South Africa’s Home Affairs department has notified Zimbabwean authorities that it is resuming the removal of illegal immigrants after lifting a special moratorium which has been in place since May 2009. South Africa had given Zimbabwean immigrants, estimated in the millions, a 31 December 2010 deadline to regularise their stay but just 275,762 submitted work permit applications which were decided by 31 July.

Al Jazeera is carrying a four-part documentary series on the global financial crash. The documentaries examine what caused banks to stop lending, the true causes of the crisis and what is being done to prepare for the next crisis.

The UN Security Council has called on the African Union (AU) to urgently increase the strength of its peacekeeping force in Somalia (AMISOM) to its mandated level of 12,000 to enable it to better carry out its UN-authorised mandate to stabilize the war-torn country. In a unanimously adopted resolution, the 15-member body also extended AMISOM’s authorisation until 31 October 2012, and called on UN member states and regional and international organisations to provide additional equipment, technical aid and funding to the enlarged force.

The involvement of men is key to the success of the gender-equality movement, but changing long-held social structures and convincing men of the importance of equal opportunities for women will not happen overnight, experts say. 'Men giving up their superior position is akin to acting out of the normative or prescribed way and [means men can be] ridiculed for acting differently - not like men,' Maria Magezi, programme officer with the NGO, Akina Mama wa Afrika, told IRIN in the Ugandan capital, Kampala.

Some of Egypt’s Public Transit Authority (PTA) workers returned to work 4 October, after striking for two weeks. Workers from the Giza and Imbaba transit garages have remained on strike, however. The workers were on strike to demand fair wages and better work conditions.

The ECOWAS Community Court in Abuja, Nigeria, on 26 September adjourned indefinitely its hearing over applications for the review of two landmark judgements brought before by it by Gambian authorities involving two Gambian journalists. The first relates to the illegal arrests and torture of Musa Saidykahn, a former editor-in-chief of the banned The Independent newspaper. In the second case, the Gambian government was ordered to release Chief Ebrima Manneh, a foreign editor of the privately-owned, pro-government the Daily Observer newspaper and compensate him. Costs were awarded against the authorities in both cases.

Three former Anglo American workers who were left destitute and devastated by lung disease acquired in their line of work have expressed their desire for justice, reports The New Age Online. Wilson Mafulwane, Daniel Thakamakau and Alpheos Blom form part of hundreds of former Anglo American workers who are squaring up against the global mining giant in a court battle domiciled in Johannesburg and London. Their course closely resembles the Cape PLC case where 7,500 South African asbestos miners successfully sued for more than £21m (about R268m) in a London court.

Thousands of people are held in immigration detention in the Middle East and North Africa on any given day. This practice is expensive, can harm the health and wellbeing of those detained and has been found to be ineffective at deterring irregular migrants. To address this growing human rights issue, the first-ever regional workshop on immigration detention was held in Beirut recently by the International Detention Coalition (IDC) with the assistance of the Middle East Council of Churches (MECC).

Botswana and Namibia are set to lose preferential access to the European Union, which wants African, Caribbean and Pacific countries to sign controversial free trade agreements within two years or face potential loss of market access to the 27-member EU bloc. The Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) are contested because countries fear unfair competition from the EU market. Brussels has finally set an ultimatum for the talks: a total of 18 out of 36 countries that have not yet concluded or implemented an EPA now have till 1 January 2014 to do so, reports IPS.

A young woman is told she can only benefit from a land redistribution scheme if she provides sexual favours to the Moroccan official administrating it.

The International Monetary Fund has advised Malawi to further devalue currency and liberalise foreign exchange if it hoped to benefit from Extended Credit Facility (ECF) programme. IMF, mid this year, declared Malawi’s ECF programme off-track, leading to most donors withholding their budgetary support to the country. Malawi minister of finance Ken Lipenga last week led a government delegation to meet IMF officials in Washington DC, to discuss resumption of talks on the suspended ECF.

Anger over the disbanding of the KwaZulu-Natal ANC Youth League executive by the league’s national leaders almost exploded into violence when fuming youth league members from the eThekwini region tried to storm a meeting being addressed by the league’s national executive in Durban. Pandemonium broke out when the angry youths, singing songs in favour of President Jacob Zuma and chanting slogans against youth league president Julius Malema, approached the office where the meeting was held on the 21st floor of the building.

A new economic analysis of the costs of pollution to the United States finds that coal power is harming the economy. In the American Economic Review article 'Environmental Accounting for Pollution in the United States Economy', economists Nicholas Z. Muller, Robert Mendelsohn, and William Nordhaus model the physical and economic consequences of emissions of six major pollutants (sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, volatile organic compounds, ammonia, fine particulate matter, and coarse particulate matter) from the country’s 10,000 pollution sources. They estimate the 'gross external damages' (GED) from the sickness and death caused by the pollution, and compare that to the value added to the economy.

China, a major player in the oil industries of South Sudan and Sudan, could use its influence to stop the escalating violence between the two countries that has seen the displacement of thousands of people and a reduction in oil production, a United States State Department official says. China imports more than 60 per cent of Sudan’s oil and owns a 40 per cent share in Petrodar and the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Co., the largest oil giants in Sudan, according to the Chinese Academy of Social Science.

The Kenya Justice Sector report, written by Dr Patricia Kameri Mbote and Migai Akech, comes at the time when the country is going through interesting times. The study looks at: justice sector and rule of law; legal and institutional framework; government track record in respect of rule of law; management of the justice system; independence of the bench and bar; criminal justice; access to justice and the role of donor agencies.

The decision by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation's executive board on 4 October 2011, to defer any action on a highly controversial life sciences prize named after and funded by President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea blocked a move to reinstate the prize immediately, but the board should eliminate the prize permanently, six civil society organisations said.

The Inspector General of Government has forwarded charges against Foreign Affairs Minister Sam Kutesa, together with Government Chief Whip John Nasasira and junior labour minister Mwesigwa Rukutana to the Anti-corruption Court in relation to the Shs14b tender for fixing Speke Resort Munyonyo, ahead of the 2007 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Kampala. The trio, are facing two charges of abuse of office and causing financial loss, according to a charge sheet presented to the court Wednesday morning before the anti-corruption court, by the IGG prosecutor Rogers Kinobe.

Thousands of children in Zimbabwe, who were forcibly evicted from their homes six years ago, are still not receiving proper education, a rights group says. The government had promised 700,000 families a better life when it demolished slums in major cities in 2005 under Operation Murambatsvina. But Amnesty International says many children are now worse off, attending 'makeshift' schools in new settlements.

The latest issue of the South Bulletin focuses on the recent deterioration in the state of the global economy and the effects this will have on developing countries. Highlights include:
- Bracing for a New Global Financial Crisis (by Martin Khor)
- The End of Recovery And Start Of A New Global Downturn (by Y?lmaz Akyüz)
- A Lot of Uncertainties and Volatilities Facing Developing Countries: Presentation by Dr Yaga Venugopal Reddy.

Zambia’s President Michael Sata has reversed the previous government’s sale of a privately-owned bank to South Africa’s FirstRand, dissolved several parastatal boards and revealed that the nation, including State House, was 'stinking with corruption'. The Zambian leader dismissed all 72 district commissioners that were appointed by the previous government, saying they were politicians, and ordered them to immediately vacate their offices and houses. 'We cannot have civil service positions given to political parties,' he said.