Mayeni Jones
BBC News

The African Union (AU) has warned against any interference in Niger by those outside of Africa, including private military companies

This follows a video by Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, who claimed to be in Africa.

The statement from the AU saying that it was suspending Niger as a member was dated 14 August, but it was only released on 22 August after Mr Prigozhin had published the video.

The BBC has not been able to verify the location of the video. The Wagner boss says he is in 50C (122F) heat, despite appearing to be dressed for cooler weather.

West Africa's regional bloc Ecowas has said it will send armed forces into Niger to reinstate the democratically elected government.

Western allies of Niger's deposed president fear the Russian mercenary group, which has been accused of grave human right abuses, could use the crisis there to strengthen its presence in the Sahel - which has become the epicentre of Islamic insurgent violence.

The region has the largest number of terror-related deaths anywhere in the world.

Western and regional forces have struggled to contain the growth of groups affiliated with Islamic State and al-Qaeda, leading to increased attacks on civilians.

Gloria Aradi
BBC News, Nairobi

Image source, AFP

A Kenyan delegation has held meetings with Haiti’s police officials, weeks after the Kenyan government offered to lead a multinational team in tackling the country’s extreme gang violence.

Haiti has been rocked by deadly violence since the assassination of the country’s President Jovenel Moïse two years ago.

The violence has escalated since Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry first appealed for help in October last year, prompting the United States to evacuate its diplomatic staff.

The United Nations recently said that more than 2,439 people were killed, 902 injured and 951 kidnapped in the first half of January, external.

The Kenyan delegation arrived in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, on Sunday and is expected to leave on Wednesday, after further discussions with the prime minister.

It has been tasked with assessing the situation in the country, which will then inform intervention efforts backed by the UN and US.

Kenya is also expected to lead the response efforts by sending 1,000 police officers to Haiti.

Caribbean countries like Jamaica, the Bahamas, Antigua and Barbuda and Trinidad and Tobago have also pledged to send forces to aid the Haitian police.

Diezani Alison-Madueke is alleged to have accepted financial rewards for awarding oil contracts.

Image source, Getty Images

A summit of the Brics group of nations - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - is getting under way in Johannesburg.

The Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who's attending, says it's an opportunity to step up strategic cooperation and boost the representation of the global south.

More than 20 countries - including Algeria, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and Argentina - have applied to join Brics, which is seen as a counterweight to Western influence in international affairs.

President Lula da Silva of Brazil is also attending, as is India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi, but Vladimir Putin is not - because of an international warrant for his arrest on war crimes charges.

Protesters against the Russian war in Ukraine have been gathering in Johannesburg while the summit attracts international attention.

BBC World Service

Image source, AFP

British police say they have charged a former Nigerian oil minister, Diezani Alison-Madueke, with bribery offences.

The UK National Crime Agency said it suspected she had accepted bribes in return for awarding multi-million-dollar oil and gas contracts.

Ms Alison-Madueke, who is also a former Opec president, served in the administration of former Nigerian leader Goodluck Jonathan from 2010 to 2015.

She's suspected of benefitting from tens of thousands of dollars in cash, flights on private jets, luxury holidays for her family and the use of numerous London properties.

She denies the charges.

Police say she is currently living in London and will appear in court in October.

Ethiopia says it will investigate reports that Saudi guards had used guns and explosive weapons to kill more than 650 people crossing from Yemen into the kingdom since early last year.

It said the investigation would be in tandem with the Saudi authorities.

A foreign ministry statement strongly urged against speculation and said Ethiopia and Saudi Arabia enjoyed long-standing good relations - "notwithstanding the tragedy".

It expressed no sympathy for the alleged victims.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) collected testimony from survivors. The United Nations has previously made similar allegations to those of HRW.

An unnamed Saudi government official said the HRW report - which was based on interviews with survivors - did not come from reliable sources.

The US State Department says Saudi Arabia must carry out a "thorough and transparent investigation" into the killings, adding: "We have raised our concerns about these allegations with the Saudi government."

Gloria Aradi
BBC News

Ugandan officials are working to secure the release of 59 Ugandans detained in five detention centres in Turkey’s capital, Ankara.

Fifty-seven of them were arrested for overstaying their visas in a government crackdown on undocumented migrants, which has seen more than 10,000 people reportedly deported in July., external

“We are doing our very best to help them because the majority of the Ugandans, especially those on work [visas] had applied for the extension of their stay and were arrested during the process of renewing,” Uganda’s ambassador to Turkey, Nusura Tiperu, told Uganda’s private Daily Monitor newspaper., external

The other two Ugandans are facing human trafficking allegations and are expected to go on trial in a Turkish court.

Muthoni Muchiri
BBC News

Image source, Getty Images

A sales employee in Kenya's capital, Nairobi, has been charged with the theft of two coffins and 26 coffin handles, according to local reports.

Maureen Khikani, who was an employee of St Augustine Funeral Services, is accused of stealing the items over a week-long period in May last year. She denies all charges.

The coffins were valued at 90,000 Kenyan shillings ($622, £488) and the handles at $810.

Bail has been been set at $1,380 by Milimani Court magistrate Ben Mark Ekhubi.

The lawyer representing Ms Khikani had called for more lenient bail terms, emphasising her role as a single mother.

Kalkidan Yibeltal
BBC News, Addis Ababa

Image source, Christian Tadele/Twitter

The whereabouts of opposition Ethiopian lawmaker Christian Tadele, detained in relation to ongoing the violence in the country’s Amhara region, is still not known, his lawyer says.

He was detained by the security forces along with Kassa Teshager, a member of city council in the capital, Addis Ababa, earlier this month.

The lawyer who represents them both, Henok Aklilu, has told the BBC that the two politicians have not been visited by their representatives or their family members and have not appeared in court.

The BBC’s attempts to get a response from the police have not been successful.

Mr Christian and Dr Kassa are two of the several people arrested as intense fighting in Amhara prompted the government to declare a six-month state of emergency last week.

Fighting has subsided in urban areas after the army pushed back militias that managed to enter most of the biggest cities in the region.

But in rural villages violence continues to be reported. The authorities say it has been contained while the militias say they have captured dozens of soldiers.

Meanwhile the US’s special envoy to the Horn of Africa, Mike Hammer, has travelled to Belgium to discuss with the EU possible ways of finding peaceful resolutions for violence in Amhara and Oromia regions.

More on this story:

• Why Ethiopia's Amhara militiamen are battling the army

Danny Aeberhard
BBC World Service

Image source, Reuters

Social media accounts linked to the Russian paramilitary group, Wagner, have posted a video which purports to show the group's leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, in Africa.

The country isn't specified.

Yevgeny Prigozhin has been keeping a low public profile since heading a short-lived mutiny in Russia in June.

In the footage, he's dressed in combat gear and carrying an assault rifle.

He says Wagner is conducting exploration and prospecting activities, as well as fighting Islamicst militants and other criminals.

Western countries and UN experts have linked Wagner to human rights abuses in Africa and elsewhere.

Read more:

• Wagner chief Prigozhin seen in first video address since coup attempt

Gloria Aradi
BBC News

A group of 161 Nigerians have been repatriated from Libya as part of a voluntary UN-supported scheme, the AFP news agency reports.

They arrived on a flight from Tripoli at the airport in the main city of Lagos on Monday, it says.

They included 75 women and six children who had been held in detention facilities in Libya.

Libya’s interior minister was quoted as saying that 102 of those repatriated had been stopped at the border between Libya and Tunisia.

Libya is a major but deadly migrant route for Africans seeking to illegally cross over to Europe via the Mediterranean Sea.

An official at Nigeria’s embassy in Libya confirmed to AFP that the migrants had not been forced to return to home.

“We spoke to [them] and explained that migration is not bad... but you have to follow due process,” embassy adviser Samuel Okeri is quoted as saying.

“They are going back willingly. And as you can see, they are not sad but happy to go back to Nigeria. There is no place like home.”

BBC World Service
Newsroom

Image source, AFP

The African Union (AU) has suspended Niger from all its activities following the military coup last month.

The AU Peace and Security Council called on all of its member states and the international community to refrain from any action that could legitimise the junta in Niger.

It reiterated calls for the coup leaders to release the elected President Mohamed Bazoum.

The West African regional grouping Ecowas has already threatened military action to reinstate him.

Niger's junta has said that civilian rule cannot be restored for three years, but this has been dismissed by Ecowas as unacceptable.

More on this story:

• Fear and anger in Niamey as Ecowas threatens force
• The ex-UN peacekeeper who seized power

Image source, AFP

Chinese President Xi Jinping is in South Africa for his first visit to Africa in five years - part of which he will spend attending the Brics summit of major emerging economies.

Mr Xi, who is also paying a state visit, arrived in Johannesburg on Monday night and was welcomed by President Cyril Ramaphosa.

The pair are meeting on Tuesday morning ahead of the main summit in the afternoon, and are expected to sign bilateral agreements on trade and energy.

Also on Tuesday, Mr Xi will co-chair the China-Africa Leaders’ Dialogue with Mr Ramaphosa on the side-lines of the summit.

There is a surge of interest in Brics membership, with more than 20 countries - including Algeria, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and Argentina - applying to join the group, which could emerge as a potential challenger to perceived Western dominance in world affairs.

This year's summit will look at whether to admit new members.

A total of 69 countries have been invited to the broader Brics summit in South Africa, including all African states.

You may also be interested in:

• Brics summit: How China's and Russia's clout is growing in Africa

Image source, AFP

Critics of Russia's war in Ukraine have vowed to protest against the summit of Brics nations in Johannesburg on Tuesday.

Small groups of protesters, including some from rights group Amnesty International's local chapter, have been gathering and waving banners.

Russia is represented at the Brics meetings by the foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov. Had President Vladimir Putin attended instead, he would have been subject to an international arrest warrant because he is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) charged with war crimes in Ukraine.

Image source, AFP

Andrew Harding
BBC Africa correspondent

Image source, South African presidency

Members of the Brics bloc of countries – including China, Russia and India – will be meeting for a summit in South Africa on Tuesday afternoon.

The bloc – five-strong at present – is considering whether to add other countries like Iran and Argentina.

Those involved in Brics see it as a counterweight to what they perceive as western domination of global institutions.

The Brics bloc of nations tends to get dismissed as an aimless talking shop. But that could be changing.

More than 20 new countries have asked to join what’s emerging as a focal point for frustration with the Western world.

Officials here in South Africa are deeply relieved that Russia’s Vladimir Putin, facing an international arrest warrant for alleged war crimes in Ukraine, has decided to stay at home.

There will be plenty of talk here about building a new world order, reshaping the United Nations.

And there is support for that – not least across in Africa.

Read more on this:

• Brics summit: How China's and Russia's clout is growing in Africa

Botswana's Letsile Tebogo says quitting social media helped him become the first African man to claim a 100m medal at the World Athletics Championships.

Nicolas Négoce
BBC News

Image source, AFP

More than six weeks after they left Senegal, 38 survivors from the boat tragedy off Cape Verde returned to Dakar via a military plane on Monday evening, the authorities said.

They are among 101 people who set out for the journey on 10 July trying to reach Spain's Canary Islands.

More than 60 people, most of them men from the fishing town of Fass Boye and the surrounding area, are feared dead, after their boat drifted at sea for over a month.

The Walking Borders NGO says it alerted the authorities Senegal, Mauritania, Morocco and Spain back in July but those nations mounted no rescue missions, leaving those on board alone at the mercy of the Atlantic for weeks on end.

There's still sadness and anger in this town after the boat tragedy.

A few inhabitants, including members of the same family, told the BBC they were relieved knowing their relatives were on their way back home alive.

More on this story:

• Cape Verde boat disaster: 'My brother died for a dream we all have'

Yusuf Akinpelu
BBC News, Lagos

Image source, AFP

The Central African Republic's top court has approved the outcome of the July referendum that increases the length of a presidential term to seven years, and removes limits on re-election.

The court declared that an overwhelming majority of 95% approved the vote, and turnout at just above 57%.

The new law creates an office of a vice-president, appointed by the president, and a unicameral parliament, doing away with the senate.

It also bans politicians with dual citizenship from running for president and increases the number of supreme court judges from nine to 11.

The top court had last September scrapped the committee tasked with drafting the new law before the court's president, Daniele Darlan, was forcibly retired.

The country's main opposition parties and civil society groups had urged a boycott, saying the amended law was designed to keep President Faustin-Archange Touadéra in power for life.

They accused the constitutional review committee of taking instructions from Russia.

President Touadéra is backed by Russian Wagner mercenaries. Extra fighters had arrived ahead of the referendum to provide security.

The diamond and gold-rich landlocked country has been stricken by conflict and political turmoil for most of its history since independence from France in 1960.

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China's and Russia's clout is increasing in Africa, as resentment builds towards Western nations.