Land-related conflicts are increasing in Tanzania where more than 12,600 such cases are recorded every year, if the last twelve months' figures are anything to write home about. Mr Godfrey Eliseus Massay, an official with the Land Rights, Research and Resources Institute (HAKI-ARDHI), has revealed that such land cases that were reported between mid- last year and June 2011 had reached 12,643.

Libya is plunging into a cycle of tribal violence and retribution which, if left unchecked, could undermine the authority of its new leaders, spur new forms of insurgency and throw the country back into chaos, says this Reuters article. More than a week after the death of Muammar Gaddafi, anger is on the boil again with what many Libyans see as the inability of the interim government to rein in its brigades and stop a wave of revenge attacks. The cycle of retribution appears already to have started. The town of al Jemel, a scattering of sandy homes in the palm-studded desert southwest of Tripoli, is one example. Residents said brigades from faraway Misrata had appeared at their doorstep a week ago, breaking into people's homes and looking for Gaddafi loyalists.

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Two police officers have been sentenced to seven years in prison for the assault that led to the death of Khaled Said, the young man whose murder in Alexandria has fueled the Egyptian revolution. Netizens are angry at what they describe as a lenient sentence and a slap to the revolution and its scream for justice, reports Global Voices.

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir says his country gave military support to the Libyan rebels who overthrew Col Muammar Gaddafi. In a speech broadcast live on state television, Mr Bashir said the move was in response to Col Gaddafi's support for Sudanese rebels three years ago. President Bashir said the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), a Darfuri rebel group, had attacked Khartoum three years ago using Libyan trucks, equipment, arms, ammunition and money.

With Muammar Gaddafi buried in a secret desert grave this week, Maximilian C. Forte, in this article written earlier this year, outlines the ten myths that served to justify the NATO-led war on Libya and advance the cause of 'war corporatists, transnational firms, and neoliberals'.

Over 50 campaigners joined the family and friends of Jimmy Mubenga recently in a vigil on the first anniversary of his death. Mubenga died on 12 October 2010, after being restrained by private security guards from the company G4S on a BA flight at Heathrow airport during a deportation attempt to Angola. Jimmy's wife, five children and his wider family are still waiting, one year on, to see if the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) will charge the three officers involved.

The Sudanese authorities are increasingly deporting Eritreans to their country without allowing them to claim asylum, Human Rights Watch said. On 17 October, Sudan handed over 300 Eritreans to the Eritrean military without screening them for refugee status, drawing public condemnation from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Child rights activists have expressed concern over the stagnation of a juvenile justice law in Somalia's self-declared independent Republic of Somaliland, where officials say an average of 200 children are detained every month by police. According to Khadar Nour, a child protection activist in the capital, Hargeisa, children are regularly detained for minor offences and 'end up being detained with adults because there are no rehabilitation centres for children or prisons for children'.

Doreen Sibanda, 27, was among the first undocumented Zimbabwean nationals to be deported in early October 2011 after South Africa apparently lifted its more than two year moratorium on expulsions imposed following widespread xenophobic violence in 2008. 'I was on my way to the shops to buy porridge for my four-year-old son when I was stopped by the police [in the inner city Johannesburg suburb of Berea] who asked for my passport and residence permit. I lied to them that I had forgotten them at home but they never gave me a chance,' Sibanda told IRIN.

Amid the still-visible damage from election unrest in Côte d’Ivoire’s main city Abidjan is another less tangible but very real form of destruction - psychological trauma. It is difficult to say how many people need mental health care after the recent unrest, according to health experts in Côte d’Ivoire; the health ministry says it has no such figures. But health workers and residents told IRIN people seeking help with conflict-related trauma have few places to turn.

Cutting off peoples’ limbs - in most cases their hands - was one of the brutal strategies used by members of the Revolutionary United Front to terrify people to support them. Some 27,000 Sierra Leoneans are estimated to have been disabled or have had one or more of their limbs amputated during the 1991-2002 civil war. In 2004 the Truth and Reconciliation Committee (TRC), set up to try to deliver accountability for human rights abuses, issued a report recommending that amputees, war widows, children, victims of sexual violence and the seriously war-wounded, should receive reparations in the form of free education for children, free health care and skills training to be managed by the National Commission for Social Action (NaCSA). But many have received nothing.

Qaddafi’s shadow will continue to be felt in Libya and neighbouring countries, especially Chad, says this briefing from the International Crisis Group. 'The upheavals that preceded and followed his fall have created new and potential problems, including massive displacement of populations; tribal tensions within Libya and racist attacks against nationals of sub-Saharan countries; a possible resurgence of Islamism; and the proliferation of fighters and weapons. It is too early to say whether the changes will evolve into medium- and long-term factors of instability in the region, notably in the Sahel and Darfur.'

The Botswana government gave the United States the green light to explore the possibility of establishing an Africa Command (Africom) base in the country when the issue was raised four years ago, American diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks show. The revelations could provide ammunition for the ANC Youth League in the disciplinary hearing by the ANC of league leader Julius Malema and other league officials. Malema has been charged in connection with his call for regime change in Botswana. He also described President Ian Khama as an imperialist puppet, in part in connection with claims that Botswana was talking to the US about an Africom base.

Fourteen people were rushed to hospital after what police say is a grenade was lobbed into a bar in Nairobi around 1am on Monday. Anti-terrorism police have sealed off the bar - Mwaura's club - following the blast that comes soon after Kenya's recent offensive into neighbouring Somalia in pursuit of the al Shabaab militia. Witnesses said two of those removed from the bar after the blast appeared dead, but police told Nation.co.ke they could not confirm any deaths.

The international acclaim for the Libyan revolution is being tempered by growing revulsion at the treatment of the bodies of Muammar Gaddafi and his son Mutassim. The UN has called for a full investigation into the circumstances of the dictator's death. Video footage recording the minutes after Gaddafi's capture last Thursday, when his convoy came under Nato and rebel attack, shows an alive but injured Gaddafi pleading for his life.

The National Transitional Council (NTC) has declared the liberation of Libya, eight-months after the uprising against Muammar Gaddafi's 42-year rule began. The NTC's forces were largely comprised of loosely organised local armed groups that sprang up in towns where citizens wished to see Gaddafi's rule ended. These groups remain armed, and it is unclear what role they expect to play going forward following the announcement.

Al Shabaab militants were on the back foot on Saturday evening as they faced heavy bombardment from multiple fronts from a combined force of Kenyan troops, US drones, African Union peacekeepers and Transitional Federal Government fighters. Reports from the battlefront indicated that Kenyan troops were advancing towards four al Shabaab-controlled towns as they launched a final push to capture the Kismayu port and Afmadow in Central Jubaland.

Senegalese opposition parties are incensed after a court sentenced an activist to two years in prison. Mr Malick Nozel Seck was charged with issuing death threats to the five members of the country's Constitutional Council. In a two-page document sent to the Council three weeks ago, Mr Seck allegedly said that the lives of the members would be endangered if they approved the candidacy of President Abdoulaye Wade for next year’s polls.

A flare-up in inter-ethnic fighting between communities in the northern Kenyan region of Isiolo over pasture and water has left at least 14 people dead and affected learning as schools closed amid rising insecurity, say officials. Borana and Turkana pastoralists clashed several times between 13 and 18 October, according to UN reports. On 14 October, for example, seven people were shot dead in Tractor village, Ngaremara Division, Isiolo. According to local media reports, they included two 12-year-old children, who were dragged out of their huts and shot as their parents watched.