Equatorial Guineans voted Sunday in a referendum on a new constitution that would limit presidential terms to two and strengthen the small oil state's democracy. The opposition has branded the vote a 'masquerade' because the text does not make clear whether President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, Africa's longest-serving leader, will have to step down when his term ends in 2016. Obiang, who currently chairs the African Union, is on an offensive to win himself a clean bill of health on the international scene and reverse his country's reputation as one of Africa's most corrupt and autocratic.

Human Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale has warned the ANC leadership not to underestimate the power and influence of the youth wing president Julius Malema and his executive. Sexwale, who testified for Malema during the disciplinary hearings into his conduct, was speaking at a gala dinner in Eastern Cape organised by the Dr AB Xuma Foundation. In what appeared to be a thinly veiled attack on President Jacob Zuma, Sexwale warned that no one was guaranteed re-election to a party position, the Times reported. The ANC's national disciplinary committee announced last week that Malema had to vacate his position as youth league leader after an effective suspension of five years.

Many of the world’s women are moving closer to gender equality, but substantial gaps remain between men and women in health, education and, particularly, political and economic participation in a number of countries, including some of the most developed, according to a new global report. Measuring against 2010 rankings, for example, the Sixth Annual World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2011 found that New Zealand, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka and the United Kingdom showed slight declines in their overall gender equality rankings, while Brazil, Ethiopia, Qatar, Tanzania and Turkey posted gains.

This map shows where UN Peacekeeping is currently assisting with elections and where they have recently assisted.

The Maputo Protocol is a ground-breaking women’s rights legal instrument that expands and reinforces the rights provided in other human rights instruments. The Protocol provides a broad range of economic and social welfare rights for women. Importantly it was produced by Africans and pays attention to the concerns of African women. AWID interviewed Faiza Jama Mohamed, director of Equality Now about the Solidarity for African Women's Rights (SOAWR) campaign for the ratification and implementation of the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Women also known as the Maputo Protocol or the African Women’s Protocol.

Take Back The Tech! is a collaborative campaign that takes place during the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-based Violence (25 Nov - 10 Dec). It is a call to everyone - especially women and girls - to take control of technology to end violence against women. Visit the Take Back The Tech! website to find out more.

The John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American History and Culture, part of the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Duke University, announces the availability of travel grants for research travel to our collections. The John Hope Franklin Research Center seeks to collect, preserve, and promote the use of printed and manuscript materials bearing on the history of Africa and people of African descent. Research grants are available to any faculty member, graduate or undergraduate student, or independent scholar with a research project requiring the use of materials held by the Franklin Research Center.

Liberia’s main opposition leader has rescinded his decision to work with the newly-elected government of President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf and called for a rerun of the runoff. Mr. Winton Tubman told a press conference in Monrovia on Saturday evening that his party refuses to recognise the results of the second round polls which he described as a 'political masquerade'. The surprise declaration comes barely two days after he pledged to work with the newly-elected government of President Sirleaf 'in the interest of national unity'.

Amnesty International has called on Shell to pay $1bn to start cleaning up two oil spills in Nigeria's Niger Delta which it says caused huge suffering to locals whose fisheries and farmland were poisoned. The report by the human rights group to mark the 16th anniversary of the execution of environmental activist Ken Saro Wiwa by Nigerian authorities said the two spills in 2008 in Bodo, Ogoniland, had wrecked the livelihoods of 69,000 people.

Nearly three years after the xenophobic violence in South African townships, some foreigners are still living in what was meant to be temporary shelters because they are afraid of going back to their former communities. Two groups of refugees - one near the De Deur police station in Orange Farm, south of Johannesburg, and the other at the Rural Institute for Education and Training (Riet) family guidance centre in Randfontein - seem to have slipped through the cracks. The Gauteng department of social development said all camps it was responsible for had been closed down.

Tanzania's 1999 land reform has decentralised land administration to the rural local village governments, but implementation so far has been slow and uneven. The local authorities rarely get the support they need to make it work. As a consequence, the benefits promised by the reform - economic growth and improved tenure security - do not happen. There has already been an abundance of donor driven projects to implement the reform, but they have been short-sighted and have tended to forget the local authorities that carry out the actual implementation. Much could be achieved if higher level authorities and NGOs systematically strengthened the village authorities and enabled them to deliver their services.

Egyptian military prosecutors have extended the detention of a prominent activist and blogger, pending investigations into accusations that he incited violence and attacked military personnel during deadly protests. The extension will add 15 days to Alaa Abd El Fattah's previous sentence of 15 days, which was handed down on 30 October after he refused to be interrogated by a military prosecutor.

AKina Mama wa Afrika (AMwA) is seeking a consultant to assist in developing a standardized Curricula for its African Women’s Leadership Programme.The curricula will be based on the training framework of the African Women’s Leadership Institute (AWLI) which aims to build leadership at both personal and collective level. Closing date of applications is 18th November 2011.

Nigerian newspaper NEXT shone like a million stars on 1 November as one of its editors and two of its reporters scooped two of the three awards on offer at the FAIR (Forum for African Investigative Reporters) African Investigative Journalism Awards in Johannesburg, South Africa. Pambazuka News contributor Khadija Sharife’s untangling of pharmaceutical medicines pricing, with devastating consequences for young children in need of anti-diarrhoea treatment, which she did for Al Jazeera Africa, received a special mention from a number of judges.

Two South Sudanese independent journalists have been imprisoned over a column critical of President Salva Kiir, according to local journalists and news reports. On 1 November South Sudan National Security Services (NSS) agents in the temporary capital of Juba arrested Peter Ngor, editor of the private daily Destiny, and ordered the indefinite suspension of his newspaper for running an 26 October opinion article by columnist Dengdit Ayok, news reports said. The article, titled 'Let Me Say So', criticised the president for allowing his daughter to marry an Ethiopian national and accused him of 'staining his patriotism', news reports said.

At least eighteen people are dead and scores wounded in a fierce fighting between the army and the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) in South Sudan Friday, the military has said. 'Heavily-armed' SAF forces attacked Kuek area in Upper Nile state along the borders with Sudan’s White Nile state, leading to death of five of his soldiers and 13 of the attackers, said The SPLA spokesman, Col. Philip Aguer Panyang. At least 26 were wounded on the side of the SPLA and 47on the SAF side, according to Aguer.

Rebels in Sudan's Darfur region and in the troubled border states of Blue Nile and South Kordofan have formed an alliance to overthrow the government of President Omar al-Bashir, a statement released by the rebels said. The alliance, called the Sudanese Revolutionary Front, is bent on 'toppling the regime of the [Sudan's ruling] National Congress Party with all possible means' and replacing it with a democratic system, the groups said in the joint statement sent to the Reuters news agency on Saturday.

About 1,841 Zimbabweans who were living in South Africa illegally had last week trickled back into the country as the first batch of those deported arrived. Most of the deported Zimbabweans spoke out about their chilling experience at the hands of South Africans. 'Life in South Africa is very difficult for foreign nationals. Every day I was constantly reminded that I was a foreigner and most of the South Africans call us makwerekwere, a derogatory term used to mock foreigners,' said Alson Mhiri, a deportee.

Right2Know is calling on all supporters to come to Parliament on Wednesday 13h00 for a protest. This follows the move to bring the Secrecy Bill back to National Assembly for further deliberations as confirmed by the Office of the ANC Chief Whip last week.

Muammar Gaddafi's son Saadi has been granted asylum in Niger on humanitarian grounds, the country's president confirmed. Mahamadou Issoufou insisted he knew nothing of the whereabouts of another of the slain Libyan leader's sons, Saif al-Islam, who is wanted by the international criminal court (ICC). 'We have agreed on granting asylum to Saadi Gaddafi for humanitarian reasons,' Issoufou said during a visit to Pretoria in South Africa.