After more than ten weeks in detention at OR Tambo International Airport, the Supreme Court of Appeal has overturned a decision of the Pretoria High Court and ordered the immediate release of two Somali refugees - who were being deported by Namibia via South Africa to war-torn Somalia. They are being released tomorrow morning. The Supreme Court grilled the Department of Home Affairs on its approach in opposing the application in the High Court and on appeal, stating that if it had not been for Home Affairs’ attitude, it would not have been necessary to be in court.

A senior Iranian MP accused Gambia on Tuesday of bowing to pressure from the United States after the tiny African country severed ties with Iran, the official IRNA news agency reported. 'This move is seen as a result of American pressure as well as US policies aimed at damaging Iran's relations with different countries, including in Africa,' said Alaeddin Borujerdi, the head of parliament's foreign policy commission.

US President Barack Obama has outlined a plan to disarm one of Africa's most feared rebel militias, the Ugandan Lord's Resistance Army. It aims to defuse the spiralling bloodshed in central Africa by removing the LRA's leader, Joseph Kony. LRA fighters will also be encouraged to defect or lay down their arms.

An uprising in a camp in occupied Western Sahara, freedom of speech in Morocco and Ethiopia, and ‘the need to change the sorry state of education in SA’ are among the topics covered in this week’s roundup of the African blogosphere, by Sokari Ekine.

Laws and practices governing citizenship in too many African countries effectively leave hundreds of thousands of people without a nationality, says a new report. 'These stateless Africans are among the continent’s most vulnerable populations: they can neither vote nor stand for office; they cannot enrol their children in school, travel freely, or own property; they cannot work for the government; they are exposed to human rights abuses. Statelessness exacerbates and underlies intercommunal, interethnic, and interracial tensions in many regions of the continent.' The report, 'Citizenship Law in Africa' was written by Bronwen Manby, of the Africa Governance Monitoring and Advocacy Project (AfriMAP) of the Open Society Foundations, based on a comparative analysis of the citizenship laws of 53 countries.

Born in Mogadishu, Siham and Iman Hashi are the first female Somali artists to sign a record deal with a major American label. After the civil war broke out in Somalia in the 1990s, the girls and their family moved to Canada as refugees. They are currently in Los Angeles recording their first album as 'Sweet Rush' with Universal Motown, while finding time to raise awareness about the continuing suffering in their homeland.

Samir Amin speaks to Pambazuka News on the misleading rhetoric over the so-called currency war. The real problem, he argues, is the disequilibrium in the global integrated monetary and financial system in which the US insists legitimately on the right to control their currency, but denies the same rights to others, such as China, who seek to do the same. The countries of the global South need to leave the US and its allies to sort out their own problems and concentrate on developing regional currencies and exercising strict control over capital flows, Amin argues.

Prosecutions have gotten underway to put behind bars eight members of an illegal kidney transplant syndicate operating in South Africa. The accused, who were exposed earlier this month after reports of unlawful transplant procedures surfaced, appeared in a Kwazulu Natal court. They face charges of illegally harvesting and selling kidneys between 2001 and 2003 at the St. Augustine's Hospital in Durban.

The death toll in Somalia's ongoing war has increased during the last two years, local human rights groups told AfricaNews. The increment comes as shelling and fighting between government forces backed by AU peacekeepers and rebels reaches high proportions in the capital Mogadishu. The emergency traffic ambulance service in Mogadishu said that at least 4,260 people were killed in Mogadishu during 2009 and 2010.

Although police deny it, residents in the embattled Khayelitsha TR Section that has been ablaze with protests for eight weeks, say an 8pm curfew is being enforced, with police firing rubber bullets at will. Over 50 residents spoken to in TR Section said police in blue SAPS uniforms, but with their faces covered with balaclavas, patrolled the area at night and shot at anyone they saw outdoors after 8pm.

Work is beginning in Israel on a barrier along the border with Egypt, aimed at stemming the flow of illegal immigrants into the country. The barrier, including an electric fence and surveillance technology, will run for 250km (155 miles).

When Victoire Mpelo fled his native Democratic Republic of the Congo, practising medicine again was probably one of the last things on his mind. Yet, some 10 years later, the doctor is kept busy every day, looking after fellow refugees in Namibia's Osire settlement. Meanwhile, the nearby Osire Secondary School, headed by another refugee, Come Niyongabo from Burundi, is ranked among the top secondary education establishments in the country.

Democratic Republic of Congo’s former vice president Jean-Pierre Bemba has gone on trial before the International Criminal Court here on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Bemba is specifically charged with three counts of war crimes and two of crimes against humanity for the alleged atrocities of about 1,500 fighters of his Congolese Liberation Movement (MLC) between October 2002 and March 2003 in the Central African Republic (CAR).

Maritime authorities have created a security corridor for ships entering the Port of Mombasa to counter piracy attacks on Kenya’s territorial waters. Vessels will be required to wait at the four identified co-ordinates, which according to the Kenya Maritime Authority (KMA) is a corridor of 10 by 20 nautical miles from the Port of Mombasa. 'The area is a security zone within which patrols by the Kenyan Navy have been enhanced to provide security for vessels waiting berthing at the port,' KMA director Ms Nancy Karigithu said.

'On October 24th, I went to Entebbe Airport to catch a South African Airways flight via Johannesburg to Namibia. Airline officials said I needed a transit visa through South Africa...Under the new rules, passengers are required to disembark, enter the transit lounge and re-board the plane. You need a transit visa to do this...However, the new visa requirements do not apply to British, Americans, Irish and other Europeans (or nations of white people); so my colleagues going to the same conference from the United States and Europe faced no problem transiting through that country.'

How respect for human rights and effective law enforcement can go hand in hand was the subject of a workshop for 26 officials of the Kenyan Administration Police that took place at the Kenya School of Law in Nairobi from 25 to 29 October 2010. What democratic policing means and its consequences for law enforcement officials including issues of human rights, police deontology and ethics was a key topic that included a discussion of examples from police services in other countries.

Reflecting on how the media and war industries often feed off each other for political and commercial ends, Mwaura Kaara considers the prospects for ‘peace journalism’ that ‘captures the truths as they are without bias or favour’.

A group of human rights campaigners have protested outside the Tel Aviv Opera House, denouncing the Cape Town Opera for what they say is its support of Israeli oppression of Palestinians, SA Artists Against Apartheid said on Tuesday. See a video of the protest at

Thousands of women were raped during Uganda’s civil war but there have been few government efforts to assist them, especially with psychosocial and counseling services. The two-decades long war in northern Uganda between government and the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) resulted in the internal displacement of about 1.5 million people and the death of thousands. Women in internally displaced persons (IDP) camps suffered sexual violence from government soldiers and civilians.

Nigeria's military confirmed on Thursday it had freed 19 foreign and local hostages being held by militants in the Niger Delta oil region. The hostages included two Americans, two Frenchmen, two Indonesians, one Canadian and 12 Nigerians, Major General Charles Omoregie, commander of a military taskforce in the Niger Delta, told a news conference in oil hub Port Harcourt.