Civil society organisations in Ghana, including the Media Foundation West Africa (MFWA) on 15 November launched the Coalition for the Transparency of the Airwaves (COTA) in Accra, to ensure openness and accountability of the electronic media in the country. The coalition is made up of regional, national and district organisations under Ghana Community Radio Network, Ghana Journalists Association, Legal Resources Centre and Participatory Development Associates and MFWA.

The Muslim Human Rights Forum has issued a memorandum calling on the Kenya government to petition the government of Uganda to return to Kenya the seven Kenyans held at the Luzira Upper Prison. Arrested in connection with the July 2010 suicide bombings in Kampala, six of the seven men were illegally rendered from Kenya to Uganda with no judicial process.

Annette Groth, spokeswoman on human rights for the Left Party in Germany, relates her experience of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine, which took place from 5 to 7 November in Cape Town, South Africa.

A by CRBM, Corner House and FoE Nigeria and others condemns oil majors Eni, Total and Shell for their record of environmental and social devastation in Nigeria. It also dissects EU ‘energy security’, arguing that a policy that locks the EU into dependence on fossil fuels leads to increased conflict and climate chaos.

Right2Know is calling on all supporters to come to Parliament on Wednesday 13h00 for a protest. This follows the move to bring the Secrecy Bill back to National Assembly for further deliberations as confirmed by the Office of the ANC Chief Whip last week.

'A group of civil society organisations and individual Egyptians concerned with the public good and with the future of social justice in the country have decided to launch a public campaign to pressure lending countries and institutions, both locally and internationally to drop Egypt’s debts.'

‘Israel subjects the Palestinian people to an institutionalised regime of domination amounting to apartheid as defined under international law,’ a jury at the Russell Tribunal on Palestine (RToP) has found, following a series of hearings from 5-6 November. The tribunal is calling on Israel to dismantle the system and ‘to cease forthwith acts of persecution against Palestinians’.

Maxwell Dlamini, president of the Swaziland National Union of Students, remains in prison following his detention before the April uprising earlier this year. Dlamini is unable to stand trial thanks to a lawyer boycott against the country’s lack of judicial independence and rule of law, reports Peter Kenworthy for Africa Contact.

‘Governments meeting at this year’s UN Climate Conference in Durban must end years of delay and meet their moral, historical and legal obligations,’ a group of movements and organisations have said, in the lead-up to a Week of Global Actions for Climate Justice from 20-26 November. ‘In the year ahead, our solidarity and collective action is extremely crucial. Climate change is already having devastating impacts globally and is accelerating. The window for preventing the breach of tipping points and stopping climate catastrophe is rapidly closing.’

A few thousand Egyptians marched through the streets of downtown Cairo in a protest against military tribunals and solidarity for a jailed blogger on 31 October. The march started at Talaat Harb Square and went through busy streets all the way to the prison where prominent activist and blogger Alaa Abdel Fattah is being held for 15 days under investigation.

LDPI is launching a Small Grants Competition Part 2: 2011-12. Grants of up to US$3000 per study are available to successful applicants who wish to undertake original field research, carry out follow up fieldwork on an ongoing related initiative, or write up a paper based on research that is being/has been undertaken on any of the following themes (or combinations).

AIDS-Free World has presented a first-ever legal challenge to the Jamaica’s anti-gay laws, arguing that by criminalising homosexuality under its constitution, Jamaica is in violation of international human rights law.

We, the undersigned African social justice activists, working to advance societies that affirm peoples’ differences, choice and agency throughout Africa, express the following concerns about the use of aid conditionality as an incentive for increasing the protection of the rights of LGBTI people on the continent.

The ‘reasons put forward by the Kenyan government for this operation are demonstrably false’, writers and intellectuals have said in statement arguing against the country’s military attack on Somalia, following the recent kidnapping of three foreigners, allegedly by Al-Shabaab.

The law does not necessarily make much difference when it comes to child labour: in Guinea and Mauritania the worst forms of child labour persist despite it being banned by law, leading child protection experts to call for a better understanding of the dynamics behind it. West Africa adviser for child protection at the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Joachim Theis told IRIN: 'Until now there has been very little discourse which makes the links between strategies taken by parents to find a solution for each child in the context of informal employment, and the application of international norms.'

Early on the morning of 24 September, University of Malawi Polytechnic student Robert Chasowa was found dead. Initial reports were that the death was as a result of suicide, but since then speculation has grown about the cause of the student activist's death. This Global Voices article looks at the reaction of blogs and official media channels to the death.

Some of Egypt’s Public Transit Authority (PTA) workers returned to work 4 October, after striking for two weeks. Workers from the Giza and Imbaba transit garages have remained on strike, however. The workers were on strike to demand fair wages and better work conditions.

Nine months after an uprising that deposed former President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and inspired the Arab Spring, Tunisians elect politicians on 23 October to an assembly that will rewrite the country's constitution. Parties running candidates have agreed the assembly will sit for one year. An independent committee set up by Tunisia's caretaker government to oversee the poll said nearly 11,000 candidates would contest 218 seats in the assembly.

The Zambia Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) has welcomed President Michael Sata’s directive to the Ministry of Labour to immediately revise the minimum wage. Sata last week directed the minister of labour Fackson Shamenda to work at revising the minimum wage from the current 419 Kwacha.

Benin has launched a major campaign to arrest growing drop-out rates as schools begin a new term. The one-year campaign is expected to encourage parents to allow their children to stay enrolled in school. With a national enrolment rate of 87.3 per cent, Benin has an impressive record. But it has been difficult to keep the children in school, watering down the gains.