Alfred Lasteck
BBC News, Dar es Salaam

Image source, MASHAV Israel

The Israeli government has confirmed the identities of two Tanzanians believed to be held hostage by Hamas group since the 7 October attack across the border from Gaza.

Joshua Loitu Mollel and Clemence Felix Mtenga were in Israel as part of an agricultural internship programme, Israel’s foreign ministry said in a statement on Sunday.

“They were kidnapped by Hamas terrorists and are being held hostage in Gaza. Please join us in praying for their safe and immediate return," the statement posted on X (formerly Twitter) added.

It attached photos of the two.

Joshua's father told the BBC that Israel's ambassador to Tanzania had contacted the family with the assurance that the government was following up the matter. The father had earlier spoken about the family's desperate search for Joshua.

Clemence's family is yet to speak publicly.

Tanzania's embassy in Tel Aviv did not immediately comment on the statement.

According to the embassy, Tanzania has more than 350 of its citizens living in Israel - around 260 of which are students.

A yet to be identified South African national is also among 224 hostages being held by Hamas, according to the Israeli government.

Image source, Matthew Lani/TikTok

A popular South African TikToker claiming to be a doctor has been arrested, nearly three weeks after authorities accused him of being a fraud.

Matthew Lani was arrested by the security team at Johannesburg’s Helen Joseph Hospital as he allegedly attempted to enter the facility on Sunday night.

The authorities in Gauteng province said that he was then handed over to police.

"Lani was caught just before 8pm disguised in a hoodie and wearing a surgical mask with a stethoscope around his neck," the department said in a statement.

It added that Mr Lani "had previously entered the same facility to curate misleading content under the pretence that he was a qualified doctor".

Mr Lani had built a considerable following on TikTok, where he posted medical content and sold his own brand of pills.

He said he had graduated as a doctor from the University of the Witwatersrand, which the university said was not true.

He also claimed that his real name was Dr Sanele Zingelwa, but was exposed to have impersonated a medical intern at another facility.

The Health Professions Council of South Africa said that Mr Lani was not a registered health practitioner.

Chris Ewokor
BBC News, Abuja

Image source, Nigeria presidency/X

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz says his country is willing to invest in gas and critical minerals in Nigeria, as he started a two-day visit to the West African country.

Mr Scholz said on Sunday that the European country was looking to diversify its trade partners and expand economic partnerships in the energy-rich region.

His visit to Africa is the third in two years and comes as conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere highlight the growing importance of an energy-rich region as an alternative to Russian energy.

Nigeria is Africa's largest oil producer and Germany’s second-largest trading partner in sub-Saharan Africa. The trade volume between Germany and Nigeria is estimated to be about $3bn (£2.4bn) annually.

“There are a lot of chances, not just from gas and oil... but for better using the capacities of your country, but also for going into investments for the future, which is about hydrogen,” Mr Scholz said in a joint briefing with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in the Nigerian capital, Abuja

Mr Scholz is also pushing for co-operation with Nigeria to help tackle illegal migration from West Africa to Europe.

On his part, President Tinubu sought the support of Germany in tackling insecurity and also working to turn the economy of Nigeria around.

Thomas Naadi
BBC News, Accra

Image source, AFP

Lawmakers in Ghana are demanding an investigation into alleged military brutality against the youth of Garu, in the north-east of the country, and for the perpetrators to be brought to book.

Soldiers are alleged to have raided the community on Sunday in what appears to be a reprisal attack following an assault on some national security intelligence officers deployed there to fight terrorism.

MPs for Garu and Tempane constituencies, who are pushing for the investigation, condemned the attacks and are calling for the immediate withdrawal of the military from the area.

The legislators also want the young people who were arrested to be released and those injured in the process compensated by the government.

Images shared widely on social media showed some of the youth sustained various injuries, including lacerations on their bodies and swollen faces. Those injured are currently receiving treatment at Garu District Hospital, which has been swamped according to local media reports.

Some of the youth are also said to have fled the area for fear of being arrested and abused by the military.

A section of social media users has condemned the reported brutal security operation.

However, Ghana's ministry of national security has denied the allegations, saying the security operation was launched to seize weapons used by a vigilante group to attack its officers last week.

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Doctors are struggling to identify the remains which have been found as the death toll rises.

The BBC's Anna Foster describes the devastation in the Libyan city of Derna after floods a week ago.

With lives in Libya washed away, anger mounts as people ask why they were told to stay at home.

The BBC's Anna Foster is in Libya, a week on from devastating floods in the region.

Scores of young volunteers help distribute aid for hundreds of devastated communities in Morocco.

There's been criticism of the official response to Friday's earthquake, with communities trying to plug the gap.

The BBC's Nick Beake is in Amizmiz where people are searching rubble by hand to find belongings and relatives.

Nick Beake is in one of Morocco's worst affected areas after a deadly earthquake struck killing thousands.

Dozens of people are reported injured in Tel Aviv as demonstrations turn violent.

Following Johannesburg's deadly fire, families have been trying to identify loved ones.

The expanding Brics club of nations, seen as a counter to the West, could challenge US dominance.

A man whose brother was among around 60 Senegalese feared drowned says he would take the same risk.

Reuben Brigety alleged a Russian ship was loaded with ammunition and weapons in Cape Town last year.

A combative media, a colonial past and rebellious children. Can other royal families help the UK's new monarch?

Think Sahara Desert, think intense heat and drought. We see the Sahara as an unrelenting, frazzling, white place. But geo-archaeologist Dr Judith Bunbury says in the not so distant past, the region looked more like a safari park.

In the more recent New Kingdom of Ancient Egypt, from around 3.5 thousand years ago (the time of some of Egypt’s most famous kings like Ahmose I, Thutmose III, Akhenaten, Tutankhamun and queens like Hatshepsut) evidence from core samples shows evidence of rainfall, huge lakes, springs, trees, birds, hares and even gazelle, very different from today.

By combining geology with archaeology, Dr Bunbury, from the department of Earth Sciences at the University of Cambridge and Senior Tutor at St Edmund’s College, tells Jim Al-Khalili that evidence of how people adapted to their ever-changing landscape is buried in the mud, dust and sedimentary samples beneath these ancient sites, waiting to be discovered.

With an augur (like a large apple corer), Judith and her team take core samples (every ten metre sample in Egypt reveals approximately 10,000 years of the past) and then read the historical story backwards. A model of the topography, the environment, the climate and the adapting human settlements can then be built up to enrich the historical record.

The core samples contain chipped stones which can be linked directly to the famous monuments and statues in the Valley of the Kings. There are splinters of amethyst from precious stone workshops, tell-tale rubbish dumped in surrounding water as well as pottery fragments which can be reliably time-stamped to the fashion-conscious consumers in the reign of individual Pharaohs.

The geo-archaeological research by Judith and her team, has helped to demonstrate that the building of the temples at Karnak near Luxor, added to by each of the Pharaohs, was completely dependent on the mighty Nile, a river which, over millennia, has wriggled and writhed, creating new land on one bank as it consumes land on another. Buildings and monuments were adapted and extended as the river constantly changed course.

And Judith hopes the detailed, long-range climate records and models we already have, can be enriched with this more detailed history of people, their settlements and their activities within a changing landscape and this will contribute to our ability to tackle climate change.

Producer: Fiona Hill