Guy Bandolo
BBC News

Image source, Reuters

The Central African Republic has launched its government-backed cryptocurrency hub called Sango - named after one of the country's official languages.

President Faustin Archange Touadéra launched the hub on Sunday in a live announcement on social networks.

It follows the country's adoption of Bitcoin as legal tender in May, only the second country after El Salvador, to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender.

“Sango means the language of money and wealth. Cryptocurrency helps the poor gain control over their investment,” President Touadéra said.

He likened the project to "digital gold":

The specifics are not yet clear, but the project will help people invest in the country's significant mining resources among other things, according to Mining Minister Rufin Benam Beltoungou.

The project's website also says that an island dedicated to cryptocurrency will be created on the Oubangui River where investors can invest without paying taxes and have a digital residence.

Many concerns remain about the adoption of cryptocurrency in the country, especially after the collapse of Bitcoin by more than 20% last month.

About 90% of the Central African population does not have access to the internet, although the country has signed an agreement with neighbouring Cameroon to share its fibre optic network in 2023.

The government estimates Central Africa Republic's natural resources to be worth more than $3 trillion (£2.4 trillion).

But the country has been torn apart by a succession of civil wars for nearly a decade and is one of the poorest in the world.

Read more on this topic:

• Why the Central African Republic adopted Bitcoin
• Bitcoin: Why is the largest cryptocurrency crashing?

Image source, Getty Images

The man who oversaw the drawing up of Tunisia's proposed new constitution has damned the final document published by the president as dangerous.

Sadok Belaid, a former constitutional law professor, is quoted by local media as saying that some chapters could pave the way for a dictatorial regime.

He had been entrusted by President Kais Saied with reshaping Tunisia's constitution but said what is being put to a referendum in four weeks' time does not resemble the first draft proposed by his committee.

In a letter published by the majority state-owned Assabah newspaper, he said the published draft "involved risks of serious pitfalls, in particular the erasure and distortion of Tunisian identity".

He also criticised the president's restructuring of the judiciary, saying the new system, in which the president would appoint judges to a supreme judicial body, would reduce its independence.

The document has also been attacked by the powerful UGTT trade union as a potential threat to democracy.

The proposed constitution will be put to a referendum on 25 July.

Read more:

• Tunisia crisis: Democrats, despots and the fight for power

BBC World Service

Image source, Reuters

West African leaders have announced the lifting of sanctions against the military regime in Mali.

The heads of state of the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) meeting in the Ghanaian capital, Accra, accepted a proposal by the Malian military to hold elections and return to civilian rule by March 2024.

The bloc had imposed crippling economic sanctions after army officers staged two coups in less than a year in August 2020 and May 2021.

It also accepted a two-year timetable for the restoration of democracy in Burkina Faso, but told Guinea, a third country which has witnessed a military takeover, it would face economic sanctions unless it could speed up its proposed three-year transition back to democracy.

More on this topic:

• Coups in Africa: Why they don’t spell the end of democracy
• Are military takeovers on the rise in Africa?

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Pirates attacked Judith and her husband in a remote Kenyan resort in 2011. Judith was dragged from her bed and taken by boat to Somalia, where she was held for over six months. Despite everything she went through, Judith Tebbutt has spent the last ten years trying to get justice for a man she believes was wrongly convicted of the crime.

Due to breaking news we're bringing you this episode of Lives Less Ordinary earlier than scheduled.

Presenter: Emily Webb Producer: Rebecca Vincent

At the very end of east Africa's Great Rift Valley, there’s a 'land that time forgot' – the rolling grasslands of the Luangwa Valley. As we travel through the seasons, we find the secret to this Eden's great riches – the annual flood of the mighty Luangwa River.

Learn about the journey of a river, the River Nile, hydropower and dams.

Arguably the greatest marathon runner in history, Kenya's Eliud Kipchoge still has three races he wants to make his mark on.

Gunmen from the Somali Islamist group Al-Shabab attacked a shopping centre in Nairobi taking hundreds hostage. The group claimed it was in retaliation for Kenyan military action against them in southern Somalia. The siege lasted four days in September 2013 and more than 60 people were killed, but hundreds more were injured and traumatised. Daniel Ouma was a paramedic on duty at the scene and explains to Rebecca Kesby how his team tried to help people affected.

PHOTO: A police officer during a rescue operation at the site of the terrorist attack, Westgate Mall, on September 21, 2013 in Nairobi, Kenya. Gunmen from the extremist group Al-Shabab entered the mall and opened fire at random on shoppers; 68 deaths have been confirmed. (Photo by Jeff Angote/Nation Media/Gallo Images/Getty Images)

Muhammadu Buhari's military government launched an unusual campaign to clean up Nigeria in August 1984. Under the policy, Nigerians were forced to queue in an orderly manner, to be punctual and to obey traffic laws. The punishments for infractions could be brutal. Veteran Nigerian journalist Sola Odunfa spoke to Alex Last about the reaction in Lagos to the War Against Indiscipline.

This programme is a rebroadcast.

Photo: The Oshodi district of Lagos, 2008 (AFP/Getty Images)

When the south-east region of Nigeria declared itself to be the independent state of Biafra, civil war broke out. More than a million people died before the fighting stopped. We bring you one child’s story of getting caught up in the frontline. Paul Waters hears from Patricia Ngozi Ebigwe, now better known as TV and music star Patti Boulaye, who was 13 years old when she had to try to escape the conflict. ‘We were told: Careless talk kills‘ Patricia remembers. ‘When you walked past dead bodies in the street, I didn’t want to look at their faces, because maybe it was someone I knew.’ Photo: 13-year-old Patricia Ngozi Ebigwe (Courtesy of Patti Boulaye)

In the early 2000s, rebels in Sudan's Darfur region took up arms against the government. In response, the Khartoum regime launched a scorched earth campaign along ethnic lines. The Sudanese military allied to a local militia, the Janjaweed, laid waste to villages across the region, killing and raping as they went. Some 300,000 people are believed to have been killed in the conflict, more than 2 million displaced from their homes. We hear the story of Debay Manees, a young boy at the time, who's life was changed by the war.

Photo: A young Darfurian refugee walks past a Sudan Liberation Army Land Rover filled with teenage rebel fighters on October 14 2004 in the violent North Darfur region of Sudan. (Photo by Benjamin Lowy/Getty Images)

In 1941, Italian colonial rule in East Africa ended when Mussolini’s soldiers made a dramatic final stand in the northern Ethiopian town of Gondar. After a bloody battle, General Guglielmo Nasi surrendered to troops from the British empire and Ethiopian fighters loyal to Emperor Haile Selassie. Simon Watts listens to an account in the BBC archive from Rene Cutforth, who was then a British army officer and later became a distinguished BBC war correspondent.

PHOTO: Italian soldiers surrendering in the build-up to the Battle of Gondar (Getty Images)

It was one of the most reported UFO sightings in recent history. Local people in the quiet rural town of Ruwa in Zimbabwe reported a 'strange craft' and lights in the sky. Around 60 children said they'd seen a 'space ship' and 'aliens' in bush land near their school playground in September 1994. The children drew pictures of what they'd seen, and despite differences in quality, the details and proportions were very similar. A BBC TV crew were among the first on the scene. Rebecca Kesby looks back through the archive of 'the Ruwa School incident'.

(Photo: child's impression of Zimbabwe 1994 UFO)

Leila Latif explores how the Senegalese filmmaker Ousmane Sembène challenged the legacy of colonialism and pioneered a cinema by, for and about the people of Africa, celebrating the lives, languages and communities of the continent in films ranging from Mandabi to Moolaadé.

Abidjan in Côte d’Ivoire has a buzzing LGBT scene and the country is regarded as one of the more tolerant nations in West Africa. In this Witness History, Josephine Casserly speaks to Barbara, a trans, LGBT activist. In 1992, Barbara was among a group of protesters who stormed the office of a national newspaper, to protest against their depiction of LGBT people.

(Image: Barbara. Credit: From Barbara's personal collection)