A Civil Society Initiative has been set up to preserve the ‘collective memory’ of Madagascar by digitally archiving videos detailing its, often controversial, history. Reasons for controversy include disagreement over the tragedy of the 1947 Malagasy Uprising, a perspective limited by language, as well as destruction of historical archives during political crises.

Police in Malawi's commercial capital, Blantyre, Wednesday arrested a number of former ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) officials in pre-dawn raids of people fingered in an inquiry into the mysterious death of a 25-year-old Malawi university student. Robert Chasowa, a fourth-year engineering student at the Polytechnic, a constituent college of the University of Malawi, was found dead on campus on 24 September last year. Police immediately dubbed it suicide and produced two suicide notes and a post-mortem report to buttress their claims. But pathologist, Dr. Charles Dzamalala, who conducted the autopsy on Chasowa's remains, contradicted them and said the student was in fact bludgeoned to death.

Corruption poses a serious threat to the country’s oil resources, the United Nations Resident Representative in Uganda has warned. Ms Ahunna Eziakonwa-Onochie’s caution comes as the parliamentary committee investigating bribery claims in the oil sector is visiting several countries and banks that were named during an emergency oil debate in October last year. The corruption allegations have dogged the nascent oil sector since Western Youth MP Gerald Karuhanga tabled documents in Parliament alleging that Tullow Oil had bribed Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi, Foreign Affairs minister Sam Kutesa, and former Energy minister Hilary Onek to influence their decisions on oil deals.

More than a thousand people gathered in Tataouine on Sunday (October 21st) to attend the funeral of an opposition party politician, who died three days earlier in clashes with salafists. Interior Ministry Spokesperson Khaled Tarrouche said that Lotfi Nakdh died of a heart attack and there were no traces of violence on his body. While, the Nidaa Tounes ('Call of Tunisia') party, headed by former Prime Minister Beji Caid Essebsi, insisted that he was beaten to death by pro-government demonstrators.

African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights adopts first General Comment, clarifying article 14(1)(d) and (e) of the African Women’s Protocol

Sudan has accused Israel of bombing a military arms factory, threatening retaliation after a resulting fire killed two people and injured a third. 'We think Israel did the bombing,' Culture and Information Minister Ahmed Bilal Osman told a news conference. 'We reserve the right to react at a place and time we choose.'

Cameroon lawyer Alice Nkom, who is known for defending gays and lesbians in a country where homosexuality is outlawed, has said that she has been receiving death threats from anonymous callers over her stance. 'Since October 18, I have become the victim of anonymous death threats,' she said, adding that she has been warned to stop defending homosexuals.

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.

An Egyptian talk-show host faces a four-month jail term after a court convicted him of insulting President Mohammed Morsi, state media reported on Monday. Tawfiq Okasha, whose show appears on his own channel, can appeal the sentence after paying 100 Egyptian pounds ($16.39) bail, a source in the court in southern Egypt said. The substance of the offending insult was not immediately available from court sources.

Reporters Without Borders says it is saddened to learn that Ahmed Saakin Farah Ilyas, a young TV journalist based in Las Anod, in the breakaway northwestern territory of Somaliland, was gunned down as he returned home yesterday (23 October). Employed by privately-owned Universal Television, Ahmed Saakin Farah Ilyas was shot several times in the head by gunmen who have yet to be identified. He was the 16th journalist to be killed this year in Somalia.

Zimbabwe’s three governing parties failed to find common ground on presidential powers and proposed security reforms in the new constitution at a crucial conference to review the charter that ended on Tuesday 23 October. President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party wants an overhaul of the draft constitution produced by an inter-party parliamentary committee claiming Zimbabweans favoured an all powerful Head of State and government. After two days of deliberations, Zanu-PF and the two Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) formations in the inclusive government failed to narrow their differences.

Two politicians allied to Guinea-Bissau's ousted regime were severely beaten by soldiers after their arrest in the wake of an alleged coup, government and family members said. Yancuba Djola Indjai and Sylvestre Alves were "left for dead" about 50km from the capital one day after being seized by soldiers, a family member told AFP.