Research on drug development for neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), tuberculosis and malaria will receive a boost from a major initiative launched by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO). 'Re:Search' will provide free access to research on medicines, vaccines and diagnostics, based on patents and research held by a consortium of eight major global pharmaceutical companies, the US National Institutes of Health and other organisations. But only the 49 least developed countries will be able to get a free licence to develop products based on the initiative, a limitation which has been criticised by key organisations in the field such as the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative (DNDi) and the aid organisation Doctors Without Borders.

The new school year began at the end of October in Côte d’Ivoire but is getting off to slow start as students struggle to return to study after post-election violence disrupted education in many schools for months. In the west of the country along the Liberian border, schools between the villages Blolequin and Toulepleu are still closed, and many children have still not returned home after fleeing to Liberia or other parts of Côte d’Ivoire with their families, said Paul Yao-Yao, coordinator of Save the Children’s education programme in Abidjan.

This video is a collage of comments made by US President Barack Obama and his Secretary of State Hilary Clinton on protests in Libya, Egypt and Syria. Meanwhile, footage of police action against protestors in New York City is edited into the collage with the intention of showing the hypocrisy of the US administration.

Young supporters of Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe stoned and beat backers of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai on Sunday, blocking a planned rally of his Movement for Democratic Change party. 'Unfortunately we are unable to do this rally because of incredible acts of wanton violence, malicious violence that we have suffered at the hands of ZANU-PF this morning,' Tendai Biti, MDC secretary general, told a news conference. Biti said seven MDC activists were admitted to hospital, while five party vehicles were damaged.

This PressTV video is a news feature on the Russell Tribunal on Palestine that took place recently in Cape Town. It features interviews with Desmond Tutu and Cynthia McKinney. The tribunal is an international people's forum created by a large group of citizens involved in the promotion of peace and justice in the Middle East and is a public awareness campaign.

18 November sees a discussion on the intersections between sex, power, masculinity, and femininity with human rights activists and scholar, Dr. Sylvia Tamale, as she signs her new book. This groundbreaking volume 'African Sexualities: A Reader', the first of its kind written by African activists themselves, aims to inspire a new generation of students and teachers to study, reflect and gain fresh and critical insights into the complex issues of gender and sexuality. It opens a space - particularly for young people – to think about African sexualities in different ways.

'We call on all farmers, workers and the landless and all social movements to join us in Durban and everywhere in the world on the 5th of December 2011 to demand a change of the entire capitalist system. The fight against climate change is a fight against neoliberal capitalism, landlessness, dispossession, hunger, poverty and inequality. The crisis of the planet requires that we take direct action. During the agro-ecology and food sovereignty day we will have public protest marches to the conference of the polluters, actions against multinational corporations like Monsanto undermining our seed sovereignty, which will cuminate in a massive Assembly of the Oppressed to discuss ways of ending this unjust system.'

Activists are calling on South Africa to take the lead in moves for a 'Robin Hood' tax for health. Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) and the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) have pointed out that as the only African country in the G20, South Africa had a role to play in ensuring that a portion of the FTT went to health and not bailing out banks. The FTT is not another tax on working people, but on financial institutions only – it could cover any financial transaction between banks or be more specific and cover currency exchanges between banks.

Nigeria's Boko Haram has threatened to carry out more attacks, a day after a series of blasts and gun battles claimed by the group killed more than 100 people in the country's northeast, the Nigerian Red Cross has said. Ibrahim Bulama, an official from the humanitarian organisation, said on Sunday that the death toll is expected to rise as local clinics and hospitals tabulate the casualty figures from Friday's attacks in Damaturu, the capital of rural Yobe state.

A two-year (2009–2010) action research study entitled 'Experiences of Women in Asserting their Land Rights: the case of Bugesera District, Rwanda', was carried out by Rwanda Women Network (RWN) in collaboration with the Makerere Institute of Social Research (MISR). The study shows that gains for women’s struggle on land rights in statutory law are undermined on the ground by the continuation of discriminatory practices, which are prejudicial to women and due to the negative attitudes towards women’s land rights in Rwanda.

Millions of Egyptians will head to the polls on 28 November in the first parliamentary vote after a popular uprising ended Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year rule. But few Egyptians understand the complex election system or know what the parties represent. 'The election system is really confusing,' Saed Abdel Hafez, chairman of the local NGO, Forum for Development and Human Rights Dialogue, told IRIN. 'Because people do not understand the system, they will most likely vote for the people or the powers they used to vote for in the past. This means that the next parliament will not reflect the new political realities created by the revolution.'

Emotions ran high as Occupy Wall Street supporters and public officials dealt with the aftermath of protests that shut down the nation's fifth-busiest port before spiraling into chaos near the movement's downtown encampment. The movement challenging the world's economic systems and distribution of wealth has gained momentum in recent weeks, with Oakland becoming a rallying point after an Iraq War veteran was injured in clashes with police last week. The comments section of this post contains extensive links to news reports, photographs and videos of the protests.

Deeply concerned by the threats posed by climate change and continued government inaction in the face of these threats, civil society representatives from across Africa have issued a statement calling on leaders and people all over the world to ensure outcomes from the Durban climate change conference that help ‘to keep Africans and all peoples safe’ from ‘the growing threat’ the climate crisis poses.

Access to information from any local government should not require appeals to the Mayor and/or the courts, write Zackie Achmat and Fritz Jooste in this article about the difficulties of the Social Justice Coalition in accessing City of Cape Town service agreements with companies responsible for municipal waste disposal in impoverished townships. 'Local government secrecy is unlawful because it is dangerous to democracy; it can allow influence peddling by the wealthy and connected, and often harms the health and wellbeing of working-class and poor communities.'

Using homosexuality as a focus, Dr. Tamale will on 21 November discuss how political and religious leaders in both Africa and the West instrumentalise sexuality to achieve their political ends, and provide an analysis of the Ugandan Anti-Homosexuality Bill.

An Italian worker at a restaurant in Ghana under investigation for allegedly operating a 'whites only' policy has told the BBC it was a misunderstanding. Marco Ranaldi said he made 'a joke' about the racial profile of members of the Atlantic Lobsters and Dolphins. A Ghanaian woman started an online protest after visiting the restaurant a week ago and allegedly being told that it was 'only for white people'.

Eritrea has rejected Kenyan suspicions that it may be arming Islamist al Shabaab rebels in Somalia, as a diplomatic row between the two countries intensifies. Kenya's Foreign Affairs Minister Moses Wetangula said he had summoned the Eritrean ambassador and 'raised concerns about intelligence that we have and information available that there is a possibility that arms supplies are flowing from his country to al Shabaab'. The Government of Eritrea rejected the allegations.

The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has resumed a voluntary repatriation programme for tens of thousands of Angolan refugees after their displacement into the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) during the civil war that ended in 2002. On Friday, 252 refugees were transported in the first convoy of the repatriation programme jointly organised by the UNHCR, host countries and the Angolan government. The UN agency estimates that 113,000 Angolans remain in exile as a result of 27-year conflict.

The Group of 20 leading economies (G20) have called on 11 secrecy jurisdictions to substantially increase their cooperation on tackling tax evasion, but failed to address the main users of tax havens by not committing to mandatory country-by-country reporting by multinational companies, says Transparency International. 'Non-cooperative jurisdictions offer safe havens for the proceeds of corruption, tax evasion and organised crime. Greater transparency in the activities of multinational companies (in every country they operate in) would reduce opportunities for hiding the proceeds of illegal activity that ends up in tax havens.'

African heads of state have ambitious plans to create a free trade zone, encompassing 26 countries and more than 600 million people on the continent. But economic experts warn the project is a bold step that comes with a plethora of legal, administrative and political hurdles. Others suggest the plan might be a pie in the sky. 'The free trade agreement is an incredibly complex undertaking by any measure,' warned Liepollo Pheko, international trade expert and managing director of economic consultancy Four Rivers in Johannesburg. Earlier this year, African heads of state had announced plans for a one trillion dollar free trade area (FTA) across three existing regional economic communities, namely the Common Market for East and Southern Africa (Comesa), the East African Community (EAC) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC).