Did the Tanzanian activists cause a breach of the peace or prejudice public safety and the maintenance of public order? Crucially, were the police, by prohibiting the alleged assembly and subsequently arresting the activists, using their discretion appropriately?

A proliferation of small arms is fueling conflict and instability in East Africa.

Ghana is embroiled in a corruption scandal that ruling party MPs believe won't effect how people vote. Think again.

The fuel crisis in Nigeria proves the truism that no government ever voluntarily pursues the public good without some form of struggle by the governed. It ought not to be so.

People are beginning to search beyond political parties for solutions. The youth are doubtful even of old style community organisations and are now exploring new forms of activism and new vehicles for change.

In what classifies as modern day slavery, Ethiopian women sent to work in the Middle East have few rights and are subject to widespread abuse.

A Somali National Consultative Constitutional Conference took place in December 2011 and issued the Garowe Principles. The jury is out on whether the principles will have any impact on the Somali crisis.

Southern Africa’s ‘democracies’ do not produce citizens but subjects controlled by governments due to the hierarchical nature of the region’s politics, which demands obedience. But for how long will this go on?

Much of the infighting in South Africa’s ANC, which is paralysing both government and the party, is the result of outdated codes, traditions and rituals governing the elections of leaders of the party, especially that of the president, writes William Gumede.

Two weeks ago, Ethiopia’s last independent weekly stopped publication after its managing editor was ‘forced to flee the country’. Zenawi has ‘finally succeeded in smashing and trashing Ethiopia’s free press,’ writes Alemayehu G. Mariam.

The Women’s Leadership Academy will mobilise ambitious Kenyan women leaders in every village, town, county and constituency and build their skills to the level where they are able to compete with men for the various political positions in the constitution.

Do the Kenyan youth understand the anti-colonial struggle of their forefathers? How about neo-colonialism and attempts to re-colonise Africa? Zaya Yeebo writes that serious efforts to jolt the youth into action should go beyond the dollars splurged by the US embassy in Nairobi.

In this briefing TCOE, one of the lead organisations in the Rural Women’s Assembly at COP17, sets out some key issues at stake in this week’s climate change conference in Durban.

On the 20th anniversary of the global Sixteen Days of Activism on gender violence campaign, Shuvai Nyoni Kagoro asks whether ‘the millions of dollars spent in cash and human time’ have significantly reduced the violence women and other marginalised groups face ‘because of their gender’.

President Paul Biya’s regime has deeply disillusioned the Cameroonian people, writes Peter Wuteh Vakunta. But Biya will not be president forever, so the challenge for Cameroonians is to look beyond the failed leadership and begin to imagine a new future for themselves.

The long reign of President Museveni has worsened negative ethnicity in Uganda. Vincent Nuwagaba, himself a victim of ethnic prejudice, urges his compatriots to reject the vice and fight for justice for all regardless of ethnic origins.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/559/capetown_occupy3_tmb.jpgJa… Sacks gives an update on the Occupy Cape Town movement, suggesting that it is also becoming 'about decolonising this city; about reversing the dispossession of Cape Town from its inhabitants and making visible those that become hidden between the skyscrapers'.

Africa has 36 embassies in Moscow but, despite long relations with Russia, economic cooperation remains weak, writes Kester Kenn Klomegah. African countries and Russia need to do more to exploit the huge potential the relationship holds.

Bongani Masuku believes that Swaziland has reached a point of no return. The momentum towards democracy and a society free of corruption and royal abuse in the name of culture is irreversible.

Earlier this week, Kimberley Process experts meeting in Congo agreed to allow Zimbabwe to sell diamonds from the controversial Marange fields. Khadija Sharife writes about documents which reveal the conditions that Zimbabwean diamond miners operate under.