Take Back The Tech! is a collaborative campaign that takes place during the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-based Violence (25 Nov - 10 Dec). It is a call to everyone - especially women and girls - to take control of technology to end violence against women. Visit the Take Back The Tech! website to find out more.

The John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American History and Culture, part of the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Duke University, announces the availability of travel grants for research travel to our collections. The John Hope Franklin Research Center seeks to collect, preserve, and promote the use of printed and manuscript materials bearing on the history of Africa and people of African descent. Research grants are available to any faculty member, graduate or undergraduate student, or independent scholar with a research project requiring the use of materials held by the Franklin Research Center.

Liberia’s main opposition leader has rescinded his decision to work with the newly-elected government of President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf and called for a rerun of the runoff. Mr. Winton Tubman told a press conference in Monrovia on Saturday evening that his party refuses to recognise the results of the second round polls which he described as a 'political masquerade'. The surprise declaration comes barely two days after he pledged to work with the newly-elected government of President Sirleaf 'in the interest of national unity'.

Amnesty International has called on Shell to pay $1bn to start cleaning up two oil spills in Nigeria's Niger Delta which it says caused huge suffering to locals whose fisheries and farmland were poisoned. The report by the human rights group to mark the 16th anniversary of the execution of environmental activist Ken Saro Wiwa by Nigerian authorities said the two spills in 2008 in Bodo, Ogoniland, had wrecked the livelihoods of 69,000 people.

Nearly three years after the xenophobic violence in South African townships, some foreigners are still living in what was meant to be temporary shelters because they are afraid of going back to their former communities. Two groups of refugees - one near the De Deur police station in Orange Farm, south of Johannesburg, and the other at the Rural Institute for Education and Training (Riet) family guidance centre in Randfontein - seem to have slipped through the cracks. The Gauteng department of social development said all camps it was responsible for had been closed down.

Tanzania's 1999 land reform has decentralised land administration to the rural local village governments, but implementation so far has been slow and uneven. The local authorities rarely get the support they need to make it work. As a consequence, the benefits promised by the reform - economic growth and improved tenure security - do not happen. There has already been an abundance of donor driven projects to implement the reform, but they have been short-sighted and have tended to forget the local authorities that carry out the actual implementation. Much could be achieved if higher level authorities and NGOs systematically strengthened the village authorities and enabled them to deliver their services.

A recent article in Kenya’s Africa Review cited sources in the African Union (AU) disclosing that the 28-member North Atlantic Treaty Organisation is preparing to sign a military partnership treaty with the 53-nation AU. The author of the article, relaying comments from AU officials in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia where the AU has its headquarters, wrote that although 'the stated aim is to counter global security threats and specifically threats against Africa, some observers read the pact as aiming to counter Chinese expansion in Africa'.

South Africa’s Justice Minister has called for an investigation into reports that the country’s priority crimes unit and the police are involved in an illegal ‘renditions’ deal with Zimbabwe. Minister Jeff Radebe is reportedly on a 'collision course' with his colleague, Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa, after demanding answers over the report. Radebe told South Africa’s Sunday Times newspaper that the rendition claims were 'very worrying', especially considering the allegations 'were levelled not only against organs of state, but one that is responsible for law enforcement and security.'

Congo's President Denis Sassou Nguesso has launched the national afforestation and reforestation programme (PRONAR) that will cover one million hectares over 10 years. President Nguesso launched the programme on Sunday in Yie, some 60km north of Brazzaville, the nation's capital.
The programme, to be financed by the government and the private sector, aims at reducing human pressure exerted on natural forests by reducing deforestation and soil degradation.

The University Council has announced that Chancellor College, the main constituent college of the University of Malawi, at the centre of a protracted academic freedom wrangle, will be finally re-opened 14 November. Zomba-based Chancellor College has been in a lock-down since 16 February when lecturers started protesting Inspector General of Police Peter Mukhito's summoning of associate political science professor Blessings Chinsinga on 12 February, to quiz him over a classroom example he gave his public policy class. The youthful lecturer had reportedly likened the insurrections that toppled governments in Tunisia and Egypt to Malawi's current fuel and foreign exchange reserves shortages.

The findings of this study published by the Organisation for Social Science Research in Eastern and Southern Africa (OSSREA) revealed that there has been a steady increase in overall student enrolment from the academic years 2000/2001 to 2006/2007 in selected universities. There was variation in female student enrolment during this period, but in all cases it was below 50 per cent. Data regarding student enrolment in the various faculties/schools by gender from Kenyatta and Egerton universities revealed that female students were concentrated in the humanities and social sciences. Women academic staff were found to be underrepresented in the universities. Women staff were found to be missing from the senior university management positions.

Equatoguinean president Teodoro Obiang has proposed several changes to the constitution of Equatorial Guinea, including establishing a limit of two terms of seven years on the presidency, creating the office of vice-president, adding a second chamber to parliament, and creating a 'Court of Auditors' to oversee government programs, contracts and expenditures. This post lists the proposed changes.

Are debt strikes, the next logical step in the fight against Big Finance's domination of the 99 percent? asks this article from 'One of the fascinating things about the media dominance of Occupy Wall Street has been how the conversation has shifted away from the deficit-obsession of the last few years. Suddenly the debt that everyone is talking about is personal, individual debt - student loans, mortgages, credit cards and other ways the big banks control our lives.'

The 50th African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights ended recently in Banjul, Gambia with Amnesty International voicing its concern over the continuing struggle that victims of Operation Murambatsvina face. AI said it was concerned about the failure of the government to provide effective solutions to the problems faced by those who were forcibly evicted from their homes in 2005. A few of the victims were allocated incomplete housing structures or un-serviced plots of land under the government’s re-housing programme, known as Operation Garikai.The majority of the victims were forcibly settled in rural areas while those who remained in urban areas moved into existing housing set ups, leading to overcrowding.

Poverty, abuse and cultural practices are preventing a third of Zimbabwean girls from attending primary school and 67 per cent from attending secondary school, denying them a basic education, according to a recent study which found alarming dropout rates for girls. 'Sexual harassment and abuse by even school teachers and parents, cultural issues, lack of school fees, early marriage, parental commitments and early pregnancies are some of the contributing factors to the dropout by the girl child,' said the authors of 'Because I am a Girl' by Plan International, a nonprofit organisation that works to alleviate child poverty.

The head of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde, has warned that the global economy is at risk of being plunged into a 'lost decade'. Lagarde said the ongoing debt crisis in Europe has resulted in an uncertain outlook for the global economy. The IMF chief added that whilst efforts to solve the crisis were heading in the right direction, more needed to be done to restore confidence.

The government of South Sudan has arrested the Chairman of the United Democratic Forum (UDF), Mr. Peter Abdurrahman Chule, whom it accused of attempting to recruit youths for a rebellion against the government in Juba. Radio Miraya, a UN-funded radio reporting from Juba, capital of South Sudan, reported that Mr Chule was arrested last week at his hideout in Western Equatoria State. Ironically, Mr Chule was one of the most ardent advocates for separation before independence in 2011, and was even against the moderate line of giving unity and separation equal chances as stipulated by the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA).

The ninth Southern African Forum Against Corruption (Safac) annual general meeting which took place in Windhoek made an urgent call on SADC members to implement the SADC Protocol Against Corruption. Safac chair Dr Edward Hoseah blamed the non-functioning SADC Committee on Corruption (SACC) for the delay in the implementation of the protocol at the opening of the event. 'The Southern African Development Community (SADC) Protocol Against Corruption and its implementation is our litmus test for effective measures in our region. The willingness of our political masters to heighten and fast-track the implementation of the SADC Protocol is extremely fundamental to manage our citizens’ expectations,' he stressed.

Barza, the online community for radio broadcasters has been launched. The site wants to make available to rural radio broadcasters useful resources like radio scripts, audio clips and advice from peers with the click of a mouse. Through the online community, it aims to increase the extent to which rural radio helps African small-scale farmers meet their food security, farming and livelihood goals.

Africa is the fastest-growing mobile market in the world, and is the biggest after Asia, an association of worldwide mobile phone operators has said. The number of subscribers on the continent has grown almost 20 per cent each year for the past five years, the GSM Association report on Africa says. It expects there will be more than 735 million subscribers by the end of 2012.