As the deadline for the Zimbabwean documentation process rapidly approaches, the Forced Migration Studies Programme (FMSP) has identified shortcomings at various Gauteng Department of Home Affairs offices. FMSP’s research reveals a process that is not running effectively, despite claims to the contrary by Home Affairs.

Plans for a university that will stretch across Africa and be a 'flagship institution of higher education' will go ahead, despite political problems with two of its five planned centres, African Union commissioner and steward of the project, Jean-Pierre Ezin has insisted. The Pan-African University (PAU), which was proposed by the African Union (AU) in 2008, is expected to offer advanced graduate training and postgraduate research opportunities for "the cream of the crop" of African students, according to a draft concept note produced at the time.

NGOs, under the Citizens Coalition for Electoral Democracy in Uganda (CCEDU), have launched a short messaging service (SMS) platform to receive complaints regarding the ongoing elections. Godwin Byaruhanga, an official from CCEDU, says the campaign will involve appealing to the public to vote candidates basing on their ability to address social issues and not those who give them freebies.

Journalist in Danger, partner organisation of Reporters Without Borders, on 10 December published its annual report revealing the disturbing state of press freedom in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the plight of journalists working in the country. The report, released on International Human Rights Day, records in minute detail every attack on the right to be informed and to inform the public throughout the year - 87 cases in 2010 compared to 75 in 2009.

Hidden behind the save-the-world rhetoric of the global climate change negotiations lies the mucky realpolitik: money and threats buy political support; spying and cyberwarfare are used to seek out leverage. The US diplomatic cables reveal how the US seeks dirt on nations opposed to its approach to tackling global warming; how financial and other aid is used by countries to gain political backing; how distrust, broken promises and creative accounting dog negotiations; and how the US mounted a secret global diplomatic offensive to overwhelm opposition to the controversial 'Copenhagen accord', the unofficial document that emerged from the ruins of the Copenhagen climate change summit in 2009.

To mark International Human Rights Day, on 10 December 2010, the National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ) released a groundbreaking report exposing the precarious working conditions endured by journalists in Somalia. The nationwide survey revealed how the human rights of working journalists, particularly their labour rights, are grossly violated by every company and in every corner of the Horn of Africa country.

The appeal by the Gambia’s former Chief of Defence against his death sentence for treason is being heard during December. An amendment to the country’s drugs and human trafficking laws could mean many more capital cases come before the courts. Besides Lang Tombong Tamba and his seven co-accused, the country’s death row holds, among others, Sulayman Bah, convicted of killing his housemate in a dispute over money.

The governing party in southern Sudan - the SPLM - has for the first time publicly backed independence for the south, ahead of next month's referendum on the issue. The statement is at odds with the terms of a 2005 peace deal that ended decades of civil war with northern Sudan. In that deal, the SPLM and the north's governing party, the NCP, agreed to work for unity.

South Africa is eager for elevation to the coveted Bric (Brazil, Russia, India and China) status of key emerging markets, but investors say Nigeria is a more probable African contender, even if promotion for either country is some way off. Investment flows into Nigeria are tiny compared with South Africa. Nigeria saw equity fund flows of just $216 million (R1.48 billion) for the first 10 months of this year, compared with $3.4bn for South Africa, according to fund tracker EPFR. Yet, while South Africa is the larger economy, Nigeria is expected to catch up in the next few years.

'Why, if condoms are available, is AIDS still spreading in Africa?' asks Elkana Ong’esa, an elderly Kenyan man in the new documentary, Protection: Men and condoms in the time of HIV and AIDS. 'Because AIDS has not been sufficiently explained to people, and that if you use condoms you can prevent it,' replies a young man participating in a baraza (community meeting) called to discuss the devastating impact HIV is having on their village.

The Omusati Region of northern Namibia is on the margins of what any farmer would consider arable land, with temperatures routinely hitting 40 degrees Celsius or more and rainfall seldom exceeding a pitiful 270 millimeters per year. To make matters worse 83 per cent of the little rain that does fall evaporates as soon as it hits the ground. In a report to the United Framework Convention on Climate Change, the government of Namibia has predicted global warming will cause a temperature rise of between two to six degrees Celsius in Namibia, while annual rainfall could diminish up to a further staggering 200mm.

A satellite imagery tool that will make an unprecedented amount of environmental data available freely online has been launched at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP 16), in Mexico. Earth Engine, launched by Google on 3 December, aims to enable scientists to monitor and measure changes in the Earth's environment, such as global land cover, and hopefully help slow deforestation in the process.

US embassy cables have revealed a top executive's claims that Shell 'knows everything' about key decisions in government ministries. The oil giant Shell claimed it had inserted staff into all the main
ministries of the Nigerian government, giving it access to politicians' every move in the oil?rich Niger Delta, according to a leaked US diplomatic cable. The cache of secret dispatches from Washington's embassies in Africa also revealed that the Anglo?Dutch oil firm swapped intelligence with the US, in one case providing US diplomats with the names of Nigerian politicians it suspected of supporting militant activity, and requesting information from the US on whether the militants had acquired anti?aircraft missiles.

Francoise Mukuku from the youth organisation Si Jeunesse Savait reports on a cyberdialogue organised in the DRC around ICT's and violence against women. The online discussion, organised by Genderlinks as part of the 16 Days of Activism, was to be shared with all francophone countries connecting to the dialogue. 'Everything started with this question: What is our society missing economically when women are left out of technology development? Here we all agreed that it was like trying to clap with one hand, we miss the innovation, creativity and all the beautiful things that women could contribute.'

Meeting the world's future food needs is dependent on preserving the genetic diversity of the plants we grow and eat, as well as their 'wild relatives'. While collecting and saving the world's seed patrimony in 'gene banks' or ex situ may be a worthy endeavor, a new FAO publication underscores the critical need for efforts that protect agricultural biodiversity on the farm itself or in situ. This means supporting the millions of small farmers and peasants throughout the world who manage diverse species of plants and animals in and around their fields.

African nations should join forces to create a one-million-strong army to protect the continent and confront outsiders like NATO and China, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has said. Gaddafi, well known for his forthright rhetoric, has acquired growing influence in Africa but his ambition to build a united states of Africa is not shared by the continent's biggest powers. 'National militaries alone cannot save countries. Africa should have one army with one million soldiers,' Gaddafi said in a speech in the Senegalese capital.

Nigist Abebe has grown in confidence over five years on the job. Today she is one of 34,000 rural health extension workers at the heart of Ethiopia’s primary health care strategy. One of her most important functions in Dengo Furda Kebele, the village she was born and raised in, is supporting women through pregnancy and childbirth. An estimated 94 per cent of Ethiopian mothers give birth at home and in 2005, when the Health Extension program started, 720 mothers died per 100,000 live births.

The government of Djibouti permitted the controversial private US security firm Blackwater 'to operate an armed ship from the port of Djibouti' and to 'use lethal force against pirates'. The permission was given in February 2009, it is revealed in a cable from the US Embassy in Djibouti, published by WikiLeaks.

As nearly 200 delegates gather at the Conference of the Parties in Cancun, Mexico, writer Dennis Martinez points out that Indigenous peoples and their advocates have no official seat among nations, and yet have experienced the worst impacts of climate change. To solve the problem, delegates of the wealthy nations have a climate-mitigation plan of choice - carbon offsets embodied in a program called Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD). But for healthy and stable ecosystems, Martinez finds that it fails to measure up to an overlooked method: continued indigenous stewardship.

Three projects fighting malaria and tuberculosis in Mali have seen their international funding suspended as government found 'evidence of misappropriation and unjustified expenditure'. This was reported by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the world's dominant financier of programmes to fight these diseases.