A court in Namibia has ruled that the National Society for Human Rights must have its status as an election observer reinstated, hours after polls opened. The electoral commission withdrew the group's status days before the vote, saying it was not impartial.

Zimbabwe’s three governing parties have suspended until Saturday their negotiations on outstanding issues impeding the work of the unity government after three days of marathon meetings.

The Ivorian National Press Council (CNP) has banned the publication of opinion polls conducted on presidential candidates for the forthcoming election. "Within the framework of the electoral process, the National Press Council informs the media that in accordance with Article 39 of Ruling Né 2008-133 of 14 April 2008 on adjustments to the electoral code for out of crisis elections, it is prohibited to publish or issue estimates of vote or conduct polls of any kind, from any place, based on the provisional electoral roll,' a statement from the Press Council said.

President Jacob Zuma has appointed a new team to monitor Zimbabwe's embattled unity government accord, effectively ending former president Thabo Mbeki's mediation role. Presidential spokesperson Vincent Magwenya said that as part of the evaluation process, the facilitation team would be visiting Zimbabwe in the near future.

Zimbabwe will be a better country in the not far distant future, if the country’s politicians have access to papers with the same level of indepth, balanced analysis as Mary Ndlovu’s , writes Proudly Zimbabwean.

Zimbabwean wordsmith Masimba Musodza talks to Conversations with Writers about the ‘distinguished honour of being a pioneer in Rastafarian literature’ and persuading his parents that writing ‘is as respectable a profession as the ones they had in mind’ for him.

Stephen Kabera Karanja looks at the legal principles underpinning the ICC’s intervention in Kenya and the objectives of Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo’s visit to the country earlier in November.

South Africans and Africans define leadership too narrowly – that it is why societies on the continent time and time again end up with the most terribly disappointing leaders, William Gumede writes in this week’s Pambazuka News.

In this week's blogging roundup by Dibussi Tande, Nairobi's power outages call for innovative local solutions, Adidas launches a new Kente-theme line of footwear, but gets the history wrong, and the recent stoning of a young Somali woman calls into question the justness of Sharia law and its application.

With Namibia's parliamentary and presidential elections fast approaching on 27–28 November, Henning Melber discusses the paranoia currently gripping many within the ruling SWAPO (South West Africa People's Organisation) party. Many in the party seem to regard any form of political dissent as unpatriotic at best and as the act of an agent of outside imperialism at worst Melber notes, an all-consuming sentiment that is severely jeopardising the very liberation the party ostensibly once sought.

Commenting on events at a Brussels conference for the promotion of peace and human rights in Eritrea, Nikolaj Nielsen reports on a country which Reporters Without Borders ranks lower on press freedom than North Korea. 'Eritrea', Nielsen writes, 'was the promise that never evolved' and a country 'unable to come to terms with lasting peace'.

Trevor Wells writes of his problems with AfricaBio's opposition to consumers knowing what they are eating and its attempts to manipulate farmers' views.

The World Bank has granted Malawi US$10 million for the Community-Based Rural Land Development Project (CBRLDP). The additional grant will also extend the project for another two years, the bank said.

A top official from the mainstream MDC on Thursday said there were doubts Robert Mugabe would implement the Global Political Agreement, even if party negotiators manage to strike a deal. Negotiators from the three parties are due to meet at a secret venue from Friday and throughout the weekend for talks aimed at dealing with the matters brought on the table through the SADC Troika summit that met in Maputo two weeks ago.

Nigeria has signed a 677 million euro pact with the European Union aimed at combating corruption and promoting peace in its troubled, oil-producing Niger Delta region.

The Security Council has called on United Nations missions in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Central African Republic (CAR) and Sudan to coordinate strategies to protect civilians from the rebel Ugandan Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), which has killed, kidnapped and displaced thousands of people.

The UN Security Council has welcomed the power-sharing agreement reached by Madagascar’s current and former leaders, and urged the political forces to end months of internal strife with the establishment of a new Government.

The number of people in Africa has passed the one billion mark, the UN Population Fund says in a report. UNPF's Executive Director Thoraya Obeid said that the annual figures showed the continent's population had doubled in the last 27 years.

East African leaders are due to sign a common market treaty. The presidents of Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi are expected to agree to the free movement of people and goods across the region.

Transparency International’s popular annual Corruption Perception Index commonly known as the CPI was launched on 17 November 2009. Zimbabwe’s score moved up as Zimbabwe became number 146 along with Cameroon, Ecuador, Kenya, Russia, Sierra Leone and Timor Leste with a score of 2.2 of a possible 10.