Town Two Khayelitsha is the site of tension between a local business association and Somali shops. The Zanokhanyo Business Association (ZBA) is accusing Somali shop owners of not abiding by a 2008 agreement which says that no new foreign owned shops should operate in the townships following the May 2008 xenophobic attacks.

Swaziland’s government has failed to improve the economy in any appreciable way and cannot pay its bills. This means immediate public expenditure cuts are needed if the government is to meet the budget targets it set itself in February 2012. These are the latest findings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which has just finished a visit to Swaziland.

'I don't want to die of hunger and cold,' says Patrick, one of many sub-Saharan migrants in Morocco desperate to reach Spanish shores and start a new life in Europe as winter approaches. More than 90 of them, including women and children, have died in the past two weeks as they braved the perilous crossing, according to a toll calculated from reports by Spanish and Moroccan authorities and members of the African migrant community.

Following widespread land wrangles in the oil-rich Albertine region, the Ministry of Lands has announced plans to resolve this through guidelines to aid in compensation of customary land owners. 'It is crucial at the moment since people’s rights are at stake and we have the responsibility of protecting the poor and their property. We therefore have to put in place guidelines to ensure that those big oil companies and investors have an arrangement to adhere to and operate within the laws,' Ministry spokesman, Dennis Obbo, told Oil in Uganda.

One of Swaziland’s most vocal pro-democracy groups has called for a new law to ban hate speech against homosexuals. The call by the Swaziland Solidarity Network (SSN) follows a debate in the Swazi House of Assembly in which MP Aaron Sotsha Dladla called for gays and lesbians to be outlawed in the kingdom. Dladla said a new law should be put in place to deal with ‘this mushrooming anti-social’ behaviour of gays and lesbians. He went on to make a number of disparaging comments about homosexuals.

Libya should not grant amnesty for war crimes committed during last year's uprising against former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, regardless of who committed them, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court said. In her first official presentation to the UN Security Council as The Hague-based court's top prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda said that the ICC's pre-trial chamber would decide 'in due course' on whether the late Libyan leader's son Saif al-Islam Gaddafi should be tried in Libya or The Hague.

In a decision that represents the end of any judicial relief in Canada for victims of the Kilwa massacre, the Supreme Court of Canada dismissed the application for leave to appeal brought in the case against Anvil Mining by The Canadian Association against Impunity (CAAI), an organization representing survivors and families of victims of the 2004 Kilwa massacre. The CAAI expressed its profound disappointment with the Supreme Court's refusal to hear the case. 'It is unacceptable that in 2012, victims are still unable to hold Canadian companies accountable in Canadian courts, for their alleged involvement in serious human rights violations committed abroad. We look forward to a time when Canadian companies are held responsible for their actions,' said Matt Eisenbrandt, a member of the Board of Directors of the CAAI.

Despite the Malawi government's move to suspend a law banning same-sex relationships, activists say winning a total repeal will be an 'uphill battle' in a country where homosexuality is considered a sin. 'Malawi culture remains conservative,' Billy Mayaya, a leading rights activist, told AFP just hours after President Joyce Banda's government announced the suspension of tough anti-gay laws, pending a parliamentary debate. Despite the jubilation, Mayaya and others are far from confident that a full repeal is in the cards, and until that happens gay Malawians still face the threat of up to 14 years in jail with hard labour.

In Zimbabwe, HIV positive mothers and soon-to-be mothers used to be sterilised. The procedure was seen as the only way of preventing the transmission of HIV to their unborn or newborn babies. Now the tide has turned. Medical advances mean HIV mothers have a much better chance of having healthy babies. And some women are now seeking compensation from the government.

The month of October has seen a significant escalation of aerial bombardment by the Sudanese government in Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) controlled areas of South Kordofan. Nuba Reports journalists confirmed 102 bombs, double the 51 bombs dropped in September. Of these 102 bombs, 81 targeted civilians areas not under ground attack by either the Sudan People's Liberation Army-North (SPLA-N) or Sudan government forces. Not a single bomb dropped into these civilian sites killed or wounded an SPLA-N solider, the intended target.

A severe outbreak of Trachoma has been reported in Karamoja with at least 50,000 people in dire need of urgent eye surgery to prevent blindness. The disclosure was made by the State Minister of Primary Health Care Sarah Opendi in Moroto town. The Minister attributed the outbreak on the lack of toilet facilities.

South African police have been accused of planting weapons near the bodies of workers killed during strikes at the Marikana platinum mine. Photographs taken by police suggested large knives had been placed near the bodies after they had been shot, a lawyer told an inquest into the deaths. Thirty-four miners were killed when police opened fire on the striking workers at the mine in August.

More than one in three men surveyed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo's war-torn east admits committing sexual assault, and three in four believe that a woman who 'does not dress decently is asking to be raped', researchers have found. The study was carried out by the South African-based Sonke Gender Justice Network and the Brazilian non-government organisation Promundo in and near Goma in Congo's North Kivu province.

After being banished from his homeland for opposing Shell’s mining activities in the Niger Delta, vocal Nigerian environmental activist and writer Barry Wuganaale has called on South Africans to rally against the prospects of fracking for shale gas in the Karoo. Wuganaale, who witnessed the persecution many Ogonil people in the area where Shell has been operating since 1956 said in excess of R400 billion over 35 years would be needed to rehabilitate the once fertile agriculture land in the Niger Delta damaged by excessive oil mining.

From a suspected Israeli airstrike in Sudan to cyber warfare in the Gulf and a drone shot down over Israel, the largely hidden war between Iran and its foes seems heating up and spreading. 'In many ways, it's reminiscent of the Cold War, particularly the proxy conflicts,' says Hayat Alvi, lecturer in Middle Eastern politics at the US Naval War College. 'But unlike in the Cold War, there are now a much larger number of asymmetrical warfare techniques. Most of this is happening behind the scenes, but in the modern world we are finding it difficult to keep them secret for that long.'

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has told his Cabinet that improved security deployment and a new high-tech barrier along the Egyptian border had succeeded in ending illegal entry by Africans seeking work or asylum in Israel. 'In the last month, only 54 infiltrators crossed the border and all - without exception - were taken into custody,' Mr Netanyahu said in statements sent to Xinhua.

Torture has become routine in prisons and police stations in the Republic of Congo, according to a 2 November report by the Congolese Observatory for Human Rights (OCDH). The report is based on a series of field investigations OCDH conducted, with financial support from the European Union, between 2010 and 2012 in prisons around the country. These investigations aimed to, among other things, understand 'the extent of the practice of torture in the country, with a view to attracting the attention of national and international opinion'.

A new book finds that the Nile river, together with its associated tributaries and rainfall, could provide 11 countries - including a new country, South Sudan, and the drought-plagued countries of the Horn of Africa - with enough water to support a vibrant agriculture sector, but that the poor in the region who rely on the river for their food and incomes risk missing out on these benefits without effective and inclusive water management policies. 'The Nile River Basin: Water, Agriculture, Governance and Livelihoods', published by the CGIAR Challenge Program on Water and Food (CPWF), incorporates new research and analysis to provide the most comprehensive analysis yet of the water, agriculture, governance and poverty challenges facing policymakers.

The Mozambiqan government has marked the northern Niassa province to promote commercial, large-scale tree plantations. Currently, the single biggest plantation in the region comprises of 13,000 hectares of eucalyptus and pine, owned by a company called ‘Chikweti Forests of Niassa.’ A government-led investigation in 2010 reported that the company had acquired over 32,000 hectares illegally. The big losers were small farmers, vulnerable due to lack of awareness and complicity of corrupt government officials.

At least 100 people have been charged with treason in south-eastern Nigeria after a march supporting independence for Biafra, their lawyer says. Members of the Biafran Zionist Movement declared independence, raised the Biafran flag and then marched through the region's main town, Enugu. More than one million people died during the 1967-70 Biafran conflict - mostly from hunger and disease.