Morocco's justice minister has admitted to 'several cases of abuse' by police at recent protests, a local newspaper reported, saying the government would review how such protests were dealt with by them. 'There have been several cases of abuse by the police forces of citizens' protesting,' Mustapha Ramid was quoted as saying by the Arabic-language daily Akhbar al-Youm. 'The government must review the way in which the security forces intervene, to ensure that it conforms with the law,' he added, referring to peaceful protests violently dispersed by baton-wielding riot police in recent days.

Civil rights organisation Touche pas à ma nationalité TPMN (in English: Do not interfere with my citizenship) has called for a large march on September 27, 2012 in the capital Nouakchott to commemorate the passing of anti-racism activist Lamine Mangane. Mangane was killed a year ago by authorities in the town of Maghama during protests against a census that marginalized black citizens of Mauritania.

Thousands of Somali refugee adolescent girls ages 10 to 16 are living in refugee camps in Ethiopia. This report from the Women's Refugee Commission details their protection and empowerment needs and priorities; programs and community-based strategies that serve them; and gaps in services from girls’ perspectives.

On the International Day of Peace, Nobel Prize winner Wole Soyinka visited the United Nations – and called for armed intervention against the terrorist group Boko Haram in his home country of Nigeria. 'This is a violent organisation,' Soyika told IPS. 'What do you do with them? I am sorry, but you must fight them.' On 21 September 2012 the International Day of Peace was celebrated with a debate about how to build a global culture of tolerance.

Campaigners have called for a UK criminal investigation to be brought against Trafigura for the dumping of toxic waste in Ivory Coast in 2006. The Dutch-based company with London offices paid an Ivorian company to dump the waste in Abidjan. Thousands of people sought hospital treatment. Amnesty and Greenpeace say a three-year investigation shows the UK and Dutch authorities failed to stop the dumping or hold Trafigura to account.

The police in Bauchi in northern Nigeria said Sunday morning's suicide bombing at a Catholic Church in the city left three dead and 46 injured, representing an increase in the figure of one dead earlier given by the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA). Police spokesman Hassan Auyo gave the fIgures to journalists, saying those killed included the suicide bomber. According to Auyo, the suicide bomber detonated his explosive-laden vehicle at the gate of the St. John's Catholic Church after a barricade erected there prevent him from driving into the premises during the early morning Mass.

Tens of thousands of people on Saturday protested in Nigeria's second city of Kano, burning images of Barack Obama and stomping on the American flag to denounce an anti-Islam film made in the US. A crowd that included men, children and veiled women stretched for several kilometres (miles) through the city, the largest in Nigeria's mainly Muslim north, condemning the film that has stirred outrage across the Muslim world.

A Libyan army crackdown on lawless militias spread to the capital on Sunday after armed groups that have not been integrated into state institutions were ordered to disband and evacuate their bases. Commander in chief Yussef al-Mangush said on his Facebook page that the armed forces had dislodged a militia from a military complex on the highway to Tripoli International Airport, arresting militiamen and confiscating their weapons.

As Côte d’Ivoire gears up for a long-awaited disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) programme, to be conducted in concert with broader reforms to the security sector, thousands of young men are worried that they may have their weapons taken from them. Analysts say these anxieties could have partly fuelled a recent spate of attacks on military positions that killed at least 12 soldiers in August, marking some of the most significant violence since the conflict ended more than a year ago.

Public, forceful international pressure on Gambian President Yahya Jammeh to halt ongoing executions of death row prisoners was successful - at least temporarily - leading activists to call for governments, multinationals and human rights groups to exert more sustained pressure on the government to clean up its human rights act. 'For far too long the international and regional community has been far too quiet [on Gambia] - we haven’t been able to test if pressure does indeed work,' said Sherman Nikolaus, an Amnesty International Gambia researcher, who noted that the about-turn shows the president does care about his reputation, internationally and regionally.

Less than a year after Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi’s fatal ouster, preparations are underway for the trial of his son, Saif al-Islam, even as new facts emerge about the involvement of foreign mercenaries in the Libyan crisis and in other African wars. It has emerged that a number of unidentified white South African mercenaries were hired to smuggle the beleaguered Gaddafi and his sons to exile in Niger. Their attempts were, however, thwarted by Nato bombs shortly before rebels shot the strongman dead.

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.

Two Kenyan journalists who claim to have discovered that genocide fugitive, the Rwandan millionaire financier Felicien Kabuga, is continuing to find a safe haven in Kenya, have fled Nairobi following death threats.

Hundreds of thousands of Egyptians protested during the revolution that led to the ousting of president Hosni Mubarak. Some of the men and women that took to the streets to reclaim their rights never came back home. The disappeared are neither dead nor alive. There are no government records about their cases, reports

Rebels have set up a de facto administration in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, UN peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous said as the Security Council urged a political solution to the crisis rather than applying sanctions. Ladsous briefed the 15-member Security Council after his recent visit to Congo, or the DRC, and Rwanda, which has been accused by Kinshasa and UN experts of supporting the M23 rebel group. Kigali has repeatedly denied any involvement in the crisis.

Two mass graves have been discovered in Kenya's coastal Tana Delta region, the number and identities of the bodies in the graves are unknown, police say. The discovery of the graves comes a week after at least 38 people were shot, hacked and burnt to death after two tribes fought over land and water in the same area. The graves were located in Kilelengwani village, the epicentre of fighting that has left 100 people dead in the last three weeks, including nine police officers.

In the last decade, Asian migrants have fanned out through southern Africa, opening shops in small towns and rural backwaters. While consumers in countries facing increasing economic hardships have come to depend on their low prices, local shop owners complain they are being forced out of business, pressuring governments to introduce restrictions on foreign traders. In Malawi, Chinese-owned shops and restaurants have proliferated since the country established diplomatic ties with China in 2007. But the government was recently prompted by bitter complaints from local business owners to introduce legislation preventing foreign traders from operating outside of major cities.

A recent survey carried out by Polisario’s youth wing found that over 85 per cent of the young Saharawis polled were in favour of ending the current ceasefire with Morocco and returning to war.

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.

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.