Nigeria lost out on tens of billions of dollars in oil and gas revenues over the last decade from cut price deals struck between multinational oil companies and government officials, a confidential report seen by Reuters says. A team headed by the former head of the anti-corruption agency Nuhu Ribadu produced the 146-page study on an oil ministry request. It covers the year 2002 to the present.

The United Nations High Commission for Human Rights (UNHCR) is currently reviewing Ghana's human rights record over the past four years mainly under late President John Evans Atta Mills' administration. Under its Universal Periodic Review (UPR), the UNHCR began the process on Tuesday October 22 with submissions from civil society groups such as the Human Rights Advocacy Centre (HRAC) and the Amnesty International, Ghana. Although the report highlighted a number of different human rights abuses in Ghana, it also acknowledges significant advancement made in the quest for abolition of the death penalty.

Politicians will be required to submit their campaign text messages for vetting at least 48 hours before they are sent. And the SMSs must only be sent to mobile phone users who have subscribed for them. These are some of the measures put in place by the Communications Commission of Kenya to curb the spread of hate messages via SMS.

The 2nd All Stakeholders Conference got off to a dramatic and chaotic start in Harare on Monday, with the MDC-N leader Welshman Ncube walking out of the event, to protest the presence of Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara. At the heart of his protest is the fact SADC leaders resolved at the last summit in Maputo that Ncube would be the third principal allowed to participate in GPA negotiations. But ZANU PF went against SADC and insisted Mutambara would remain the third principal to participate in government business.

As the humanitarian crisis unfolds in Sudan’s South Kordofan and Blue Nile states, international humanitarian organizations have not been able to assess the nutrition and food security situation in these areas until now. For the first time since 2011 - when the government of Sudan banned all international humanitarian aid organizations from operating in the two state -an independent rapid food security and nutrition assessment has been conducted in South Kordofan state. The findings of the assessment, released by the Enough Project in a report, are alarming.

Western officials say a planned military push to reclaim northern Mali from armed rebel groups is unlikely to begin before next year - despite concerns about an escalating 'terrorist' threat posed by the fighters there. Proposals for an offensive by Mali's forces, supported by troops from neighbouring nations and other African Union states - but not Western countries - are to be discussed at a meeting of African officials in Addis Ababa. An international plan is being finalised to help Mali's weak interim government take on the groups, including armed Islamist groups and Tuareg rebels, that have become the de facto rulers of the country's north following chaos prompted by a military coup in March.

Gambian authorities have dropped charges of conspiracy and incitement to violence against two journalists who were arrested on 10 September, the country's press union said. Baboucarr Ceesay, vice president of the Gambia Press Union and Abubacarr Saidykhan, a freelance journalist, were arrested and held for nearly four days after seeking permission to hold a peaceful protest against the recent execution of nine death row prisoners.

A 25-year-old asylum seeker lodged a complaint of bribery with the police against a Cape Town Foreshore Home Affairs official last week. Tatenda Chiguni (not his real name) also claims that his asylum document, which was processed after he laid the charges, was altered from its original state. The altered asylum document includes a condition stating that he should leave South Africa by 11 November 2012 or lodge an appeal. It is unusual for asylum documents to include this condition upon renewal.

Over 50 members of Uganda's main opposition political party - the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) have been arrested in the past two weeks by security agencies and are detained at undisclosed places, party officials say. There were unconfirmed reports that the activists are facing charges of plotting to overthrow President Yoweri Museveni's government.

African member states of the United Nations have submitted a draft resolution on ending female genital mutilation (FGM) to the UN General Assembly, in what campaigners have hailed as a landmark step to end a practice that has been inflicted on up to 140 million women and girls. FGM, which is widespread in parts of Africa and pockets of the Middle East and Asia, involves the partial or total removal of the external genitals, and in many cases the closing of the vaginal opening.

Ghana's National Coalition on Mining (NCOM) held its annual forum on 3 October 2012 at New Abirim in the country's eastern region. It was attended by an estimated 600 representatives of communities, mainly in the catchment area of the mine but also across the entire length and breadth of mining areas in Ghana. The forum took place just after citizens and farmers in the Chirano mining area presented a protest note to the Minister of Lands And Natural Resources. They demanded immediate payment of delayed compensation by Canada's Kinross Gold Corp, for the destruction of their cocoa trees seven years earlier.

Heavy rains that lashed South Africa's southeast left eight people dead over the weekend and caused extensive damage to property, an official said. Port Elizabeth and Grahamstown were the hardest hit, with a road linking the two towns closed to traffic after a large part of it collapsed. 'Most of the flood victims drowned, other people died in a road accidents,' said John Fobian, a spokesman for regional disaster management.

The wife of Ghana's ex-leader Jerry Rawlings is shocked after being barred from contesting the December election, her spokesman has told the BBC. Nana Konadu Rawlings was chosen last weekend as the presidential candidate of the National Democratic Party (NDP). She defected from the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) party, although Mr Rawlings has not done so. The election commission said her nomination papers had not been completed before the deadline.

Kenya’s independence heroes and heroines marched on the tarpaulin of a stadium on Saturday, waving the national flag during celebrations to mark Heroes Day, buoyed by a landmark legal victory against Britain for compensation for pre-independence atrocities. The elderly Kenyans pressed for compensation against the British government for illegal detention and torture during the 1952 crackdown against the Mau Mau rebellion, whose leader, Field Marshal Dedan Kimathi, is still buried at the Kamiti Maximum Prison.

Mozambican President Armando Guebuza has argued that implementation of the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) between the countries of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the European Union (EU) should be delayed until 2016. Speaking to reporters in Brussels, where he was attending the Seventh European Development Days (EDD), Guebuza said 'our preference is for 2016. Everything is under negotiation and we are waiting for the results'. The EU is currently insisting that countries that do not ratify EPAs by January 2014 will lose out on the benefits of preferential access to European markets.

As seen over and again during recurrent financial crises in both developing and advanced economies, including the recent global crisis originating in the US and Europe, financial instability and boom-bust cycles undermine all three ingredients of sustainable development – economic development, social development and environmental protection. Financial bubbles generate excessive investment which remains unutilized for an extended period even after full recovery from the ensuing financial crisis, argues this South Centre policy brief.

The imminent return of more than 35,000 Burundians from Tanzania poses major logistical challenges to aid agencies and the densely populated country they fled amid civil war almost 20 years ago. The return could degenerate into a 'humanitarian disaster' if they ignore a 31 December deadline to leave willingly and end up being deported en masse. While Burundi has absorbed more than half a million refugees since 2002, never before has it had to contend with such a large number of returnees in such a short space of time.

At least three people have been killed and seven more injured in fighting in the northern Libyan town of Bani Walid. The casualties come as clashes continue in the town of 85,000 residents, a former stronghold of ousted leader Muammar Gaddafi. Libyan soldiers have been fighting Gaddafi loyalists in the beseiged town for more than three weeks. But troops blame officials for not providing enough equipment or supplies to win the battle.

A new report points to the extensive violence experienced by girls attending school in Zambia. But victims rarely speak up about the abuse, and a lack of clear policies fuel the cycle of violence. Those are the main findings of a report, 'They are Destroying Our Futures' by Cornell Law School’s Avon Center for Women and Justice, which clearly outlines the extensive sexual violence against Zambian girls attending school.

Tackling the trafficking of women is being used as an excuse to further crack down on sex work and this is leading to abuses, an activist group said at the launch of a UN report that calls for legal empowerment of sex workers and the decriminalisation of sex work. 'The unspoken purpose of the anti-trafficking movement is to end prostitution globally,' said Tracey Tully from the Asia Pacific Network of Sex Workers (APNSW). 'Under the guise of anti-trafficking,' this movement wants to change laws on prostitution by further criminalising sex work and to deny sex workers control over their own lives, Tully told TrustLaw.