The adoption of international guidelines to regulate so-called land grabs has been pushed to next year after negotiators failed to agree on conditions for large-scale land investments and enforcement. The guidelines, in the making for several years, were sparked by fears that a 'land rush' is leading to hunger, conflict and human rights abuses. More and more investors have flocked to the developing world over the past decade, snapping up huge tracts of farmland. Investment has intensified since the 2008 food and fuel price crisis. Once in place, the United Nations’s Committee on World Food Security guidelines are meant to protect people, mainly in poor countries such as Sierra Leone, from 'land grabbing'.

The International Labour Organisation has warned that a jobs crisis caused by the slowdown in the global economy threatens a wave of widespread social unrest engulfing both rich and poor countries. 'We have reached the moment of truth,' said Raymond Torres, director of the ILO International Institute for Labour Studies to mark the publication of the organisation's World of Work report. In a new 'social unrest' index, the ILO said there was growing unhappiness over the lack of jobs and anger over perceptions that the burden of the crisis is not being shared fairly. It noted that in over 45 of the 118 countries examined, the risk of social unrest is rising, with particular signs of tension in the EU, the Arab region and to a lesser extent Asia.

Swaziland’s economic crisis has forced the government to put on ice the agricultural input scheme that has made the survival of many subsistence farmers and their families less precarious on communal Swazi Nation Land, where 70 per cent of the 1.1 million population live. 'There is no seed subsidizing now. We used to do it, and we are talking about reviving the programme,' Xoxile Nxumalo, of the agriculture ministry, told IRIN. Under the Swazi Agricultural Development Programme, seeds were sold at a discount or provided free of charge to subsistence farmers working on communal land.

The aftermath of elections in Tunisia
Samir Amin
The people of Tunisia had a participatory and democratic election as they wanted. However, defining this achievement as ‘a revolution’ would be an error, according to Samir Amin. He argues that fundamental issues need to be addressed in order for sustainable democracy to reign in Tunisia. [=http://www.pambazuka.org/fr/category/features/77537
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Tunisia: What to say? What to do?
Freddy Mathieu
From five core observations made about the elections in Tunisia, Freddy Mathieu draws a conclusion. ‘The victory of Ennahdha marks the close of a chapter; however a lot remains to be desired. Its consolidation does not solve the important issues that led the Tunisian citizens through the revolutionary whirlwind. Instead, this consolidation makes the issues more pronounced. [=http://www.pambazuka.org/fr/category/features/77536
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Ennahda: The success story returns
Jeunesse du jasmin
The historical persecution of Muslims under Bourguiba’s regime has led to Islamists’ current establishment in Tunisia. This alone cannot explain their surprising breakthrough. Some pressing factors have led to the results. The obvious one is the deeply rooted inequalities in this country in which the social divisions have crossed over into religious rifts
[=http://www.pambazuka.org/fr/category/features/77534
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After the USA, China is doing its shopping in Europe
Jean- Paul Pougala
Europe is no longer that exemplary power that used to tower over other countries. This illusion has been maintained by baffled leaders who cannot get over it. The last Brussels summit showed once again the meaning of ‘When China awakens’.
Jean- Paul Pougala rejoices for Africans that, after 500 years, there is a new hunter on the international scene to contain the traditional predators’.
[=htttp://www.pambazuka.org/fr/category/features/77530
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Gaddafi: The glory of the defeated
Joseph Eroumé
Lumumba backtracked towards death, Sankara challenged it, Gaddafi did not flee from it. Faced with this trilogy of destiny, Joseph Enuma proclaims: ‘Better die than give up, when one defends a just and noble cause: His own people’. For him, the murder the Libyan leader, like what happened to Ivory Coast, puts Africans in the lead to face their responsibilities and build a defense against the West and its interests.
[=http://www.pambazuka.org/fr/category/features/77531
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Rwanda-France: Can we just forget?
Bertold du Ryon

After 17 years, France bore the burden of its responsibilities in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, despite the denials. And last September when President Kagame went on an official visit to Paris he made a declaration in very certain terms that time had come to look towards ‘the future’ and not to be ‘enslaved by the past’. Thus, according to Bertold du Ryon, there comes a point in time where political and economical interests start forsaking history.
[=http://www.pambazuka.org/fr/category/features/77533

The African Development Bank (ADB) has proposed Egypt with a loan valued at US$1.4 billion dollars. US$550 million of the US $1.4 billion loan has already been allocated to the Steam Power Station of the Suez for the purposes of an electrical production project. The project is one of 12 projects that will be discussed by Karebuka during his three-day visit with Egyptian officials. The loan offer comes at a time in which the post-revolutionary Egyptian economy is strife with turmoil.

The team drafting the constitution, the Constitution Select Committee (Copac) has said that the final phase of the drafting process will start next month. Copac co-chairperson Munyaradzi Paul Mangwana said that the document would be put to a referendum early next year, paving the way for harmonised elections.

A website has been launched to promote transparency in the Democratic Republic of Congo's mining sector, which is plagued by conflict and corruption. The Carter Center said it helped launch congomines.org to give people more information about the mining sector, including contracts and payments. Hundreds of mining documents and maps will be published on the site, it said.

At a recent conference on statelessness and gender discrimination organised by Refugees International (RI) at the US Institute of Peace (USIP), international human rights advocates urged countries around the world to take action on issues of statelessness, a legally invisible status that United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Antonia Guterres, said is 'probably the most forgotten global human rights problem in today's international agenda'. According to RI, about 12 million people worldwide lack effective citizenship, a status that deprives them of rights such as legal representation, identity documents, and access to public schools. And in many countries, discrimination against women in nationality laws aggravate or actively create statelessness.

'The car is ready,' exclaimed Mr Paul Isaac Musasizi, the project manager of the Vehicle Design Mission at Makerere University, which has produced Uganda’s first electric car. The Kiira EV was tested for road and drive performance, ability to climb steep areas and ability to pick up speed, among other parameters. The making of Kiira EV started in August 2009 with a handful of students at the College of Engineering Art and Design, formerly the Faculty of Technology.

Bribing public officials when doing business abroad is a regular occurrence, and companies from Russia and China, which invested US$120 billion overseas in 2010, are seen as most likely to pay bribes abroad, according to Transparency International’s 2011 Bribe Payers Index. The index, which involves a survey of 3,000 business executives from developed and developing countries, also shows that companies from the Netherlands and Switzerland are seen as least likely to bribe.

Mountains of hazardous waste grow by about 40 million tons every year. This waste, mostly from Europe and North America, is burned in developing countries like Ghana in a hazardous effort to recover valuable metals. A children's school in Accra, Ghana's capital, was recently found to be contaminated by lead, cadmium and other health-threatening pollutants at levels over 50 times higher than risk-free levels. The school is located directly beside an informal electronic waste salvage site.

The United Nations Working Group on the use of mercenaries has warned of an alarming resurgence of the use of mercenaries in armed conflict –'often in new and novel ways'. The expert panel also noted in a report to the UN General Assembly that the growing activities of private military and security companies raise numerous human rights challenges, and called for international regulation. 'Recent events in Africa clearly demonstrate that the problems posed by mercenaries are still a live issue,' said Ms. Faiza Patel, who currently heads the Working Group. 'Mercenaries pose a threat not only to security, but also to human rights and potentially to the right of peoples to self determination. It is crucial that States cooperate to eliminate this phenomenon.'

Zambia's newly elected President Michael Sata has outlined plans to review the higher education sector as well as establish three new universities, to fulfil his election manifesto. Job creation for higher education graduates would also be prioritised. Sata, who came to power last month after defeating former president Rupiah Banda, said he also had plans for the establishment of universities and technical colleges in each of the country's nine provinces and intended rehabilitating existing institutions. Staff recruitment would be scaled up to meet demand in these institutions.

A few thousand Egyptians marched through the streets of downtown Cairo in a protest against military tribunals and solidarity for a jailed blogger on 31 October. The march started at Talaat Harb Square and went through busy streets all the way to the prison where prominent activist and blogger Alaa Abdel Fattah is being held for 15 days under investigation.

Three members of the opposition Forum for Democratic Change who were last week charged with treason in connection with walk to work have been further remanded to Luzira Maximum Security Prison. The FDC women leader Ms Ingrid Kamateneti Turinawe along with Sam Mugumya, the political assistant to Dr Kizza Besigye and Mr Francis Mwijukye who heads the FDC youth wing appeared Monday 31 October at Nakawa Chief Magistrates Court before Mr Charles Sserubuga. The trio were produced in court for mention of their case but court remanded them until 14 November.

At least five people, including three children, have died after a refugee camp in southern Somalia was bombed, the MSF charity says. Kenya's army denied bombing the camp, saying it had been attacked by the militant Islamist group, al-Shabab. A Kenya fighter jet only hit al-Shabab positions in Jilib, killing 10 of its fighters, an army spokesman said.

Kenya’s war against the Al-Shabaab militia has received support from the European Union, the US, Canada, Turkey, Australia, China, India, Japan, South Africa, Nigeria, Egypt and Gulf Cooperation, who met Prime Minister Raila Odinga and his Somali counterpart Abdiweli Mohamed Ali and expressed their support for the military operation.

This paper from the Governance and Aids Programme at Idasa examines the role that local government might play in promoting food security for people living with HIV in a democratic governance context. It examines local government's role in food security through interviews with local councillors in the Tshwane area.

The World Bank has approved $250 million in funding for South African power utility Eskom to develop a wind and solar plant as part of a push to boost sources of clean energy. The World Bank said the funding through its Clean Technology Fund will finance a 100-megawatt solar power plant in Upington in the Northern Cape province and a 100-megawatt wind power project at Sere, north of Cape Town. 'The loan will help Eskom to implement two of the largest renewable energy projects ever attempted on the African continent,' the bank said in a statement.

As concerns deepen about the quality of education in Zimbabwe, parents can expect an indefinite extension of subsidising teacher salaries as the cash- strapped government struggles to meet the bloated civil service wage bill. Teacher incentives - a stipulated amount of usually between two to five dollars, which is paid by parents directly to teachers on a monthly basis - were introduced two years ago by the government to supplement teacher salaries. But many parents say the situation has become untenable and that they can no longer afford to contribute to teachers' salaries.