In a dusty house in Ogoniland, a picture of executed activist Ken Saro-Wiwa hangs on the wall. Nearly a decade after his controversial death, the Ogoni people are embroiled in a new struggle. Local people accuse Casella, a company contracted by oil giant Shell to clean up a spill, of giving funds to Chief Fabian Gberesan of the Ogoni town of KDere, who pays gangs to attack his opponents.

South Africa’s world number two Ernie Els said on Friday he will be defending his Heineken Classic golf title in Australia next February despite his conflict with the United States PGA Tour. ”You cannot believe the tone of the latest letter they sent me,” Els said. ”The US Tour needs to understand the golfing world has changed through the years.”

Hundreds of families evicted last month from a farm outside the Zimbabwean capital, Harare, have been granted a reprieve. High court Judge Rita Makarau ruled in favour of Percy Masendu and 429 other settlers who had filed an urgent court application to have their eviction nullified. The settlers occupied the land under the reform programme in 2000.

It will be at least three months before it is safe for Somalia’s new President, Abdullahi Yusuf, who was sworn in on Thursday, to go home. Even then he might opt to run his new government from somewhere apart from the country’s capital, Mogadishu. Exhausted negotiators are hailing his election last weekend as a breakthrough for a country that has been tearing itself apart for the past 13 years.