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The world's oldest leader, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe turned 92 on Sunday, with no plans to step down as feuding over his successors threatens to tear his ruling ZANU-PF apart.
The veteran leader will mark the day with a public celebration on Saturday.
The constitutional court of Benin has blown the whistle for the start of a two week campaign leading to the election of a new president to succeed Mr Boni Yayi.
Mr Yayi has finished serving two terms of five years each in office.
In Benin, electioneering campaign is done only 15 days to elections.
Balkissa Chaibou dreamed of becoming a doctor, but when she was 12 she was shocked to learn she had been promised as a bride to her cousin. She decided to fight for her rights - even if that meant taking her own family to court.
"I came from school at around 18:00, and Mum called me," Balkissa Chaibou recalls.
"She pointed to a group of visitors and said of one of them, 'He is the one who will marry you.'
Ugandan opposition leader Kizza Besigye has been bundled into a van outside his home by police as his supporters planned a march to protest against the results of a presidential election.
The Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) party leader had been under heavy police guard since he was placed under house arrest on Saturday, shortly before the election results were announced.
President Yoweri Museveni's rule was extended into a fourth decade.
The Constitutional Court of Benin has ruled that both old and new voter cards can be used for the March 6 presidential elections.
This follows the inability of the first body (COS-LEPI), instituted and given the powers to put a new register together from the old and new lists to finish their work before February this year.
A Kenyan air strike has killed the intelligence chief of Somalia's militant Islamist group al-Shabab, an army statement has said.
Mohammed Karatey and 10 other al-Shabab commanders were killed in the strike in southern Somalia on 8 February, it added.
The US would not change its foreign policy direction especially towards Africa during the post-Obama era, the US Assistant Secretary for African Affairs Ms Linda Thomas-Greenfield has said.
“I think we will continue to see Africa play an important role in our foreign policy in the future.
The Ondo State governor, Dr. Olusegun Mimiko has charged the authorities of the Nigerian Police to address as a matter of urgency the rising cases of frequent clashes between the Fulani herdsmen and their host communities across the country.
Dr. Mimiko gave the charge on Friday during a courtesy visit to him by the Inspector General of Police, Mr. Solo- mon Arase in his office in Akure.
The governor described the upsurge as a new trend of security challenges that should be tackled headlong before it degenerates into big security threat, noting that many lives and property had been lost to the crises in the last few years.
He called on the Federal Government to invest heav- ily in cattle ranches to avert the incessant clashes be- tween herdsmen and their host communities.
Somalia's Islamist militant group al-Shabab says it carried out a bomb attack on a plane that blew a huge hole in its fuselage earlier this month.
In an emailed statement, al-Shabab said the attack was revenge for Western intelligence operations in Somalia.
The Daallo Airlines Airbus 321 with 74 passengers on board made an emergency landing in the capital Mogadishu after the explosion shortly after take-off.
One person, said to be the bomber, was reportedly blown out of the plane.
The explosion happened about 15 minutes into the flight, when the plane was only at around 11,000ft (3,350m) and the cabin was not yet pressurised.
Most of the passengers had originally been booked on a Turkish Airlines flight but the flight was cancelled due to bad weather a few hours before take-off, Turkish Airlines said.
In its statement, al-Shabab said it had targeted Turkish Airlines because it said the Nato state was supporting Western operations in So
Voters in the Central African Republic (CAR) are going to the polls for the second round of presidential elections.
The vote is being seen as a significant step towards restoring peace, stability and democratic government.
It comes after the seizure of power by a mainly Muslim rebel group in 2013 led to prolonged bloodshed.
Both presidential candidates, former prime ministers Faustin Touadera and Anicet Dologuele, have pledged to restore security and boost the economy.
Strapped with a booby-trapped vest and sent by the extremist Boko Haram group to kill as many people as possible, the young teenage girl tore off the explosives and fled as soon as she was out of sight of her handlers.
Her two companions, however, completed their grisly mission and walked into a crowd of hundreds at Dikwa refugee camp in northeast Nigeria and blew themselves up, killing 58 people.
Later found by local self-defense forces, the girl's tearful account is one of the first indications that at least some of the child bombers used by Boko Haram are aware that they are about to die and kill others.
Dozens of people have been injured when a train derailed after crashing into a concrete barrier south of Cairo, Egyptian media reported.
Ambulances rushed to the scene early on Thursday to treat the wounded.
Deputy Health Minister Gamal Al Gohary told the Dot Masr website there were no deaths after the accident. He said 44 people were injured and transported to Beni Suef Public Hospital.
More than 70 people have been killed in a double suicide attack at a camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in northeast Nigeria, local officials told Al Jazeera.
The twin suicide bombings in Borno state on Tuesday morning - reportedly committed by women - also left 78 people injured, officials added.
Information about the attacks was first reported by officials on Wednesday night.
Zimbabwe has appealed to local businesses and charities for more than $1.5bn aid to save more than a quarter of the population from starvation due to drought.
"The government of Zimbabwe requires a total of [$1.57bn] with effect from February to December 2016," Zimbabwe's vice president Emmerson Mnangagwa said at a news conference in the capital Harare on Tuesday, adding that more than three million people were in need of food and water.
"The amount of rainfall received to date is inadequate to meet basic household consumption needs as well as support for livelihoods, agriculture and wildlife."
More than 58,000 children in drought-hit Somalia will starve to death if they do not receive urgent support, the United Nations has warned.
The situation in the country, where dry conditions are exacerbated by an exceptionally strong El Nino weather pattern, is "alarming and could get worse", the UN said on Monday.
It added that an estimated 4.7 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance and some 950,000 people "struggle every day to meet their food needs".
An explosion rocked a commercial plane after it set off above East Africa on Tuesday, injuring two people before the pilot landed safely, a passenger said.
Somali authorities later discovered a body near Mogadishu they believe fell from the Daallo Airlines plane.
Late Tuesday night, a source with knowledge of the investigation told CNN that Somali authorities confirmed one passenger had been blown or ejected out of the hole created by the explosion. Somalia's National News Agency reported that one passenger died after falling from the plane.
Pictures from the ground showed a hole in one side of the airliner, just above its wing and slightly smaller than one of its doors.
Rights group Amnesty says it has found five possible mass graves near Burundi's capital, where security forces are accused of killing scores of people in December.
Meanwhile, authorities have released two foreign journalists arrested on Thursday in the capital Bujumbura.
Violence in the country began last April, when President Pierre Nkurunziza announced he would seek a third term.
A Satirical story that Eritrean men have been ordered to marry at least two wives, which has been shared across Africa, has upset Eritrean officials.
"Even a mad man in [the Eritrean capital] Asmara would know that this story was not true," an Eritrean official told the BBC.
The hoax was first published online on a Kenyan news site called Crazy Monday.
Some men have commented on Twitter that they are ready to travel to Eritrea to find a new wife.