The Forum for Democratic (FDC) party crusader, Dr Kizza Besigye, has said that President Museveni must at all costs be removed from power ‘forcefully’ if the country is to be saved from further decadence. In a press briefing at his home in Kasangati; which is heavily under guard by plain-clothed security operatives, Col. Besigye noted that through continued civil disobedience across the country, the departure of President Museveni is 'inevitable'.

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.

'According to the UN World Food Programme, there is enough food in the world for 12 billion people. If today people are still starving, then this is organized crime, mass murder. Every five seconds, one child under the age of ten dies, one billion people are permanently and heavily undernourished.' This is a quote from Jean Ziegler, who was until recently (2000-2008) the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, in an interview about a new book that he is published. Blog Africa is a Country has translated parts of the interview in their discussion about Ziegler and the book.

An outbreak of cholera along the Kenya-Somalia border has left dozens dead and many more sick, according to local residents, aid workers and government officials. 'We have recorded nine deaths of cholera patients at our health facilities in the past three weeks, and 89 cases have been diagnosed at different settlement locations close to the border areas,' Mohamed Sheikh, director of public health in Kenya's North Eastern Province, told IRIN.

World food prices rose in September and are seen remaining close to levels reached during the 2008 food crisis, the United Nations' food agency said, while cutting its forecast for global cereal output. The worst drought in more than 50 years in the United States sent corn and soybean prices to record highs over the summer, and, coupled with drought in Russia and other Black Sea exporting countries, raised fears of a renewed crisis.

Governments around the world are leaving hundreds of millions of cancer patients to suffer needlessly because of their failure to ensure adequate access to pain-relieving drugs, a new international survey reveals. The new data, released during the recent European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) 2012 in Vienna, paints a shocking picture of unnecessary pain on a global scale, said Prof Nathan Cherny, lead author of the report from Shaare Zedek Medical Centre in Israel, and chair of the ESMO Palliative Care Working Group.

Global development group Oxfam has called on the World Bank to suspend financing for large-scale land acquisitions to ensure that its practices do not encourage foreign land grabs in developing countries. Oxfam urged Jim Yong Kim, the lender's new president, to announce a six-month moratorium on land investments by the bank at meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in Tokyo next week.

The convergence of African urbanization and technological change, including the rise of digital media, is driving major change on the continent. Perhaps most dramatic, cellphones and other mobile devices, already widespread, are becoming a nearly universal platform, not only for telephony but also for audio and video information and entertainment. This offers a fundamentally different 'media' experience and has already led to an entirely new and largely unrecognized class of independent media–some newly created channels for international broadcasters–serving the African continent. This report traces the dramatic spread of mobile telephony in Africa and examines how this is affecting the news media landscape on the continent.

As mining projects in South Africa and Peru face violent opposition, critics are questioning the International Finance Corporation's (IFC) stakes in the companies at the centre of the controversies. IFC funds for mines in Mongolia and Guinea have also caused alarm, prompting renewed interest in the recommendations of the Extractive Industries Review.

A trans-woman is viciously assaulted in a hate crime, the police won’t readily help, and there’s little hope for justice. This is just one story of just one day of paying the price of being LGBTI in Uganda, reports this article on the website of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association.

Malawi's first female president, Joyce Banda, is pushing for family planning efforts in her African nation. Her new Initiative on Maternal Health and Safe Motherhood will provide better access to reproductive health services for women in Malawi, in the hopes that girls will stay in school longer instead of becoming pregnant.

In October 2012, ARTICLE 19 analysed the Draft the Broadcasting Corporation Bill, 2012 of South Sudan. 'In particular, we are concerned that the biggest changes introduced relate to the process for appointing and dismissing members of the Board of Directors of SSBC, and that their effect is to place the broadcaster under the control of the President and Minister of Information and Broadcasting, rather than the National Legislative Assembly.'

Africa is a major target for tobacco industry sales and marketing, warned the American Cancer Society (ACS) and World Lung Foundation at the launch of French version of latest Tobacco Atlas. in Dakar Senegal recently. Tobacco industry activity is booming across the African continent, according to ACS. Between 1990 and 2009, cigarette consumption in the Middle East and Africa increased by 57 per cent. According to the The Tobacco Atlas – Fourth Edition, four African countries – Mozambique, Zambia, Mali and Ghana – are among the top five countries with the greatest increase in tobacco production in the last decade.

Anglo American will face a hearing next year to determine if it's liable for miners who contracted silicosis while working in its gold shafts. Anglo American no longer has gold assets in South Africa, but the proceedings, initiated by 18 plaintiffs, have been launched on the grounds that miners contracted the debilitating lung disease when the company still ran bullion mines.

A Zimbabwean independent monitoring group says it will be impossible to hold free and fair elections in March when President Robert Mugabe wants the polls. The Zimbabwe Election Support Network said the call by Mugabe for full elections in the last week of March doesn't allow enough time to establish conditions for a free vote.

Experts from five emerging world economic powers have told how a two-day think tanks forum this week reached consensus on creating a BRICS development bank designed to complement existing global financial institutions such as the World Bank. Liu Youfa, deputy director of the China Institute of International Studies, said, 'At the previous forum before the BRICS summit meeting in March, we were still discussing whether to create this bank, but now we are talking about how to create this bank.'