2008 US Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney was offered 'victim witness' special protection by the FBI after the indictment of four men in northern Georgia for plotting to kill McKinney, Attorney General Eric Holder, and, according to FBI Special Agent-in-Charge Brian Lamkin of the bureau's Atlanta office, President Barack Obama.

This report discusses supranational governance and public authority in five issue areas: financial systems, security/ small arms, migration, extractive industries and obnoxious goods. Public control in all five is weak, although a few initiatives in supranational governance are showing promise. For each issue area, the report outlines existing international rule and enforcement systems or regimes; the interests steering or blocking them; and the resulting deficits in democratic supervision, coherence and compliance. The report concludes by suggesting ways in which supranational public authority may be better developed in order to promote state resilience and peacebuilding.

In this interview, Africa Today's Walter Turner speaks with Gerald Horne on his life's work, his writings, and African Americans in the contemporary period.

The strike by lecturers in public universities enters its sixth day Monday with a possibility of more institutions shutting down. At the weekend, students at Chepkoilel University College in Eldoret were sent home indefinitely. The constituent college of Moi University followed Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology in Kakamega and Egerton University in Nakuru in shutting down after lecturers and non-teaching staff downed their tools to demand increased salaries.

At least two men have been killed in a second day of clashes as fighters from Zawiya set up roadlocks to prevent rivals from the nearby town of Wershefana entering their territory. There are conflicting reports about what triggered the confrontation on Saturday near a military camp. The reports of the clashes came as production resumed at Italian energy company Eni's largest oilfield in Libya.

If global temperatures increase by only a few of degrees by 2100, as predicted by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, people around the world will be forced to migrate. A consortium of 12 scientists from around the world gathered last year at the Rockefeller Foundation's Bellagio Center to review 50 years of research related to population resettlement following natural disasters or the installation of infrastructure development projects such as dams and pipelines. The group determined that resettlement efforts in the past have left communities in ruin, and that policy makers need to use lessons from the past to protect people who are forced to relocate because of climate change.

Reflecting on the fact that significant segments of the population are fundamentally excluded from society due to poverty and inequality, the 2010 Ibrahim Index of African Governance recently handed Malawi an abysmal score of two out of 10. There is legislation aimed at protecting families from falling on hard times, such as the Employment Act and the recently amended Pension Bill. However, according to a 2010 report by the International Labour Office in Geneva, 90 per cent of Malawians - more than 13 million people – work outside the formal economy.

Writing about the decision by US President Barack Obama to send 100 troops to Uganda in order to combat the Lord's Resistance Army, Steve Horn, a researcher and writer for DeSmogBlog, concludes: 'Do not be surprised if, months from now, ExxonMobil or another US oil industry superpower walks away with drilling rights in the Lake Albert region and CNOOC, the current main possessor of Uganda's Lake Albert oil resources, is sent packing.' These are not only likely scenarios, but probable ones, he states. 'Joseph Kony and his LRA allies might be taken down, but the people of Uganda, on the whole, will not benefit...'

A global human rights body, ‘Front Line’, has urged the Gambian authorities to 'immediately drop all charges' against Dr Isatou Touray and Amie Bojang, two leading rights activists. Dr. Touray and Bojang, Director and Programme Coordinator respectively of The Gambia Committee on Traditional Practices Affecting the Health of Women and Children (GAMCOTRAP), are facing charges of 'theft' which they continue to deny. In a statement obtained by PANA, Front Line said the duo’s 'continued prosecution is solely motivated by their legitimate and peaceful work in defence of human rights'.

While the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Australia included no commitment to oppose homophobic persecution and to protect the human rights of LGBTI persons, Commonwealth of Nations Secretary General Kamalesh Sharma did speak out against homophobic persecution. In addition, the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG) will be empowered to deal with serious or persistent human rights violations by member states, which could include action against countries that perpetrate homophobic persecution.

Liberian opposition radio and TV stations were shut down by the authorities on 8 November 2011 on the orders of a criminal court in Monrovia. The stations are being accused of spreading messages that the authorities said could incite violence. The stations, Kings FM belonging to the Congress for Democratic Change’s (CDC) Vice Presidential Candidate, George Weah; Love FM and TV owned by Benoni Urey, a known sympathiser of the National Patriotic Party (NPP) which has entered into an alliance with the CDC and Power FM and TV. The Media Foundation for West Africa’s (MFWA) correspondent reported that the affected stations would remain closed until their representatives appeared before the court on 10 November.

'The challenge to end economic, geographic, gendered Apartheid is huge. Much of this challenge exists at a local level. But, as this guide shows, the Constitution empowers communities to claim their rights. Activists must connect the dots and ensure that Government prioritises the rights of people. We encourage you to use this guide to do that!' - Pregs Govender, deputy chairperson, South African Human Rights Commission, in the Forward to 'Making local government work: an activist guide.'

Cash-strapped Swaziland will struggle to pay civil servants' salaries this month, Finance Minister Majozi Sithole told AFP, as the tiny kingdom slips deeper into crisis. 'We will do our best to pay at the end of November but it is difficult. We have serious fiscal challenges right now,' Sithole said. Swaziland fell into crisis after losing 60 per cent of its revenue from a regional customs union last year.

A Ugandan court on Thursday 10 November sentenced the man suspected to have murdered a gay rights activist in January this year, to 30 years in prison. The 30 year sentence was passed by Justice Joseph Mulangira after the man admitted to have murdered David Kato 46, on 26 January 2011. This verdict was passed based on the evidence produced in court by the lead state prosecutor, Ms. Loe Karungi.

'People feel this is like the return of colonialism,' says Athumani Mkambala, chairman of Mhaga village in rural Tanzania. 'Colonialism in the form of investment.' A quarter of the village's land in Kisarawe district was acquired by a British biofuels company in 2008, with the promise of financial compensation, 700 jobs, water wells, improved schools, health clinics and roads. But the company has gone bust, leaving villagers not just jobless but landless as well. The same story is playing out across Africa, as foreign investors buy up land but leave some of the poorest people on Earth worse off when their plans fail.

Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has told journalists that the national executives of all three political parties in the inclusive government will meet to discuss the worsening political violence in the country. ZANU PF Central Committee members and their counterparts from the national executive councils of the MDC-T and MDC-N are expected to attend. The meeting follows the violent disturbances witnessed when members of the notorious ZANU PF Chipangano gang attacked MDC-T supporters preparing for a rally at Chibuku Stadium in Chitungwiza.

South African scientists are at the coalface of understanding whether HIV can be eradicated from an HIV-positive individual, essentially curing the person. A complex field of study, Professor Caroline Tiemessen is attempting to understand why some individuals – referred to as elite controllers – are able to be HIV infected, but successfully suppress virus replication to undetectable levels. This is achieved in the absence of antiretroviral treatment and the immune system response is maintained at an optimal level for many years.

Nigeria records 10 extra-judicial killings per week, and 95 per cent of such killings are unresolved, the local media quoted the non-governmental organisation Legal Defence and Assistance Project (LEDAP) as saying. LEDAP also said about 2,800 unlawful killings are recorded annually in Nigeria, with most of the killings carried out by criminal gangs. 'About 16 per cent are done by state agents and most of them are not resolved and perpetrators punished,' LEDAP National Coordinator Chino Obiagwu was quoted as saying.

The report tracks Mozambique’s progress since it acceded to the APRM process in March 2003 up to when it was eventually peer reviewed in June 2009. The authors urge the government of Mozambique to show political will and act upon the pronouncements made in their National Programme of Action document to ensure that governance is strengthened and democracy is deepened, by addressing corruption, and promoting plural participation in public institutions and processes as well as reducing over dependency on foreign aid.

With reference to the fuel subsidy debate in Nigeria, where government plans to scrap fuel subsidies, resulting in a substantial increase in the price of fuel, Nnimmo Bassey argues in The Guardian of Nigeria that the real debate should be on the true cost of crude oil. 'And this is not just about how much is currently spent in refining a litre of petrol in a Nigerian refinery or whether we can justify any plan to raise the pump price of a litre of petrol to N144 or more. The true cost of oil must include the environmental costs that have been externalised and dumped on the poor communities of the Niger Delta.'