Despite ongoing concerns from Egypt and Sudan over Ethiopia’s ambitious Renaissance Dam project along the Blue Nile River, the Nile Tripartite Committee is in the country to study the impacts the dam will have along the country’s Nile River. The International Panel of Experts (IPoE), consists of six experts from Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan, and another four international experts. The experts committee, so far in its study has hinted that the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam will have no negative impact to down stream countries; Egypt and Sudan. However, its final findings and recommendations on the impacts of the controversial project will be submitted to the governments of the three countries in less than 9 months.

The US ambassador for war crimes, Stephen Rapp, said a lack of resources impedes the tracing of millions of dollars allegedly stolen by former Liberian president Charles Taylor, who was recently sentenced to 50 years for war crimes in neighbouring Sierra Leone. Rapp told the Associated Press that the special court does not have the funds to trace Taylor's assets but some investigations will be done by the UN sanctions committee.

Julius Malema and friends - and a number of state employees - now face prosecution, disciplinary action, and their property being seized. During the release of the 'On the Point of Tenders' report, Public Protector Thuli Madonsela stopped short of actually declaring that corruption had been at the root of a highly irregular tender worth around R50-million, originally being awarded to a company from which Malema had benefitted – but only because the Hawks are currently investigating exactly that.

A senior UN official who just returned from Mali says radical Islamists who now control about two-thirds of the country are targeting women - demanding that they cover their heads, restricting their ability to work, and compiling a list of women who are pregnant or have children but are not married which has raised fears of punishment. Ivan Simonovic, the assistant secretary-general for human rights, said the Islamists have imposed an extremist form of Islamic law known as Shariah in northern Mali.

Madagascar is bracing for billion dollar revenue with its flagship Amabatovy mining project set to start exports of nickel and cobalt whose extraction is expected to last 30 years. The project will invest about $5.5 billion, the majority of which is funded by a consortium of 12 banks under the supervision of the World Bank.

The United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has revealed that Hepatitis E has caused the death of 22 people in South Sudan, mainly in camps of internally-displaced persons and refugees. Hepatitis E is a viral disease that attacks the liver and is usually caused by lack of hygiene and by consuming contaminated water.

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.'

Experts around the globe are calling for a joint effort to tackle the world's leading cause of suffering and disability - mental health disorders. Nearly 450 million people have mental health disorders and more than three-quarters live in developing countries. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), eight in every 10 of those living in developing nations receive no treatment at all.

Insurgents said they shelled the main city in Sudan's oil-producing South Kordofan state near the border with South Sudan on Wednesday 10 October, the second time that week. Sudan's army has been battling SPLM-North insurgents in the state since June last year, shortly before South Sudan seceded from Sudan, but the South Kordofan capital Kadugli has been mostly isolated from the fighting.

The revolution last year brought a dramatic increase in the number of migrants heading for Italian shores after the Tunisia's security forces reduced their patrols. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) recorded 27,000 Tunisians arrivals on Lampedusa out of a total of 60,000 - including those fleeing the Libyan war and migrants from other countries. A crackdown by Italian authorities has meant that this year, many less have successfully made the journey to the island with about 3,300 migrants from all nationalities arriving between January and June.

The Ethiopian government has announced the release of 68 Eritrean war prisoners captured earlier this year during a cross border attack. The prisoners were captured in March 2012, after Ethiopian troops launched two rounds of military assaults inside Eritrean territory.

The battle between Libya and the International Criminal Court (ICC) for the right to try Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, son of the late Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi has intensified. The ICC wants Gaddafi in The Hague but Libyans want him tried in the Libyan capital, Tripoli.

The Egyptian doctors' strike is entering its 'decisive week', the strike's general committee said. The doctors began an open-ended strike on 1 October to demand better working conditions and an increase in the healthcare budget. The committee confirmed its commitment to abide by decisions of the Doctors' Syndicate's general assembly and to ignore decisions by the syndicate's leadership which is 'simply against the strike'.

The extraction of the much needed water from a large underground aquifer in northern Namibia may need to wait for further studies, officials have warned at a water investment conference. The aquifer, discovered in July, may contain enough water to sustain about one million people living in the area for 400 years at the current consumption rate, as well as boost development through irrigation in this poor, heavily overgrazed area where women and children walk for hours to get fresh water from boreholes.

Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria visited several communities in Kogi, Edo, Cross River, Benue and Delta States inundated by waters and have issued their findings in a special report available on their website. Excessive rains are believed to have caused the overflow of dams and the flooding thereof of communities along the banks of River Niger and Benue in Nigeria. The floods have led to destruction of farmlands across the affected states, complete inundation of hundreds of communities, loss of property in unquantifiable sums and about 104 deaths going by official statistics from the Nigerian government.