The current protests in Nigeria are beyond the mere dynamics of reversing the pump price of petrol. They are about combating the corruption, incompetence and deception of the Goodluck Jonathan administration.

'It is very dangerous for the poor to think that the law will provide all the answers to political questions. It is very dangerous for people to think that they can stop struggling because now they have a lawyer. It is very dangerous for people to allow lawyers to decide for them instead of with them. It can also be very dangerous for the legal system and lawyers to think that law on its own can advance all socio-economic rights of the poor without the organised struggle of the working class, the poor, women, people born in other countries, LGBTI people, people living with AIDS and all other oppressed groups. Victories in court are not always victories in reality. It takes sustained mass based organisation to turn a legal victory into a real victory.'

Given the long delay, the refusal to grant bail and the repeated irregularities, it is obvious that King Mswati’s regime is trying to postpone the case of the Swazi student leader for as long as possible.

After 30 years of inhuman and unjust incarceration, which included death row, is it too much to ask for the freedom of the president of the Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists, Mumia Abu Jamal? Nana Akyea Mensah says enough is enough.

Chad has launched a mass campaign to vaccinate nearly 2 million people against meningitis A, the primary cause of epidemic meningitis in sub-Saharan Africa. This is part of a multi-year immunization campaign covering the 25 countries of the African meningitis belt.

A new wave of HIV activism is rising in Swaziland as people living with HIV take to the streets in protest, many for the first time in their lives, over continued shortages of antiretroviral (ARV) treatment. Swaziland's deepening financial crisis is taking a toll on service delivery, and the country is experiencing an unprecedented number of protests over issues such as school closures and a lack of HIV treatment. While Africa's last absolute monarchy does not allow formal political opposition to operate, a new brand of HIV activism may be taking hold as anger mounts over a lack of ARVs.

Mary Lawlor, Director of Front Line Defenders updates the '10 on the 10th campaign', one year after it was launched on International Human Rights Day.

'In a released 7 December 2011, critics of the markets and even the architects and gatekeepers of climate finance admit to its failure'.

Direct action ‘is the only weapon of the oppressed people of the world to end all forms of oppression in the world,’ La Via Campesina has said in a statement issued at COP17. The statement also demands the implementation of the Cochabamba people’s global agreement on climate and reiterates the group’s solutions to the climate crisis.

'Because Mumia has for 30 years been subjected to torture on death row and because he is innocent, justice for Mumia will not be served by life imprisonment, but by his release from prison'.

Members of the campaign group, Nigerians in Diaspora Against Anti Same-Sex Laws held a protest in front of the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in New York on Monday, 5 December. A Nigerian representative in New York met with the protestors to receive the petition letter to the Nigerian President with 53,000 supporters.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has asked the authorities in the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia to end the campaign of intimidation and harassment of leaders of the National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ), an IFJ affiliate. The Federation was reacting to news that NUSOJ organising Secretary in Mogadishu was summoned by police for questioning over the union's activities in the country.

On the 20th anniversary of the global Sixteen Days of Activism on gender violence campaign, Shuvai Nyoni Kagoro asks whether ‘the millions of dollars spent in cash and human time’ have significantly reduced the violence women and other marginalised groups face ‘because of their gender’.

'Abahlali welcomes the world in our country, our province and in our city. We also welcome progressive delegates to our homes, our settlements and our flooded shacks. Last night after heavy rain some of our shack settlements were flooded leaving shack dwellers, stranded, hopeless and with all their belonging swept away through floods. We have had enough shack fires already. We have had enough rat bites. We have had enough electricity disconnection. We have had enough of being excluded from the rest of our society and today the storm, the full force of what extreme weather does to the poor, proves itself to the world during the first day of the Conference of the Parties.'

'As a movement we are struggling to build a society in which there is an economic system where human beings come before profit and a political system in which leaders take direction from below. We are struggling to build a society in which there will be a fair distribution of land and decent housing for all. But we are alive now, our children are growing now. We are living in the rain and with shack fires now. Therefore it is clear that we also have to take direct action to struggle for what land and housing we can get right now even as we continue the long struggle for a more democratic and just world.'

How many times have enthusiasm and activism sidelined questions about online safety? The opportunities for participation offered by the Internet can be easily used to identify, monitor, control and harass opponents because of their political or religious and philosophical stances or even their lifestyles. In the panel on 'Social movements and data security' held on 10 November at the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Costa Rica, representatives of various forums, networks and organisations discussed the issue, taking into account that every day there are more controls on the Internet pushed by governments, companies, information services and undemocratic lobby groups that seek to limit freedom of expression and citizen participation in public affairs.

As the Occupy Wall Street uprising creates ‘a political opening for more radical thinking and acting’ around the world, Farooque Chowdhury and Michael D. Yates speak to four US labour activists to explore possible alliances between the organisers of OWS efforts and the labour movement, to help transform a 'dehumanizing social system.’

Several groups and movements in the Caribbean are demanding the immediate departure of the UN peacekeeping force in Haiti, MINUSTAH, which they accuse of serious human rights violations. They want the restoration of full sovereignty of the Haitian people.

The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has said the removal of fuel subsidy will not address the numerous challenges facing the country. Issa Aremu, the vice president of the NLC, made this known in Abuja at a ceremony organised by an NGO, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung. He listed the non remittance of tax by multinational companies operating in the country, crude oil theft, the petroleum income bill pending before the National Assembly and the issue of local content as some of the problems facing the country.

Civil society organisations in Ghana, including the Media Foundation West Africa (MFWA) on 15 November launched the Coalition for the Transparency of the Airwaves (COTA) in Accra, to ensure openness and accountability of the electronic media in the country. The coalition is made up of regional, national and district organisations under Ghana Community Radio Network, Ghana Journalists Association, Legal Resources Centre and Participatory Development Associates and MFWA.