Thousands of Americans have non-violently occupied Wall Street - an epicentre of global financial power and corruption. You can sign a petition in support of the movement: 'If millions of us from across the world stand with them, we'll boost their resolve and show the media and leaders that the protests are part of a massive mainstream movement for change.'

In 2011 Global Witness visited 67 communities in three provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). This short film tells the stories of the people they met, who are impacted by the expansion of industrial-scale logging. A pattern of similarly devastating outcomes emerges. This film was shown at the World Bank’s annual meeting in Washington DC, September 2011. The World Bank is undertaking a review of its forest policies, such as those implemented in the DRC.

AFRODAD has published a new report entitled ' Ecological Debt: the case of Tanzania'. The report interrogates and defines the concept of ecological debt, it traces the origins and applicability of the concept in Africa and more specifically in Tanzania, it identified the fact that repayment of Third World financial debt is having destructive effects on natural environments.

President Alassane Ouattara of Cote d’Ivoire is determined to apprehend compatriots he accuses of committing crimes during the country’s protracted post-election crisis. The position bumps against his other declared quest for national reconciliation. When he arrived in Accra on an official visit on 6 October, President Ouattara sought to proclaim national reconciliation but at the same time pushed for the arrest and repatriation to Cote d’Ivoire of persons who have been indicted for war crimes. Earlier, his foreign minister, Mr Daniel Kablan Duncan, had signed a tripartite agreement with Ghana and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to facilitate the voluntary repatriation of the approximately 18,000 Ivorian refugees.

This Cameroon Elections 2011 page from Google displays which party leader people are searching Google for the most and which issues are most important in the election campaign.

Some 25,000 people have arrived in Ethiopia over the last three weeks to escape fighting between the Sudanese army and rebels in Blue Nile state, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said. 'Since 3 September, when the influx into Ethiopia started, an estimated 25,000 refugees have found refuge in Ethiopia,' said Adrian Edwards, UNHCR spokesperson. Fighting between government forces and rebels from the northern wing of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement broke out earlier this month, after the SPLM-N refused to disarm.

Four people were found guilty of the murder of lesbian Zoliswa Nkonyana in a judgment handed down in the Khayelitsha Magistrate's Court on Friday, SAFM reported. Magistrate Raadiya Whaten said the testimony of two witnesses led to the conclusion that Lubabalo Ntlabathi, Sicelo Mase, Luyanda Londzi and Mbulelo Damba took part in the stoning and stabbing of Nkonyana in 2006 when she was 19. Some civil society groups believe Nkonyana was murdered because of her sexuality.

A Moroccan soldier on a motorbike who struck and killed a Sahrawi pedestrian has not been prosecuted for his actions.

One of the striking features of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement is that it is mainly being signed by Western/'developed' countries, says this post from ACTA is the last-gasp attempt of the US and the EU to preserve their intellectual monopolies. Much of the challenge to the old order is coming from the BRICS group of emerging countries – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Of those, the one in the vanguard of adopting innovative approaches to making knowledge widely accessible in the Internet age is Brazil. One of these approaches is a draft bill for a civil rights-based framework for the Internet.

On 22 September, a shocking study from Oxfam International provided the evidence and insight on how the World Bank, coupled with the United Nations, used the carbon credit scheme introduced by Al Gore, and other green advocates, to literally rob landowners in the country of Uganda of their property, and even bringing about the death of a child when they burned down homes and villages. All so that a grove of trees could be planted on that land.

Sierra Leone's opposition parties have announced an indefinite suspension of their participation in parliament, citing 'attacks on democracy' they say are being perpetrated by the governing All Peoples Congress (APC) party of President Ernest Bai Koroma. Among other things, they demanded the 'immediate' lifting of a ban by the police on political processions, rallies and public meetings.

Zambia’s President Michael Sata has reversed the previous government’s sale of a privately-owned bank to South Africa’s FirstRand, dissolved several parastatal boards and revealed that the nation, including State House, was 'stinking with corruption'. The Zambian leader dismissed all 72 district commissioners that were appointed by the previous government, saying they were politicians, and ordered them to immediately vacate their offices and houses. 'We cannot have civil service positions given to political parties,' he said.

An anxious three months lie ahead for Kenya as judges prepare to hand down verdicts on whether International Criminal Court (ICC) Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo will press crimes against humanity charges against the Ocampo Six. This article in the Daily Nation says there is consensus that the defence teams have put in a strong case to try and get their clients off the hook but that the prosecution may have a large mass of evidence which they have only disclosed to the judges and which they are holding on to in preparation for the full trial stage.

A new cholera epidemic has hit the Central African Republic and has already claimed at least 10 victims in the south, Health Minister Jean-Michel Mandaba said. His comments came the day after a health services source sounded the alarm that cholera had killed six people in the Limbo region, 20km from the capital Bangui.

Nine months after an uprising that deposed former President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and inspired the Arab Spring, Tunisians elect politicians on 23 October to an assembly that will rewrite the country's constitution. Parties running candidates have agreed the assembly will sit for one year. An independent committee set up by Tunisia's caretaker government to oversee the poll said nearly 11,000 candidates would contest 218 seats in the assembly.

Prior to the 2010 South Africa World Cup, submarine fibre optic cabling was laid to improve the speed and reliability of broadband. Despite this, Internet World Statistics reports that only 11.4 per cent of Africans have internet access, far below the global average of 30.2 per cent. Considering that a World Bank study suggests every 10 per cent of broadband penetration increases developing countries' per capita GDP growth by 1.38 per cent, the scarcity of Africa's online network has significant economic repercussions.

Uwezo Tanzania has completed its second Annual Learning Assessment and has found results similar to its first year: only three in 10 Standard Three pupils can read a Standard Two level Kiswahili story, only one in 10 Standard Three pupils can read a Standard Two level English story and only three in 10 Standard Three pupils can add, subtract and multiply at a Standard Two level.

The New Age Online reports that human skulls taken from Namibia by German colonizers returned home after more than 100 years, but the reconciliatory gesture instead has ignited anger and renewed demands that Germany pay for its sins in this corner of Africa where more than 60,000 people were killed. The return of 20 skulls taken to Germany more than a century ago for racist experiments also has fueled anger about current injustices by a people decimated when they rebelled against German colonizers.

India has launched what it says is the world's cheapest touch-screen tablet computer, priced at just $35 (£23). Costing a fraction of Apple's iPad, the subsidised Aakash is aimed at students. It supports web browsing and video conferencing, has a three-hour battery life and two USB ports, but questions remain over how it will perform.

Mehdi is employed and has a house and car. But he knows that he could lose it all if he openly shows allegiance to the Sahrawi cause.