A group of Tunisian civil society organisations last week warned that the draft law on a new electoral body might put the country's democracy on a dangerous path. 'The government's project is awash with shortcomings and gaps; something which would lead to an election that is neither democratic nor transparent,' Kamel Gharbi, representative of Ofiya coalition, said at the September 19th conference in Tunis. The Ennahda-dominated government in July proposed a set of regulations to establish a new commission to supervise next elections. According to the proposal, members of the Independent High Electoral Commission (ISIE) will be selected by the two-thirds majority of the Constituent Assembly, while its head will be named by the governing troika.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has joined the Central African Press Union (USYPAC in French) to call on DRC President Joseph Kabila to grant presidential pardon for three journalists in prison. 'We call on authorities in DRC to release our three colleagues arrested after being accused of collaboration with the armed guerillas movements. Their place is not definitely in prisons. Their release would be a great act of press freedom promotion,' said Gabriel Baglo, IFJ Africa Director.

Pan Africa ILGA, a federation of 67 LGBTI organisations in Africa, has expressed deep concern over the continued human rights violations in Cameroon, particularly towards the LGBT persons. The appeal of a Cameroonian man who was sentenced to three years imprisonment in 2011 after sending a text message, has been delayed for a further two months.

Angola's top court recently rejected appeals by the main opposition Unita and two smaller parties over alleged irregularities in an election won comfortably by the MPLA party of President Jose Eduardo dos Santos last month. The ruling by the Constitutional Court - Angola's highest legal body - means the opposition parties have run out of legal avenues to contest the vote outcome and paves the way for Dos Santos to be sworn in.

The massive hydropower dams built on the Zambezi River, the largest river system in Southern Africa, not only supply power to major economies in the region but also help mitigate annual floods. But as electricity demands grow and rising global temperatures affect rainfall patterns, the dams will be unable to meet energy needs or control floods, warns a new study. The study, 'A Risky Trip for Southern African Hydro', was conducted for the NGO, International Rivers by Richard Beilfuss, a hydrologist and environmentalist who teaches at the University of Wisconsin-Madison College of Engineering in the US and the University of Eduardo Mondlane in Mozambique.

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has released initial details on its new funding model, which will change the way countries apply for money. But as the Fund works to finalize the model before next year, civil society is criticizing the process for being untransparent and rushed. The Global Fund board adopted guiding principles of the model at a mid-September board meeting in Geneva. Although the model’s finer aspects are still being developed, key elements include the allocation of funding to country groupings based on disease burden and ability to pay as well as largely foreseen changes to grant application procedures.

Traditionally women cannot own or inherit land in Mali, despite being primary workers on the land, so they have no control over the farms proceeds. However, they can control the income from small-scale processing of agricultural products, provided they buy the raw materials rather than taking them from the family granary. This Panos blog post explores the issues.

Ocean acidification is the process of decreasing pH in the Earth's oceans. This is mainly due to the absorption of carbon dioxide emitted by humans. As CO2 dissolves in seawater, hydrogen ion concentrations increase, thus lowering the ocean pH. Oceans are currently absorbing about a quarter of all CO2 that is released into the air and with the increasing acidity of these marine environments come many concerns about the future of these ecosystems. Recently, at the Third International Symposium on the Ocean in a High-CO2 World in Monterey, California, Dr. Daniela Schmidt of the University of Bristol's School of Earth Sciences warns us that the current rates of ocean acidification are unlike any other in the Earth's history.

Migration linked with climate change is more likely to involve a steady step-up in existing patterns of movement around the world than the sudden surges of desperate refugees many governments fear, climate and migration experts say. Many argue, in fact, that migration - if prepared for and managed – could prove one of the most effective means of adapting to climate change and building resilience to its impacts, particularly if migrants send remittances home.

Social media content platform biNu entered into a partnership with World Reader. biNu provides a cloud-based, low-bandwidth, smart-phone like service for low-end smartphones and feature-phones. It gives the user a scroll button navigable, icon-based screen. biNu created the World Reader book app. This has then been available to its 4.2 million monthly active users globally, 1 million of whom are in Africa.

The United Nations Security Council on Wednesday 26 September began to debate a plan to deploy West African peacekeeping troops to tackle the six-month Islamist insurgency in northern Mali. At the Security Council, both the United States and France forcefully backed the call for greater international involvement, as did several African leaders. But while France, the former colonial power in Mali, has for months spearheaded the push for foreign military involvement, the United States has been reluctant to formally back such an operation.

The dates for the Second All Stakeholders Conference have once again been moved back, with the select committee blaming a lack of resources for the delay. It had been announced earlier this week that the Conference would be held from 4-6 October. But this has now been delayed until sometime before the end of October.

Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria and Friends of the Earth International has warned against damaging industrial farming promoted by the Gates Foundation at the Agricultural Green Revolution Forum 2012, Arusha, Tanzania on 26-28 September. 'Donors controlling the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) are representing the interests of biotechnology corporations rather than African small farmers,' warns Friends of the Earth International on the eve of the annual AGRA Forum in Tanzania.

Mining and gas companies operating in Mozambique will face fines and may lose their operating licenses if they do not relocate communities in a way that protects their social and economic interests, a government official said on Tuesday. Mozambique passed a law in August to prevent global mineral companies from unjust resettlements. Violent protests earlier this year against previous resettlements threatened to derail investment in the booming economy.

Authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) say they are trying to arrange for the assembly and disarmament of rival ethnic militias implicated in the massacres of hundreds of people in Masisi territory in the eastern province of North Kivu. Congolese army spokesman Lt-Col Olivier Hamuli told IRIN that following a visit to Masisi in September, the commander of the DRC's land forces, Gen Amisi Tango Fort, called on the militias to ‘regroup’ and disarm. Regrouping refers to the assembly of combatants in specific locations where they can be monitored prior to disarmament.

The UN refugee agency said Tuesday 25 September that fresh air and ground attacks in Sudan's South Kordofan state are causing a renewed population influx to South Sudan. 'About 100 refugees a day are arriving in the border town of Yida, in Unity state,' a spokesperson said, adding that the 'refugees are in poor health and without any belongings.' Some refugees told UNHCR they had also fled because of acute food shortages in South Kordofan. Many said they planned to build a shelter in Yida refuge camp before returning across the border to fetch family members.

Corruption in the water sector can mean that money intended to improve water infrastructure and increase people’s access to clean water is misused. When money gets diverted, people continue to rely on insecure and polluted water sources for hygiene, drinking and food preparation purposes. There are initiatives to address the problems associated with the lack of access to information. In Africa, for example, water journalists across the continent are taking action to increase water users’ knowledge about water, to improve participation, and to increase access to information by forming networks.

Morocco has blazed a reputation as a can-do country when it comes to improving its maternal health statistics. But a birth attendant in the remote Atlas Mountains shows the steeper climb that lies ahead for the country as it tries to reach rural women who live far from any health clinic, reports

The UN Human Rights Council (the Council) should not take a soft approach to the deteriorating situation in South Kordofan, Blue Nile and Darfur when it adopts a resolution on Sudan at the end of its 21st session this week. The Council should act in accordance with its mandate to address ongoing widespread and serious violations of human rights and prevent any further deterioration of the situation in the conflict areas. 'The Council should not turn a blind eye to the potential for further abuses, in particular in South Kordofan, Blue Nile. The African Centre for Justice and Peace Studies (ACJPS) and FIDH call on the Council to keep a close watch on the human rights situation in Sudan,' said ACJPS Director Osman Hummaida.

This report describes and analyzes the enabling of tens of millions of individuals–as well as established news outlets–to attract wide global followings with Facebook and Twitter updates and YouTube videos about rapidly changing events. The widely diverse and pluralistic online communities in the Arab world are creating and sharing content, casting into question the future of the many state-owned or self-censored media that provide less in the way of engagement that Arab audiences have come to expect.