The European Union is hoping to wrap up free-trade agreements across most of sub-Saharan Africa next year but has yet to assuage African fears that their budding industries will not be able to cope with the new competition. The European Union launched talks with more than 70 African, Caribbean and Pacific countries 10 years ago on Thursday - on September 27, 2002 - aiming to help them trade their way out of poverty and to give EU businesses access to nascent markets.

The situation of journalists in Somalia is becoming increasingly precarious as the country struggles to put behind it years of lawlessness following the recent successful election of a new president. 'So far, 13 journalists have been killed and 19 others wounded this year, and the killings may continue if something is not done promptly,' Abdirashid Del, a senior member of the National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ), told IRIN, noting that political transitions often heighten security risks for journalists in Somalia.

Oil has turned post-war Angola into one of the world's fastest growing economies and Cabinda, which produces a daily average of 500,000 barrels, is the source of nearly a third of its very lucrative export. But for all the liquid gold and associated development, Cabinda remains one of the most under-developed regions in Angola.

France has granted its allies in the Sahel region a new batch of weapons ahead of a possible deployment of African troops in the Azawad region in northern Mali. A senior security source said that the countdown to a military intervention in northern Mali has begun, the exact date of which will be determined by France. Security sources said that French and Western military commanders have devised a plan for military intervention [in Mali] and the deployment of an African force in northern Mali. According to the plan, residential areas and major cities in the Azawad region would be taken control of, and the armed groups would be expelled from cities and later [militarily] exhausted.

The Tunisian journalists union (SNJT) on Tuesday called a general strike for 17 October over several issues, including demands for freedom of speech. The decision for the journalists to carry out their first ever strike was taken at a meeting held by the SNJT executive board following the breakdown of negotiations with the government on their demands. Differences between the government and the journalists centre on 'arbitrary' appointments in the state media, especially the two state television stations 'Watanya 1', 'Watanya 2' and 'Dar Assabah'.

Oumar Tely Diallo, a trainee-reporter of the privately-owned satirical Lynx-Lance newspaper, was on September 21, 2012 physically assaulted by a group of angry pro-government militants while covering a political riot. The attack on the journalist left him with torn clothes while his attackers made away with his camera, pen-drive, mobile telephone and some cash. According to the Media Foundation for West Africa’s (MFWA) correspondent, Diallo was covering a riot which pitted opposition militants against supporters of the ruling People’s Rally of Guinea (RPG) when he was suddenly surrounded and beaten by his assailants.

It is regrettable that in the past decade, the so-called international community appears to have made a sport of blaming Rwanda, a tiny country of less than twelve million people, for every unrest experienced in Africa’s largest country - in terms of land mass - the Democratic Republic of Congo, a nation of over 70 million inhabitants.

Residents of Apaa Village, in Pabbo Sub-county in Amuru District are demanding audience with President Museveni following escalating land wrangles between them and the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA). UWA has in the recent past evicted 6,000 residents from a disputed piece of land in Apaa that the Authority says belongs to East Madi Game Reserve. However, residents claim the 825 square kilometers of land is their ancestral property.

The Board of Fahamu Trust Ltd, publisher of Pambazuka News, is delighted to announce two new appointments:

1. Zo Randriamaro, former Board member and Malagasy feminist sociologist, researcher and activist, has been appointed interim Executive Director of Fahamu Trust Ltd. Zo can be reached at [email][email protected]

2. Rebecca Williams has returned to the Trust as Acting Finance Director.

We look forward to working with them to ensure Fahamu's full transition to being a pan-African organization.

All around the globe, peasants, pastoralists, fishers’ communities, rural women and indigenous peoples are losing their once effective control over significant areas of the world’s land, water, wetlands, pasturelands, fisheries and forests – including their right to decide how these natural resources will be used, when and by whom, at what scale and for what purposes, for generations to come. This Fact Sheet examines the involvement of The Netherlands in global land and water grabbing.

The International Criminal Court prosecutor’s office has expressed frustration over the slow pace at which the government has adopted in cooperating with The Hague based court. The prosecutor’s office wrote to Attorney General Githu Muigai asking the State to hasten its promise to deliver certain information to the ICC. 'The slow pace of processing these requests is a source of frustration,' Mr Phakiso Mochochoko, Head of the Jurisdiction, Complementarity and Cooperation said in the letter.

Sudan and South Sudan have reached a deal on border security and oil production that will allow oil exports from South Sudan through Sudan to resume, say spokesmen for both sides. The leaders of the two neighbouring countries made the partial breakthrough after four days of talks in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. But a number of key issues remain unresolved, including disputed regions.

Recently, Zimbabwe’s Supreme Court unanimously 'chastised' state security agents for torturing Jestina Mukoko, national director of the Zimbabwe Peace Project, four years ago, reports blog Africa is a Country. 'They came at dawn, December 3, 2008. Armed men broke into the house of Jestina Mukoko, the only surviving parent of a teenage child who watched, helplessly. They took her, in unmarked cars, and held her incommunicado for 21 days. During that time, they beat her feet with rubber truncheons. They dumped her into solitary confinement. They forced her to kneel on gravel, to endure searing pain.'

Angola's top court recently rejected appeals by the main opposition Unita and two smaller parties over alleged irregularities in an election won comfortably by the MPLA party of President Jose Eduardo dos Santos last month. The ruling by the Constitutional Court - Angola's highest legal body - means the opposition parties have run out of legal avenues to contest the vote outcome and paves the way for Dos Santos to be sworn in.

The massive hydropower dams built on the Zambezi River, the largest river system in Southern Africa, not only supply power to major economies in the region but also help mitigate annual floods. But as electricity demands grow and rising global temperatures affect rainfall patterns, the dams will be unable to meet energy needs or control floods, warns a new study. The study, 'A Risky Trip for Southern African Hydro', was conducted for the NGO, International Rivers by Richard Beilfuss, a hydrologist and environmentalist who teaches at the University of Wisconsin-Madison College of Engineering in the US and the University of Eduardo Mondlane in Mozambique.

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has released initial details on its new funding model, which will change the way countries apply for money. But as the Fund works to finalize the model before next year, civil society is criticizing the process for being untransparent and rushed. The Global Fund board adopted guiding principles of the model at a mid-September board meeting in Geneva. Although the model’s finer aspects are still being developed, key elements include the allocation of funding to country groupings based on disease burden and ability to pay as well as largely foreseen changes to grant application procedures.

Traditionally women cannot own or inherit land in Mali, despite being primary workers on the land, so they have no control over the farms proceeds. However, they can control the income from small-scale processing of agricultural products, provided they buy the raw materials rather than taking them from the family granary. This Panos blog post explores the issues.

Ocean acidification is the process of decreasing pH in the Earth's oceans. This is mainly due to the absorption of carbon dioxide emitted by humans. As CO2 dissolves in seawater, hydrogen ion concentrations increase, thus lowering the ocean pH. Oceans are currently absorbing about a quarter of all CO2 that is released into the air and with the increasing acidity of these marine environments come many concerns about the future of these ecosystems. Recently, at the Third International Symposium on the Ocean in a High-CO2 World in Monterey, California, Dr. Daniela Schmidt of the University of Bristol's School of Earth Sciences warns us that the current rates of ocean acidification are unlike any other in the Earth's history.

Migration linked with climate change is more likely to involve a steady step-up in existing patterns of movement around the world than the sudden surges of desperate refugees many governments fear, climate and migration experts say. Many argue, in fact, that migration - if prepared for and managed – could prove one of the most effective means of adapting to climate change and building resilience to its impacts, particularly if migrants send remittances home.

Social media content platform biNu entered into a partnership with World Reader. biNu provides a cloud-based, low-bandwidth, smart-phone like service for low-end smartphones and feature-phones. It gives the user a scroll button navigable, icon-based screen. biNu created the World Reader book app. This has then been available to its 4.2 million monthly active users globally, 1 million of whom are in Africa.