two babies, the agency's head, Beatrice Jedy-Agba, told reporters.

Thousands of pro-democracy activists demonstrated in Morocco's largest city calling for a boycott of parliamentary elections less than two weeks away. The demonstrations comes as a parliamentary delegation from the Council of Europe noted there was little enthusiasm in the country just two weeks before the election and said there was worry about the level of participation.

As DRC prepares for its third presidential election on 28 November, Antoine Roger Lokongo cautions that external interests in the country’s vast mineral wealth mean that a genuine democracy owned by the Congolese people is likely to remain elusive.

Africa does not need an American military base on its soil. Would Americans welcome such a foreign base in their land? Motsoko Pheko urges African countries to resist this imperialist move, which is intended to facilitate plunder of their resources.

Following the Ethiopian elections of 2005, scores of unarmed men, women and children were massacred by state security personnel. Alemayehu G Mariam pays tribute to these martyrs for freedom and calls on all Ethiopians to reflect on their sacrifice.

Onyango Oloo reports that, when the Trans-African Caravan of Hope reached Nairobi, there was song and dance, poetry and speeches on the theme of climate change and the need for African governments and the people to take appropriate action.

‘Despite the neocolonialist excuses of humanitarian motives, the real motivations’ for Gaddafi’s assassination ‘keep popping up’, writes Nana Akyea Mensah. But 'where is the international outrage and condemnation'?

Opportunity Closing Date: Monday, November 28, 2011
Opportunity Type: Call for Submissions

18 December 2011 marks Bantu Stephen Biko’s 65th birthday. In celebration, the Steve Biko Foundation is calling for reflections on the legacy of this South African freedom fighter. The topic is The Contemporary Relevance of Steve Biko. Submissions may focus on any field that was impacted by Biko, but of particular interest are: The Arts, Culture, Education, Economic Development, Identity and Health

Submissions will be published in the December issue of the Steve Biko Foundation’s FrankTalk Journal as well as on the FrankTalk Blog. The length of the submission should be between 800 and 1500 words in MS Word.

Papers should be submitted to Dibuseng Kolisang at
Alternatively, papers may be faxed to + (27.11) 403. 8835.
For more information email Dibuseng or call + (27.11) 403. 0310.

Cash for dictators, sabotaged food production and enforced trade liberalisation: Leslie Mullin explains how USAID has undermined Haitian development.

Annette Groth, spokeswoman on human rights for the Left Party in Germany, relates her experience of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine, which took place from 5 to 7 November in Cape Town, South Africa.

Maxwell Dlamini, President of the Swaziland National Union of Students (SNUS), has been nominated for the 2013 Student Peace Prize, an award given every other year on behalf of Norwegian students to fellow students around the world who have ‘done important work to promote peace, democracy or human rights.’

Guinea-Bissau conservationist Ms Augusta Henriques has won a Ramsar Wetland Conservation Award for Management, for her central role in the foundation of NGO Tiniguena (‘This land is ours’) and her long-term leadership and work with communities towards the creation of a Community Marine Protected Area at Urok Islands – the first marine protected area recognised by the Government of Guinea-Bissau.

Richard Pithouse reflects on the recent five-year suspension of the outspoken South African president of the African National Congress Youth League, Julius Malema, and sees in the disciplinary action traces of the powerful ANC’s hostility to popular organisation outside of its control.

Marieme Helie Lucas critiques appearing in Issue 557 of Pambazuka News. She praises the author’s analysis but also points out that some important happenings are missing and some erroneous statements and assumptions were made.

'We cannot expect the same global market model that has caused climate change, ecological destruction and poverty to solve the problems we are facing today . We must work together to strengthen our resistance to this system. We must work to create new, transformative economic models that promote our collective prosperity, social equity and real environmental sustainability. We strongly believe that an alternative system must be created, and it must include both environmental and economic justice at its core. We must create economies not for profit, but for life.'

The Cameroon government has introduced a bill to the national assembly that would give formal, political backing to section 347 of the country's penal code that criminalises consensual sex between adults of the same gender. 'It's getting worse,' Cameroonian lawyer Alice Nkom told the Guardian during a visit to London. 'These laws are illegal – the declaration of human rights is part of our constitution – but the judges still apply them. It's very difficult to prove you have had sex. Under the procedural code you cannot be put in jail unless caught in delecto flagrante.'

The No Military Trials group has stepped up the momentum in its campaign, presenting family members of military detainees at a conference chaired by Mohammad Abd Al-Qaddous of the Journalists’ Syndicate. Ahmad Darrag of the National Gathering for Change, who this week rejected a summons to appear before the military prosecutor in relation to the Maspero killings, also spoke. Close relatives of a dozen prisoners condemned or under trial by military courts spoke at the conference, and many more family members were in attendance.

Visiting a memorial to the Nanking massacre in China, Horace Campbell reflects on the lessons that Africa and the rest of the world can learn, both from the 1937 genocide and from the city’s response to it.

This week's French edition is a translation of the special issue on COP17, .

South African health experts are calling on governments to use legally available mechanisms to promote the production or import of generic drugs in their countries. Pharmaceutical patents continue to drive up drug prices, making it expensive to treat patients. This often leads to limited access to health care, especially in developing countries where the disease burden is high, but public health budgets remain low, experts said.