Despite having the world's fastest-growing Catholic population, odds are against Africa producing the next pontiff.

A court argued Tidjane Thiam forfeited his Ivorian nationality when he became a French citizen in 1987.

An investigation has been launched into allegations against Gertrude Torkornoo, Ghana's third female chief justice.

A lack of cash has forced the UN to halt live-saving aid to 650,000 women and children from May.

A scheme is offering female prisoners in West Africa an opportunity to earn a football coaching badge which could help them get a job after their release.

The plotters, some ex-army officers, hatched the plan in Ivory Coast, the authorities say.

The Archbishop of Abuja in Nigeria speaks to the BBC about how the next pontiff could be selected.

Consumer goods as well as fuel and cocoa are all crossing Ghana’s northern border illegally, and in large volumes.

It's costing the government billions of dollars in lost revenues.

Ed Butler looks at perhaps the biggest illegal trade - gold - Ghana’s number one cash export.

But even as the informal economy, unmonitored and untaxed, continues to grow, some are asking: isn’t there also a specific economic solution to the problem?

In the second of two programmes, based at the northern Ghanaian border with Burkina Faso, he finds out what some are suggesting could be done to change the criminals’ incentives.

Produced and presented by Ed Butler

(Image: Illegal gold mining in northern Ghana)

Members of the Catholic Church's global community of 1.4bn people are remember the late Pope on Easter Monday.

African Catholics, who are becoming more important in the Church, remember a man who spoke for them.

Victoria Uwonkunda, reporter and presenter for BBC News, speaks to Bobi Wine, the Ugandan opposition politician, as he reflects on the personal and political challenges he has faced as well as his determination to run again as President in the next election.

Born in the slums of Kampala, Bobi Wine -birth name Robert Kyagulanyi - first entered the political arena in 2017 when he was elected to parliament with huge popular support, so much so that he became known as the ghetto president.

He went on to run against President Yoweri Museveni in the 2021 election - taking on a leader in power for nearly 40 years.

But the campaign was rocked by violence and for Bobi, countless times in jail.

Now Bobi Wine is preparing to run again in the 2026 presidential election. The Interview brings you conversations with people shaping our world, from all over the world. The best interviews from the BBC. You can listen on the BBC World Service, Mondays and Wednesdays at 0700 GMT. Or you can listen to The Interview as a podcast, out twice a week on BBC Sounds, Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

Presenter: Victoria Uwonkunda Producers: Clare Williamson, Gabriel May Editor: Sam Bonham

Get in touch with us on email TheInterview@bbc.co.uk and use the hashtag #TheInterviewBBC on social media.

Consumer goods, fuel, gold and cocoa are all crossing the border illegally - it's costing the government billions of dollars - so can it be stopped?

Ed Butler travels to the northern Ghanaian border with Burkina Faso, and hears from cocoa smugglers who are operating in the region.

Produced and presented by Ed Butler

(Image: A livestock market in northern Ghana. Traders, including those pictured, told the BBC they believe some of the livestock is contraband)

Ethiopia's answer to The Bachelor has prompted discussions about dating norms in the conservative country.

Top MK official Floyd Shivambu attended an Easter service at Shepherd Bushiri's church in Malawi.

The child was snatched from a residential compound on a ranch next to Nairobi National Park, the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) said.

Joseph Kabila has reportedly returned to the country after spending two years in South Africa.

Fighting between rival forces resumes in South Sudan, while a full-scale civil war rages in neighbouring Sudan.

The defendants get sentences of up to 66 years after a trial described by a defence lawyer as a farce.

A top Somali actor is targeted in a revenge killing shortly after making a film warning about such feuds.

Paul Simon's Graceland album is one of his greatest achievements - a brilliant fusion of African rhythms and western pop which became a global phenomenon. It also proved hugely controversial, as Simon broke the UN-backed cultural boycott of a country still under the grip of apartheid.

Joe Berlinger's film captures Simon's return to South Africa some years on and contrasts the value of individual artistic expression against collective political action as instruments of change.

Includes interviews with key anti-apartheid activists of the time and such musical legends as Quincy Jones, Harry Belafonte, Paul McCartney, David Byrne and Peter Gabriel.