Kenyan doctors are concerned at the slow pace of talks with the government meant to avert a national strike slated for 5. December. The Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union said the government was dragging it’s feet in kick-starting negotiations. The 2,300 doctors in Kenya’s public hospitals have issued a 19-day strike notice.

Burundi government officials should halt their intensifying pressure on journalists, Human Rights Watch said. In the last few weeks, journalists have been summonsed by state prosecuting authorities for questioning with increasing frequency in response to radio broadcasts implicating state agents in alleged human rights abuses. Senior government officials, including three ministers, have stepped up public warnings against the media in recent days, threatening them with legal action.

A medical source in the Zeinhom morgue near Cairo’s Tahrir Square has told Bikyamasr.com that 71 Egyptians have been killed since clashes erupted. This was as fierce fighting between protesters calling for an end to military rule and the police and the army continued last week.

Foreign investment in arable land in Mali increased by 60 per cent between 2009 and 2010, says a report published to coincide with the first international farmers' conference to tackle the global rush for land. The report, by the US-based Oakland Institute and the Malian national farmers organisation, estimates that more than 544,500 hectares of Malian land have been leased or were under negotiation for lease by the end of 2010.

A UK firm offered to supply 'cyber-spy' software used by Egypt to target activists, the BBC has learned. Documents found in the headquarters of the country's security service suggest it was used for a five-month trial period at the end of last year. Hampshire-based Gamma International UK denies actually supplying the program, which infects computers with a virus that bugs online voice calls and email.

Former Madagascar President Didier Ratsiraka has arrived home from a nine-year exile in France. His return follows the formation of a a unity government in the crisis-hit Indian Ocean island nation. Mr Ratsiraka, 75, has lived in luxurious villa in Paris since 2002 and took part in talks to end the political crisis that has gripped Madagascar since 2009. However, members of his party refused to sign the roadmap to new elections put forward by mediators from the 15-member Southern African Development Community (SADC), pointing out that they could not take part in any political process until their 'chief' returned from France.

On 18 November 2011 nearly 100 civil society groups from as many countries and 12 international organisations, including the International Budget Partnership, Greenpeace, and the ONE Campaign, launched a global effort to make public budgets transparent, participatory, and accountable. The effort centers on building an integrated and vibrant movement of organisations that will work at the local, national, and international level to promote government budgeting that is open and accountable to the public.

Foreign investors aren't just after land in Africa. Access to water is essential – which can bring them into direct competition with the needs of local communities. Ongoing research from the London-based International Institute for Environment and Development seeks to redress this blindspot, honing in on how such land deals might affect water access for fishing, farming and pastoralist communities. In a policy paper out on Thursday, the IIED's Jamie Skinner and Lorenzo Cotula warn that an alarming number of African governments seem to be signing away water rights for decades, with major implications for local communities.

A Central African rebel group's agreement to release an estimated 1,500 child soldiers is a sign that momentum is gathering in the strife-torn country for all armed groups to soon end the recruitment and use of under-age fighters, a senior United Nations envoy said. Radhika Coomaraswamy, the Secretary-General's Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, said up to six groups in the Central African Republic (CAR) could release the child soldiers within their ranks over the next year. Speaking after the Convention of Patriots for Justice and Peace (CPJP) signed an action plan to release its child soldiers, Coomaraswamy noted the deal followed a similar recent agreement involving the Popular Army for the Restoration of the Republic and Democracy (known as APRD).

While the payment of compensation to 30,000 Acholi war claimants is welcomed after two years of waiting, further reparations are required for victims of the northern Uganda conflict, says this article form Uganda's Monitor newspaper. 'Providing compensation to 30,000 victims only represents the tip of the iceberg...Others suffered from mutilation, abductions, killings, torture and looting committed by both the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and the UPDF. Yet, for all this suffering, victims have received little or no reparations for their harm or loss, leaving many impoverished and suffering from the physical and psychological harm as well as economic loss without any redress.'

The tear gas being employed by the Egyptian military and police in the past 48 hours, beyond being expired for at least five years, according to canisters obtained by Bikyamasr.com, cause severe pulmonary damage, as well as causing damage to the heart and liver. It is also reported to increase the risk of miscarriages, according to international studies of the substance, known as CR gas. A lethal does can be inhaled within minutes if in a poorly ventilated area. The US company producing the gas refused to respond to Bikyamasr.com requests for information.

Sophia Azeb comments on the blog Africa is a Country about the Egyptian blogger Aliaa Magda Elmahdy in Egypt, who decided to post nude photos of herself on her blog to 'defy restrictions on freedom'. Responses from Egypt and the West were equally confused, Azeb writes, with the April 6 movement saying: 'The movement does not have any members who engage in such behavior and the girl is only an agent of State Security. They want to tarnish our image after our role during the revolution and the increasing support we get from the Egyptian people.' Meanwhile, the New York Daily News wrote that while placing provocative pictures on the Web rarely raise eyebrows in the West, in an increasingly conservative Egypt what Elmahdy did was an unprecedented act of defiance. 'Oh brother,' writes Azeb, 'Doesn’t anyone watch Egyptian music videos anymore?'

This article explains why South Africa's controversial information bill, passed in the National Assembly last week, matters for a youth organisation working in townships to equip learners for tertiary education. 'The problem with the Information Bill (or at least one of the problems) is that it introduces a new barrier to creating the kind of community we long for in South Africa (and we’ve got more than enough barriers already). It makes it harder for us to be engaged active citizens even assuming that there may be some highly-specific pieces of information justifiably held by the state.'

Barely a few weeks after incumbent president Biya won another seven year mandate after 28 years in power, many Cameroonians would prefer to allow the dust to settle than to be drawn into worrying headlines, says this article posted on the site. The article highlights some concerns in a number of areas; the electoral process, socio-economic and regional tensions within the country which might push Cameroonians to street protest. Should Mr Biya listen?

Zimbabwean Registrar-General Tobaiwa Mudede has told Parliament’s committee on home affairs that deportations of Zimbabweans from South Africa and Botswana were stretching his department’s capacities, forcing it to operate seven days a week. Mudede said his staff now worked long hours to process documents for deported citizens. He said his office was overloaded, even though last year staffers went to South Africa to document Zimbabweans without passports who sought permits to reside there.

The Election Watch from Idasa is designed to aid civil society groups in the DRC and the region in holding governmental institutions accountable and ensuring a free and fair election. The Election Watch is based on the SADC principles and guidelines for conducting elections. It holds countries to the standards that they originated and agreed to abide by as members of the regional community.

Burundian troops killed 18 gunmen in fierce clashes, a government official said on Tuesday 22 November, stoking fears that a new rebellion may erupt in the central African nation. The coffee-producing country has enjoyed relative peace since the Hutu rebel group, Forces for National Liberation, laid down its weapons and joined the government in 2009 after almost two decades of war. But attacks on civilians and soldiers have intensified since elections last year were widely boycotted by the opposition.

The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has said the removal of fuel subsidy will not address the numerous challenges facing the country. Issa Aremu, the vice president of the NLC, made this known in Abuja at a ceremony organised by an NGO, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung. He listed the non remittance of tax by multinational companies operating in the country, crude oil theft, the petroleum income bill pending before the National Assembly and the issue of local content as some of the problems facing the country.

Four men convicted of murdering a lesbian near Cape Town will receive their sentences just before Christmas. Zoliswa Nkonyana,19, was stabbed and stoned to death in Khayelitsha on 4 February 2006. Since the trial began, gay rights campaigners and residents from the town have continued to picket outside Khayelitsha Magistrates’ Court.

The long reign of President Museveni has worsened negative ethnicity in Uganda. Vincent Nuwagaba, himself a victim of ethnic prejudice, urges his compatriots to reject the vice and fight for justice for all regardless of ethnic origins.