During an interview at the Hilton Hotel in downtown Nairobi, David Kuria Mbote, Kenya’s first openly homosexual candidate for public office, stresses that his campaign will not be only about gay rights.It is, he said, about tearing down the structural barriers in healthcare, education, and the economy that harm all Kenyans. 'My county Kiambu is not the poorest county in Kenya, but those who are poor in Kiambu are really, really poor, and many times they cannot escape that cycle of poverty. What we want to do is create small projects, like rabbit farming for example, to help them break that cycle. Once they can do this they will be more able to work their way to a better life.'

South Africa grants almost every patent application it receives, making its patent regime one of the world’s most lenient. While pharmaceutical companies cash in, patients face staggering healthcare costs, and medicines like cancer treatments, third-line antiretrovirals (ARVs) and treatments for drug-resistant tuberculosis (DR-TB) are often priced out of reach. According to activists from Médecins Sans Frontières’s (MSF) Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines and the South Africa AIDS lobby group the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), easy patents mean companies can extend their exclusive right to manufacture and sell certain drugs, a process known as evergreening.

A woman is killed every eight hours in South Africa, the Medical Research Council (MRC) told MPs. The number of femicides identified had decreased from 3793 in 1999 to 2363 in 2009, MRC researchers told Parliament’s portfolio committees on health, and women, children and people with disabilities. It was presenting the findings of its latest study into female murders.

Former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo is no stranger to controversy, especially in Sierra Leone. This time round he has angered opposition supporters by openly endorsing and campaigning for the incumbent President Ernest Bai Koroma ahead of elections set for November 17. The former Nigerian leader arrived in Freetown Sunday unannounced, reportedly aboard a presidential jet, and was flown out of the capital in a government-provided helicopter to where President Koroma was canvassing for votes.

With just over one year left to achieve its target of having some 1.1 million men circumcised as part of HIV-prevention efforts, Kenyan male circumcision programmes are ramping up efforts to bring more men into clinics, compensating them for their time and encouraging them to bring friends in for the procedure.

Malawi has suspended laws against same-sex relationships pending a decision on whether to repeal the legislation, the justice minister has said.

A group of Mauritanian bloggers launched a blogging campaign under the theme 'Against foreign mining companies' at the beginning of October. For the bloggers, this campaign was intended to share their opinions about the issue of foreign companies, accused of looting Mauritania's mineral wealth. This campaign was inaugurated by publishing a series of posts at the same time, and continued for a week.

As Gold Fields announced its operations resumed, another operator said it was hit by a strike, suggesting labour unrest in the mines is far from over. Gold Fields said the reinstatement of 8,500 dismissed workers at its KDC East operations near Johannesburg had ended a 23-day strike and heralded a return to production. But Village Main Reef, one of South Africa's smaller gold producers, said employees at its Buffelsfontein Gold Mine had embarked on a wildcat strike.

Human rights organisations are taking the Department of Home Affairs to court after 39 migrants were allegedly detained for longer than the maximum 120 days at the Lindela Repatriation Centre in Krugersdorp. The Legal Resources Centre is acting on behalf of the migrants, some of whom claim to have been detained at the center for 16 months. The 39 migrants, who have formed a joint application to the court, were interviewed by refugee-rights lobby group People Against Suffering, Oppression and Poverty (Passop) who sent a monitor to investigate detentions at the center five months ago.

Incomes have slipped to their lowest level in a decade since Madagascar’s 2009 coup d’etat, and, in parallel, domestic violence has sharply risen. The rising poverty has exacerbated women’s vulnerability in this deeply traditional society. Locals report more domestic conflict over family resources, as well as increased alcohol and drug abuse. Impoverished women also have fewer options to escape violence and are less able to advocate for the safety of themselves and their children.

The International Monetary Fund has urged Sudan to cut fuel subsidies further, despite public anger over austerity measures meant to counter the country's economic crisis. The IMF did not offer any financial assistance, but economic help is on the horizon from another direction -South Sudan. The two countries signed a deal in September to restart South Sudanese oil exports through pipelines that run through Sudan to its Red Sea port.

A large explosion has rocked the Somali capital Mogadishu, killing one person, the AFP news agency reported, citing its own reporter who was at the scene of the blast. The cause of Wednesday's (7 November) explosion was not immediately clear. The blast, believed to be a car bomb set off close to the parliament, is the latest in a string of attacks in the war-ravaged Mogadishu.

The Primeiras and Segundas have been approved as a marine protected area in Mozambique making this diverse ten-island archipelago Africa’s largest coastal marine reserve. Comprising ten islands off the coast of northern Mozambique, and featuring abundant coral and marine turtle species, the protected area will cover more than 1,040,926 hectares.

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.