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.

Join New Tactics, Rising Voices, Indigenous Tweets, and other practitioners for an online dialogue on Using Citizen Media Tools to Promote Under-Represented Languages from 16-22 November 2011.

More than 250 participants, mainly representatives of farmers’ organisations, from 30 different countries, gathered in Nyéléni Village, a centre for agro-ecology training built in a rural area near Sélingué, in Mali, to participate in the first International farmers’ conference to stop land grabbing. The Nyéléni village is a symbolic place, where the first international conference on Food Sovereignty was held in 2007. For three days, from 17 - 20 November, participants exchanged their experiences and created alliances to stop the global land grab.

Unsafe abortion is a serious problem in Zambia. National figures do not exist, reflecting the low status of the issue, but research suggests thousands die every year attempting to terminate their pregnancies. These deaths account for 30 per cent of an excessively high maternal mortality rate of 591 deaths per 100,000 live births. Girls and young women under 19 years old account for a staggering 80 per cent of these deaths.

In what has ignited strong fears of nuclear resource transfer between Zimbabwe and Tehran, the nuclear-power pursuing nation, Iran, has stated that it intends to share technology and scientific resources and expertise with the nation of Zimbabwe. This was revealed by the the Islamic Republic’s Foreign Minister, Ali Akbar Salehi in Tehran.

Gecamines, the Democratic Republic of Congo’s state-owned copper miner, rejected a directive by the government and International Monetary Fund to publish its mining contracts because any disclosure may result in legal action, reports Bloomberg. In May, Congolese Prime Minister Adolphe Muzito ordered that all contracts involving mineral, timber, oil and gas concessions be made public within 60 days of signing to increase transparency. The Mines Ministry reiterated the demand in a 8 September letter to Gecamines, and the IMF and World Bank have also requested the company publish the documents.

A four-fold increase in polio has been reported in Nigeria, with the disease spreading to other countries, a World Health Organisation official says. Forty-three cases were reported in Nigeria this year, compared to 11 last year, the official, Thomas Moran, said. Curbing the polio virus in Nigeria is key to eradicating the crippling disease in Africa, he said.

The Zimbabwean Defence Force has taken delivery of 20,000 AK-47s, uniforms, 12-15 trucks and about 21,000 pairs of handcuffs, says this article from Black Business Quarterly. The arms were delivered from China via a secret circuitous route, avoiding countries such as Mozambique and South Africa where the trade unions have in the recent past prevented Chinese arms shipments from reaching Zimbabwe.

As the November climate talks in South Africa approach, the World Bank continues to be overshadowed by past and prospective loans for fossil-fuel power plants. An October report by the Kosovar Institute for Policy Research and Development (KIPRED) and US NGO Sierra Club has sharply criticised the Bank’s cost projections for a proposed lignite-fired power plant outside the Kosovan capital Pristina, which the Bank is considering funding. Meanwhile, the Bank has approved $250 million for renewable energy projects in South Africa, due to host the Durban climate talks, part of a widely-criticised $3.75 billion loan mainly targeted to the country‘s Medupi coal-fired plant.

Widescale violence by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) has forced more than 21,000 people to flee their homes in the Central African Republic (CAR), a new OCHA map reveals. Across Central Africa, including South Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), CAR and Uganda, as many as 440,000 people are currently displaced by violent LRA activities. They range from killings, mutilations, abductions and sexual slavery, to the burning of houses and the looting of food and other commodities.

This KPFA Africa Today programme with Walter Turner features an interview with William Minter, editor and producer of the valuable web site Africa Focus. He discusses his life's work in media and information regarding Africa.

Protesters calling for Egypt's military to hand over power have beaten back a new raid by security forces to evict them from Cairo's Tahrir Square after more than 48 hours of violence in the heart of the Egyptian capital. Security forces fired tear gas and attacked a makeshift field hospital on Monday morning, while protesters broke up pavements to hurl chunks of concrete at police. Egypt's health ministry says at least 22 people have been killed and 1,500 wounded in clashes between government forces and protesters in Cairo and other cities since Saturday, raising concerns over the conduct of parliamentary elections due to begin on 28 November.

President Eduardo dos Santos said Angola was prepared to invest its burgeoning petrodollars in Portugal, which has been ordered to privatise struggling state-owned firms under a €80bn (£70bn) International Monetary Fund bailout. Visiting Portuguese prime minister, Pedro Passos Coelho, said the country was looking to privatise [state utility company] Energias de Portugal and [national grid] REN. Other state-owned entities up for grabs include the national airline Tap and the Banco Português de Negócios. Banco BIC of Angola is set to buy the distressed bank for €40m – less than a fifth of its original market value. Isabel dos Santos, daughter of the long-serving president, is a part owner of BIC. Some Angolans have criticised the growing financial ties between Lisbon and Luanda, amid worries of capital flight and Angola's own yawning poverty gap. In 2008, two-thirds of Angolans lived on less than €1 a day, while only 25 per cent of children are enrolled in primary school.

Jacob Zuma's spokesman Mac Maharaj stands accused of receiving millions in bribes from French weapons maker Thales, the company that will be at the centre of the government's arms deal inquiry next year. A two-month Sunday Times investigation has uncovered a paper trail that leads from the arms company to Maharaj and his wife Zarina. Schabir Shaik, Zuma's former financial adviser who was convicted of corruption in the arms deal trial, was the conduit used by Thales to channel the money to Zarina Maharaj.

The list of candidates for Ivory Coast's parliamentary election closed on Monday with 1,182 candidates vying for 255 seats, but the former ruling FPI party boycotted the process, the election commission said. The FPI ran the country while leader Laurent Gbagbo was president from 2000 until earlier this year.

Dawit Kebede, managing editor of Awramba Times, one of Ethiopia's two remaining independent Amharic-language newspapers offering critical analysis of local politics, announced that he was forced to leave the country after he received a tip last week about alleged government plans to re-imprison him. Kebede also said that the paper was unlikely to continue publishing.

It has now been confirmed that the two remaining Libyan suspects wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC), Saif al-Islam al-Qaddafi and Abdullah al-Senussi, have been detained by national authorities. What happens now? Under international law, Libyan officials are required to surrender the two suspects to The Hague. However, members of the Transitional National Council (TNC) have stated their intention to hold the two accused in custody for trial in Libya. Resolving this apparent clash of jurisdictions will be the first and critical step for the new Libyan regime in demonstrating their commitment to international justice, says this Open Society blog post.