Malainin Lakhal made the dangerous escape journey through the Moroccan Berm 11 years ago. Malainin’s contribution here provides an insight to that perilous escape journey, which many Sahrawi activists are forced to make when their lives are in extreme danger from the security forces. Watch a podcast.

The Inspector General of Government has forwarded charges against Foreign Affairs Minister Sam Kutesa, together with Government Chief Whip John Nasasira and junior labour minister Mwesigwa Rukutana to the Anti-corruption Court in relation to the Shs14b tender for fixing Speke Resort Munyonyo, ahead of the 2007 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Kampala. The trio, are facing two charges of abuse of office and causing financial loss, according to a charge sheet presented to the court Wednesday morning before the anti-corruption court, by the IGG prosecutor Rogers Kinobe.

Mohamed Brahim, Enaama Asfari, El Ouali Amidane and Mustapha Abdedayem, alongside some other writers who have requested anonymity in this special edition, are indigenous Sahrawi living in the area occupied by Morocco. Their contributions provide insights into life under occupation.

In 2007, Nikolaj Nielsen undertook a clandestine journey into the Moroccan Occupied Territory of Western Sahara to meet some leading activists and students of the Sahrawi human rights movement.

The UN Security Council has called on the African Union (AU) to urgently increase the strength of its peacekeeping force in Somalia (AMISOM) to its mandated level of 12,000 to enable it to better carry out its UN-authorised mandate to stabilize the war-torn country. In a unanimously adopted resolution, the 15-member body also extended AMISOM’s authorisation until 31 October 2012, and called on UN member states and regional and international organisations to provide additional equipment, technical aid and funding to the enlarged force.

Anger over the disbanding of the KwaZulu-Natal ANC Youth League executive by the league’s national leaders almost exploded into violence when fuming youth league members from the eThekwini region tried to storm a meeting being addressed by the league’s national executive in Durban. Pandemonium broke out when the angry youths, singing songs in favour of President Jacob Zuma and chanting slogans against youth league president Julius Malema, approached the office where the meeting was held on the 21st floor of the building.

The International Monetary Fund has advised Malawi to further devalue currency and liberalise foreign exchange if it hoped to benefit from Extended Credit Facility (ECF) programme. IMF, mid this year, declared Malawi’s ECF programme off-track, leading to most donors withholding their budgetary support to the country. Malawi minister of finance Ken Lipenga last week led a government delegation to meet IMF officials in Washington DC, to discuss resumption of talks on the suspended ECF.

The ruling MPLA's December Central Committee meeting will be closely watched after media reports suggested long-serving President Jose Eduardo dos Santos has chosen a successor and may step down before or one year after a 2012 general election. The weekly Novo Jornal said a month ago dos Santos had selected Manuel Vicente, head of national oil company Sonangol, as his successor, although a party spokesperson said no decisions had been taken and the party would appoint its candidate at the December meeting.

As Zimbabwe begins investigating 700 foreign-owned companies that missed this week's deadline to submit plans on the sale of majority shares to locals, investors are looking to a deal struck by Old Mutual for clues on compliance. The company, the largest of its kind on the Zimbabwe stock exchange, has significant commercial property holdings and is the largest provider of insurance in the country. As a first step towards the required 51 per cent, Old Mutual agreed to set aside 25 per cent for staff, pensioners, policyholders, a youth fund and black investors.

Africa needs to come up with an indigenous philosophy of development determined and influenced by the mores of traditional values derived from its own linguistic and cultural repertoire, a university lecturer from the department of African Languages and Literature, University of Zimbabwe, has said. Angeline Masowa, who spoke on Friday at a Conference on African Renaissance, Integration, Unity and Development in Pretoria, South Africa noted that the western model of development posed as the benchmark, which every nation wishing to be regarded as developed, had to follow, with the requirements of development dictated by the west.

Police are preventing the man chosen by a group of Southern Cameroon separatists living abroad to lead the 'Home Front' in their struggle for a separate state for English-speaking Cameroonians, from leaving his home. Mola Njoh Litumbe issued a statement in which he declared: 'Comrades, having failed to locate my driver to take me to the Police Station where some of our compatriots are detained, or to the Nigerian Consulate where others are camped, I attempted to drive the car out myself and was met by a strong police contingent outside my gate who stopped me from leaving my premises, alleging that they were on orders to keep me under house arrest, on orders from the Governor of the South-West Region.'

the greedy old men
vampires
live forever

the women who restore
rebuild replant
remake
die in their fullness...

Wangari Maathai was ‘very passionate about Human Rights’ as well as the environment, and was extremely supportive of Gay Kenya in its early days, the organisation recalls.

‘Mention South Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, and those with good memories can attest to the lesson of history, which is that if you want to remain friendly with the USA, keep its military at arm’s length.’ So why would Ghana risk souring its relationship with the US, as Pakistan has already done, by allowing it to use Ghanaian territory for military purposes, asks Cameron Duodu.

Wangari Maathai’s legacies ‘are not just for future generations of Kenyans – her influence was global. We have lost her far too early,’ writes Shailja Patel.

Warm greetings to you and all at Pambazuka. Thank you for [Wambui Otieno]. Her life and times is in our memories as a true daughter of Kenya. She lived life large, resourcefully and courageously.

‘As we battle climate change, let us remember this remarkable woman who saw in the environmental disasters that engulf us an opportunity for the empowerment of women and the chance to promote peace in the world. We celebrate Maathai for advocating a better Africa and a better world,’ writes Odhiambo Orlale.

Hallinan traces current US foreign policy in Africa, including military intervention, to a proposal made eight years ago by a conservative think tank. Africa’s vast natural and mineral resources make the continent strategically important to the West.

Professor Maathai was a celebrated environmentalist, but what was equally remarkable about her was ‘her open defiance of outdated, male chauvinistic, neo-colonial and repressive attitudes and traditions’ that hindered not just women, but Kenya as a whole, writes Rasna Warah.

In the night of death
Our nightingale took her last breath
Hope saw a star shinning
Listening love heard the rustle of a wing
A golden heart stopped beating
And hardworking hands went to rest...