Victor Kenani
BBC Africa, Nairobi

A pregnant woman who was physically abused when she gave birth at a Kenyan hospital has been awarded $25,000 (£18,000).

Josephine Majani said she was slapped and verbally abused by nurses then left to deliver her baby on her own on the floor, in full view of other people.

Her ordeal with the public health workers was secretly captured on camera by an intern at the hospital.

Delivering his verdict, Bungoma high court judge Abida Aroni said Kenyan health authorities violated Ms Majani’s rights when she was neglected while giving birth at a government hospital in 2013.

Issues related to negligence and mistreatment of patients are common in government hospitals.

This is a rare judgement in a country struggling to improve its maternity healthcare, and the ruling is likely to influence and shape future similar cases.

Many public hospitals in Kenya are ill-equipped to provide women with adequate and dignified maternity services.

Andrew Harding
BBC News, Johannesburg

Image source, SABC

It sounds more like a fable than a news story...

An ambitious family arrived from a distant land, wormed its way into the heart of a young democracy, became unimaginably rich and influential, stood accused of trying to hijack the state itself, and then, overnight, vanished into thin air, leaving those who had fallen under the family's spell - and those who had warned against it from the start - to wonder how anyone could have got away with so much, for so long.

Today, South Africans - by turns stunned, humiliated, and vindicated - are still trying to digest the impact of the Guptas, and to assess what harm they have done to the country's institutions, politicians, and democracy.

"I think the damage can be reversed," said the political analyst Prince Mashele - but only if the authorities here move fast, and aggressively, against those who allegedly conspired with the Indian-born family.

"Society must see people going to jail. Once you do that, you're sending a message that if you do what… the Guptas did, there will be consequences."

• Read this feature in full on the BBC News site

Richard Appiah Akoto, from Kumasi, wowed people across the world with his dedication to his students, recreating Microsoft Word in chalk because his pupils had no computers.

The BBC has now been to visit him in the classroom, to hear all about what it's like to become an internet sensation.

Of course, we also made him recreate that now-legendary drawing.

Watch the whole video below:

Tamasin Ford
BBC Africa, Abidjan

Image source, AFP

The coffee crisis in Ivory Coast looks set to be resolved, two months after thousands of tonnes of coffee began blocking the country’s main port.

The head of the coffee producers’ union says the government has agreed to buy it all. However, authorities are yet to comment.

It’s still no clearer why nearly 500 trucks have been stranded at the port in the first place.

The government’s Coffee and Cocoa Council had said it was a problem of boats – that there aren’t enough.

But some say the problem lies further afield.

Ivory Coast is Africa’s third-biggest coffee producer - and Algeria is where most of it goes.

A recent change in customs policies in the Algerian capital Algiers is hitting Ivorian profits.

After 10 days of strikes from Ivorian coffee farmers who are waiting to be paid, the head of the producers union says they have finally reached an agreement with authorities.

He says the government has promised to buy all the coffee stranded at the port - and the coffee waiting to leave the farms - by the end of the month, as well as paying for transport costs.

The Coffee and Cocoa Council, however, have made no public announcement confirming this. Last year hundreds of cocoa trucks were left rotting outside the port – forcing producers to sell at a loss.

Ferdinand Omondi
BBC Africa, Nairobi

Image source, AFP

Another million people are at risk of starvation in South Sudan in the next three months, a refugee agency has warned - adding to the more than six million already starving in the world's youngest state.

The Norwegian Refugee Council says the worst affected areas are those which suffer most from armed conflict.

The group warns the food crisis has been greatly aggravated by the effects of the four-year civil war.

The government has been accused of preventing relief food from reaching some areas, while in others fearful farmers have stayed away from their fields, which has significantly decreased domestic food production.

The Norwegian Refugee Council says the current level of aid to South Sudan only reaches fewer than half of the people who need it.

Matthew Davies
Editor, BBC Africa Business Report

Image source, Reuters

Zambia's tax authority has now sent an $8bn (£5bn) tax bill to one of the country's largest copper miners.

It says Canada-based First Quantum Minerals has passed off its imports as mining machinery, which is tax exempt.

First Quantum Minerals is disputing the enormous claim, which the authorities say is for unpaid import duties, fines and interest payments connected with its Sentinel mine between 2012 and 2017.

Normally, mining equipment attracts different rates of import duties in Zambia.

In this case, the tax agency says a rate of 25% should have been applied, whereas First Quantum actually only paid 15%.

First Quantum Minerals, which is the country's largest taxpayer already, claims there are errors in the calculations.

The company has been the subject of such assessments in the past and, in the end, has settled for far less than the initial amount.

The move seems to be part of a growing trend in Africa's mining sector.

Another Canadian gold miner, Acacia, has had similar problems in Tanzania and new laws in the Democratic Republic of Congo seek to gain more tax revenues from mining companies operating there.

• Read: Zambia country profile

Image source, AFP

Zimbabwe has pardoned 3,000 prisoners in an attempt to clear its overcrowded jails - and ease the pressure on the public purse.

The pardon - signed by President Emmerson Mnangagwa - includes all women, apart from those with life sentences, the disabled and under-18s.

The terminally ill and over-60s are also included - if they have served a third of their sentence.

Those who have been on death row for more than a decade will have their sentences commuted to life.

However, according to eNCA.com, external, anyone who was convicted of murder, treason, rape or any sexual offence, carjacking and armed robbery are excluded from the pardon.

The Zimbabwe Prisons and Correctional Service, the decision will ease overcrowding in the country's jails, bringing the population down to about 17,000.

The decision comes as the country tries to rebuild following years of economic difficulty, which has seen it struggle to feed, clothe and provide healthcare for its prisoners.

The first black female ambassador to be appointed by the UK has called her promotion “an honour and a privilege”.

NneNne Iwuji-Eme has been appointed British High Commissioner to the Republic of Mozambique. She will take up her post in July.

Ms Iwuji-Eme, who has worked in the UK Foreign Office for 16 years, is quoted in the Guardian as saying , externalshe hoped her appointment would inspire others and strengthen UK-Mozambique ties:

Image source, AFP

Disappointing news for Nairobi road users who were hoping to avoid the traffic: the ride-hailing app Uber has denied reports it plans to test flying taxis in Kenya.

The US-based company - which has more than 360,000 regular users in Kenya at last count - was reported to be seeking a licence to test the four-seater drones by the Nairobi News, external.

The newspaper quotes Kenya Civil Aviation Authority head Gilbert Kibe as saying Uber bosses had "requested" permission to use the cars.

But Samantha Allenberg, spokeswoman for Uber Africa, dashed dreams of cars flying over the capital any time soon.

“We have no plans to introduce drones,” she told news outlet Bloomberg , externalover the phone.

Image source, AFP

A senior Australian politician has hit out at "crazy lefties" who criticise his plan to fast-track visas for white South African farmers, saying his critics "are dead to me".

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton, who is considering granting the farmers entry to Australia on humanitarian grounds, said recently they needed help "from a civilised country like ours".

The suggestion was made earlier this month amid calls to transfer land ownership from white to black farmers in South Africa, and fears over the number of farm killings.

However, the BBC found in November that it was difficult to prove with statistics that white farmers were more likely to be murdered than black farmers.

South Africa has dismissed allegations its white farmers are "persecuted" and called the proposal ridiculous.

Mr Dutton told 2GB Radio that Australia’s immigration policy was "solely based on our national interest" and said he was "completely blind to somebody’s skin colour - it makes no difference to me".

Image source, Reuters

Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy says allegations he received campaign funding from late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi are making his life "hell".

"I am accused without any physical evidence," Mr Sarkozy told magistrates as he was placed under investigation, Le Figaro newspaper reports.

"I've been living the hell of this slander since March 11, 2011," he added.

He is being investigated for illicit election campaign financing in 2007, misappropriation of Libyan public funds and passive corruption.

Mr Sarkozy, 63, has denied wrongdoing.

He says his Libyan accusers are seeking vengeance for his decision to deploy French warplanes during the uprising which overthrew Gaddafi in 2011.

• Read the full story on the BBC website here.

The father of one of the released Dapchi schoolgirls has described his pain after she was taken away to the capital to meet the president within hours of her return.

After his daughter her was freed from Boko Haram and reunited with her family, the unnamed father told BBC Newsday "the painful thing is you don't seem to have a right over your daughter".

The girls have been flown to the capital, Abuja, where they are due to meet President Muhammadu Buhari.

The father told the BBC:

Some parents have told the BBC they got just 20 minutes with their daughter before she was taken to hospital, and from there to the capital, Abuja.

Listen to the father's account in full below:

Nearly all of the 110 Nigerian schoolgirls kidnapped by militants in the town of Dapchi last month were returned yesterday, the government says.

Officials have said at least 101 girls were reunited with their families after being brought back to the town.

Reports suggest at least five girls died during their ordeal, and that a Christian girl remains captive.

• Read more: Kidnapped Dapchi schoolgirls freed in Nigeria

Our African proverb of the day:

Click here to send us your African proverbs.

Welcome back to BBC Africa Live where we will bring you the latest news from around the continent.

If you want to read about what was happening around the continent on Wednesday, keep scrolling down.

That's all from BBC Africa Live for today. Keep up-to-date with what's happening across the continent by listening to the Africa Today podcast or check the BBC News website.

A reminder of today's wise words:

Click here and scroll to the bottom to send us your African proverbs.

And we leave you with this photo from Instagram.

Mary Harper
Africa editor, BBC World Service

The Democratic Republic of Congo says it has signed a deal with a Dubai-based company to build and manage a new deepwater port on the Atlantic Coast.

The country's transport minister, Jose Makila, said DP World would hold a 70% stake in the port, while the government would control the rest.

The port will take about three years to build at a cost of more than a billion dollars.

For years DR Congo has wanted to develop a port along its less than 50km of coastline.

Larger vessels cannot reach its shallow ports on the Congo River.

Image source, Getty Images

Police in Tanzania say they have arrested two people for calling for protests against President John Magufuli.

Dodoma police chief Gilles Muroto presented the pair to the press saying, "these two people here were inciting others to protest on 26 April, saying on social media that there is no freedom [in Tanzania], that there is a dictatorship, which is totally false."

News agency AFP has described the arrested individuals as a farmer and a driver.

A call for a nationwide protest on 26 April was first launched by an opposition activist against what some see as creeping authoritarian by President Magufuli.

The police chief added that anyone daring to protest will end up with "a broken leg and go home as cripples".

The planned protests have also riled Mr Magufuli.

He said in a speech earlier this month, "some people have failed to engage in real politics and would like to see street protests every day... let them demonstrate and they will see who I am."

The 58-year-old leader, nicknamed "the bulldozer", took office in 2015 as a corruption-fighting "man of the people" but has earned criticism for his authoritarian leadership style.

Critics say he has clamped down on his opponents and on freedom of expression.

The leaders of 44 African countries have signed a deal to create one of the world's largest free trade blocs.

What will it mean for the people that live there?

The BBC's Nancy Kacungira explains:

Jose Tembe
BBC Africa, Maputo

Image source, Getty Images

Reports from central Mozambique say a goods train has run over a huge hippopotamus weighing almost two tonnes and believed to be between four and five years of age.

The incident occurred in Dondo district, in Sofala province, at around midnight on Tuesday as the train travelled to western Tete province.

At daybreak, local people, who carved the dead animal up for meat, said it had been destroying their crops.

Speaking to the BBC, Antonio Chisseve, a delegate of the Sofala National Institute of Business Activities, said: "The animal was devastating farms, according to the local communities. But it also posed a threat to human life."

"We reckon that one day, the hippo could accidentally come across someone, at night, and cause him or her some harm."

Mr Chisseve added that livestock technicians would examine the carcass to determine whether its meat could be eaten.

Image source, Getty Images

The United States has imposed sanctions on 15 South Sudanese oil companies it said were helping to fund the country's ongoing civil war.

In a statement, it said that it would release the names of the sanctioned companies on 22 March but that they "are a source of substantial revenue for the government of South Sudan."

"Unfortunately, the South Sudanese government, and corrupt official actors, use this revenue to purchase weapons and fund irregular militias that undermine the peace, security, and stability of South Sudan rather than support the welfare and current emergency food needs of the South Sudanese people," the statement added.

The US is the largest donor of aid to South Sudan.

Last month, Washington announced an arms embargo against it.