A suspected cholera outbreak has killed about a dozen people in the southern Somali village of Hoosingo, in the district of Badade in Lower Juba, say government and health officials. 'One of the biggest problems we have is that we do not what this disease is,' Adan Ibrahim Dhaqane, the Hoosingo Village commissioner, told IRIN by telephone. Dhaqane said that at least 19 people had died since the outbreak started on 5 September, with 12 others sick.

This study analyses the political, economic and social impacts of the land and ‘virtual water’ grab in Southern Sudan. The ‘virtual water’ concept, which explains the absence of water wars through water embedded in agricultural imports, has been a major breakthrough in the study of the Middle Eastern water question. This paper shows how agricultural commodities in the form of virtual water are at the heart of Middle Eastern investors’ interests.

This International Organisation of Migration (IOM) research newsletter provides a comprehensive update on IOM’s migration research activities, institutional partnerships and research events for IOM colleagues and interested external readers. This edition focuses on 'The Arab Spring: Reflections on the international response one year later'.

Following the announcement on 21 August 2012 of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s death, Ethiopia’s new leadership should recommit the State to the full respect of its population’s human rights, especially the freedoms of association, assembly and expression, the East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Project (EHAHRDP) said in a statement to the UN Human Rights Council. The UN High Commissioner on Human Rights has expressed serious alarm about the 'climate of intimidation' against human rights defenders and journalists in Ethiopia.

The Head of the United Nations agency tasked with defending press freedom has condemned the recent killing of a Tanzanian journalist, Mr Daudi Mwangosi, and called for an independent investigation into the matter. Mwangosi (40) was killed while covering efforts by police to disperse supporters of opposition party Chadema in Nyololo village, Iringa region on 2 September.

South Sudan accused Sudan on Sunday of air-dropping weapons to rebels, just as the presidents of the African neighbours were about to meet to finalise a border security deal to restart oil exports. Sudan dismissed the charges and any links to rebels in the South, which seceded from Khartoum in July last year under a 2005 peace deal that ended decades of civil war. Sudan, in turn, often accuses Juba of supporting rebels in its borderlands.

Pressure group Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) has slammed what it calls a 'disturbing trend' of police intimidation in Bulawayo, after the arrest of another member on Tuesday 18 September. Tuesday morning saw a group of more than fifty WOZA members march together to the Bulawayo offices of the Joint Operating and Monitoring Committee (JOMIC) to deliver letters of complaint about their treatment at the hands of the police. This followed the indiscriminate arrest of WOZA’s leaders, Jenni Williams and Magodonga Mahlangu last week.

The Open Society Foundation for South Africa is pleased to announce the third and final call for grant proposals for 2012. Applications can be made online or application forms downloaded. The deadline for applications is 5 October 2012. For more information, please refer to the application guidelines or email [email][email protected]

The Chairperson of the African Union Commission, Mr. Jean Ping, on 14 September 2012 received a delegation led by Mr. Omar Faruk Osman the president of the Federation of African Journalists (FAJ), the regional African group of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ). It was at the sidelines of the two-day Pan-African conference on the safety of journalists and the issue of impunity held at the African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Ethiopian ruling party the People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), has confirmed Mr Hailemariam Desalegn as country's Prime Minister. The leader picked to succeed the late Meles Zenawi last month will be sworn in when the country's parliament reconvenes next month. Mr Hailemariam also becomes chairman of the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), the ruling coalition of parties.

Forces working together with the Somalia forces have confronted Al Shabaab fighters in Birta Dheer, some 60 kilometres west of the port town of Kismayu. The Saturday operation included the Amisom troops and Ras Kamboni Brigade. Birta Dheer is a heavily fortified post that had been under the control of Al-Shabaab for the past three years.

Egypt saw a fresh wave of strikes on Sunday as transport and education sector employees downed tools to push for financial and administrative reform. In separate bouts of industrial action, workers at the Cairo Transportation Authority (CTA) and non-academic staff at universities across Egypt walked off the job.

A coalition of organisations is to submit an alternative report to the UN Human Rights Committee to inform its review of Kenya’s Third Periodic Report at its 105th Session (9 - 27 July 2012) on the implementation of the Provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in relation to torture. The report seeks to highlight the prevalent incidences of torture and related human rights violations in Kenya as serious concerns remain in this area. The overall conclusion is that whilst Kenya has endeavoured to include the principles of the ICCPR in its newly promulgated Constitution of 2010 and legislative framework, there continue to be important legislative and administrative gaps that still provide challenges towards full implementation of the ICCPR as specified in subsequent chapters.

Egyptian campaigners launched a fresh salvo against government plans to borrow from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Saturday, claiming further foreign loans would mean repeating the 'economic disasters' of the Mubarak era. Calling for a full audit of Egypt's debt bill, campaigners took aim at the ousted president's economic legacy - privatisations, soaring public debt, delapidated services and corruption - for which they hold the previous policies of the IMF and several major development banks jointly responsible.

The Fahamu Refugee Programme is pleased to announce the September 2012 issue of the Fahamu Refugee Legal Aid Newsletter. The issue can be found here: Please feel free to share it widely.

A group of smallholder farmers in Mali have turned to the courts to try to recover land they say they have lost to big private investors. The legal action comes as foreign investors are losing interest in Mali due to political instability and an armed rebellion in the north. 'We have laid a complaint against the agricultural land grabs that have hit so many smallholders,' said Lamine Coulibaly, a member of the National Coordination of Peasant Organisations, which is resisting the large-scale acquisition of agricultural land by foreign investors.

Cosatu wants to review its strike processes to ensure workers are happy with the outcomes, and that associated violence and intimidation are reduced. 'It is worrying...that only half of the Cosatu members surveyed in the 2012 Workers’ Survey were satisfied with the outcome of the strikes in their workplace,' the Congress of SA Trade Unions (Cosatu) said. 'Public sector Cosatu members were more satisfied than their private sector counterparts,' according to Cosatu's organisational report prepared for discussion at its national congress.

Global Voices Online reports that potential mining activity in Zambia’s Lower Zambezi National Park is threatening its ecosystem and that of the adjacent Mana Pools National Park in Zimbabwe. The two national parks, rich in wildlife and one of the last bastions of huge elephant populations in Southern Africa, are situated less than 200 kilometres downstream from the hydroelectric Kariba Dam.

Recent deadly clashes in Kenya stem from widespread economic frustration, chronic impunity and the ambitions of politicians seeking office, according to analysts and activists. As the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay noted, the timing of the latest clashes on the coast is alarming. 'In Kenya, the recent inter-communal violence in the Tana River District, during which dozens were killed, including a large number of children and women, is a grim reminder of the 2007-08 events,' she said earlier this week, referring to the killings and displacement that followed the country’s last presidential poll.

A faction of Central African Republic rebel group the Convention of Patriots for Justice and Peace claimed responsibility Sunday for two attacks near the capital and threatened to carry out more. The CPJP last month signed a peace deal with the government, officially ending the rebellion by the largest armed group still active in the violence-torn country and raising hopes of an end to years of conflict. But the faction that claimed the attacks in two towns just north of the capital on Saturday said it did not accept the peace deal.