The son of South Africa's former President Jacob Zuma has slammed the prosecutors and the judiciary for facilitating what he calls a "witch hunt" against his father, TimesLive reports.

Edward Zuma said the reinstatement of corruption charges last week against his father were part of a battle to tarnish his father's name.

The former president is facing 16 charges of corruption relating to a multibillion-dollar arms deal.

The case centres on a 30bn rand ($2.5bn; £1.7bn) deal to modernise the country's defence in the late 1990s.

The charges - which Mr Zuma denies - include counts of fraud, racketeering and money laundering.

His son said in a statement that the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) was being used to "clamp down on those who speak the truth to white monopoly capital”.

He said the courts were being used to malign his father and that the campaign "isn’t going to stop any time soon”.

Mr Zuma said that he will not stop defending his father.

New reporting by US news site Wall Street Journal (WSJ) suggests, external that a splinter group within the militant group Boko Haram was behind the kidnap of 110 schoolgirls in Dapchi town, in Nigeria's northeastern Yobe state, last month.

The WSJ bureau chief has been tweeting highlights of the report.

He reports that the leader of the IS-linked group, called Abu Musab al-Barnawi, is the son of the founder of Boko Haram founder - Muhammad Yusuf.

The WSJ says that Boko Haram's leader - Abubakar Shekau - has been shunned by IS's international leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and has come under pressure from the splinter group.

The report says that in August 2016 the two groups clashed leading to the death of 400 fighters.

The report also says that secret negotiations have begun to return the Dapchi girls.

President Muhammadu Buhari has said that he would negotiate with the kidnappers to secure the schoolgirls' return.

Image source, AFP

Two rival Somali clans have signed up to a groundbreaking peace deal which aims to end the cycle of revenge killings.

Following three weeks of mediation, the rival Sa'ad Yoonis and Ba'iido clans in the disputed Sanaag region reached an agreement on harsh new rules.

Now, anyone found guilty of carrying out a revenge killing or vendetta will face a death sentence.

The family of the perpetrator will also have to pay fine a $100,000 (£72,000).

There has long been tension between many Somali clans due to rivalry and competition over resources such as grazing land for livestock or access to water.

But vendettas going back generations have added to the violence and the cycle of revenge has been extremely hard to break.

Ahmed Bahir Mahmood, an MP, said they hoped the new strict measures would work.

"The punishments that have been agreed are more severe than before. Now we have decided the person must be killed - life for a life - and his family must hand him in," he told the BBC.

Read the full story on the BBC website.

Image source, AFP

Two companies in Uganda are being investigated over the supply of suspected fake Hepatitis B vaccines to private health facilities.

Uganda's health ministry is quoted by the state-owned New Vision newspaper as saying, external there is a chance that the vaccines are genuine, but have had their labels changed.

According to the National Drug Authority (NDA), which is investigating alongside the health ministry, the products were found in eight hospitals and clinics across the capital Kampala, and the towns of Mbale, Entebbe and Mbarara.

At least one of the clinics identified has denied using the "fake vaccines".

"Our services are to international standards... all medicines dispensed at our hospitals are rigorously pre-tested for authenticity and effectiveness," a spokesman for Kampala's Univic Medical Centre is quoted in the privately owned Daily Monitor as saying, external.

But the NDA says it saw the suspect vaccines when it visited that facility.

The Daily Monitor reports that the Anti-Counterfeit Network (ACN) Africa "has tasked government to explain the source of the fake Hepatitis B vaccines and how they were imported into the country".

Image source, AFP

Australia's former Prime Minister Tony Abbott has backed a proposal by the country's home affairs minster to look into fast-tracking visas for white South African farmers who he said are "persecuted".

Mr Abbott told Australia's 2GB Radio that the situation in South Africa was serious and that “something like 400 white farmers have been murdered – brutally murdered over the last 12 months".

The number has however been disputed by Gareth Newham at the Institute for Security Studies, one of South Africa’s leading authorities on crime statistics, the UK Guardian reports, external.

Mr Newham said that there was no evidence to support the claim.

He added that in fact "young black males living in poor urban areas... face a far greater risk of being murdered. The murder rate there is between 200 and 300 murders per 100,000 people.”

"Even the highest estimates, external of farm murders stand at 133 per 100,000 people, and that includes both black and white murder victims."

The issue of land ownership in South Africa has been an increasingly fraught topic. Almost 75% of its farmland is still in white hands more than two decades after the governing ANC first won power from the white minority government.

White South Africans make up less than 10% of the overall population.

The land expropriation without compensation motion, which was brought forward by the radical left Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party, seeks to change the constitution to allow it.

Government spokesman Ndivhuwo Mabaya told the BBC last week there was no reason for any country in the world to suspect a section of the South African population was in danger from its democratically elected leaders, adding:

"We remain a united nation here in South Africa - both black and white."

Image source, AFP

Nigeria has pulled out of signing a continental trade deal just days before it is due to be launched in the Rwandan capital, Kigali.

The African Continental Free Trade Area Treaty would remove trade barriers and eventually allow free movement, creating a common market across the continent - much like the European Union.

But Nigerian labour unions have complained that it was bad for the economy and would lead to job losses.

Nigeria, along with South Africa and Angola, has one of the continent's largest economies, the World Bank says, external. It also has the biggest population.

President Muhammadu Buhari's decision to pull out at the last minute is a setback for the pan-African trade treaty.

A statement said he had cancelled his trip to Rwanda to allow for consultations within Nigeria.

With elections less than a year away, our Africa Editor Will Ross says that the government will want to avoid a row with Nigeria's labour unions and some business leaders who say the African Continental Free Trade Area Treaty will lead to job losses.

The treaty will liberalise trade in goods and services and aims to end the reliance on the export of unrefined minerals.

Dr Nazifi Darma, an economic analyst from the University of Abuja, told BBC Newsday that "free trade is an idea that is long overdue" but he fears that global companies could take advantage of the treaty:

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