BBC World Service

Two Kenyan teachers have been kidnapped from the Dadaab refugee camp, near the Somali border. 

They were reportedly abducted by unidentified gunmen overnight and driven towards the border. 

Last month, the High Court in Nairobi blocked an attempt by the Kenyan government to close down Dadaab.

The court said the move was unconstitutional. 

The government has described the camp, which is the largest in the world, as a breeding ground for terrorists. 

It says attacks on its soil by the Somalia-based al-Shabab Islamist group have been planned in Dadaab.

Shingai Nyoka
BBC Africa, Harare

Image source, AFP

The way Zimbabwean parents and teachers discipline their children could be set to change forever.

 A high court has outlawed corporal punishment both at school and in the home. 

The ruling follows an incident in which a teacher beat a first grade pupil for not having her homework signed. 

The girl's mother had sought a court ruling after saying she had discovered deep bruises on her daughter's body, following a beating. 

She said corporal punishment was both violent and inhumane. 

A high court judge agreed. 

Some parents are criticising the ruling while rights groups says it is long overdue.

The constitutional court will have to confirm the judgement. 

Image source, AFP

Eritrea has rejected reports that it was behind a foiled plot to attack Ethiopia's Grand Renaissance Dam project (see earlier post ), Bloomberg news reports, external . 

The Ethiopian government has said it killed 13 members of a rebel group sponsored by Eritrea who were planning to attack the vast infrastructure project.

"This whole accusation is preposterous and peddled for some sinister reason," Eritrean Information Minister Yemane Gebremeskel said in a message sent via Twitter, Bloomberg reports.

The minister added that he had never heard of the rebel group accused of planning the attack.

The site of the multi-billion dollar dam is located in the Benishangul region, a vast, arid land on the border with Sudan, some 900km north-west of the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa,  

Eritrea gained independence from Ethiopia 25 years ago, and the two countries fought a border war between 1998-2000, in which about 80,000 people are believed to have died.

Image source, AFP

Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe has travelled to Singapore for medical checks, days after celebrating his 93rd birthday.   

The president has become increasingly frail, and now struggles to walk during public appearances. His spokesman said the check-up was routine and Mr Mugabe was expected to be back in Harare "early next week".

It comes a day after state-employed nurses in Zimbabwe began an indefinite strike over wages.

Their main demand is that the government pay out 2016 bonuses.

Last week, army doctors were brought in to manage a potential health crisis as a result of an ongoing doctors’ strike.

Zimbabwe’s medical professionals are some of the worst paid in the region and their salaries are often paid late.

See Wednesday's story on the strike here .

Image source, AFP

Ethiopia says it has thwarted a planned attack by an Eritrean-backed group on its vast Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam project. 

Security forces killed 13 and captured seven of the alleged attackers, who were from an Eritrean rebel group, government-affiliated website Fana Broadcasting Corporation reports, external .

The rebel group, from the Benishangul Gumuz ethnic minority, operates close to the border with Sudan in the western Benishangul Gumuz Regional State, where the dam is under construction, Fana adds. 

The vast project is about 50% complete and has been a source of regional tension. 

Egypt has long suspected it will reduce its share of the Nile water.

Ethiopia and neighboring Eritrea have a long history of border disputes. 

Read more: Will Ethiopia's Grand Renaissance Dam dry the Nile in Egypt?

The South African army has been called in to help search for a five-year-old boy, Richard Thole, who fell into a disused mineshaft outside Johannesburg at the weekend. 

Sources say that low oxygen levels, acidic water and the depth of the shaft mean there is now thought to be little hope of bringing out the child alive. 

Illegal miners known as zama-zamas have also offered their help as they know the shafts in the area.

Residents staged protests on Monday and Tuesday, demanding to be relocated to safer areas. They say the ground is unstable and liable to subsidence because of previous mine working.  

Image source, Getty Images

Wild African elephants sleep for the shortest time of any mammal, according to a study.

Scientists tracked two elephants in Botswana to find out more about the animals' natural sleep patterns.

Elephants in zoos sleep for four to six hours a day, but in their natural surroundings the elephants rested for only two hours, mainly at night.

The elephants, both matriarchs of the herd, sometimes stayed awake for several days.

During this time, they travelled long distances, perhaps to escape lions or poachers.

They only went into rapid eye movement (REM, or dreaming sleep, as it is known in humans) every three or four days, when they slept lying down rather than on their feet.

Prof Paul Manger of the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, said this makes elephant sleep unique.

"Elephants are the shortest sleeping mammal - that seems to be related to their large body size," he told BBC News.

"It seems like elephants only dream every three to four days. Given the well-known memory of the elephant this calls into question theories associating REM sleep with memory consolidation."

Read the full story here.

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