Image source, Martin Plaut

The rugged volcanic islands of Cape Verde, off the West African coast, are much more than the glorious beaches enjoyed by tourists. Each island has its own unique character, as Martin Plaut recently discovered.

See more of his pictures here

Image source, Getty

Gunmen from South Sudan have killed 28 people and kidnapped 43 others in neighbouring Ethiopia, an Ethiopian government official has said. 

More than 1,000 from the Murle community carried out the attack on Sunday and Monday, in the Gog and Jor areas in the Gambella region, near the border with South Sudan.

Ethiopian troops were pursuing the attackers, Gambella region spokesman Chol Chany, said on Wednesday.

A similar incident in April 2016 saw 208 people killed and 125 children kidnapped.

Over the years Ethiopian and South Sudanese tribes have raided each other's land, often to steal cattle and abduct children to be used as herders. 

Gambella is currently hosting close to 300,000 refugees from South Sudan's civil war. 

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson is in the Somali capital Mogadishu for talks with new President Farmajo.

They are discussing issues including the drought affecting the region.

The Somali government has been tweeting some pictures of Mr Johnson with President Farmajo and says they had a "fruitful" meeting.

Read more:   Somalia's 'Mr Cheese' president has a lot on his plate

Scrap dealers show Newsday's Julian Keane around one of Ghana's biggest dumping grounds for electronic and electrical rubbish. 

But where there's rubbish there's opportunity.  

The UN has declared a famine in parts of South Sudan, the first to be announced anywhere in the world in six years. So why has famine returned?

Catherine Byaruhanga
BBC Africa, Kampala

Image source, Reuters

Human Rights Watch is calling for an independent investigation into a government raid on a traditional king’s palace in Uganda last November. 

According to the organisation at least 155 people were killed in the operation, including children. 

Human Rights Watch says it has spoken to families who are trying to find children and other relatives last seen in the palace before the raid. 

Medical personnel also told the organisation evidence was hidden about the actual number of fatalities.

Image source, AP

The police maintain that the death toll is lower and that they only killed fighters from the Rwenzururu palace, which they say was trying to stage a rebellion. 

The traditional King Charles Mumbere and more than 180 people are accused of launching a secessionist movement to create a new state, to be called Yiira.

They have been charged with treason and murder amongst other crimes. 

Image source, Getty Images

Read more: Uganda cracks down on 'dissenting' Rwenzururu kingdom

A third of Ghanaians are connected to the web but that masks a digital divide which is compounded for women by a gender gap. 

Many men - even boys - feel threatened by the independence offered to women by the internet. 

Soronko Solutions is trying to change things and is using the internet to empower girls and young women, as Julian Keane found out.  

A Ugandan MP has been killed when his taxi crashed, the Ugandan government says.

Cyrus Amodoi, an MP for the Toroma region, was among 10 people killed in the crash on the Kampala-Jinja highway, reports say.

The incident happened on Tuesday evening.  

Kennedy Gondwe
BBC World Service, Lusaka

Image source, AFP/Getty

Zambia's President Edgar Lungu says his country will bid to host the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations.

The announcement comes after Zambia successfully staged the Under-20 Nations Cup  which they also won on Sunday.

President Lungu met with Confederation of African Football (Caf) president Issa Hayatou on Monday and made the declaration that Zambia would bid for the Africa Cup of Nations in eight years time.

"I don't know the bidding process, but as a politician, I am bidding right now. I am bidding on behalf of all Zambians," President Lungu said.

"We can improve on the hotels, roads, and transport."

Zambia,  the 2012 African champions,  have never hosted the tournament before.

Read the full story here

Image source, Getty Images

UK athlete Sir Mo Farah - who was born in Somalia - says it "breaks his heart" to hear how families are facing starvation in East Africa as he backed a UK charity fundraising appeal.

UK aid agencies have launched a fundraising appeal to help millions of people facing hunger in East Africa.

Sir Mo spent his early childhood in some of the worst affected areas in Somalia.

He said:

Read the full story here

Image source, Trendsmap

The hashtag #Stateofthelies has been trending on Twitter ahead of President Uhuru Kenyatta's last state of the nation address, due to be delivered shortly. 

This year’s event comes just a few months before Kenya holds its general election, expected to take place in August.

The speech is being made against a backdrop of heightened political activity as rivals gear up for the campaign.

But many supporters of the government has also been posting under the hashtag #SOTN2017, expressing what they feel should be the president's priorities. 

Milton Nkosi
BBC Africa, Johannesburg

South Africa's Constitutional Court is hearing a case on whether to extend a contract to the controversial company distributing social security grants to 17m beneficiaries.

The court had found two years ago that the process through which Cash Paymaster Service (CPS) acquired its contract - worth billions of dollars - with the department of Social Development was “unlawful.”

A decision by the court must be made by Thursday to ensure welfare grants are paid on time in April.

Lawyers for civil society groups are arguing that the minister in charge, Bathabile Dlamini, must take full responsibility for failing to find a replacement for CPS since the ruling the was made in 2014.

Image source, AFP

CPS has itself said that if there is no new contract by tomorrow's deadline, it will not be in a position to meet the deadline of paying pensioners, child support households, the disabled, veterans and all those who are eligible to receive monthly payments for their survival.

Civil rights group Black Sash is asking the Constitutional Court to oversee the new contract.

The whole country is waiting with bated breath to see how this fiasco is going to be resolved and whether the minister and her team would be sanctioned by the highest court in the land for their role.

Read more:    Where will the money come from?

Image source, AP

UK aid agencies have launched a fundraising appeal to help millions of people facing hunger in East Africa.

The Disasters Emergency Committee says, external  at least 16m people in Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia and South Sudan need food, water and medical treatment.

Drought and conflict are to blame for the crisis, says the DEC, which will broadcast an emergency appeal on the major television networks on Wednesday.

The government said it will match the first £5m donated by the public.

Last month, a famine was declared in parts of South Sudan, the first to be announced in any part of the world in six years.

The government and the United Nations reported that some 100,000 people are facing starvation, with a million more on the brink of famine.

A combination of civil war and an economic collapse have been blamed.

In Kenya, the country's president Uhuru Kenyatta declared its drought a national disaster and Kenya's Red Cross says 2.7 million people face starvation.

There is also a severe drought in Somalia and Ethiopia.

Read the full story here

Image source, AFP/Getty

Four female suicide bombers have blown themselves up in the northeast Nigerian city of Maiduguri. 

The national emergency agency said all four bombers died instantly, along with two civilians, during the attack in the early hours of the morning. Sixteen others were wounded. 

The agency said the girls knocked on the door of a house in a residential area and then detonated their devices. 

Suicide bombings by teenage girls trained by Boko Haram insurgents have become a strategy of the extremist group in the past couple of years. 

Targeting individual homes is said to be a new tactic.  

Milton Nkosi
BBC Africa, Johannesburg

Image source, South African Police Service

The mother of the one-month-old baby at the centre of a “staged” kidnapping has been granted bail by the Durban magistrate’s court.

Sibongile Mbambo, who had told police that her daughter Siwaphiwe was in the back seat of her car when it was hijacked by two gunmen, has been charged with “defeating the ends of justice” for staging a hijack last week.

She was asked to pay R100,000 ($76/£63) bail.

The mother is also accused of wasting police resources, and along with her co-accused Phumlani Mbokazi, will face fraud charges.

No kidnapping charges were added. 

Image source, EFCC

An investigation is underway to find the owner of sacks of cash containing more than 49m naira ($155,000; £125,00) that was discovered at Nigeria's Kaduna Airport on Tuesday.

Five large sacks containing the money were intercepted by officials during a routine baggage screening.

Image source, EFCC

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) said the money was made up of new naira N200 and N50 notes, bundled into packs with seals purportedly coming from the Nigeria Security and Minting Plc (NSPM).

Ibrahim Bappah with the anti-graft commission's local office said the "crispy naira notes" were discovered when a distinctive aroma was detected during routine screening. 

The bags were left unattended and without tags. 

The EFCC is investigating whether it was an illegal attempt to move money.

Sammy Awami
BBC Africa, Dar es Salaam

Image source, Fox-channel

Tanzanian public broadcaster TBC has suspended nine staff after the broadcaster aired a hoax story that US President Donald Trump has praised President Magufuli's performance.

The story, which was aired last week, said Trump has called on other African leaders to follow Magufuli's example on good governance and crackdown on corruption in particular

In an apology notice, TBC Director General Ayub Chacha said:

The fake article appears to have been published on a website called "Fox Channel", which copies and pastes stories from other sources.

The hoax story says Mr Trump called Mr Magafuli an "African hero" while "signing a law banning Africans from countries where presidents are doing nothing and those have declined to leave power".

Tanzanians would not be restricted in entering the US, the hoax added.

Image source, Fox-channel

Image source, Fox-channel

BBC Monitoring
News from around the globe

Image source, Google

Two people have been kidnapped and a school torched in an attack in northern Burkina Faso, where jihadists recently threatened learning institutions. 

The Baraboule School near Djibo in Soum province in the north of Burkina Faso was burned by unidentified people on Tuesday, Burkina24 website reported. 

The private media outlet quoted a local official confirming the abduction and the attack on the school. 

Jihadists, thought to belong to the nascent Ansar-al-Islam group, killed three people in an attack in Kourfayel, in the same region, on 3 March. 

A headmaster was among the victims. Teachers subsequently protested the attack and urged improved security in the area. 

Islamist militants have reportedly ordered schools in the area to teach in Arabic instead of French, which is the official language. 

Image source, Google

At least nine people have been killed in a banditry attack in Kenya’s Rift Valley region despite an ongoing high profile security operation to disarm armed civilians. 

Local leaders have told the BBC that the heavily armed attackers raided several villages in Baringo county, torched houses and indiscriminately shot the victims. 

Hundreds of residents are fleeing the area, but many are missing and are feared dead. 

On Monday, two women were shot dead in the same area. 

Earlier this month, Deputy President William Ruto rolled out an ambitious major security crackdown to mob up illegally-owned guns in the area. 

He also issued shoot-to-kill orders against bandits.

Image source, Mohamed deeq

Pirates off the coast of Somalia who hijacked an oil tanker with eight Sri Lankan crew on board are demanding a ransom for the release of the vessel, the EU anti-piracy Naval Force has said. 

The EU force said it had made contact by phone with the ship's master, who said his vessel and crew were being held captive in an anchorage off the north coast in the semi-autonomous region of Puntland.

But the statement gave no details on the size of the ransom.

The ARIS-13 was en route from Djibouti to the Somali capital, Mogadishu, when it sent a distress signal, saying it was being approached by high-speed boats. 

EU Navfor said as soon as it received an alert on the ship's seizure, it sent a patrol aircraft from its Djibouti base to try to make radio contact. 

Its headquarters in London managed to contact the vessel's master by phone late on Tuesday. A statement said:

The armed men on board had earlier told a local official that they were fishermen whose equipment had been destroyed by illegal fishing vessels.