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Human rights organisation Amnesty has accused Apple, Samsung and Sony, among others, of failing to do basic checks to ensure minerals used in their products are not mined by children.
In a report into cobalt mining in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, it found children as young as seven working in dangerous conditions.
Cobalt is a vital component of lithium-ion batteries.
The Africa Center for International Law and Accountability (ACILA) has welcomed the decision by the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo) to prosecute militia leader Germain Katanga who is scheduled to be released from prison this week after completing a sentence imposed by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
In a statement, ACILA said that the decision to prosecute Katanga for additional crimes that were not before the ICC will send a strong message to Katanga and other perpetrators of international crimes that impunity will not be tolerated.
A nation-wide mourning began yesterday, a day after Burkinabe and French forces ended a more than 12-hour siege at the upscale Splendid Hotel in downtown Ouagadougou.
When the gunfire and explosions finally stopped, authorities said 18 people were killed in the hotel and 10 were killed at the nearby Cappucino Cafe.
Among the victims were the wife and young daughter of Italian Gaetan Santomano, who owned the cafe. Government officials say the toll also includes six Canadians, five Burkinabes, two Swiss nationals, two French citizens and one American.
US-based research and education think tank, Africa Center for International Law and Accountability (ACILA) has urged Burkina Faso to cancel the international arrest warrant against Mr. Guillaume Soro, current Speaker of Parliament of Côte d'Ivoire because the action violates international law.
According to ACILA, even though Burkina Faso's action is aimed at bringing Mr. Soro to account for his alleged role in the coup in Burkina Faso in 2015, the arrest warrant violates immunity provisions in international law.
Intruders have broken into the office of Zimbabwe's First vice president, who is considered President Robert Mugabe's heir apparent, through the ceiling.
Debris from Mr Emmerson Mnangagwa's office ceiling was shown on state TV along with tears to his leather sofa.
There was no sign of damage to the door.
The police are investigating, State Security Minister Kembo Mohadi said.
A rumour that Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has suffered a heart attack is a "grim lie", his spokesman George Charamba has said.
The online news website Zim Eye (www.zimeye.net) published a letter last Tuesday saying the 91-year old leader Mugabe was "reported to have collapsed after suffering a heart attack while on holiday with his family".
The letter, by an anonymous author who did not reveal the source of the information, said Mugabe was in a critical condition and his family had been told to expect the worst.
"This is the way the website seeks to improve its hits in order to get dirty money from Google. There is a financial incentive to the grim lie," Charamba told Zimbabwe's state-run newspaper The Herald.
Liberia’s Ebola epidemic is over, says the World Health Organisation (WHO), effectively putting an end to the world's worst outbreak of the disease.
The "end of active transmission" was declared, after 42 days without a new case in Liberia.
It joins Guinea and Sierra Leone, which earned the status last year.
However, the WHO warned that West Africa may see flare-ups of the virus. It has killed more than 11,000 people since December 2013.
A country is considered free of human-to-human transmission once two 21-day incubation periods have passed since the last known case tested negative for a second time.
Ethiopia government is set to abandon plans to expand the boundaries of the capital, Addis Ababa, which have caused months of deadly protests.
Demonstrations by people from the Oromo ethnic group have been sparked by fears that Oromo farmers could be displaced.
Human rights groups have estimated that at least 140 people were killed by security forces during the protests.
The ruling party in the Oromia region said it was dropping the plan following discussions with local people.
The Oromo People's Democratic Organisation (OPDO) made the decision after three days of talks, the state broadcaster EBC reports.
Sierra Leone’s leader Ernest Bai Koroma is not seeking to stay in office after 2018 despite calls for him to do so, the government spokesperson says.
However, he hinted that the constitution could allow it if that is what "the people" wanted.
Supporters argue that the 18-month emergency caused by the Ebola outbreak interrupted Mr Koroma's plans and he should have more time to complete them.
Bids by some African presidents to stay in power have led to political tension.
Government spokesman Alpha Kanu told the BBC that while President Koroma has never said he wants to go beyond a second term, Sierra Leoneans have the "constitutional right" to express themselves.
A Split in the Anglican Church over the issue of homosexuality "would not be a disaster, but it would be a failure", the Archbishop of Canterbury has said.
Speaking ahead of a meeting of church leaders, Justin Welby said he wanted "reconciliation", but that would mean "finding ways to disagree well".
Views range from liberals in the US - who accept openly gay clergy - to conservatives in Africa, who do not.
There are fears of a permanent schism in the 80m-strong Communion.
The Communion covers more than 160 countries, many of whom look to Archbishop Welby, the church's most senior bishop, for leadership.
Teaching has resumed at the Kenyan university where 148 students died in a gun attack last April but only a few students have turned up for its reopening.
Security has been tightened at Garissa University College nine months after the attack by militant Islamist group al-Shabab.
But it appears that many students have stayed away.
Last year's attack was the deadliest so far by the Somali-based group in Kenya.
Staff reported to work last week to get the campus in north-east Kenya ready.
It has been closed since the attack and at the time some 650 students were offered places at a sister campus in Eldoret, western Kenya, to continue their studies.
They were not expected to return to Garissa but the authorities are hoping to attract a new cohort of students.
Only about a dozen students arrived and attended a business management class, including Shamsi Abdi Barre.
She told the BBC that though she is happy the university has
Mali's chief prosecutor has said that it has evidence that jihadist group Al Mourabitoun, led by veteran militant leader Mokhtar Belmokhtar, was behind a November attack on a luxury hotel that killed 20 people.
Two Islamist militants stormed the Radisson Blu Hotel in Mali's capital Bamako on November 20, killing six Russians, three Chinese and an American among others, in their bloodiest strike in the West African country in years.
Boubacar Sidiki Samake said that a scrap of paper with an Arabic inscription was found on the bodies of the two men, later killed by Malian Special Forces.
The note sought the release of two prisoners who are members of Al Mourabitoun held in neighbouring Niger and Mauritania, he added.
Egypt's parliament has opened for the first time in more than three years, packed with supporters of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
The previous Islamist-dominated legislature was dissolved by a court ruling in 2012.
The following year, the then General Sisi ousted President Mohammed Mursi following massive protests against him and his Muslim Brotherhood party.
Egypt's new parliament has just 15 days to ratify over 300 new laws issued.
Dozens of Ethiopian and Somali migrants have died in the waters off the breakaway Somalia region of Somaliland when their vessel failed mechanically in the course of the voyage and drifted in the sea, a regional Somaliland official said.
Ahmed Abdi Falay, the chairman or governor of Sanag region, said the boat, which had started its journey from the port of Bossaso two weeks ago and was heading to an unidentified port in the Arabian Peninsula, was discovered by the Somaliland Coast Guard.
"They climbed into the boat and were shocked to find the dead bodies of 10 people and 72 others who were in different stages of suffering, some of them in serious condition," he said from the port city of Maydh last Friday.
The Africa Center for International Law and Accountability (ACILA) has urged the government of Burundi to allow African Union (AU) peacekeepers into the country to forestall further deaths and displacement of citizens.
A statement issued by Mr. William Nyarko, Executive Director of ACILA, a research and education think tank, said that Burundi's refusal to allow AU peacekeeping forces on humanitarian grounds pursuant to Article 4(h) and Article (O) of the Constitutive Act of the African Union 2001, to which Burundi is a party, will further aggravate the situation and lead to avoidable deaths and displacement of persons.
Polls have opened in the Central African Republic in delayed presidential and parliamentary elections aimed at restoring stable government after years of turmoil.
Thirty candidates are vying to replace interim leader Catherine Samba-Panza.
UN peacekeepers are patrolling to stop a repeat of the clashes during a recent referendum on a new constitution.
CAR has been torn by sectarian violence since a largely Muslim Seleka rebel group seized power in March 2013.
A band of mostly Christian militias, called the anti-Balaka, then took up arms against the Seleka.
In January 2014, a transitional government was formed but elections have been postponed four times since February 2015 due to insecurity and logistical challenges.
The Africa Center for International Law and Accountability (ACILA) has expressed concern about the decision of the government of Somalia to prohibit public celebrations of Christmas and New Year by the Christian minority in Somalia.
West Africa has paid glowing tribute to 15 former Heads of State, including the late General I.K. Acheampong of Ghana, who led the formation of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) four decades ago.
At a gathering in Abuja, Nigeria, yestersday to mark 40 years of the formation of the regional bloc, speaker after another hailed the vision of the founding fathers for spearheading the birth of the progressive regional body.
The other founders included Lt Col Mathieu Kereku, former head of state of Dahomey (now Benin); Gen. Sangoula Lamizana, Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso); Mr Felix Houghet Boigny, Cote d'Ivoire: Sir Dauda Jawara, The Gambia; Mr Ahmed Sekou Toure, Guinea; Dr Luis De Alimeides Cabral, Guinea Bissau, and Dr William R. Tolbert, Liberia.
The rest were Mr Moctar Ould Daddah, Mauritania; Moussa Traore, Mali; Lt Col Senyi Kountche, Niger; Gen. Yakubu Gowon, Nigeria; Mr Leopold Senghor, Senegal; Dr Siaka Stephens, Sierra Leone and Gen.