The last part of Africa to be decolonised, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region, remains one of the most peaceful. Yet, despite comprehensive protocols and agreements, SADC faces acute challenges characterised by tensions between member states, resource deficits, citizens’ exclusion, social discontent and limited internal and external coordination. Regional security cooperation requires adept infrastructures underwritten by political commitment; but the organisation’s Secretariat appears powerless to ensure policy implementation, says this International Crisis Group report.

Countries where people lack adequate access to land rights, water and energy - are among the worst performers in the annual Global Hunger Index (GHI). 'We find there is a definite correlation between these resources and food insecurity,' said Claudia Ringler, a co-author of this year’s GHI study, which was produced jointly by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and the NGOs Concern Worldwide and Welthungerhilfe.

Ghana says it takes strong exception to the contents of the purported United Nations Group of Experts report on Cote d’Ivoire, which was prematurely leaked to the media. The state-owned Graphic on Saturday quoted a statement signed by Mr Chris Kpodo, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, as saying it was grossly abnormal for such a report to appear in the public domain before it was received by the Security Council Sanctions Committee, which was scheduled to meet to receive the report on 12 October. 'The Government of Ghana, therefore, takes strong exception to the contents and leakage as it sought to give credence to repeated allegations that Ghana is being used as a base by Ivorian refugees and exiles to destabilise the Ivorian Government.'

Over 56 million young people in sub-Saharan Africa have not completed primary school and lack basic skills for employment, according to a report. These young people are aged between 15 and 24. The African leg of the UN Global Monitoring Report on Education was released by the UN Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) in Soweto.

The Civil Society Associations Gambia (CSAG) has filed an application against the government at the ECOWAS Court of Justice regarding the West African country’s 38 death row inmates at Mile 2 Central Prisons. Banka Manneh, chairman of the CSAG, made the announcement in a statement released by the West African bloc ECOWAS on Monday in the Nigerian capital Abuja. The group accused the Gambian government of violating the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and Customary International law.

A Sunday Times report has said that government planned to pump partially treated acid mine drainage (AMD) into the Vaal River. Earlier, the weekly reported that underground pumps would be used to pipe water from the central basin - underneath Johannesburg - into a treatment plant where it would be partially cleaned, or neutralised. This water would then be released into the Vaal, diluted with clean water from the Lesotho Highlands Project to minimise the harmful impact.

Gunmen have killed at least 20 people in a dawn attack in a remote village prone to bandit attacks, in northern Nigeria's Kaduna State, reports say. Residents of Dogo Dawa said the attackers stormed the village, shooting and stabbing anyone in sight. Many of those targeted were worshippers leaving a mosque.

Egyptian doctors, who have been waging a partial strike since 1 October, are now ratcheting up pressure on Egypt's health ministry by threatening to submit their resignations en masse. According to the strike's general committee, at least 15,000 doctors' resignations will be tendered within coming days if their demands go unmet.

In Lakes State more than 10 children are admitted to hospital every month with acute malnutrition. John Kennedy, a nurse working in the children’s ward in Rumbek State Hospital, explained that most children admitted were severely malnourished. He said that July, August and September are the worst months for food shortages in the state.

King Mswati III of Swaziland is refusing to recognise the vote of no-confidence in his government, an international news agency has revealed for the first time. He is said to be ‘extremely upset’ by the vote and is refusing to meet with the Speaker of the House of Assembly on the issue. The crisis began on 3 October 2012 when the House of Assembly passed a vote of no-confidence in the Swazi government by a majority greater than three-fifths. According to the constitution when this happens the king must sack the cabinet.

This Corner House briefing argues that the distinction between industrial tree plantations and biodiverse landscapes organized in conjunction with commons regimes is not just a distinction between various vegetable assemblages, but also a social/technical/political distinction. The slave-worked plantations of the past and the industrial plantations of today do not merely prop up colonialism; they are constituted by colonialism. Today's industrial plantations are also intertwined with overaccumulation, overproduction, financialization, and many other so-called 'social' things. Talking about 'sustainable' industrial eucalyptus or oil palm plantations is like talking about 'sustainable colonialism' or 'sustainable overaccumulation'.

Malawi journalist Justice Mponda has been charged in court for publishing false reports. Mponda was arrested Monday morning, for among others, reporting that Tanzanian High Commissioner to Malawi Patrick Tsere had been declared persona non grata and ordered to leave Malawi within 48 hours.

Four farmers whose farmlands were washed away by the flood that has ravaged Nigeria's central Kogi state, among other states, have committed suicide, the local media reported Monday. The reports quoted President Goodluck Jonathan as making the revelation during a tour of the camps for those displaced by the flood in his home state of Bayelsa.

A documentary on Zambian copper mining and its negative impact on society has emerged on YouTube and has so far attracted over 6,000 hits. The clip 'Zambia: Good Copper, Bad Copper' was first reported in the blogosphere by the Zambian Economist. Global Voices reports on the reactions.

The town of An Nahud in southwestern Kordofan yesterday mass demonstrations organized by students of the University of Western Kordofan because of power outages in the city, the deterioration of basic services and the high cost of living. Multiple sources in the area reported that the demonstrations in An Nahud kicked off Monday morning with crowds of students denouncing the regime. The demonstration came after power outages in the town for nine days in a row everywhere except at the homes of the commissioner, emir and head of the security service.

After 20 long years of negotiations on a proposed expansion of the Security Council, African countries continue to be left out in the cold – even as African leaders complain that the international community has failed to respond to their demands for two permanent seats in the most powerful body at the United Nations.

World grain reserves are so dangerously low that severe weather in the US or other food-exporting countries could trigger a hunger crisis next year. Failing harvests in the US, Ukraine and other countries this year have eroded reserves to their lowest level since 1974. The US, which has experienced record heatwaves and droughts in 2012, now holds in reserve a historically low 6.5% of the maize that it expects to consume in the next year, says the United Nations.

Hundreds of Kenyan girls, including some as young as three years old, filed a petition in the High Court to try to force the police to investigate and prosecute rape cases they say have been ignored. The group of more than 240 girls accuse police of demanding bribes to investigate rape, refusing to record rapes unless the victims produced witnesses, and claiming victims had consented.

Tanzania will have no sympathy for illegal immigrants from the Horn of Africa, even if caught using the country only as a transit route, a minister said. The minister for East African Cooperation, Mr Samuel Sitta, said during a visit to the Holili border post in the north that Tanzania was bound by international obligations not to offer passage for illegal migrants. He said there was a danger of the country being caught up in conflicts with other states if it allowed illegal immigrants to pass through its territory on the so-called humanitarian grounds.

Questions are being raised about how Tanzania’s plentiful mining sector will be affected by a potential gold rush from Canadian extractive companies, after the two countries concluded a foreign investment agreement. Jamie Kneen, a spokesperson for Mining Watch Canada who deals with Canadian companies operating in Africa, said the agreement is mostly just 'a political gesture'. Some of the explorations are happening in fragile ecosystems, including a wetland area and a game reserve, he argued, and local community groups are already beginning to voice concerns.