A UK firm offered to supply 'cyber-spy' software used by Egypt to target activists, the BBC has learned. Documents found in the headquarters of the country's security service suggest it was used for a five-month trial period at the end of last year. Hampshire-based Gamma International UK denies actually supplying the program, which infects computers with a virus that bugs online voice calls and email.

The tear gas being employed by the Egyptian military and police in the past 48 hours, beyond being expired for at least five years, according to canisters obtained by Bikyamasr.com, cause severe pulmonary damage, as well as causing damage to the heart and liver. It is also reported to increase the risk of miscarriages, according to international studies of the substance, known as CR gas. A lethal does can be inhaled within minutes if in a poorly ventilated area. The US company producing the gas refused to respond to Bikyamasr.com requests for information.

A medical source in the Zeinhom morgue near Cairo’s Tahrir Square has told Bikyamasr.com that 71 Egyptians have been killed since clashes erupted. This was as fierce fighting between protesters calling for an end to military rule and the police and the army continued last week.

While the payment of compensation to 30,000 Acholi war claimants is welcomed after two years of waiting, further reparations are required for victims of the northern Uganda conflict, says this article form Uganda's Monitor newspaper. 'Providing compensation to 30,000 victims only represents the tip of the iceberg...Others suffered from mutilation, abductions, killings, torture and looting committed by both the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and the UPDF. Yet, for all this suffering, victims have received little or no reparations for their harm or loss, leaving many impoverished and suffering from the physical and psychological harm as well as economic loss without any redress.'

Government-backed death squads have killed more than 300 members of Burundi’s former rebel group and opposition supporters in covert operations over the past five months, a rights group said. The group, Government Action Observatory, a coalition of civil society groups, said the Central African country’s regime and its proxies have waged a systematic campaign of extrajudicial killings against the former rebels, who went back to the bush after pulling out of 2010 polls over fraud claims.

Burundian troops killed 18 gunmen in fierce clashes, a government official said on Tuesday 22 November, stoking fears that a new rebellion may erupt in the central African nation. The coffee-producing country has enjoyed relative peace since the Hutu rebel group, Forces for National Liberation, laid down its weapons and joined the government in 2009 after almost two decades of war. But attacks on civilians and soldiers have intensified since elections last year were widely boycotted by the opposition.

Latin American and African dignitaries gathering in Equatorial Guinea for a cross-regional meeting should press their host, President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasago, on his human rights record, EG Justice and Human Rights Watch said. This ahead of a Africa-South America Summit that took place between 22-25 November 2011.

Widescale violence by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) has forced more than 21,000 people to flee their homes in the Central African Republic (CAR), a new OCHA map reveals. Across Central Africa, including South Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), CAR and Uganda, as many as 440,000 people are currently displaced by violent LRA activities. They range from killings, mutilations, abductions and sexual slavery, to the burning of houses and the looting of food and other commodities.

Egyptian authorities will deport 118 Eritrean refugees currently detained by Cairo, officials said. A lobby group, the Eritrean Refugee Solidarity Movement coordinator, Mr Muse Bahremariam, told AfricaReview.com that the Eritreans had been detained as a prelude to their being handed over to Asmara, in disregard to the international human rights conventions.

Ethiopians are on the move. Not only are more rural people relocating to towns and cities, but the number of Ethiopians leaving the country has also ballooned in the last few years. Many are trying to reach Saudi Arabia via Yemen, while thousands of others head for South Africa, Israel and Europe, crossing deserts and seas and placing their lives in the hands of smugglers who often have little regard for their well-being.

It has now been confirmed that the two remaining Libyan suspects wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC), Saif al-Islam al-Qaddafi and Abdullah al-Senussi, have been detained by national authorities. What happens now? Under international law, Libyan officials are required to surrender the two suspects to The Hague. However, members of the Transitional National Council (TNC) have stated their intention to hold the two accused in custody for trial in Libya. Resolving this apparent clash of jurisdictions will be the first and critical step for the new Libyan regime in demonstrating their commitment to international justice, says this Open Society blog post.

An Ethiopian man has died from his injuries after he set himself on fire in a protest against the government following mass arrests of youths from his local area. Residents of Dawro area in south west Ethiopia said 29-year-old school teacher Yenesew Gebre poured flammable petroleum distillate Benzine on his body in front of the local government building in Waka town on 11 November, dying three days later in hospital.

Nigeria's secret police have said Boko Haram Islamic militants are receiving funding from certain politicians in the north. The intelligence agency said it had arrested an alleged spokesman for the group, who told them he was sponsored by a politician in Borno state. Boko Haram is blamed for a growing number of deadly attacks in Nigeria. These include the UN headquarters bombing in Abuja in August, which killed 24 people.

On 9 November 2011, local authorities in Benguela suddenly withdrew their support and disrupted an arts and culture event organised by the NGO OMUNGA that was scheduled to start the following day. OMUNGA is a human rights group based in the province of Benguela that promotes street children rights, children and youth protagonism, community and civil education. Furthermore, on 11 and 12 November, the police intervened again and forcibly interrupted two OKUPAKALA events that were taking place in different parts of the city, namely Damba Maria and Catumbela. The organisers then transferred the event supposed to take place in Catumbela to another location, but the police contacted them and ordered not to continue with the event.

The UN refugee agency has expressed concern about the security of thousands of refugees in South Sudan border areas as fighting in neighbouring Sudan continues to drive civilians across the frontier. 'UNHCR is working to move these refugees away from the border and to safer areas of South Sudan because of concerns about security,' the agency's chief spokesperson, Melissa Fleming, told journalists in Geneva.

World powers have urged Libya to work with the International Criminal Court and ensure a fair trial for Seif al-Islam, son of slain leader Muamar Gaddafi who was arrested after months on the run. Seif, wanted by the ICC for crimes against humanity allegedly committed in crushing anti-regime protests, was captured in Libya's far-flung Saharan south early on Saturday in a trap set by fighters of the Zintan brigade.

The number of refugees and migrants arriving in Yemen by boat was 12,545 last month - the highest monthly total since UNHCR began compiling data about the mixed migration route between the Horn of Africa and Yemen in January 2006. As well as exceeding the previous record of 12,079 arrivals in September, the October total brings to 84,656 the number of people who arrived in Yemen by sea between the start of January and the start of November - more than the earlier annual record in 2009 of 77,000 people.

Residents say a large number of Ethiopian troops have crossed into neighbouring Somalia, just weeks after Kenyan forces entered the country to pursue al-Shabab fighters. 'The Ethiopian troops, which are in convoys of armoured vehicles, come to us today, crossing from Balanbale district on the border,' Gabobe Adan, an elder in the central town of Guriel told Reuters.

Clashes are continuing in Cairo, the Egyptian capital, between riot police and protesters demanding that the ruling military quickly announces a date to hand over power to an elected government in some of the worst unrest since the country's revolution. Police fired tear gas canisters and protesters threw rocks on Sunday morning as thousands remained on the streets overnight in and around central Cairo's Tahrir square, the focal point of the 18-day uprising that toppled former president Hosni Mubarak in February. Essam Sharraf, Egypt's interim prime minister, was set to host an emergency cabinet meeting to discuss the unrest.

The activism and advocacy team of Cape Town LGBTI grouping Free Gender have submitted proposals to the South African Police Services (SAPS) aimed at combating hate crimes. The proposals include the creation of a ‘Task Team’ at the local level to include Khayelitsha, Nyanga and Gugulethu, quarterly workshops and/or discussions with officers ‘on the ground’ and display of the ‘Pledge to Eradicate Hate Crimes Against Lesbians’ in all police stations in Khayelitsha, Nyanga and Gugulethu to remind police officers and the general public of SAPS commitment to ending discrimination and violence based on sexual orientation.