At least 35 people were killed on Monday when Nigerian soldiers opened fire after a bomb blast struck their convoy in the northeastern city of Maiduguri, nurses at the hospital that received the bodies said. The nurses in the Umaru Shehu hospital said 30 of the dead were in civilian clothes, while another five wore military uniforms.

The UN refugee agency has for the first time issued guidelines for UNHCR staff and other aid workers on how to identify and support male victims of rape and other sexual violence in conflict and displacement situations. The new publication, compiled by UNHCR's Division of International Protection, was launched at a recent debate in Geneva on the rarely broached subject. The participants included academics, aid workers, women's rights activists, lawyers and diplomats.

Prime Minister Hisham Kandil said on Tuesday that Egypt would invite the International Monetary Fund to visit for talks about a loan facility at the end of October and said he hoped to reach an agreement 'by that time'. Egypt, which has launched negotiations for a $4.8 billion IMF loan but has also indicated it may want more, urgently needs support to prop up state coffers weakened by turmoil since the popular uprising last year that ousted President Hosni Mubarak.

The one-year anniversary of 'Bloody Sunday' - when 25 died during clashes with the Egyptian army at a peaceful protest for Christian rights outside Cairo's state media headquarters - is a stark reminder that no one has been held responsible for the deaths of those killed, reports www. english.ahram.org.eg.

Public Protector Thuli Madonsela has opened an investigation into publicly funded construction at the private residence of President Jacob Zuma, City Press reported. Reports have estimated the cost of the work to be between R203 million and R238 million.

Several shells have landed in the capital of Sudan's South Kordofan state, near the country's southern border, witnesses say. A UN worker said five shells landed in and around the town of Kadugli, leading aid workers to seek shelter with peacekeepers. Rebels have been fighting in South Kordofan since last year but the state capital has been largely peaceful.

In May 2012, Olam International announced a REDD project for 'sustainable forest management' in the Republic of Congo. The project is a public-private partnership between Olam International’s subsidiary CIB (Congolaise Industrielle des Bois) and the Government of the Republic of Congo. The little information that is available about this proposed REDD project sets off just about all the REDD alarm bells, says this post from Olam International is notorious for its involvement in illegal logging in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In 2007, the World Bank’s private sector arm the International Finance Corporation sold its shares in Olam International. Greenpeace described Olam International as a 'Congo-trashing company'.

International land investors and biofuel producers have taken over land around the world that could feed nearly 1 billion people. Analysis by Oxfam of several thousand land deals completed in the last decade shows that an area eight times the size of the UK has been left idle by speculators or is being used largely to grow biofuels for US or European vehicles.

Since Bosco Ntaganda’s mutiny in April 2012 and the creation of the 23 March rebel movement (M23), violence has returned to the Kivus. This crisis shows that today’s problems are the same as yesterday’s because the 2008 framework for resolution of the conflict has yet to be put in place, says this briefing from the International Crisis Group. Instead of implementing the 23 March 2009 agreement between the government and the CNDP (National Council for the Defence of the People), the Congolese authorities pretended to integrate the CNDP into political institutions, while the rebel group pretended to integrate into the Congolese army.

Doris Appiah, 57, has bipolar disorder. In her early twenties, she was sent to an overcrowded psychiatric hospital followed by a 'prayer camp' to be treated. She stayed there for five years, at times tied to a wall or forced to fast. Her story is mirrored by thousands of mentally ill people across Ghana, according to a 2 October Human Rights Watch (HRW) report entitled Like a Death Sentence. The government is trying to update the country’s mental health care laws, starting with the passing of the 2012 Mental Health Act. The act is supposed to improve access to mental health services and prevent abuse. But HRW says the law does not go far enough as it only addresses the formal health sector rather than community-based mental healthcare needs.

The United States (US) presidential election will be held on November 6, 2012, and as the campaign enters the home stretch, it's clear that the outcome of the race is likely to have big and lasting implications for the future orientation of the country's foreign policy. The stakes are also substantial for the United States' diplomatic interlocutors, including those on the African continent with some critical actions to undertake on the current Mali crisis and many other issues. Global Voices looks at what bloggers are saying about the elections.

As a large contingent of armed forces and armed militias surround Bani Walid in preparation for a possible assault, Amnesty International has called on the Libyan authorities to avoid unnecessary and excessive use of force in the city and to ensure that medical and other essential supplies are allowed into the city. On 25 September, Libya’s parliament, the General National Congress authorized the Ministries of Interior and Defence to use force if necessary to arrest suspects including those responsible for the alleged torture and killing of Omran Shaaban, credited with capturing Colonel Mu’ammar al-Gaddafi on 20 October 2011.

The government of Uganda is planning to establish a US$1 billion-dollar HIV trust fund to finance local HIV programmes. According to a working paper released in September, Justification for Increased and Sustainable Financing for HIV in Uganda, the fund will generate cash through levies on bank transactions and interest, air tickets, beer, soft drinks and cigarettes, as well taxes on goods and services traded within Uganda. Small fees will also be levied on civil servants' salaries; corporate and withholding tax will be increased slightly; and a small tax will be added to telephone calls and to each kilowatt of electricity consumed.

The media watchdog, Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), has accused Chad of intimidating journalists and called on the government to halt those actions with immediate effect. It said in a statement that Chadian authorities were abusing the judicial and law enforcement systems to silence news coverage critical of the government's performance, censoring publications and targeting one editor with an unjust criminal conviction.

Relations between the European Union (EU) and SA have soured since the government indicated last month that it was cancelling bilateral investment treaties with the bloc's member states. The government argues that the treaties restrict its ability to transform SA's economy. But its largest trade and investment partner says cancelling them will raise the cost of investment in SA. The EU fears it is a victim of political bias, and feels shunned by SA's growing relationship with China and other Brics nations.

There is a battle royal looming in Swaziland after the country's much-maligned and justifiably-derided parliament took an incredible, historic step - by passing a no confidence motion in the Cabinet. Forty-two MPs voted to kick out the Cabinet - leaving the King with a very tough decision. Does he follow the constitution that compels him to dissolve the Cabinet if more than 3/5ths of MPs support a no confidence motion? Or does he stick with his allies - including the widely despised Prime Minister, Sibusiso Dlamini - and simply ignore the constitution?

A moment of silence turned to violence during a gay parade in celebration of Joburg Pride Day. Joburg Pride board members arrived to the sight of One in Nine Campaign members holding a banner saying: 'Dying for Justice'. The latter evidently disrupted the parade to demand a moment of silence for LGBTI community members murdered due to their sexual preference.

Teachers, the Ministry of Education and aid agencies are scrambling to provide catch-up classes to thousands of displaced children who fled northern Mali for southern towns to help them graduate this year, while those teachers and families who stayed in the north are doing the same - determined to keep their children learning despite the closure of dozens of public schools and severe changes to the curricula.

Small teams of special operations forces arrived at American embassies throughout North Africa in the months before militants launched the fiery attack that killed the US ambassador in Libya. The soldiers' mission: Set up a network that could quickly strike a terrorist target or rescue a hostage. But the teams had yet to do much counterterrorism work in Libya, though the White House signed off a year ago on the plan to build the new military task force in the region and the advance teams had been there for six months, according to three US counterterror officials and a former intelligence official.

Dozens were injured in the Tunisian island of Djerba when protesters clashed with police after authorities reopened a garbage dump. Tunisian authorities claimed they were the victims of a mob armed with firebombs which left 49 policemen injured, but protesters say police instigated the violence. Activists on Twitter say police used live ammunition as well as tear gas to disperse protesters. One demonstrator, Mohammed Ali Borji, was reportedly hit by a bullet, according to activists on the social networking site.