The Institute for Security Studies (ISS) has called for a commission of inquiry into allegations that members of the Durban organised crime unit operated as a 'death squad', while the Police Ministry said it had opted to leave the matter to the Independent Complaints Directorate (ICD). The comments followed a Sunday Times report that the unit was operating as a hit squad in KwaZulu-Natal. It said the unit was guilty of assassinations related to taxi wars and in retaliation for 'suspected cop killings'.

A Zimbabwean activist, Gladys Mabvira, is set to spend her first Christmas in Harare in nine years as she is set to be kicked out of the UK next week. She has been an active member of opposition group ZAPU UK. Her open and public participation with this group, particularly her online blogging, would put her at risk if she was returned to Zimbabwe, says this article from

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has said it would be an act of cowardice for him to retire ahead of elections expected to be held next year. Closing his party's annual conference, Mr Mugabe, 87, condemned the current power-sharing government as a 'monster' which should be buried. Resolutions were passed endorsing Mr Mugabe as candidate, in spite of reports he is suffering ill-health.

A new High-Level Taskforce on Women, Girls, Gender Equality and HIV for Eastern and Southern Africa was launched at the 16th International Conference on AIDS and STIs in Africa (ICASA). The Taskforce will engage in high-level political advocacy in support of accelerated country actions and monitoring the implementation of the draft Windhoek Declaration for Women, Girls, Gender Equality and HIV.

Despite a range of progressive amendments made to the Protection of State Information Bill (widely known as the Secrecy Bill) over the past 18 months, the Right2Know campaign continues to be 'extremely concerned' about the broadness and harshness of criminal penalties contained in the Bill, and the lack of adequate protection for whistleblowers, journalists, and ordinary citizens. Their concerns are outlined in a letter sent to the Open Government Partnership at the beginning of December.

Billionaire businessman Natie Kirsh has endorsed the rule of King Mswati III of Swaziland and criticised efforts to democratise sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarchy. In reports published in the Times of Swaziland and the Swazi Observer, Kirsh denied that King Mswati 'is an absolute monarch', and ignored the unrest in the country that gave him his start in business in the 1960s. 'I even lacked enough tissue to wipe my wife’s tears as she saw how the country has developed,' he said. Even as Kirsh spoke, Swaziland’s Minister of Finance, Majozi Sithole, reported that the cash-strapped government might not have enough money to pay civil servants this month. Swaziland Solidarity Network member Mumsi Thwala said Kirsh’s remarks at the royal village left her 'stunned, speechless and depressed. Kirsh owes his fortune to a cozy relationship with a dictatorial regime'.

Botswana President Ian Khama, an arch-critic of President Robert Mugabe, could be working on normalising relations with the octogenarian leader after he sent a delegation from his party to 'offer solidarity support' to Zanu PF at the just ended annual conference. Khama, who has openly clashed with Mugabe in the past, sent a delegation from his Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) to attend the Zanu PF conference. BDP secretary-general Thabo Fanu Masalila heaped praise on Mugabe urging Zanu PF members to back the ageing leader.

A coalition of 170 Egyptian, Arab, and international human rights activists called on the Syrian government to immediately release blogger and activist Razan Ghazzawi, along with all other prisoners of conscience detained in Syria. 'The Syrian government’s attempts to curtail the freedoms and muzzle the mouths of those like Razan who defend their rights is the biggest evidence of the fragility of the regime and its failure,' stated Ramy Raoof, an Egyptian blogger and human rights activist, in a press release on the 'Free Razan' Facebook page.

On 2 December Earth Life Africa held an anti-coal seminar at the Centre for Civil Society, University of KwaZulu-Natal (Howard campus). The seminar titled 'Anti-Coal Movements in Germany, South Africa and beyond?' highlighted many of the negative consequences associated with coal energy, and some of the concerns and desires in terms of climate change and energy. Makoma Lekalakala, the programme officer of Earthlife Africa Jhb. expressed her concerns regarding Eskom’s plans to improve the electricity shortage that South Africa has been facing.

Foreign companies have snatched $553 million worth of contracts for different projects in the country, with the Chinese getting the lion’s share, Parliament was told. Chairperson of the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Budget, Finance and Investment Promotion Paddy Zhanda made the disclosure while presenting a report on the 2012 National Budget. '$553 million worth of contracts were awarded to foreign companies and most of these to Chinese companies,' said Zhanda. 'Zimbabwe has a very high unemployment rate and a liquidity crisis and we implore the Minister of Finance, Tendai Biti, to stop this bleeding,' he said.

South African authorities should heed widespread calls to drop a 'secrecy bill' that opponents say will criminalise whistle-blowing and stifle investigative journalism, the Committee to Protect Journalists said. The Protection of State Information Bill, which makes possessing or publishing anything the government deems 'classified' an offense punishable by up to 25 years in prison, was passed by the National Assembly last month and now must be approved by the upper house of Parliament before President Jacob Zuma can sign it into law. During a fact-finding and advocacy mission to South Africa this week, CPJ Chairman Sandra Mims Rowe, along with CPJ Deputy Director Robert Mahoney, met with a broad spectrum of journalists, editors, press freedom advocates, and civil society leaders to discuss the bill.

Mary Lawlor, Director of Front Line Defenders updates the '10 on the 10th campaign', one year after it was launched on International Human Rights Day.

The Grassroots Focus Index (GFI) is an index that determines the extent to which the grassroots are prioritized in development. It is an instrument that allows development actors to listen more closely to the grassroots perspectives in a systematic and methodologically sound manner.

Decisions resulting from the UN COP17 climate summit in Durban constitute a crime against humanity, according to Climate Justice Now! a broad coalition of social movements and civil society. 'Here in South Africa, where the world was inspired by the liberation struggle of the country’s black majority, the richest nations have cynically created a new regime of climate apartheid.'

A group of Egyptian women’s rights advocates in Alexandria organised a protest recently calling for greater participation for women in public and political life, coinciding with the anniversary of the human rights declaration. The stand was organised by the Association for the Development and Enhancement of Women in Alexandria and took place outside the Alexandria library. The participants called for a parallel parliament for women, where their causes are presented and discussed away from the shortcomings of the current political system that helped eliminate female participation.

Ivorians voted Sunday to elect a new parliament in a poll boycotted by the party of former strongman Laurent Gbagbo, who is awaiting trial in The Hague for crimes against humanity. With Gbagbo sitting in an International Criminal Court (ICC) cell, the coalition backing President Alassane Ouattara is widely expected to gain a majority of the 255 seats in the new assembly. The vote comes only a year after the poll that brought the world's top cocoa producer, once a beacon of stability in the west African region, to the brink of civil war in a conflict that claimed some 3,000 lives.

The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has warned that more than a million children in the Sahel region of West Africa were at risk of severe and life-threatening malnutrition over the coming year as a result of ongoing food shortages. UNICEF in a statement made available to PANA in New York, said it would require an initial US$65.7 million to respond to the crisis. It stated it was already ordering therapeutic foods and distributing emergency stocks in affected countries. It said that the biggest caseload is in Niger Republic, where an estimated 330,600 children under the age of five were at risk.

Members of the campaign group, Nigerians in Diaspora Against Anti Same-Sex Laws held a protest in front of the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in New York on Monday, 5 December. A Nigerian representative in New York met with the protestors to receive the petition letter to the Nigerian President with 53,000 supporters.

On Monday 5 December MediaClimate held a seminar titled 'Media meets climate: A problem or a solution for social movements' at the Centre for Civil Society, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Howard campus. MediaClimate is an international research group that looks at media coverage of the annual UN climate summits. The aim of the seminar was to explore the relationships between COP17, the media and the different angles of the stories. One of the issues raised was that COP and climate change terms are often difficult to understand.

The Food Sovereignty Campaign believes the time has come for land occupations. This movement of emerging farmers and farm dwellers is based in the Western and Northern Cape provinces. ‘Land occupations are the new way of doing land reform,’ says Johan Jantjies, the convenor of the Food Sovereignty campaign. ‘Recently the government brought out a Green Paper on Land Reform. They made it clear they have no plan of how to get the land from the capitalist owners. Without such a plan how can you even talk about land reform? We have a plan and that is for the landless to occupy the land.’