Africa's debt repayments to the International Monitory Fund, World Bank and other multilateral lending institutions have choked social spending on the continent, a recent report reveals. With a combined debt standing at US$350 billion, this means whatever money comes in by way of 'aid' and 'assistance' from donor countries and institutions is meaningless and merely meant to ensure government's function sufficiently to pay off annual dues to lenders. Africa spends more than US$15b annually on servicing its debts. The report by the African Forum and Network on Debt and Development (AFRODAD) is titled 'African Debt Crisis - A Humanitarian Perspective'.

Rapid urbanisation is being portrayed – by the UN, the World Bank and many others – as a potential developmental 'silver bullet' for Africa. Cities, we are frequently told, will be the drivers of economic growth and poverty reduction on the continent in the years to come. But larger concentrations of people are not automatically generating benefits – quite the opposite, says this article. 'The social, economic and political consequences of policymakers continuing to ignore the best available demographic research could be grim. For example, appropriate food supply networks and health services require sound knowledge of population distribution and migration patterns.'

Mawingu internally displaced persons stormed out of the camp on Monday protesting government’s failure to purchase land for them. Led by their chairman Peter Kariuki and other officials, they regretted that the government had failed to respond to their request to have them resettled on a 6,000 acre piece of land that they had identified at Wiyumuririe in Laikipia.

The Pan-African Parliament, in a recommendation on land investments, has called for a moratorium on new large-scale land acquisitions, pending implementation of land policies and guidelines on good land governance. PAP has also called for the establishment of an African Ministerial Conference on land-based investments equivalent to the African Ministerial Conference on Environment (AMCE) and the African Ministerial Council on Water (AMCOW).

The Spine Africa Project focuses on three objectives: the treatment of those afflicted with spinal conditions, the education of local medical personnel, and social change. Each of these three factors contributes individually to what seems to be an exclusively medical epidemic. Visit their website for more information.

REDRESS – a London-based charity that works with victims of torture, many from Africa - has produced a short film on the trial of Joseph Mpambara, an important genocide case. In July, a Dutch court sentenced Mpambara, a businessman from Mugonero, Rwanda, to life imprisonment on war crimes. The trial took place on the basis of universal jurisdiction. The film offers a very rare opportunity to see the inside work of the appeals court in the Netherlands, as its judges try to establish if Mpambara was responsible for war crimes that took place in 1994 in Rwanda. The film is available from the REDRESS website.

Global Press Institute (GPI) has announced that Gertrude Pswarayi, a GPI reporter on their Zimbabwe News Desk, won this year’s 2011 Kurt Schork Award in the local reporter category for her piece 'Political Rape Survivors Come Forward in Advance of 2011 Election', an article published last December about women who were raped and exploited in Zimbabwe.

South Africa’s National Climate Change Response Policy, which was approved by Cabinet this week, would help the country map out a socioeconomic transition to a climate-resilient and low-carbon economy and society, Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs Edna Molewa said on Friday. The policy would seek to balance the objectives of job creation, economic growth, environmental sustainability and reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.

According to the 2009 United Nations Human Development Index, almost 80 per cent of households in this Central African nation now live on less than two dollars a day. Child poverty is estimated to be even higher, says the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), with eight out of 10 children not having access to basic services, such as education, health, nutrition or safe drinking water. 'The situation of Congolese children is worrisome. Only about a third of children of primary school age attend primary school,' says UNICEF DRC monitoring and evaluation specialist Bertin Gbayoro.

The desire to have a strong economy and employment may decide who will be Kenya’s next president, according to an opinion poll by Infotrak. The poll indicated that 86 per cent of Kenyans want to participate in the 2012 polls because they yearn for change. At the same time, half of Kenyans would like the General Election in August, while 37 per cent prefer December 2012.

The chairperson of the Coalition of Ivorian female leaders (CFELCI), Mrs Mariam Dao-Gabala, has launched a sensitisation campaign for the mass participation of women in the country's parliamentary elections, scheduled for 11 December. Entitled 'Why not female MPs?' the campaign aims at mobilising women to break from the past and participate massively in the elections.

An open death threat has been made against journalist Joseph Mwale, who was fired from the Malawi Institute of Journalism (MIJ) radio over a leaked recording of a conversation where Foreign Minister Professor Peter Mutharika was captured discussing his ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidature in the 2014 presidential elections. The message threatened the journalist that they will make him 'a villain because you will soon die'.

Nigerian police on 11 October arrested five senior journalists and two other officials of a Lagos-based private newspaper, the daily said in a statement. The Nation newspaper said in the statement that it believed the arrest was in connection with its front page report last week on a 'secret' letter allegedly written by ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo to President Goodluck Jonathan. In the purported letter, published on the front page of the newspaper, it was alleged that Obasanjo had asked President Jonathan to dismiss officials of the Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF).

Kenyan troops have crossed into Somalia and have driven out al-Shabab fighters from two bases near the border in a joint operation with Somali soldiers, according to a Somali military commander. Kenya has said it would hunt the fighters they accuse of being behind several recent kidnappings of foreigners.

The United States's incarceration of the 'Cuban Five' proves that it has no respect for humanity and justice, the ANC Youth League said. In a statement supporting the release of the Cuban Five, the league criticised the US government for its approach to international politics. 'In the spirit of international and human solidarity, the ANC Youth League is of the conviction that the incarceration of the Cuban Five by the United States government is not only unjust, but a gross violation of human rights and disrespect of the integrity and sovereignty of Cuba.'

Why is the US sending its troops to finish off a fractured band of bush fighters in the middle of Africa?
President Barack Obama announced he is dispatching about 100 US troops - mostly special operations forces - to central Africa to advise in the fight against the Lord's Resistance Army - a guerrilla group accused of widespread atrocities across several countries.

On this page, Al Jazeera staff and correspondents update you on important developments from Wall Street and around the world as the 'Occupy' financial crisis protests go viral. This page includes videos, photos, tweets and comments.

Winston Tubman, Liberia's main opposition candidate, has withdrawn a demand for a recount of the presidential poll and said he will take part in a runoff. Latest results announced on Sunday showed that newly named Nobel Peace laureate Johnson Sirleaf was leading with 44 per cent of the votes, ahead of Tubman of the CDC party, on 32.2 per cent with 1,162,729 valid votes and 96 per cent of votes counted.

This online map shows the locations around the world where Occupy Protests have taken place. Protesters can report events for the map by sending tweet with the hashtag/s #event15oct or by filling in a form. According to the map protests took place in Tunisia, Egypt, Kenya, Tanzania, Niger and Mali.

Lawyers for a Gambian minister charged with treason have said that his health is at risk as he was being held in a filthy prison cell. Mr Borry Touray told the high court in Banjul that former information and communication minister Amadou Scattred Janneh is confined in a leaking and dirty prison cell that could harm his health.