Kenya’s Gender Festival is an open forum which brings together feminist and gender-focused groups, and other development actors working at various levels. Join us to share experiences and build capacity on gender equality, feminism and the intersections between these and power.

'An elected government that does not accept that people have a right to form new parties and to contest its hold on power may be a "democratically elected" government, but it is not a democratic government. In a democracy, everyone has the right to form parties and to contest for state power at the polls and any limitation on that right is a limitation on democracy,' writes Richard Pithouse about ANC comments criticising a recent civil society conference convened by COSATU and the Treatment Action Campaign.

A cholera epidemic that has killed nearly 600 people in Haiti has gained a foothold in in earthquake-ravaged Port-au-Prince and is expected to spread widely and quickly in the sprawling city of three million people, health authorities said on Tuesday. The three-week-old epidemic, which had mostly hit Haiti's rural central regions so far, now menaced crowded slum areas of the capital, as well as tent and tarpaulin camps there housing more than 1.3 million survivors of the 12 January quake.

Every planting season, the women of Mapai-Ngale village near the Limpopo River in Mozambique face a tough dilemma. 'If we cultivate small fields on the extremely fertile lowlands near the Limpopo, we risk losing our whole crop to frequent floods. If we cultivate the infertile land on higher ground, we face losing our crops to drought,' said Maria Antonio Namburete, a 52-year-old widow and mother of five.
In recent years, climate change has wreaked havoc on this village of 500 people.

The Director of the Banjul-based African Centre for Democracy and Human Rights Studies, Hannah Forster, on Sunday emphasised the need for African governments to ratify and implement the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance in order to reinforce the highest principles of democratic governance in Africa. Speaking at the opening ceremony of the forum of the participation of NGOs on the 48th Ordinary Session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights, in Banjul, the Gambian capital, Forster lamented that impunity has become so entrenched in our countries that much thought should be given to the development of strategies to combat the phenomenon.

A senior United Nations official has urged the national authorities in Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to investigate reports that women were raped when large numbers of people were expelled from Angola and forced to return to the DRC recently. 'I call upon the authorities of both countries to investigate these allegations and to proceed in compliance with relevant legislation,' said Margot Wallström, the Secretary-General's Special Representative for Sexual Violence in Conflict.

The police have reportedly issued a warrant of arrest against Wilf Mbanga the London-based editor of The Zimbabwean newspaper following publication of a story linked to the death of a senior official with the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) in 2008. Mbanga is accused of publishing a story after the 2008 elections 'which undermined President Robert Mugabe'. According to The Zimbabwean, the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) reported that the police want to question Mbanga over an article published in The Zimbabwean following the death of ZEC director for polling, Ignatius Mushangwe.

An epidemic akin to polio, which has raged for nearly two weeks in the main commercial city in southern Congo, Pointe-Noire, has already killed eight, and several dozen cases have been reported, say health officials. 'Patients admitted to hospitals have flu-like symptoms. They are also presenting with paralysis starting in the lower limbs which spreads to the upper limbs,' said Director-General of Health Alexis Elira Dockekias.

A group of journalists arrested in Libya have been released on the order of Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, Libyan media report. Authorities had arrested 19 journalists and a senior media executive, reportedly as part of a power struggle inside the ruling elite.

Four of the seven upstream Nile Basin Initiative countries have decided to sign a new Nile deal. Despite strong Egyptian and Sudanese opposition, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda and Ethiopia signed a new water-sharing agreement. The other three countries, Kenya, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo are expected to sign the new deal within the next 12 months as allowed by the accord. Global Voices presents a wide variety of opinions on the deal.

The BBC website is encouraging comments from its readers on whether social media outlets such as Facebook, Youtube and blogs are having an impact on politics in Africa? The post points out that a rap record using the voice of Uganda's President Museveni is currently proving popular on websites like youtube. But a reader raises concern about whether such use of social media sidelines the real meaning of what political campaigning should be about. 'Instead of raising awareness of ideals to be fulfilled, and issues to be overcome, the parties are busy churning out entertainment schedules instead.'

The Rural Poverty Report 2011 contains updated estimates by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) regarding how many rural poor people there are in the developing world, poverty rates in rural areas, and the percentage of poor people residing in rural areas. The report says 1.4 billion people continue to live in extreme poverty – and more than 70 per cent of them are living in rural areas of developing countries, while the latest measurements show that 925 million of them are undernourished.

Project Literacy, the largest provider of adult basic education and training (ABET) in South Africa, has been forced to shut down its provincial offices and retrench more than half its staff after the government withdrew a major contract. Project Literacy chief executive, Andrew Miller, points out that the former director-general of the Department of Higher Education and Training, Mary Metcalfe, had awarded the contract, on behalf of the National Skills Fund (NSF), in September but that it had been withdrawn three weeks later.

Governments in West and Central Africa should learn from this year's flooding - which has disrupted the livelihoods of nearly two million people - by urgently factoring climate change into their disaster prevention and response plans, aid groups say. Extreme weather linked to climate change, including heavy rainfall, is expected to cause increasing damage in the region. In West Africa alone this year, the number of people who lost their homes and property due to floods doubled from around 800,000 in 2009 to 1.6 million.

Residents in the West African state of Guinea have voted in a presidential runoff election described as the country's first free polls since independence from France in 1958. The runoff pitted Cellou Dallein Diallo, the former prime minister, against Alpha Conde, a veteran opposition leader - each representing one of Guinea's two most populous ethnic groups, the Peul and Malinke respectively.

The shortage of doctors in Zimbabwe has reached crisis levels with the country having only 21 per cent of the required medical practitioners amid other frightening statistics on the worsening health situation, a Parliamentary report has revealed. 'Child health status indicators are worsening with infant mortality and under-five mortality rising from 53 percent to 77 per 1?000 live births in 1994 to 67 and 94 per 1?000 live births respectively in 2009,' a Parliamentary report said.

Urging his compatriots to remain grateful to him for his 'numerous developments and the transformation that has taken place in the country', Gambian leader Yahya Jammeh on Monday declared that he would not run for presidency in the 2011 elections, which will mark the end of his third five-year term. Jammeh told local authorities, politicians and other stakeholders drawn from all the regions in the country at the State House in Banjul, that democracy must be respected in the country, PANA reported from here Monday.

Gunmen have attacked an off shore oil rig operated by exploration firm, Afren, kidnapping five crew members including foreigners and injuring two others, the company said on Monday. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) made no immediate claim of responsibility but threatened to carry out new attacks on oil infrastructure in the country. A resurgence of violence in the Niger Delta would be an embarrassment for President Goodluck Jonathan, who is the first Nigerian President from the region.

Every year a noxious black smog hangs over Egypt as the seasonal burning of rice straw by farmers begins, and with it comes a surge in allergic reactions and lung infections. The inky haze lasts from October to November; it is a time when hospitals see a rise in patient numbers, and parents consider keeping their children out of school to avoid the worst of the throat-burning smog. 'Straw burning-induced pollution causes acute health problems,' Mahmud Abdel Meguid, chairman of the state-run Abbasiya Chest Hospital, told IRIN.

The United Nations Working Group on the use of mercenaries will carry out an official visit to South Africa from 10 to 19 November 2010 to examine the regulatory and oversight system in place to monitor the activities of private military and security companies. The UN expert body will hold discussions with government authorities, parliamentarians, civil society organizations, representatives of the diplomatic community, as well as representatives of the private military and security industry based in South Africa. In these discussions, the Working Group will focus, among other things, on the content and possible impact of the relevant legislation adopted in 2006.