Amid rising insecurity, a senior official in Kenya’s North Eastern Province has ordered all refugees and unregistered migrants from neighbouring Somalia to move to the under-resourced Dadaab refugee complex by 20 October or face forced relocation. Garissa County Commissioner Mohamed Maalim, who chairs the county’s security committee, said the order - publicly announced on 6 October - applied to all 'Somali refugees and aliens in towns and trading centres' in the region.

Rwanda's defense minister is commanding a rebellion in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo that is being armed by Rwanda and Uganda, both of which sent troops to aid the insurgency in a deadly attack on UN peacekeepers, according to a UN report. The UN Security Council's Group of Experts said in a confidential report that Rwanda and Uganda - despite their strong denials - continued to support M23 rebels in their six-month fight against Congolese government troops in North Kivu province. 'Both Rwanda and Uganda have been supporting M23,' said the 44-page report, which was seen by Reuters.

The Swaziland House of Assembly has reversed its vote of no-confidence in the government, amid great controversy. On Monday (15 October 2012) after an eight-hour debate members rescinded a vote that had taken place two weeks earlier. That vote, by a three-fifths majority of members of the House, was enough to force the cabinet to resign, in line with Section 68 (5) of the Swazi Constitution. The first vote had cause a political crisis because the government, led by Prime Minister Barnabas Dlamini, refused to resign and King Mswati III did not sack him, as he is required to do under the Constitution.

Malawi has opened up negotiations on the economic partnership agreement (EPA) with the European Union, which have been deadlocked since 2002. The new round of negotiations may see President Joyce Banda’s administration change the status quo and sign the free trade agreement. 'We have opened up negotiations and consultations on EPAs. We can’t ignore the issue anymore like the previous administration, and President Banda will pay attention to this,' said the country’s trade minister John Bande.

The author of the controversial book on President Museveni titled 'The Correct Line? Uganda under Museveni', has been summoned by the High Court in Kampala, and ordered to file her defence in response to a defamation suit filed against her by a UPDF officer Lt. Col. Atwooki Ndahura. In the summons dated October 15, 2012, issued by registrar Festo Nsenga, Dr Olive Kobusingye has been ordered to file her defence within 15 days, lest judgement is passed in her absence. 'Should you fail to file a defence, the plaintiff shall proceed in the suit and judgement entered in your absence,' the order states.

New evidence implicates Libyan militias in an apparent execution of dozens of detainees in rebel custody following the capture and death of Muammar Gaddafi last year, a watchdog has said. In a report released detailing Gaddafi's final hours on October 20, 2011, Human Rights Watch said it had gathered evidence that Misrata-based militias captured and disarmed members of the dictator's convoy and subjected them to brutal beatings.

A man facing trial for publishing videos critical of religions should be immediately released by the Egyptian authorities and all charges against him dropped, Amnesty International said. Alber Saber Ayad, an activist from the 2011 uprising, is charged with 'defamation of religion'. If convicted he could receive a six-year prison sentence and a fine of 500 Egyptian Pounds (US$82).

South African children have equal rights under the Constitution, but the worlds into which they are born and their opportunities in life are very unequal. This was the message Katharine Hall, senior researcher at the Children’s Institute (CI) at the University of Cape Town shared at the launched the South African Child Gauge 2012, an annual review on the state of South Africa's children.

The Joint Task Force (JTF) in Borno State has disclosed that it killed 24 suspected Boko Haram members in different parts of Maiduguri metropolis on Monday night during series of encounters with its personnel. Similarly, no fewer than 25 persons were killed and properties worth millions of naira destroyed in a renewed attack by Fulani herdsmen against residents of Yogbo in Guma Local Government Area of Benue State on Sunday. Among those killed were children and women.

A Moroccan court has jailed an activist with the February 20 protest movement for 12 years for taking part in an unauthorised demonstration, a human rights group said, slamming the ruling as an act of vengeance. The charges against Bashir Benshaib, 32, who was sentenced by an appeals court in Al-Hoceima, included blocking a road, theft, aggression and drug dealing, Faisal Ousser of the Moroccan Association for Human Rights (AMDH) told AFP.

Love Mathobela was born in South Africa and has lived most of her life here, but she is not yet recognised as a citizen. 'I had a birth certificate and South African passport which my father had obtained for me using his forged South African identity documents he acquired when he came to South Africa 22 years ago. During the 2010 Special Dispensation for Zimbabwean Nationals, my father gave away his forged identity documents including mine as requested by the law.'

Raheli Philipo Kilaye is a Maasai woman. She lives in Longido, a village in northern Tanzania near the Kenyan border. For many years, collecting and selling firewood was this 37-year-old woman’s only source of income. Every third day, she walked 12 hours to collect two bundles of firewood from the bush, which she would carry to town on her back to sell in the market. If she sold the firewood, she earned 3000 Tanzanian shillings, about two dollars. But this arduous and unrewarding work is now just a bad memory. A year ago Mrs. Kilaye enrolled in a school for adult learners in Longido, where she is studying English, Swahili and mathematics.

Clarisse Kimbi barely ekes out a living from a tiny parcel of land in Kom village in the North West Region of Cameroon. Today, the mother of six finds it hard to put food on the table for herself and her children. But five years ago she, her husband and children were considered well-off. In 2007, farming on five hectares of land, Kimbi could comfortably feed her family, and still have enough surplus food to sell. In a country where 40 percent of the population lives below the poverty line, her family was counted among the wealthy. But things changed when her husband died five years ago. Almost everything was taken away from her and her children.

In this submission, ARTICLE 19 outlines its concerns that, over the last four years, there has been an escalation in violations of the right to freedom of expression and information, and the right to freedom of peaceful assembly in Djibouti.

Heavily armed men, believed to be state security agents, abducted two MDC-T officials in Bulawayo recently, torturing and interrogating them. They were released the next day. According to a statement from the party, Emanuel Kambarami and Andrew Vera were abducted from their homes in Mpopoma by five agents. Kambarami is the chairperson for Mpopoma, ward 9 constituency and Vera chairs the ward’s Youth Assembly.

An estimated 20 million people are alive today as a direct result of tuberculosis (TB) care and control, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) Global Tuberculosis Report 2012. 'In the space of 17 years, 51 million people have been successfully treated and cared for according to WHO recommendations. Without that treatment, 20 million people would have died,' says Dr Mario Raviglione, Director of the WHO Stop TB Department. 'This milestone reflects the commitment of governments to transform the fight against TB.'

The UN feeds AMISOM’s troops, the EU pays them and the US and Italy pay Somali troops. The US, though, is the biggest single financial contributor. 'The Americans have supported the training of our troops here, in Uganda and in Burundi, and largely they sponsor it,' said one source in this Washington Post article. The US insists AMISOM is not the West’s proxy. 'AMISOM is an African peacekeeping force responding to an African crisis,' says the top US official on Somalia, James Swan.

A generation of leaders who won their spurs during Algeria's 1954-62 independence war against France remains in power, having defeated a violent challenge by armed Islamists in the 1990s and, at least for now, seen off the rebellious spirit that toppled Arab autocrats in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya last year. Among the old guard is President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, 75, who has served three terms and is thought unlikely to seek a fourth, if only for undisclosed health reasons. But with a presidential election due in 2014 there is no clarity on who might take over Africa's biggest country, an OPEC oil producer which supplies a fifth of Europe's gas imports and cooperates with the West in combating al Qaeda-style militancy.

With the first-ever Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) report on the status of the Nile River, the situation between Egypt and Ethiopia and the angst between the two foes finally has some statistics and analysis to deal with. However, it is unlikely to see any changes in the current policies that have both countries eying future water resources along the world’s longest river. Top Ethiopia government officials have told Bikyamasr.com that they are looking at jumpstarting the massive Renaissance Dam project along the Nile River in an effort to increase water resources and energy for the East African country. The move could threaten the regional stability.

Janet Otieno, a Nairobi-based journalist, writes that xenophobia seems to be steadily taking root in Africa’s newest nation, as the hosts growingly perceive foreigners are encroaching on their territory and taking up their jobs. Even humanitarian workers are not spared in a country where civilians still possess firearms given proper disarmament is yet to be carried out since a bloody civil war ended.