Somali refugees across the world have passed the one million person mark, said the United Nations refugee agency, highlighting the growing need for an end to conflict in the Horn of Africa. The vast majority of those refugees are living in regional neighbours, such as Kenya, Yemen, Egypt, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti, Tanzania and Uganda, the UNHCR said.

Some 154 million people were reportedly driven further into poverty in Southern countries as a result of speculation-induced food price hikes in 2007-08. What are the best strategies for bringing about the structural change needed that progressive activists can lend their support to? asks this Corner House report. The workshop presentation, while endorsing regulatory measures including banning certain investment vehicles such as exchange-traded funds and vetting of derivative-based financial instruments, cautions against becoming focussed on regulation alone as an answer. Also crucial is the promotion of non-derivative, socially-based mechanisms to protect farmers and consumers from volatile food prices, as well as price interventions that do not pit Northern farmers against their Southern counterparts.

Offering free education, making it compulsory and supporting it politically has been the winning strategy behind Burundi's successful bid to ensure that virtually all children get a primary school education. In this interview from the Africa Report website, UNICEF's representative in Burundi, Johannes Wedenig, expatiates on government's positive role in this development. There have been some major drawbacks to such an avalanche of new students, Wedenig admits. Not enough of qualified teachers, classrooms, desks and books has created real bottlenecks. So one of the 'side effects' to the surge in school attendance, notes Wedenig, has been overcrowding and an increase in the pupil-to-teacher ratio.

Francophone Africa is not as involved in the fight against AIDS as the rest of the continent, according to a report presented in Kinshasa, on the sidelines of the 14th Summit of the International Organization of la Francophonie (OIF) holding in the Congolese capital. The report notes that 43 per cent of people with AIDS have access to treatment in francophone countries, against 59 per cent in the English-speaking countries. Nearly 50,000 children are born each year with HIV in francophone Africa, the report said, noting that 60 percent of them are in DR Congo alone.

Earlier this year it was reported that the Zambian government had released K5 billion or US$1 million to send police and security staff abroad to learn to hack websites. In April, Zambian Watchdog listed several measures taken by the government to crackdown on Internet users in Zambia. Global Voices Online reports on the story.

Sudanese security forces burned and looted a village in the Nuba mountains of South Kordofan state in May and filmed the attack, a monitoring group said on Tuesday, providing satellite images, cell phone video and witness accounts to back its claims. The Satellite Sentinel Project, whose founders include Hollywood actor George Clooney and the Enough Project, said a joint unit of Sudanese police known as Abu Tira, the Sudan Armed Forces and the Popular Defense Forces militia attacked Gardud al Badry on May 18 and then bombarded it with artillery on July 29.

President Francois Hollande looks set to make African leaders sweat at a gathering of French-speaking nations in Democratic Republic of Congo this week, when he attempts to cut murky ties with France's former colonies. Hollande has vowed to promote democracy in a continent known for flawed elections and 'sit-tight' leaders, and, unlike his predecessor Nicolas Sarkozy, he will travel to Africa without any company executives, something that would 'muddy the waters', one adviser said.

The International Monetary Fund has urged Eurozone leaders to act swiftly in response to the debt crisis in Greece and Spain, or risk dragging down the global economy with another financial crisis. The IMF warned that the situation was grave and could escalate into a wider downturn unless national leaders ended their disputes with a long-lasting deal. As eurozone finance ministers met in Luxembourg for crisis talks and the launch of the euro's permanent rescue fund, the IMF urged Europe and the US to promote growth to help major developing economies like China, Brazil and India.

Africa can ensure food security by producing wheat. New research presented in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia this week shows that the continent has the potential to be self-sufficient. The demand for wheat is growing faster than for any other crop, according to statistics of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT). Researchers are looking into the possibility of making Africa a major wheat producer, as the continent is the biggest wheat importer worldwide. It is expected that this year alone, Africa will spend 12 billion dollars on importing 40 million tonnes of wheat.

Joint letter requesting Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn to remove arbitrary restrictions on the rights to freedom of expression and association in Ethiopia.

On 9 October, the Institute for Policy Studies sent the newly appointed World Bank president Dr. Jim Kim a letter signed by 58 organizations from around the world urging him to champion financial transaction taxes (FTT) – a tiny tax on stocks, bonds, currency and other derivatives trades - as an innovative way to raise much-needed money to address climate change, health and other development priorities in poorer countries. The groups – including WWF, Greenpeace, Oxfam, AFL-CIO, World AIDS Campaign, United Methodist Church, and the Main Street Alliance – come from a broad cross-section of civil society and show a growing consensus that it's time for developed countries to get serious about meeting their promises on climate and development finance.

Previously unseen images of South Africa's black consciousness hero Steve Biko have been published by Google, 35 years after his violent death in police custody.

The material was made available by the . See

Sign a petition demanding their release in the absence of a fair and transparent trial.

It is estimated that in South Africa around 2,500 children develop cancer every year, but less than a third (700 children) are actually diagnosed and treated. 'We suspect some cases are treated, but just not reported [to the Paediatric Cancer Registry], but many go untreated because they are just never diagnosed,' says Professor Christina Stefan, head of Paediatric Oncology at Tygerberg Hospital.

Thirty-five years after the death in police custody of Steve Biko, an online archive about the South African anti-apartheid activist has been published. It features documents never seen before in public, including his 1973 banning order restricting his activities. Curated by the Steve Biko Foundation, the archive is part of 42 historical exhibitions published by Google.

Exiles supporting Ivory Coast's former President Laurent Gbagbo have established a base in neighbouring Ghana from which they are working to destabilise the current Ivorian government, according to excerpts from a new report by a UN expert panel. The supporters of Gbagbo, who is awaiting trial in The Hague for crimes against humanity, have a 'military structure', have hired mercenaries in Ghana and Liberia and have established several training camps in eastern Liberia, the report said.

The vast majority of pirate vessels illegally fishing off Sierra Leone are accredited to export their catches to Europe, an environmentalist group says. A report by the Environmental Justice Foundation says West Africa has the highest levels of illegal fishing in the world. Its says pirate fishermen fish inside exclusion zones, attack local fisherman and refuse to pay fines.

Burkina Faso President Blaise Compaore has ordered 1,000 combat troops to be deployed in the northern region bordering crisis-hit Mali to guard against kidnappings, the foreign minister said. A complex web of rebel groups, including fighters from al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (Aqim), has controlled northern Mali since a coup in the country on 22 March threw the country into turmoil.

The annual World Bank meetings opened on 11 October in Tokyo. On the agenda: a sluggish global economic outlook marked by a Eurozone crisis and uncertainty in the US. And with the BRIC bloc failing in its reputation as motor of growth, fears grow over the fall out for Africa, says this article from Africa Report.

The World Bank has rejected a call to suspend its involvement in large scale agricultural land acquisition following the release of a major report by the international aid agency Oxfam on the negative impact of international land speculation in developing countries. 'We share the concerns Oxfam raised in their report,' the bank stated in an unusually lengthy public rebuttal to the Oxfam Report. 'However, we disagree with Oxfam’s call for a moratorium on World Bank Group…investments in land intensive large-scale agricultural enterprises, especially during a time of rapidly rising global food prices.'