Floods in northern Nigeria’s Adamawa state have left over 2,000 people displaced, many of them with no access to clean drinking water, leaving officials worried about a potential cholera outbreak. Five districts – Fufore, Demsa, Yola North, Yola South and Numan – were flooded in August and early September, when the River Lagdo burst its banks, according to the Nigeria Emergency Management Agency (NEMA).

It was in many ways a shotgun marriage, except that both the parties in Zimbabwe's unity government were equally unwilling. On 15 September 2008 President Robert Mugabe, leader of ZANU-PF, and Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), and Arthur Mutambara, leader of a breakaway MDC faction, signed the Global Political Agreement (GPA), paving the way for the unity government to be established in February 2009.

Nine solders serving in the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) were killed Thursday after militant group, the Al Shabaab, hit the main headquarters of the mission, killing peacekeepers and wounding senior force commanders. The African Union (AU) immediately condemned the attacks and asked all the neighbouring countries to impose sanctions against the terrorist elements fighting efforts to restore stability in Somalia.

Niger's president Mamadou Tandja is ready to dialogue with the opposition following a crisis triggered by a controversial referendum which has approved an extra three years for him, the head of a delegation of the Pan African Parliament (PAP), Mr Alassane Sawadogo, has announced. "President Tandja presented himself to us as a man ready for dialogue, anxious for peace, stability and Niger's supreme interest," Mr Sawadogo, PAPMP for Burkina Faso, said at the end of an audience with the Niger president.

The International Criminal Court chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo has proposed a three-tier approach to deal with architects of the post-election violence. Mr Moreno-Ocampo, at a meeting with Lands minister James Orengo, proposed the creation of special courts in Kenya to try those who committed atrocities during the violence. The ICC will deal with those who bore the biggest responsibility for the chaos, he added.

The former head of Rwanda's tea industry has pleaded guilty to complicity in the 1994 genocide. Michel Bagaragaza admitted playing a role in the massacre at the international Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) which sits in Tanzania. He said he allowed a militia to use tea factory vehicles on their rampages.

How can the EU and other donors support increased women’s political participation in post-conflict situations? What can be done to ensure that this results in meaningful change for women in general? This paper from the Initiative for Peacebuilding recommends practical strategies for the EU and other donors to guide the consideration of gender issues into their post-conflict governance interventions.

The World Bank is spending billions of pounds subsidising new coal-fired power stations in developing countries despite claiming that burning fossil fuels exposes the poor to catastrophic climate change. The bank, which has a goal of reducing poverty and is funded by Britain and other developed countries, calls on all nations in a report today to “act differently on climate change”.

A United Nations-backed campaign to bring education to millions of children in Africa is expanding to reach millions more after exceeding its initial target by raising more than $50 million.The Schools for Africa partnership, set up in 2004 by the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the Nelson Mandela Foundation (NMF) and the Hamburg Society to raise money to help over 4 million children in Angola, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, South Africa and Zimbabwe, signed a memorandum of understanding on the expansion in New York recently.

A coalition of candidates who lost to Gabonese president-elect Ali Ben Bongo in last month's election lodged a complaint with the country's top court, the politicians said on Thursday. The group, which includes veteran opposition leader Pierre Mamboundou and former Interior Minister Andre Mba Obame, both of whom scored just over 25 percent, accuse Ben Bongo of rigging the poll to succeed his father as president.

In the Niassa province of northwest Mozambique, one doctor has been working with local communities to overcome the delays responsible for three-quarters of maternal deaths each year. Dr Peg Cumberland, a slim, energetic English woman, has worked in Mozambique for over 13 years. She came to the Niassa region in 2004 when she heard that the community was asking for assistance.

On the day of the sentencing of the seven of eight men who gang-raped Buyisiwe, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex (LGBTI) activists and members of the Joint Working Group (JWG), a network of LGBTI organisation South Africa came in numbers in support of the 1 in 9 Campaign. “Though the matter is not directly LGBTI - related, many members of the 070707 campaign have been very involved in the case as members of 1 in 9 Campaign”, said JWG co-ordinator Emily Craven.

In Tanzania albinos are still living in fear of being attacked or killed after nearly 50 were murdered in the past two years. It is thought that they are being killed because of the belief that certain body parts of albinistic people transmit magical powers. Witch doctors are willing to pay a lot of money for the body parts to create potions and tinctures for their clients. So far this year at least 12 albinos have been murdered in neighbouring Burundi. Al-Jazeera has reported that one of the murderers received $240 for the body, in a region where the annual wage can be as little as $10.

AIDS activists around the world have welcomed a new UN General Assembly resolution to create a single agency to promote the rights and wellbeing of women, which they say is good news for women, who are bearing the brunt of the global AIDS pandemic. "This is a historic opportunity to advance the rights of women and girls," said UNAIDS executive director Michel Sidibé in a statement.

Dozens of farmers in northern Ghana claim they have been forced off their land with no alternative source of income after a multinational firm bought their farms to cultivate jatropha, a non-food crop whose seeds contain oil used to produce biofuel. Biofuel Africa Ltd has acquired over 23,700 hectares of Ghanaian land forcing out the inhabitants of seven villages – all of them farming communities -- in Tamale district.

Kenya's civil society organisations have lauded Parliament's move to annul the unilateral re-appointment of Justice Aaron Ringera as Kenya's Anti-Corruption Commission (KACC) Director. Executive Director Harun Ndubi of HAKI Focus, a civil society organisation, said Thursday the move signified a new era in Kenyan politics where all leaders were held accountable for their actions.

The National Election Commission (NEC) of Cote d'Ivoire has postponed the publication of the temporary voters' list in the country, scheduled to take place on Tuesday. In a communique, made available to PANA here, NEC stated that the publication had been "moved forward a few days". It did not give further details but merely said that the display was postponed for reasons "beyond its control".

Zimbabwe's minerals sector could attract investments of up to $16 billion once a more conducive business environment is in place, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has said. That could help boost gross domestic product by $3 billion per year, Tsvangirai said.

Kenyan authorities have begun to move residents out of Africa's largest slum - the Kibera settlement in Nairobi. Officials expect to take from two to five years to clear the slum, which is home to about one million people. The first people to move are being rehoused nearby in 300 newly built apartments, each paying about $10 (£6) a month in rent. But some residents and landlords have gone to court in a bid to stop the moves as they claim they own the land.

The World Bank and major non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are calling on leaders who will gather for next week's Group of 20 (G20) Summit in Pittsburgh not to forget the needs of the world's poorest countries, which have been severely affected by the last year's financial crisis.In a report released on Wednesday, the Bank said the global recession, whose repercussions are still being felt around the world, will have resulted in an additional 89 million people living in absolute poverty, or on less than 1.25 dollars a day, by the end of next year.