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.

Authorities in Equatorial Guinea have arbitrarily detained the prominent lawyer Fabián Nsue Nguema in Black Beach prison in Malabo, the capital of Equatorial Guinea, and are refusing to allow him visitors, EG Justice and Human Rights Watch said. Nsue’s wife told Human Rights Watch that she was twice refused when she asked to see her husband but that prison authorities had privately confirmed to her that he is being held there.

A Magistrates’ Court in Ouagadougou, the capital, on October 29, 2012 sentenced Roland Ouédraogo and Issa Lohé Konaté, both editors of privately-owned L’Ouragan newspaper to 12 months in prison on charges of defaming Placide Nikieme, the State Prosecutor. According to the Media Foundation for West Africa’s (MFWA) correspondent the sentence followed a complaint lodged by Nikiema at the Court accusing the newspaper and its editors of defaming him in a published article, which cited corrupt practices in the State Prosecutor’s office.

As part of the growing global movement for universal health coverage (UHC), civil society groups met with World Bank president Jim Yong Kim at the World Bank annual meetings in Tokyo earlier this month asking that he support developing countries to achieve universal health coverage. Health was a theme of this year’s meetings. They presented Dr. Kim with an open letter signed by 110 organizations from 40 countries, including the Ghana Universal Healthcare Campaign, World Vision, and Oxfam asking him to ensure the World Bank assists all people, especially the poorest and most vulnerable, to access quality health services.

Tens of thousands of Ethiopian migrants and refugees have entered Yemen since the end of July, according to a new report published by the Danish Refugee Council (DRC). The report said that some 51,000 Ethiopians have illegally crossed into Yemen after the short boat trip. It comes as Yemen continues to witness an increase of refugees from different embattled countries, including Ethiopia.

The United States expects Uganda to keep its peacekeeping forces in Somalia, despite a threat to withdraw in protest at a UN report accusing Kampala of aiding rebels in eastern Congo, a senior State Department official said. The government in Kampala said it would pull out of peacekeeping missions in Africa unless the United Nations amends a report accusing it of supporting rebels in the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo.

The brutal assault on an MDC-T official and his wife, which happened in Kadoma, has fuelled anger among Zimbabweans and sparked fears that political violence is intensifying ahead of elections due next year. The attack has also focused attention on Robert Mugabe, who on several occasions recently said publicly that he wants peace and tolerance between party supporters. Critics are now questioning the ZANU PF leader’s sincerity.

Already struggling to access sporadic humanitarian assistance, internally displaced people (IDPs) in the Somali capital Mogadishu are also facing eviction by returning landowners and unscrupulous camp 'gatekeepers' who siphon away what little aid is received, a new report says. When [insurgent group] Al-Shabab gave up control of the Somali capital, militia leaders, politicians and influential landowners re-consolidated their control over various parts of the city. This control extends to the displacement camps where international humanitarian assistance is directed,' notes the report, 'Gatekeepers and Evictions: Somalia's Displaced Population at Risk', by Refugees International (RI).

Pansy Tlakula, the African Union’s Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression and Access to Information, has done her best to address the continued harassment of journalists in the Gambia. In her role as commissioner of the African Commission on Human Peoples’ Rights, she has appealed many times to the government of the West African nation to respect people’s right to freedom of expression. But it has not been enough to prevent the Gambian government’s crackdown on the media.

AID/WATCH in coordination with the Minerals Policy Institute have released a letter calling on the government to stop using Australian aid funds to support the expansion of Australian mining interests overseas. Money from the aid program is being used to fund Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programs for mining companies who are members of the Australian Africa Mining Industry Group. A pilot project has been established that provides funds through the Development Assistance Program allocating $30,000 of funding for Australian mining companies to run CSR programs and promote sustainability. At least one of the companies receiving funding, Paladin, have been implicated in a range of labour and environmental abuses at their operations in Africa, and also accused of corruption.

A large number of clinics and hospitals in the Eastern Cape are experiencing critical medicine shortages and stock outs while surgery and other procedures have virtually grind to a halt due to a wildcat strike by staff at the Mthatha Health Complex (MHC). The strike is affecting over 100 rural clinics and a number of hospitals, with some using their own vehicles to drive to Mthatha in the hope of getting drugs from the medicines depot. Regional hospitals have also reported that referrals for anything from x-rays to surgery has virtually stopped.

Rival Libyan militias fired guns and rocket-propelled grenades at each other in Tripoli on Sunday and set fire to a former intelligence building, one of the worst breakdowns in security in the capital since Muammar Gaddafi's fall. At least five people were wounded and a stray bullet entered a hospital in the heart of the city, where residents rushed to arm themselves, saying calls to police had gone unheeded. After more than 12 hours, the army moved in to restore order.

Kenya’s Ogiek community, the indigenous group of hunter-gatherers who were evicted from the Mau Forest three years ago, say they will no longer sit by and watch logging companies profit from the resources of their traditional home while they live in poverty in tented camps around the forest without even the most basic of services, like sanitation. Currently 100 saw millers are licensed to log 50,000 hectares of mature exotic and indigenous trees in the forest reserve – the largest in the country stretching across 400,000 hectares.

The Ethiopian authorities are committing human rights violations in response to the ongoing Muslim protest movement in the country. Large numbers of protestors have been arrested, many of whom remain in detention. There are also numerous reports of police using excessive force against peaceful demonstrators. Key figures within the movement have been charged with terrorism offences. Most of those arrested and charged appear to have been targeted solely because of their participation in a peaceful protest movement.

South Sudan said on Sunday it had expelled a UN human rights investigator, accusing her of writing false reports, a move the UN mission said broke the country's legal obligations to the United Nations. UN sources, who named the officer as Sandra Beidas, said the expulsion may have been related to an August report accusing the army of torturing, raping, killing and abducting civilians.

Somalia is to get its first female foreign minister in a cabinet formed by new Prime Minister Abdi Farah Shirdon. Fauzia Yusuf Haji Adan is among 10 politicians joining a cabinet that has been significantly reduced in size. She described her inclusion as 'historic' for both the country and Somali women in particular.

A recent military curfew imposed on the violence-wracked north-eastern Nigerian town of Potiskum has not only made life unbearable for residents, but it has also reduced their chances of survival. Hundreds of civilians are living in fear in the town in Yobe State after the Islamist extremist group Boko Haram, a sect that wants to impose Sharia law on the country, waged an assault there on 18 October, resulting in the death of more than 30 people. Dr. Bawa Abdullahi Wase, a senior research fellow on ethnicity, inequality and human security, told IPS that in a developing country like Nigeria a large number of people have to go out every day to look for food at markets and other places.

Kenya has been ranked among the countries with the highest defence budgets in Africa, thanks to two decades of a steady increase in military expenditure. It is ranked seventh behind Algeria, South Africa, Angola, Libya, Nigeria, Egypt and Morocco, having surpassed Tunisia last year. The country spent Sh45.8 billion last year down from Sh47.7 billion the previous year but remained by far the highest in East Africa relative to its GDP, according to data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri), an independent research organisation. Algeria had the highest spending on defence at Sh736 billion followed by South Africa with Sh434 billion and Angola at Sh309 billion.

Dozens of men and boys from Maiduguri in northern Nigeria have been reportedly shot by security forces as Amnesty International published a report condemning human rights violations by the security forces in response to the Boko Haram campaign of violence. 'We urge the government to act on its commitment to bring to justice all those responsible for human violations. A vital first step is to introduce a witness protection programme that makes those who are victims of human rights violations feel safe when they call on the police for protection.'

The US$2 billion pledged by donors on 30 October to support Burundi’s development sounds like a ringing endorsement of the central African country’s progress from civil war to peace and democracy. But memories are still fresh of the 1993-2005 conflict that killed more than 200,000 people, and analysts, human rights experts, and civil society and political opposition members - while they agree significant gains have been made - worry about a range of security and governance issues that could derail them ahead of the 2015 elections.