Shingai Nyoka
BBC News, Harare

A Zimbabwe high court has ordered the release of the estranged wife of the country’s vice-president and former military chief.

The decision overturns an order by a lower court to jail Marry Mubaiwa pending an assessment on her mental fitness to stand trial for fraud.

Ms Mubaiwa accuses her husband, Constatino Chiwenga, who was a key figure in the overthrow of former president Robert Mugabe, of trying to intimidate her in an ongoing divorce and custody battle.

The high court judge described the decision to detain Ms Mubaiwa for 10 days pending a mental assessment as "capricious and arbitrary".

The former beauty queen is accused of fraudulently obtaining a marriage certificate without her then husband’s knowledge.

She is facing a slew of other charges including attempting to kill her husband and money laundering. She denies all the charges.

Ms Mubaiwa, who has been wheeled into court on a stretcher bed and displayed large gaping wounds on her body, says she is suffering from anxiety and requires medical treatment abroad.

Previously doctors have given conflicting reports about her fitness to stand trial.

Roma boss Jose Mourinho buys Felix Afena-Gyan a new pair of shoes after the teenager scored his first Serie A goals.

BBC World Service

A raid by militiamen on a camp for displaced people in the Democratic Republic of Congo has left at least 12 people dead.

Some civil society groups put the number of casualties many times higher.

A monitoring group said the attack in the north-eastern province of Ituri province had been carried out by militias claiming to defend the Lendu community.

Most of the people at the camp were members of the rival Hema community.

The armed group, the Cooperative for the Development of Congo (Codeco) - whose members are mostly Lendu - has been blamed for killing hundreds of civilians in Ituri in the last two years.

Chris Ewokor
BBC News, Abuja

Image source, Kaduna State Government

Police in Nigeria's north-west state of Kaduna say an unknown number of people have been kidnapped and one person shot dead by suspected armed gangs along a highway linking the state to the capital Abuja.

The Sunday afternoon incident has triggered tension in the country’s capital and neighbouring states.

Videos emerged on social media showing several empty vehicles stranded on the highway - it is feared their occupants were kidnapped.

Kaduna state police spokesman Mohammed Jalige told the BBC that security forces have been deployed to the location after a team of government officials visited the scene of the attack on Monday.

The police declined to give the figure of those kidnapped.

But eyewitnesses said at least 40 people were kidnapped, and five others killed near Katari village.

A relative of one of the victims said that his brother’s car and those of several other travellers ran into an ambush set up by the armed men along the highway.

The attackers shot sporadically into the vehicles forcing them to stop.

The occupants of the vehicles were abducted and taken into the nearby forests while some who were hit by bullets died or were left lying in their pool of blood, witnesses say.

Katari is said to be one of the most notorious havens of kidnappers along the Abuja-Kaduna highway.

Although the Nigerian government says its crackdowns on kidnappers, referred locally as bandits, have led to the successful rescue of hundreds of abducted victims and the arrest of some of the kidnappers, this latest incident appears to indicate that citizens continue to live in danger and road travellers remain at the mercy of the attackers.

Read more: 'I was kidnapped on the Kaduna road and now only travel by train'

First transmitted in 1968, Black, Coloured and Asian South Africans are interviewed in this eye-opening documentary about their views on apartheid. Included with the many dissenting views on apartheid are opinions on why different racial groups should live separately. Film footage that often shows the shocking racial exploitation allowed by apartheid accompanies the interviews. This documentary shows a protest by Church leaders against the Group Areas Act and features an interview with Desmond Tutu.

Ameyu Etana
BBC Afaan Oromo

More than 20 civilians are known to have been killed in what appears to be an ethnic attack west of Ethiopia’s capital over the weekend.

The killing happened in Nonno district, 300km (185 miles) from the capital Addis Ababa.

"More than 20 people have been killed, four injured," local official Werkina Furgasa told the BBC.

He and local residents blamed the rebel Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) for the attack.

Ethnic Amharas are said to have then retaliated against Oromos living in the area, causing further deaths, destruction of property and displacement.

Police said federal and regional forces have been deployed to contain the situation.

In another incident, three local officials were killed in the same area over the weekend, which the ruling Prosperity Party blamed on the rebel group.

The OLA, which has made an alliance with the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), denies involvement in both attacks, saying: "We condemn any attack targeting civilians."

The TPLF has been fighting government forces in the northern Tigray region since last year. The war has expanded to other regions risking a full-blown civil war in Ethiopia.

Find out more about the OLA in this video:

Sudan's ousted prime minister, Abdalla Hamdok, has been reinstated following last month's coup when he was put under house arrest. He has appeared on TV to sign a new power-sharing agreement with coup leader Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan amid continuing protests.

Under the deal Mr.Hamdok is reinstated as prime minister at the head of an independent cabinet of technocrats. Both men insist that the power sharing transition to civilian rule agreed in 2019 is back on course, but the civilian coalition that nominated Mr Hamdok as PM two years ago refused to acknowledge any new deal.

A pro-democracy activist Shaheen Al Shareef who has been at the protests in Khartoum says that they will not accept the deal as they fear that it has only consolidated the influence of the military, and that they want the military totally removed from government.

Photo: Prime Minister Hamadok and Sudan's top military lieutenant General Burhan sign a political agreement, 21 November 2021 Credit: EPA

The winners of a UN-backed poetry competition in Somalia have been announced.

More than 200 entries competed in three categories: Poet of the Year, Woman Poet of the Year and Youth Poet of the Year, which was won by Mubarik Yusuf Dheeg for a poem about humility, kindness and respect.

The Somali Poetry Awards were launched this year by the Home of Somali Poetry initiative , externalwith support from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

“It is an honour for me to win the top prize," said Mursal Dahir Caynte, who won the overall award.

Raxma Xuseen Huriye, whose poem appealed for unity and warned of the dangers that come when a society loses its culture and values, said she "was extremely happy" to be named female poet of the year.

The awards aim to promote Somali poetry, women’s rights and peace-building.

South African researchers have developed a new monitoring app to protect the most endangered ecosystem there. And no, it's not the forests, it's called the Renosterveld - an area of open grassland with a rich biodiversity but where only 5% remains after encroachment by farming.

Over the past two year the researchers have been examining thousands of high resolution satellite images to create a data-set which allows artificial intelligence to see week by week if new land has been ploughed up. And it's a system that could be used in other neglected ecosystems in different countries, according to Glenn Moncrieff from the South African Environmental Observation Network. "We combed through a bunch of images to identify what the signal is in satellite imagery of these events in which Renosterveld is removed and converted to farmland. We were able to identify the fingerprint of what this looks like. This enables us to make predictions."

"In order to find what an unnatural change looks like you have to really get a lot of and try to find that signal (because) the conversion of this natural vegetation to bare soil has a somewhat different signal (compared) to the conversion to burnt vegetation or the seasonal variation (caused by Summer droughts). We hope to show how this can be done to allow others to apply the same techniques across the world."

(Pic: Renosterveld landscape, South Africa; Credit: Getty images)

BBC World Service

Image source, Getty Images

Sudan's ruling generals have released several civilian politicians detained after last month's coup.

The head of Sudan's Congress Party, Omar al-Degeir, told the French News Agency he'd been released on Sunday night from solitary confinement, where he'd been cut off from the outside world.

Other politicians, including from Sudan's biggest, the Umma party, were also released.

Members of the deposed transitional government have strongly criticised Sunday's deal reinstating Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok calling it a betrayal.

Critics doubt the military will allow him and his cabinet of technocrats to hold genuine power.

Although less than 10% of Kenyans are vaccinated, the government wants to avoid a surge over Christmas.

Kate Mitchell, a British national who worked for BBC Media Action, is found dead in the capital Nairobi.

Football fans in South Africa have proposed Pitso Mosimane - one of the country's top coaches - to take up the role at English club Manchester United.

After a string of poor performances, the Premier League club sacked Ole Gunnar Solskjaer over the weekend and launched a search for a high-profile manager to turn things around.

Several top coaches have been linked to the vacancy but according to South African tweeters there's only one man for the job.

A photoshopped picture of Mosimane wearing a Manchester United-branded jacket has been shared by several tweeters.

One of them went a step further to match-make - tagging the coach's and the club's accounts.

Mosimane currently manages top Egyptian side Al Ahly.

Last year, he led the side to win a second African Champions League and the team later impressed in the Fifa Club World Cup, reaching the semi-finals.

The 57-year-old previously had great success in the South African league with Mamelodi Sundowns, guiding them to a maiden Champions League win in 2016 as well as five league titles.

It does make you wonder what Manchester United are waiting for...

Ahmed Rouaba
BBC News

Image source, AFP

Sixty-one presidential candidates have submitted their paperwork in the race to lead Libya ahead of Monday's deadline, according the electoral commission.

Prime Minister Abdelhamid Dabeiba was the latest to declare his candidacy.

Fathi Bashagha, a former minister in the national unity government who enjoys strong support in the west of the country, is another high-profile contender.

The current speaker of parliament Aguila Salah is also among favourites.

Gen Khalifa Haftar, who led a rebel group opposed to the UN-recognised government before agreeing to a peace deal last year, and Seif el Islam Gaddafi, son of the former Libyan leader Muammar Ghaddafi, are also seen as prominent candidates.

The military prosecutors in Libya have urged the electoral commission to halt processing Gen Haftar and Mr Gaddafi's applications until they are questioned in criminal cases brought against them.

Gen Haftar is facing legal claims in the US for alleged war crimes and Mr Gaddafi is still wanted by the International Criminal Court since 2011 for alleged crimes against humanity and murder.

The presidential elections - which many hope will restore order and peace in the country since the fall of the Gaddafi regime 10 year ago - will be held on 24 December.

Nichola Mandil
Juba

At least nine people are known to have died in inter-ethnic revenge attacks in Jonglei state in eastern South Sudan.

Governor Denya Jock Chagor told local reporters in the state capital, Bor, that they had been killed in two separate incidents over the weekend.

He said the killings were sparked by an ambush of two young men by attackers allegedly from the neighbouring Greater Pibor administrative area.

The incident was reported to have angered youth from the Dinka community, who retaliated by attacking people from Pibor residing in Bor town – killing at least seven of them.

US-funded Eye Radio reported that amongst the dead were ethnic Murle businessmen.

The authorities have begun investigations into the incident, the governor said, but it is not clear whether suspects have been apprehended.

There have been waves of inter-communal violence between the three neighbouring communities of Dinka Bor, Lou Nuer and Murle in the past, which had reduced since May because of flooding in the state.

But there are fears that the violence might resume as the dry season approaches and flooding subsides.

Uganda's Jacob Kiplimo sets a new world record for the half marathon, shaving one second off the previous best time.

Grace Kuria
BBC News

Image source, Getty Images

President Cyril Ramaphosa has asked South African men to play a greater role in preventing gender-based violence (GBV) in the country.

“If each man gathers two men and the three pledge to never rape a woman, never lay a hand on a woman and hold each other accountable to this pledge, we can start to seriously tackle gender-based violence in our country," Mr Ramaphosa wrote on his letter to South Africans. , external

He further said that GBV was a pandemic and men were mostly to blame.

“It is predominantly men who are rapists. It is mainly men who are perpetrators of domestic violence."

Mr Ramaphosa's comments follow the release of the latest crime statistics by the police, which indicate an increase in rape cases, domestic violence, and child murders.

Between July and September this year, 9,556 people, mostly women, were raped. This is a 7% increase from the previous reporting period.

The president urged South Africans to work together to ensure that this year's 16 days of activism against GBV, which kick off on Thursday, "is meaningful" and "moves beyond mere words".

BBC Monitoring
The world through its media

Image source, .

A team investigating the disappearance and subsequent death of a female Somali spy agent, Ikran Tahlil, has “found no evidence” that senior officials in the National Intelligence and Security Agency (Nisa) were culpable.

Tahlil, who worked in the cyber-security department of the Nisa, went missing in June.

Senior officials at the intelligence agency had been accused of having a hand in her disappearance and alleged death.

According to the state-owned Somali National TV, external Gen Abdullahi Bulle Kamey, who was leading the investigation, said the former Nisa chief Fahad Yasin and other officials had been interrogated and the team found no evidence that they were culpable.

Mr Kamey also said Nisa provided documents containing evidence that al-Shabab kidnapped Tahlil and killed her.

On 2 September, the spy agency reportedly said Tahlil was killed by al-Shabab after being abducted in Mogadishu. However, al-Shabab denied involvement in her disappearance and supposed death.

The handling of her case created a political rift between Prime Minister Mohamed Hussein Roble and President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo.

Nigerian artist Wizkid carried the day in Africa music awards on Sunday night.

He bagged the African artist of the year, song of the year and best African collaboration awards.

Nigeria's Fireboy DML got the African fans award while Kenya's Nikita Kering emerged top in the RnB category.

Kering tweeted, "we did it":

Mali's Iba One won the album of the year award.

The awards gala was held in Lagos, Nigeria.

Nimco Happy, the Somali singer of the viral TikTok hit Isii Nafta (I love you more than my life), reacts to her new-found fame.