Egypt's national body for women's issues, the National Council for Women, held a conference on Monday entitled 'Egyptian women reject the draft constitution'. According to the Council's head, Mervat El-Tellawy, the draft constitution has not taken into consideration various international charters and agreements which Egypt has signed. Furthermore, the Al-Azhar document of suggested principles for all parties to abide by while writing the constitution has not been incorporated into the draft.

The plight of women in Swaziland is far from over as parliamentarians opposed the protection of women from stalking. Senators were discussing the longstanding Sexual Offences and Domestic Violence Bill of 2000. The proposed law seeks to protect among others women from unlawful stalking. The senators argued that stalking was part of social cultural norms hence proscribing it will violate the culture of Swazis.

West African heads of state will meet in Abuja on Sunday to adopt a plan for their troops to recapture northern Mali from radical Islamists, the grouping said in a statement. Once approved by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) leaders, the strategy 'will then be transmitted through the African Union, before November 15, to the UN Security Council'.

Town Two Khayelitsha is the site of tension between a local business association and Somali shops. The Zanokhanyo Business Association (ZBA) is accusing Somali shop owners of not abiding by a 2008 agreement which says that no new foreign owned shops should operate in the townships following the May 2008 xenophobic attacks.

Swaziland’s government has failed to improve the economy in any appreciable way and cannot pay its bills. This means immediate public expenditure cuts are needed if the government is to meet the budget targets it set itself in February 2012. These are the latest findings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which has just finished a visit to Swaziland.

'I don't want to die of hunger and cold,' says Patrick, one of many sub-Saharan migrants in Morocco desperate to reach Spanish shores and start a new life in Europe as winter approaches. More than 90 of them, including women and children, have died in the past two weeks as they braved the perilous crossing, according to a toll calculated from reports by Spanish and Moroccan authorities and members of the African migrant community.

Following widespread land wrangles in the oil-rich Albertine region, the Ministry of Lands has announced plans to resolve this through guidelines to aid in compensation of customary land owners. 'It is crucial at the moment since people’s rights are at stake and we have the responsibility of protecting the poor and their property. We therefore have to put in place guidelines to ensure that those big oil companies and investors have an arrangement to adhere to and operate within the laws,' Ministry spokesman, Dennis Obbo, told Oil in Uganda.

One of Swaziland’s most vocal pro-democracy groups has called for a new law to ban hate speech against homosexuals. The call by the Swaziland Solidarity Network (SSN) follows a debate in the Swazi House of Assembly in which MP Aaron Sotsha Dladla called for gays and lesbians to be outlawed in the kingdom. Dladla said a new law should be put in place to deal with ‘this mushrooming anti-social’ behaviour of gays and lesbians. He went on to make a number of disparaging comments about homosexuals.

In Zimbabwe, HIV positive mothers and soon-to-be mothers used to be sterilised. The procedure was seen as the only way of preventing the transmission of HIV to their unborn or newborn babies. Now the tide has turned. Medical advances mean HIV mothers have a much better chance of having healthy babies. And some women are now seeking compensation from the government.

Uganda has suspended the issuance of new mining licences and put on notice those with non-performing ones following revelations that a number were handed out irregularly. Officials from the Ministry of Energy said most of the illegal licences had ended up in the hands of speculators who lacked the financial or technical ability to deliver. The department of geological survey and mines in the Ministry of Energy - Uganda’s licensing authority - has asked the speculators to justify why their licences should not be revoked.

On October 21, a violent incident occurred at an airbase outside Bissau, the capital of the small west African nation of Guinea-Bissau. Six people were reported killed, and gruesome images of bodies of accused assailants circulated on the internet. The day after two politicians critical of the country's transitional government and military were kidnapped and beaten. The violence took place against a backdrop of simmering doubts about the transition negotiated by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), reports Global Voices Online.

A women's group in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo urged authorities Monday to guarantee the safety of a doctor who founded a rape victims clinic but fled the country after an attempt on his life. Denis Mukwege, an award-winning gynaecologist, narrowly escaped being killed along with two of his daughters on October 25 after armed men broke into his home in Bukavu. The assailants killed an employee who intervened, giving the doctor and his family time to flee.

Assembled in Bamako, the capital of Mali, approximately 40 female leaders together with officials from the Forum of Malian civil society organizations participated in discussions about Mali's crisis. Saran Keita Diakité, President of the Women’s Peace and Security Network for ECOWAS countries (REPSFECO/Mali), read out the recommendations to the UN Deputy Secretary-General: 'We, the women from civil society in Mali (…), demand the following at the decision-making level: at least 30 per cent female representation in all bodies for crisis management and post-crisis management; participation in political and institutional governance, security and the electoral process; capacity-building in terms of mediation, negotiation, prevention, conflict-management and peace-consolidation; advocacy by the UN Secretary-General in favour of reparation for the harm suffered by rape victims as well as their care; and immediate implementation of a support fund for the self-empowerment of the women of Mali.'

Rights groups are calling for an end to the death penalty in South Sudan and for improvements to the squalid prison conditions where people languish for years, often without due process. A statement on 5 November and an accompanying letter to South Sudan's government, signed by Amnesty International (AI), Human Rights Watch (HRW) and local church and civil society groups, has called for a moratorium on executions, especially as 'South Sudan is currently not able to fully guarantee the minimum safeguards... on the use of the death penalty'.

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. At present, such claims are too simplistic, and counter-productively over-optimistic, states this article from Africa Review.

More than two million Nigerians have been forced from their homes by this year's floods, officials say. The National Emergency Management Agency (Nema) says the heavy rains killed 363 people since July. The worst floods in five decades have affected many areas of the country - especially near the River Niger.

When it comes to social media's heavy hitters, there are no bigger players than Facebook or Twitter, right? Not if you're in South Africa. Mobile network Mxit claims to have nearly 10 million users in the country, making it South Africa's most popular social media platform by far, eclipsing Facebook's six million users and Twitter's 1.1 million subscribers. Founded seven years ago by Namibian-born software developer Herman Heunis, Mxit has grown from an instant messaging application into a global mobile social network.

The month of October has seen a significant escalation of aerial bombardment by the Sudanese government in Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) controlled areas of South Kordofan. Nuba Reports journalists confirmed 102 bombs, double the 51 bombs dropped in September. Of these 102 bombs, 81 targeted civilians areas not under ground attack by either the Sudan People's Liberation Army-North (SPLA-N) or Sudan government forces. Not a single bomb dropped into these civilian sites killed or wounded an SPLA-N solider, the intended target.

A severe outbreak of Trachoma has been reported in Karamoja with at least 50,000 people in dire need of urgent eye surgery to prevent blindness. The disclosure was made by the State Minister of Primary Health Care Sarah Opendi in Moroto town. The Minister attributed the outbreak on the lack of toilet facilities.

South African police have been accused of planting weapons near the bodies of workers killed during strikes at the Marikana platinum mine. Photographs taken by police suggested large knives had been placed near the bodies after they had been shot, a lawyer told an inquest into the deaths. Thirty-four miners were killed when police opened fire on the striking workers at the mine in August.