A clearer example of hate speech would be hard to find, writes Chandre Gould, a senior researcher, at the crime and justice programme of the Institute for Security Studies. 'The authors of the report hide behind the worn, thin mantle of tradition and culture to justify their hatred of difference. They claim that homosexuality is "unAfrican" and goes against African tradition. This claim is nonsensical not only because homosexuality is the subject of just as much vitriol and hatred in the Western world as it is in Africa; but also because sexual orientation is not culturally determined.'

As the deadline to deport undocumented Zimbabwean migrants on or after 1 January 2011 looms, human rights activists warn South Africa could face a potential human rights disaster, though a senior South African official says the government is not aiming for a 'massive deportation operation'. Rights NGOs working with Zimbabwean migrants said they were bracing for hundreds of thousands to be deported.

After successfully protesting the Protection of Information Bill (the secrecy Bill) the Right2Know Campaign has emerged as a vibrant campaign with significant influence in the public discourse. This rapid growth has raised a number of questions and the R2K Working Groups have called for a National Dialogue amongst campaign supporters to deliberate on matters of the Campaign's scope, strategy, and structure.

The Fahamu Emerging Powers in Africa Programme is pleased to announce a call for applications for its Journalist Study Tour to India. Four successful applicants will be chosen to participate in a six day study tour. African media professionals in print, broadcast, radio and online fora throughout Africa are encouraged to apply for this study tour. African lecturers from journalism schools and media programmes on the continent may also apply.

More than 250 health care providers, advocates, parliamentarians, women’s groups, community members and allied agencies from across Africa are meeting in Accra, to share best practices and lessons and initiate an agenda for action. The four-day conference focuses on unsafe abortion as a critical issue for reproductive health and rights in Africa, and for achieving the Millennium Development Goal 5, to reduce maternal mortality.

Gender-based violence is a persistent human rights violation in South Africa, especially seeing girls and women of all ages continually enduring incidents of rape and assault. Official estimates that have been criticised as being overly conservative, put the number of women raped in South Africa at 27,750 a year, or three an hour. Last week, an 8th grade girl was allegedly gang raped by three schoolboys on the high school’s premises. The incident was allegedly filmed by students using mobile phones. Media Monitoring Africa says that numerous aspects of how this story has been reported have given cause for concern.

Other Worlds is working to document the ways that communities and social movements, together with their allies around the world, are working to build just economic, environmental, and political alternatives out of the ruins of the earthquake. You can read the ongoing reporting coming out of that work in the 'Another Haiti is Possible' archive on the Other Worlds website.

The Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front (ZACF) has announced that issue number 11 of 'Zabalaza: A Journal of Southern African Revolutionary Anarchism' is available. It includes:
- At the End of the Baton of South African Pretentions - Warren McGregor (ZACF)
- Electricity Crisis in Protea South - Lekhetho Mtetwa (ZACF)
- Conned by the Courts - Sian Byrne, James Pendlebury (ZACF), Komnas Poziaris
- Death and the Mielieboer - Michael Schmidt
- The Crisis Hits Home: Strategic Unionism or Revolt? - Lucien van der Walt
- Sharpening the Pangas?: Understanding and Preventing future Pogroms - Michael Schmidt
- Riding to Work on Empty Promises - Jonathan P. (ZACF)

The latest issue of the Kakuma News Reflector is now available online. The Kakuma News Reflector (or KANERE) is a refugee free press devoted to independent reporting on human rights and encampment.

The is seeking a PhD candidate who has just finished or who is already on the job market with a specialisation in comparative politics and foreign relations of Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean. The candidate should be interested in coming to India for this exciting new school.

Approximately 8,000 Somalis, who fled across the Kenyan border from the Somali town of Belet Hawo following intense fighting there, were ordered to return to Somalia by the Kenyan authorities between 1 and 2 November. On 4 November about 3,000 were forced further into Somalia by Kenya's administrative police, where they are at risk of serious human rights abuses. Amnesty International is urging those concerned by the development to write to the Kenyan authorities.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the independence of most of the French-speaking African states and has been so celebrated in France and in the former French Sub-Saharan African states. The independence of North Africa followed a different course, but the 1954-1962 Algerian War heavily influenced French policy in Sub-Saharan Africa - usually referred to as Afrique Noire (Black Africa). Less celebrated are the political assassinations which were carried out in the lead up to the 1960 independences. Thus the November 3, 1960 death of Felix Moumie, the Cameroun independence leader, by poison in Geneva, merits attention to remind us that State-sponsored murders have terrorism of population as an aim.

Thousands of public servants in Swaziland are due to lose their jobs in cutbacks as part of a government bid to gain approval from the International Monetary Fund for a loan. But some Swazis would rather see the budget slashed for the country’s autocratic royals. The civil service of the tiny Southern African monarchy comes with a high wage bill, as 50 per cent of national spending going towards 35,000 state posts.

Radio Horseed Media FM director Abdifatah Jama Mire has been released after 86 days of detention in Bosaso, in the semi-autonomous northeastern region of Puntland. Sentenced to six years in prison for broadcasting an interview with the head of a rebel group linked to Al-Qaeda, he was pardoned by Puntland President Abdirahman Mohamed Farole.

Fighting between two sub-clans over grazing pasture and water has left 20 dead and thousands of families displaced from several villages in central Somalia, say locals. 'In my own town of Galinsor, about 1,300 families [7,800 people] have been displaced, out of a total population of 5,500 families,' Osman Abdi, an elder, told IRIN on 9 November. 'Many of the families have fled to surrounding villages and are living in the open or sheltering under trees.'

The European Action Day is an initiative of the European Coalition for Corporate Justice (ECCJ – a European network bringing together over 250 civil society organisations present in 15 European countries to take measures that will stop corporate abuses and provide access to justice for victims of these abuses. 'From mercury poisoning in South Africa to child labour in India, companies, including European ones, continue to get away with breaches of environmental and human rights standards,' states Ruth Casals, ECCJ’s coordinator.

The visible aftermath of violence is easy to see at the tent camp of Gdaim Izik and the Western Sahara city of Laâyoune, still reeling from two days of deadly clashes with Moroccan troops, less clear is a death toll or the actual circumstances surrounding the military action. The crisis began early Monday (November 8th), when Moroccan forces intervened to disperse a tent camp near Laâyoune set up three weeks ago to protest against Morocco's social policy in Western Sahara.

Internationally acclaimed Kenyan poet, playwright and activist Shailja Patel has launched 'Migritude' in the US. 'Part memoir, part political history, part performance tour-de-force', the project 'weaves together family history, reportage, and monologues of violence, colonisation, and love, to create an achingly beautiful portrait of lives and migrant journeys undertaken in the boot print of Empire.’

Google has launched Google Voice Search in South Africa to enable internet users to use their natural voice to speak into their cell phones for Google searches. Google senior staff engineer Johan Schalkwyk has said 'you speak into your phone and it sends your voice over the network where it's analyzed and you get your search results.'

A text message from a clinic each week resulted in better adherence and a higher level of viral load suppression among people with HIV after starting antiretroviral treatment in Kenya, a randomised controlled trial has shown. The results were published in the Online First section of The Lancet this week. The trial was sponsored by the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).