Nearly 400 people died in flooding in central and West Africa, with nearly 1.5 million people affected since the start of the rainy season in June, the United Nations said. It said last year floods killed almost 200 people in West Africa and affected over 800,000 others. Deaths resulting from flood were reportedly highest in Nigeria with 118, followed by Ghana (52), Sudan (50), Benin (43), Chad (24), Mauritania (21), Burkina Faso (16), Cameroon (13), Gambia (12), with other countries reporting less than 10 dead.

Masifundise is a community orientated development NGO in Cape Town, South Africa supporting fishing communities to mobilise and organise at community level to become strong and democratic role players in local community development. As an expanding organisation, Masifundise is desirous take its 30 years of South African experiences across the borders and work towards empowerment of fishing communities and fair re-distribution and management of the marine and freshwater resources.

The H.F. Guggenheim Foundation makes grants for scholarly research into problems of aggression and violence. One program is reserved for African Scholars under the age of 35, educated and living on the African continent. Selected applicants will attend a methods workshop to refine and improve their research plans in Accra, Ghana, in March 2011, and after submitting revised plans, will receive grants of $2000 each to support their fieldwork. In 2012 they will be funded to attend a professional conference to present their findings and will receive assistance in finding a publisher for their work.

If African countries had had the capacity to do climate change projections, their data could have been fed into the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) assessments for the continent, said Richard Odingo, former vice-chair of the IPCC at one of the discussions ahead of the Seventh African Development Forum. The IPCC is still recovering from its controversial warning about the impact of climate change on food production in Africa, cited in its synthesis report. The warning turned out to have been based on a non-peer reviewed academic paper for three North African countries.

State security agents on 15 October 2010 allegedly blocked accredited journalists from covering the graduation ceremony at Great Zimbabwe University in Masvingo, officiated by President Robert Mugabe. According to the daily NewsDay the state security agents blocked journalists from entering the ceremony, demanding invitation cards similar to those issued to graduates and their relatives in addition to their accreditation cards.

Migration is an integral part of today’s process of global economic, social and political integration. Globally, more than 210 million people are estimated to be migrating. Around 105 million of them are women. There are diverse reasons and causes for migrating, but labour migration driven by large economic and social inequalities in the world is a key aspect in this context. The report 'Women's labour migration in the context of globalisation' offers an introduction to important contemporary political analysis on the influence of globalisation on women’s work, mobility and empowerment.

Twenty Nigerian citizens and a non-governmental organisation are challenging the indigene/settler dichotomy legally before the Federal High Court in Nigeria. The Federal High Court, Kaduna, presided over by Hon. Justice Mohammed Lawal Shuaibu, adjourned the case to 24 November 2010. The applicants contend that the indigene/settle dichotomy impacts negatively on the enjoyment of fundamental human rights enshrined in Nigeria’s constitution and African and international human rights law.

A new manual: 'The Optional Protocol to the UN Convention against Torture: Implementation Manual' addresses all the questions on implementation of this innovative international human rights treaty. Drawing on initial good practice from all world regions, the manual is designed to serve as a practical reference tool for international, regional and national stakeholders involved in OPCAT ratification and implementation.

Nine people have been charged in what the Environment Agency is saying is biggest investigation ever into illegal electrical waste exports from the UK to West Africa. All nine have been charged with offences under the Transfrontier Shipment of Waste Regulations 2007 and European Waste Shipment Regulations 2006 and bailed to attend Havering Magistrates Court on November 11. In some instances, it is alleged by the agency that 'considerable sums' of money changed hands in deals to collect and recycle electrical waste while treatment costs were avoided.

“You cannot divorce food from fuel, they are completely interlinked. One-hundred bags of food is useless without firewood.” For millions of families around the world, cooking fuel is a critical, daily concern, with serious health and safety implications. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton put this issue in the spotlight when she announced the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, which aims to provide 100 million fuel - efficient stoves to people in developing countries by 2020. These stoves will make a crucial difference in the lives of the people who receive them - especially those who have been displaced by armed conflict and natural disasters.

President Robert Mugabe wants Zimbabwe's power-sharing government to end next year, saying the unity pact was only meant to last two years, state media has reported. 'Some will say let us negotiate and give it another life. I am reluctant because part of the things happening [in the inclusive government] are absolutely foolish and stupid,' Mugabe said in the Herald newspaper.

The emergence of a new meningitis vaccine, rather than a large-scale outbreak of the disease, has prompted the current vaccination drive across West Africa. Health officials say the vaccine marks a 'revolution' in preventing the highly contagious and fatal disease. Health workers in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger - the three countries selected for introduction of the vaccine - are preparing for country-wide campaigns set for December, having just completed a limited pilot phase.

Hundreds of people from different walks of life - from young schoolchildren to army officials - are planting trees across East Africa in the latest activities to be registered under Plant for the Planet: Billion Tree Campaign (BTC) run by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

Zambian police have arrested two Chinese coal mine managers for attempted murder after they allegedly shot and injured 12 local workers. The miners staged a demonstration on Friday to protest against poor working conditions and wages at the Chinese-run Collum Coal mine, in the southern town of Sinazongwe. The Chinese managers allegedly opened fire at the protesters because they felt threatened.

Upcoming international climate talks will be 'a total flop', according to Africa's leading spokesperson on climate change. Neither this year's talks in Cancun, Mexico, nor the ones in South Africa next year, will deliver a deal with set targets for greenhouse gas emissions reduction, said Meles Zenawi, prime minister of Ethiopia and coordinator of the Committee of Ten African Heads of State and Government on Climate Change. His statements have provoked anger from some critics who see them as undermining the African Union's stance on climate change.

A number of central African countries overwhelmed by the brutal attacks and mounting regional destabilization caused by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) have established a comprehensive plan to combat the rebel group. Ministers from Uganda, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the Central African Republic agreed Friday in a meeting in Bangui, the capital of the latter, to create a joint military task force, centre of operations, and border patrol capacity, all to be supervised by a representative from the African Union.

The Global Media Monitoring Project is the only international project that gives an idea of the gender bias of the news media. In the latest GMMP, conducted on November 10 2009, the internet news media was also analysed. The survey looked at 76 national news sites from 16 countries, and eight international news sites. Women's prescence in cyberspace news is a reflection of their presence in 'traditional' news, with a couple of caveats.

On Saturday the 23rd October 2010 Congolese women will be speaking about the situation in the Congo and would like to invite you to join them between 3pm and 6pm at the Church Hall, Lancing Street off Eversholt Street, NW1 (Opposite Euston Station).

Many of Congo's rape survivors took to the streets Sunday to speak out against sexual violence in a country where it has become a weapon of war. Sunday's march was organised by the World March of Women in association with local women's groups. Organisers hoped the march would combat the stigma attached to rape victims and draw international attention to the problem of rape as a war tactic. (This post contains a video)

Southern African nations need to agree on a common operational system to manage energy in the region, environmental experts advise. If they don’t, the region could experience power shortages and resulting economic deficits. The Southern African Power Pool (SAPP), which was formed in 1995 as part of an inter-governmental agreement between the twelve mainland SADC countries, is an ambitious regional initiative that encourages electricity sharing and the selling of surplus to their neighbours who experience power deficiencies.