Assembled in Bamako, the capital of Mali, approximately 40 female leaders together with officials from the Forum of Malian civil society organizations participated in discussions about Mali's crisis. Saran Keita Diakité, President of the Women’s Peace and Security Network for ECOWAS countries (REPSFECO/Mali), read out the recommendations to the UN Deputy Secretary-General: 'We, the women from civil society in Mali (…), demand the following at the decision-making level: at least 30 per cent female representation in all bodies for crisis management and post-crisis management; participation in political and institutional governance, security and the electoral process; capacity-building in terms of mediation, negotiation, prevention, conflict-management and peace-consolidation; advocacy by the UN Secretary-General in favour of reparation for the harm suffered by rape victims as well as their care; and immediate implementation of a support fund for the self-empowerment of the women of Mali.'

Rights groups are calling for an end to the death penalty in South Sudan and for improvements to the squalid prison conditions where people languish for years, often without due process. A statement on 5 November and an accompanying letter to South Sudan's government, signed by Amnesty International (AI), Human Rights Watch (HRW) and local church and civil society groups, has called for a moratorium on executions, especially as 'South Sudan is currently not able to fully guarantee the minimum safeguards... on the use of the death penalty'.

Rapid urbanisation is being portrayed – by the UN, the World Bank and many others – as a potential developmental 'silver bullet' for Africa. Cities, we are frequently told, will be the drivers of economic growth and poverty reduction on the continent in the years to come. At present, such claims are too simplistic, and counter-productively over-optimistic, states this article from Africa Review.

More than two million Nigerians have been forced from their homes by this year's floods, officials say. The National Emergency Management Agency (Nema) says the heavy rains killed 363 people since July. The worst floods in five decades have affected many areas of the country - especially near the River Niger.

When it comes to social media's heavy hitters, there are no bigger players than Facebook or Twitter, right? Not if you're in South Africa. Mobile network Mxit claims to have nearly 10 million users in the country, making it South Africa's most popular social media platform by far, eclipsing Facebook's six million users and Twitter's 1.1 million subscribers. Founded seven years ago by Namibian-born software developer Herman Heunis, Mxit has grown from an instant messaging application into a global mobile social network.

The month of October has seen a significant escalation of aerial bombardment by the Sudanese government in Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) controlled areas of South Kordofan. Nuba Reports journalists confirmed 102 bombs, double the 51 bombs dropped in September. Of these 102 bombs, 81 targeted civilians areas not under ground attack by either the Sudan People's Liberation Army-North (SPLA-N) or Sudan government forces. Not a single bomb dropped into these civilian sites killed or wounded an SPLA-N solider, the intended target.

A severe outbreak of Trachoma has been reported in Karamoja with at least 50,000 people in dire need of urgent eye surgery to prevent blindness. The disclosure was made by the State Minister of Primary Health Care Sarah Opendi in Moroto town. The Minister attributed the outbreak on the lack of toilet facilities.

South African police have been accused of planting weapons near the bodies of workers killed during strikes at the Marikana platinum mine. Photographs taken by police suggested large knives had been placed near the bodies after they had been shot, a lawyer told an inquest into the deaths. Thirty-four miners were killed when police opened fire on the striking workers at the mine in August.

More than one in three men surveyed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo's war-torn east admits committing sexual assault, and three in four believe that a woman who 'does not dress decently is asking to be raped', researchers have found. The study was carried out by the South African-based Sonke Gender Justice Network and the Brazilian non-government organisation Promundo in and near Goma in Congo's North Kivu province.

After being banished from his homeland for opposing Shell’s mining activities in the Niger Delta, vocal Nigerian environmental activist and writer Barry Wuganaale has called on South Africans to rally against the prospects of fracking for shale gas in the Karoo. Wuganaale, who witnessed the persecution many Ogonil people in the area where Shell has been operating since 1956 said in excess of R400 billion over 35 years would be needed to rehabilitate the once fertile agriculture land in the Niger Delta damaged by excessive oil mining.

From a suspected Israeli airstrike in Sudan to cyber warfare in the Gulf and a drone shot down over Israel, the largely hidden war between Iran and its foes seems heating up and spreading. 'In many ways, it's reminiscent of the Cold War, particularly the proxy conflicts,' says Hayat Alvi, lecturer in Middle Eastern politics at the US Naval War College. 'But unlike in the Cold War, there are now a much larger number of asymmetrical warfare techniques. Most of this is happening behind the scenes, but in the modern world we are finding it difficult to keep them secret for that long.'

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has told his Cabinet that improved security deployment and a new high-tech barrier along the Egyptian border had succeeded in ending illegal entry by Africans seeking work or asylum in Israel. 'In the last month, only 54 infiltrators crossed the border and all - without exception - were taken into custody,' Mr Netanyahu said in statements sent to Xinhua.

Torture has become routine in prisons and police stations in the Republic of Congo, according to a 2 November report by the Congolese Observatory for Human Rights (OCDH). The report is based on a series of field investigations OCDH conducted, with financial support from the European Union, between 2010 and 2012 in prisons around the country. These investigations aimed to, among other things, understand 'the extent of the practice of torture in the country, with a view to attracting the attention of national and international opinion'.

A new book finds that the Nile river, together with its associated tributaries and rainfall, could provide 11 countries - including a new country, South Sudan, and the drought-plagued countries of the Horn of Africa - with enough water to support a vibrant agriculture sector, but that the poor in the region who rely on the river for their food and incomes risk missing out on these benefits without effective and inclusive water management policies. 'The Nile River Basin: Water, Agriculture, Governance and Livelihoods', published by the CGIAR Challenge Program on Water and Food (CPWF), incorporates new research and analysis to provide the most comprehensive analysis yet of the water, agriculture, governance and poverty challenges facing policymakers.

The Mozambiqan government has marked the northern Niassa province to promote commercial, large-scale tree plantations. Currently, the single biggest plantation in the region comprises of 13,000 hectares of eucalyptus and pine, owned by a company called ‘Chikweti Forests of Niassa.’ A government-led investigation in 2010 reported that the company had acquired over 32,000 hectares illegally. The big losers were small farmers, vulnerable due to lack of awareness and complicity of corrupt government officials.

At least 100 people have been charged with treason in south-eastern Nigeria after a march supporting independence for Biafra, their lawyer says. Members of the Biafran Zionist Movement declared independence, raised the Biafran flag and then marched through the region's main town, Enugu. More than one million people died during the 1967-70 Biafran conflict - mostly from hunger and disease.

During an interview at the Hilton Hotel in downtown Nairobi, David Kuria Mbote, Kenya’s first openly homosexual candidate for public office, stresses that his campaign will not be only about gay rights.It is, he said, about tearing down the structural barriers in healthcare, education, and the economy that harm all Kenyans. 'My county Kiambu is not the poorest county in Kenya, but those who are poor in Kiambu are really, really poor, and many times they cannot escape that cycle of poverty. What we want to do is create small projects, like rabbit farming for example, to help them break that cycle. Once they can do this they will be more able to work their way to a better life.'

South Africa grants almost every patent application it receives, making its patent regime one of the world’s most lenient. While pharmaceutical companies cash in, patients face staggering healthcare costs, and medicines like cancer treatments, third-line antiretrovirals (ARVs) and treatments for drug-resistant tuberculosis (DR-TB) are often priced out of reach. According to activists from Médecins Sans Frontières’s (MSF) Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines and the South Africa AIDS lobby group the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), easy patents mean companies can extend their exclusive right to manufacture and sell certain drugs, a process known as evergreening.

A woman is killed every eight hours in South Africa, the Medical Research Council (MRC) told MPs. The number of femicides identified had decreased from 3793 in 1999 to 2363 in 2009, MRC researchers told Parliament’s portfolio committees on health, and women, children and people with disabilities. It was presenting the findings of its latest study into female murders.

Former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo is no stranger to controversy, especially in Sierra Leone. This time round he has angered opposition supporters by openly endorsing and campaigning for the incumbent President Ernest Bai Koroma ahead of elections set for November 17. The former Nigerian leader arrived in Freetown Sunday unannounced, reportedly aboard a presidential jet, and was flown out of the capital in a government-provided helicopter to where President Koroma was canvassing for votes.