Health officials’ fears that insecurity and a lack of resources could lead to fresh outbreaks of preventable diseases are being proved painfully accurate in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Polio - thought to have been eradicated in DRC five years ago – has made a frightening reappearance in Central Africa. The World Health Organisation has officially recorded 139 cases in the country this year, but poor data collection means many more may have been missed.

A report by Idasa (Institute for Democracy in Africa), the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) and the Research and Advocacy Unit (RAU) recommends that there is an imperative need to end political violence generally in Zimbabwe, and the risks to women (and the families that they care for) require urgent attention by the government and the political parties, not least for the purpose of promoting non-violent elections. It also states that indications about the extent of politically motivated rape require urgent attention from the government.

The Commission for Gender Equality (CGE) has taken a hardline stance against Great Basin Gold, among the firms that tried to wriggle out of a summons to explain the slow pace of gender transformation in their operations. In an unprecedented show of strength, the CGE threatened legal sanctions against the gold mining company should it fail to make an appearance before the commission.

General elections in the Central African Republic (CAR) next year will be a crucial step towards restoring stability to the country through a democratic process, but the polls must be free, fair and transparent, the United Nations envoy to the African nation has told the Security Council. 'The UN and our international partners have provided considerable technical and financial support to the Independent Electoral Commission entrusted with the implementation of the electoral process,' said Sahle Work-Zewde, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General to CAR.

At least a third of South African children who died in 2007 were severely malnourished and a further 30 per cent were underweight for age while on average over half were known or suspected to be HIV infected. These and other statistics are contained in the 2010 South African Health Review (SAHR), an annual measure of the country’s health status.

Moroccan women are acutely underrepresented in the media sector, according to a recent report. National Moroccan Press Syndicate (SNPM) data show that women constitute just 26 per cent of journalists in the country. The SNPM revealed in its 23 November study that 1,755 men hold a professional journalist card from the Ministry of Communication, as opposed to 632 women.

The announcement that 5,000 new classrooms will be built thanks to a $140 million World Bank loan would come as welcome news at the Chitowo Primary School – if only the children sitting on the floors, perched on doors and in windows, even taking lessons in the dust beneath trees in the yard could hear it. The school, which offers eight primary classes from Standard One to Eigh in Dedza district, a rural area in central Malawi, is bursting at the seams. It has 1,400 pupils and only five classrooms.

The Kenyan government has said it could be losing nearly one-third of the national budget to corruption. Finance ministry officials told a parliamentary committee the losses could be nearly $4bn (£2.5bn) a year. They said individuals were taking huge sums meant for development projects.

As Zimbabwe slowly staggers from an unrestrained decade of economic recession, the country’s huge debt burden totalling about US$7 billion in external arrears presents an albatross around the nation’s neck. Figures recently released reveal that of the public and publicly guaranteed debt of US$6,4 billion as of 31 October, US$4,7 billion is in arrears. Put simply, every Zimbabwean owes external creditors US$500.

In early 2010, unresolved conflicts and simmering tensions between different social and ethnic groups led to renewed displacement in the city of Jos in the heart of the 'middle belt' region of Nigeria. As in the rest of the country, no clear figures on the number of internally displaced people (IDPs) were available for this latest incident of violence. Ad-hoc local registration exercises have hinted at the scale of displacement, but many people sought shelter and support from family and friends and so were not counted, says a December report form the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre.

A new set of priorities for the global fight against obstetric fistula will be in focus as specialists from around the world gather to discuss ways to eliminate the preventable childbirth injury. 'There are more than 2 million women living with obstetric fistula in the world, yet there are not enough skilled surgeons to operate on them,' says Dr. Serigne Gueye, a leading fistula expert and one of the organisers of the Third Annual Conference of the International Society of Obstetric Fistula Surgeons (ISOFS) that will take place in Dakar from 7 to 9 December.

Nigeria has filed charges against former US Vice-President Dick Cheney over a scandal involving a former subsidiary of Halliburton energy firm. The case, brought by the country's anti-corruption agency, centres on engineering firm KBR, which admitted bribing officials. Cheney's lawyer has called the allegations 'entirely baseless'. Cheney was Halliburton's chief executive before becoming vice-president to George W Bush in 2001.

We wish to begin this statement by thanking all of those people and organisations that have stood by our movement in the difficult times that followed the attack and then this ongoing trial. Your solidarity is much appreciated.

'We do not accept that shack fires are natural disasters. Shack fires are the result of the social abandonment of the poor. We will continue to politicise shack fires and we will continue to fight for our full social inclusion in this society.'

At least 30 people have been killed in Morroco following torrential rain and floods. The dead included 24 people who were killed on Tuesday after their bus fell into a flooded river near Bouznika city, 40km south of the capital Rabat, police and the official MAP news agency said.

As workers celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), the whisper of 'back to basics' is gaining momentum, writes Ebrahim-Khalil Hassen. 'COSATU faces significant challenges in its continued long-term role. These challenges include an older union membership, new forms of economic activity that make organising difficult as well as a more fluid environment with a multiplicity of voices on public policy issues. Thus, COSATU needs new forms of membership that it can utilise to mobilise sections of the working class that it has not traditionally organised.'

The Kenyan government should immediately stop deporting Somali nationals to war-torn Somalia and make a public commitment to protect and help them, Human Rights Watch has said. The Kenyan authorities deported almost 300 Somalis to south-central Somalia on 15, 29 and 30 November 2010, in violation of international law. Credible sources and witnesses to the deportations on 29 and 30 November told Human Rights Watch that police in the Kenyan border town of Liboi used pickup trucks to drive 130 Somali asylum seekers back to the Somali border.

Harvard School of Public Health and UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, will release a new manual on 9 December on how to apply and promote human rights in all development work - including in humanitarian emergencies and difficult contexts. Designed for use by development workers and others, the manual provides practical tools for designing and implementing a human rights-based approach, and illustrates the benefits of using such an approach in development work.

Access to justice for women is often not given enough attention in both national and international judicial systems, a United Nations official has said, adding that the newly-created UN entity for women will play an important role in promoting justice for women especially in post-conflict situations. 'Justice for women is still an afterthought,' said Anne Marie Goetz, the Chief Advisor on Governance, Peace and Security of the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) at a news conference at UN headquarters to highlight a report by the Women’s Initiatives for Gender Justice, an international non-governmental organisation, on gender issues at the International Criminal Court (ICC).

AWID has compiled a useful reference tool for women human rights defenders, in collaboration with the Women Human Rights Defenders International Coalition. The compilation lists research materials dealing with the security and protection of defenders, resources that women activists can consult concerning their wellbeing and self-care, manuals dealing with how to document and monitor violations of women’s rights, as well as manuals on the rights and mechanisms available to women human rights defenders at risk.