The community located near the Lonmin-owned platinum mine which has been the scene of a bitter strike, wages a daily battle with air and noise pollution, intense crime and appalling living conditions. With no access to sanitation and garbage removal, the surrounding plateau is strewn with rotting rubbish. Nearby streams are polluted by sewage as thousands live out realities far from the billion-dollar industry they clock their cards into each morning.

Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki lost his temper and burst into anger when a journalist answered a phone call during an interview in the Qatari capital, Doha, a video aired by Al Arabiya showed. While Marzouki was speaking about corruption in an interview with a journalist, another journalist nearby answered a phone call, prompting the Tunisian president to burst in anger calling him 'shameless' and 'idiot'.

In response to rising HIV prevalence, Uganda's government has announced a strategy to reduce new HIV infections by up to 30 per cent by 2015, but activists have cast doubt on its ability to achieve this ambitious goal. Uganda's HIV prevalence has risen from 6.4 per cent to 7.3 per cent over the past five years. In August, the Uganda AIDS Commission (UAC) released a revised National HIV Prevention Strategy aimed at 'increasing the adoption of safer sexual behaviour and reduction of risk-taking behaviour, attaining critical coverage of effective HIV prevention service, creating a sustainable enabling environment that mitigates the underlying structural drivers of the epidemic, re-engaging leadership and energizing coordination of HIV prevention, and improving strategic information on HIV prevention'.

A new report by Oxfam, a leading international relief agency, warns that climate change will increase the frequency of large spikes in global food prices, leading to more hungry people around the world. Besides climate change, rapid population growth, higher per capita incomes, rapid urbanization, changing diets in developing countries and rising demand for biofuel feedstocks, are exerting unprecedented pressure on the global food system.

In this briefing, the African Centre for Biodiversity (ACB) deal with the Pioneer/Pannar seed merger, outlining the evidence led by the ACB in opposing the merger, what is at stake for South Africa if the merger is approved and the extent to which the merger will deepen structural imbalances in the South African economy.

Tanzania has experienced several crises since October 2010 general elections, including some which have resulted in violence and death. This Global Voices post reports on a list made by blogger Dunia Duara of events fuelled by different kinds of crises or conflicts, which recently have caused serious problems in Tanzania.

Protests against an anti-Islam film produced in the United States have intensified in Tunisia and Sudan and spread in Lebanon, with three Tunisians, three Sudanese and one Lebanese killed as clashes between demonstrators and police ensued on Friday 14 September. Three people were killed on Friday and another 28 wounded in clashes at the US embassy in Tunis, which was stormed by an angry mob protesting over 'Innocence of Muslims', a film mocking Islam, an official media said, citing the health ministry.

Since the start of the month the death toll of the Ebola outbreak in the north-east has climbed from 15 to 31, the World Health Organization (WHO) said, defining the situation 'serious'. Fadela Chaib, a spokeswoman for the Geneva-based agency, stressed that 'it is unusual that the first person to be infected was a health worker'. The areas affected by the outbreak are Isiro and Viadana (70km apart), in the Eastern Province (north-east).

Somalia’s new President Hassan Sheikh Mohamoud says he is willing to begin talks with the armed group al-Shabab. In an exclusive video interview with Al Jazeera's Peter Greste, he outlines his key concerns for Somalia.

For the first time in more than 10 years, Cosatu goes to its national congress – starting on Monday at Gallagher Estate in Midrand – with the prospect of having the positions of two of its most senior officials – president Sdumo Dlamini and general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi – contested. Vavi's opponents say he acts as if above everyone else in Cosatu, and have taken issue with his public criticism of leaders of the ANC, government and the alliance. They want him to be replaced by KwaZulu-Natal provincial secretary Zet Luzipho.

The Fahamu Refugee Programme is pleased to announce the September 2012 issue of the Fahamu Refugee Legal Aid Newsletter. The issue can be found here: Please feel free to share it widely.

A group of smallholder farmers in Mali have turned to the courts to try to recover land they say they have lost to big private investors. The legal action comes as foreign investors are losing interest in Mali due to political instability and an armed rebellion in the north. 'We have laid a complaint against the agricultural land grabs that have hit so many smallholders,' said Lamine Coulibaly, a member of the National Coordination of Peasant Organisations, which is resisting the large-scale acquisition of agricultural land by foreign investors.

Cosatu wants to review its strike processes to ensure workers are happy with the outcomes, and that associated violence and intimidation are reduced. 'It is worrying...that only half of the Cosatu members surveyed in the 2012 Workers’ Survey were satisfied with the outcome of the strikes in their workplace,' the Congress of SA Trade Unions (Cosatu) said. 'Public sector Cosatu members were more satisfied than their private sector counterparts,' according to Cosatu's organisational report prepared for discussion at its national congress.

Global Voices Online reports that potential mining activity in Zambia’s Lower Zambezi National Park is threatening its ecosystem and that of the adjacent Mana Pools National Park in Zimbabwe. The two national parks, rich in wildlife and one of the last bastions of huge elephant populations in Southern Africa, are situated less than 200 kilometres downstream from the hydroelectric Kariba Dam.

Recent deadly clashes in Kenya stem from widespread economic frustration, chronic impunity and the ambitions of politicians seeking office, according to analysts and activists. As the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay noted, the timing of the latest clashes on the coast is alarming. 'In Kenya, the recent inter-communal violence in the Tana River District, during which dozens were killed, including a large number of children and women, is a grim reminder of the 2007-08 events,' she said earlier this week, referring to the killings and displacement that followed the country’s last presidential poll.

A faction of Central African Republic rebel group the Convention of Patriots for Justice and Peace claimed responsibility Sunday for two attacks near the capital and threatened to carry out more. The CPJP last month signed a peace deal with the government, officially ending the rebellion by the largest armed group still active in the violence-torn country and raising hopes of an end to years of conflict. But the faction that claimed the attacks in two towns just north of the capital on Saturday said it did not accept the peace deal.

The National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ) has condemned sustained deadly violence against journalists following the killing of young journalist in Mogadishu. Zakariye Mohamed Mohamud Moallim, a young cameraman, working as freelance journalist was shot dead on Sunday evening (16 September 2012) in Nasib Bundo neighbourhood of Shibis district in Mogadishu. Men armed with pistols shot the journalist in the head and chest, according to family members. Zakariye died on the spot and the killers escaped from the scene, as said by eyewitnesses.

The UN Human Rights Office has released a new publication on sexual orientation and gender identity in international human rights law. It sets out the source and scope of some of the core legal obligations that States have to protect the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people. The 60-page booklet is designed as a tool for States, to help them better understand the nature of their obligations and the steps required to meet them, as well as for civil society activists, human rights defenders and others seeking to hold Governments to account for breaches of international human rights law.

The Institute for Justice and Reconciliation’s Justice and Reconciliation in Africa programme has released a new Policy Brief entitled ‘Reconciling Kenya: Opportunities for constructing a peaceful and socially cohesive nation’. The Brief forms part of an ongoing project focused on promoting national cohesion and reconciliation in Kenya, which will be jointly implemented by the IJR, the Kenyan National Cohesion and Integration Commission and the Folke Bernadotte Academy in Sweden over the next two years. The project pieces together the initiatives taken in Kenya towards reconciliation since the post-election violence in 2007/2008 and gives recommendations to different actors on the way forward to consolidate national cohesion and reconciliation.

The University Council that oversees the affairs of public universities in Malawi has announced a 25 per cent increase in salaries of university teachers. But the Polytechnic, the constituent college of the University of Malawi in Blantyre, which is already on a month-long industrial strike, refused to immediately accept the offer, while Chancellor College in the eastern city of Zomba said the offer was a fair deal. Both constituent colleges were demanding a 113 per cent salary hike, citing the recent 49 per cent devaluation of the Malawi currency, the kwacha.