A United Nations agency has suspended plans to grant a prize sponsored by Equatorial Guinea President Teodor Obiang Nguema after lobbying by human rights groups. Obiang is accused of rights abuses, rigging elections and corruption. He has previously denied such charges.

Amnesty International has called on the Egyptian authorities to immediately release, or charge with a recognizable criminal offence, more than 70 members of the Muslim Brotherhood group arrested this week. More than 150 people have been arrested since the Muslim Brotherhood chairman, Mohamed Badie', said on 9 October that the group will put up candidates in Egypt's parliamentary elections, scheduled for 29 November.

‘Congratulations’ is a wholly inadequate accolade for Pambazuka's 500th issue.

It's hard to capture the breadth and importance of what Pambazuka does. It is a space, a community, a movement. It is a clearing-house, an archive, a resource base, a forum for radical scholarship, analysis and debate that is not occurring anywhere else.

And of course, it's a journal, and a platform for action, that never compromises on a vision of justice and self-determination for all Africans.

Thank you.

Torture is common in prisons around the world, but prisoners in pretrial detention face the most risk, since this is when interrogations take place and confessions are sought. Systemic factors such as insufficient legal resources and the lack of police complaint mechanisms contribute to the use of torture while prisoners await trial. Kersty McCourt recommends police forces make less use of pretrial detention, allow prisoners to access medical services and governments develop torture prevention mechanisms.

This poem is dedicated to all Ethiopians who lost loved ones during the ‘red terror’ revolutionary days of the Derg regime. Ambassador Teferra Shiawl-Kidanekal, in his book ‘The New Dawn’ depicts that era in vivid language; and he reflects on how ‘the December 1974 incident shocked the whole world and Ethiopians were helplessly subdued as radicals [as] the Derg fully asserted their authority through the barrel of the gun.’ It was a time in history, sadly not extensively documented, in which thousands perished, leaving a hole in the hearts of many families who could never heal them back to whole.

At the First Forum on South-South Cooperation on Biodiversity for Development, convened in Nagoya on 17 October, the Group of 77 and China unanimously adopted a draft Multi-Year Plan of Action on South-Couth Cooperation on Biodiversity for Development. 'The Plan defines targets and South-South cooperative strategies, including triangular cooperation and programmes, to the year 2020,' said Ambassador Abdullah M. Alsaidi, permanent representative of Yemen and chairman of the G77.

Robert Mugabe has threatened to retaliate if ambassadors he unilaterally appointed to the United Nations (UN) and the European Union (EU) are sent back to Zimbabwe. Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai last week told the EU and the UN that ambassadors appointed solely by Mugabe don’t speak on behalf of the whole government. But Mugabe has now threatened that the EU will face retaliation if they heed Tsvangirai’s advice and expel the diplomats he appointed. His spokesman George Charamba on Monday told NewsDay news service that Zimbabwe would reserve the right to ‘reciprocate’ if its diplomats were thrown out of their postings.

The top leadership of Zimbabwe’s civil society organizations will meet with South African President Jacob Zuma’s facilitation team at the Union Buildings in Pretoria on Wednesday. The meeting, at the instigation of Zuma’s team, will explore ways of how SADC can help Zimbabwe come up with guidelines for violence-free elections, which are expected mid next year. The poll is expected after the drafting of the new constitution.

Governments and businesses need an overhaul of policies and strategies to respond to the rapid loss of nature's riches, worth trillions of dollars but long taken for granted, a UN-backed study said on Wednesday. Damage to natural capital including forests, wetlands and grasslands is valued at $2-4.5 trillion annually, the United Nations estimates, but the figure is not included in economic data such as GDP, nor in corporate accounts.

With East Africa experiencing a new integration wave, Oduor Ong'wen looks back at the history of regionalisation across the area and at the prospects for the East African Common Market (EACM). In the face of governments' dwindling control over 'the institutional levers of sovereignty', what hope does the EACM offer for the promotion of national and sub-national interests?

Obiageli Ezekwesili, the World Bank vice president for Africa, has invited policymakers and leading private sector representatives to discuss how to accelerate trade among African countries. Intra-Africa trade has long been viewed as the key to unlocking the continent’s growth potential. But in spite of the development of economic blocs such as custom unions and common markets, as well as improvements in inter-continental transport, only about 10 per cent of trade on the continent takes place among African countries.

The joint task force will meet from 20 to 21 October to discuss the cooperation between EU and AU. It will prepare work for the upcoming Africa-EU Summit on 29-30 November in Tripoli, Libya. Participants will discuss progress in each of the eight partnerships of the Joint Africa EU Strategy, and agree on an action plan for the period 2011-2013, which will be adopted at the summit. Traditionally, the joint task force brings together services from the European Commission and the African Union Commission to discuss cooperation between both commissions.

Media watchdogs see the 'invisible hand' of the ruling party behind a string of firings and resignations that have removed some of Egypt's most prominent government critics from their soapboxes just weeks before parliamentary elections. 'Oblique threats and backroom deals that are not visibly linked to the government have started silencing some of Egypt's most critical independent voices,' says Mohamed Abdel Dayem, Middle East and North Africa programme coordinator of the Committee to Protect Journalists.

There
will be no tears of fish or even humans
this time when tides of street tidings reach us…

Two political protesters have been killed and several others injured in street clashes with police in Guinea's capital, Conakry, just days before a presidential run-off election. According to witnesses, the police were initially attacked on Tuesday by supporters of Cellou Dalein Diallo, the leading candidate contesting the October 24 poll.

On Thursday October 14, Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, the president of Somalia, appointed Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed 'Farmajo' as his new prime minister. Mohamed, a Somali - American and a member of the Somali diaspora, is a relative unknown in the Somalian political scene. Systemically, institutional divergence prevents Somalia from establishing a strong system of national governance. The appointment came after the September 21 resignation of former prime minister Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke.

Francodus depicts Nigeria's 'one man, one vote' policy.

Tanzanian NGO Sikika and Policy Forum, a network of Tanzanian NGOs, recently undertook an analysis of unnecessary expenditures to find out if government commitments to spend more efficiently were being met. Slashing unnecessary expenditure, their report states, could enable the Tanzanian government to build more than 100 dispensaries in remote areas or buy 5,000 delivery beds to reduce the number of pregnant women who deliver on the ?oors of hospitals and clinics.

Nigerian security forces have arrested the brother of Henry Okah, a former leader of the rebel Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend), over his suspected involvement in deadly bombings in Abuja, the capital, on October 1. Charles Okah was taken into custody at his home in the southern city of Lagos on Sunday.