African news : breaking news, features, analysis

Zimbabwe's High Court judges have ruled that the use of corporal punishment on children at school and in the home is illegal - though the constitutional court still has to confirm the ruling.

At least 97 people are missing and believed to have drowned after their Europe-bound boat sank in the Mediterranean Sea on Thursday, according to the Libyan coast guard.

 Somalia's new president has declared the country a war zone and instructed the army to prepare a new offensive against the al-Qaeda linked group al-Shabab.

The announcement by President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed on Thursday comes amid a worsening security situation as al-Shabab steps up deadly bombings in the capital since the country's new leader took office in February.

A car bomb blast on Wednesday at a Mogadishu restaurant killed at least seven people.

South Africa needs to "radically transform" its economy, the country's new finance minister has said.

The treasury has been seen for too long as belonging to "big business, powerful interests and international investors," Malusi Gigaba said.

"This is a people's government," he told his first news conference since President Jacob Zuma fired his respected predecessor, Pravin Gordhan.

About 20 Burkinabe soldiers on trial at a military tribunal over a failed raid on an arms depot last year have said they were tortured to extract their confessions.

Almost all of them said they had suffered beatings, humiliation and food deprivation at the police camp where they were held after their arrest following the raid in January 2016, for which they have been on trial since Tuesday.

Mogadishu, Somalia - A deadly car bomb blast targeting a security checkpoint near the Presidential Palace in the Somali capital has killed at least five people and wounded several others.

Security officials at the scene told Reuters news agency on Tuesday the checkpoint 500 metres from the palace was rammed by a car bomb driven by a suicide attacker, causing the explosion outside a theatre.

Gunmen have killed at least 17 people - mostly women and children - after invading a farming community in central Nigeria, drawing condemnation from Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari.

Armed men on motorcycles and in a car carried out the attack in Zaki Biyam in Benue state on Monday, police spokesman Moses Yamu told AFP news agency on Tuesday.

The UN refugee agency has criticised Cameroon for the forced return of hundreds of refugees to north-east Nigeria after they had fled from the Islamist Boko Haram insurgency.

The UNHCR said forced returns had "continued unabated" despite an agreement earlier this month.

A Video of a white man threatening a black woman inside a popular restaurant in South Africa has caused outrage.

The film of the incident at a Johannesburg branch of the Spur chain of restaurants has been widely shared.

 An oil tanker has been hijacked by suspected pirates off the coast of Somalia, reports say, the first such hijacking in the region in five years.

The ship sent a distress signal on Monday evening, saying it was being approached by high-speed boats.

Aid workers employed by a US-based Christian charity have been abducted in famine-hit South Sudan and negotiations were ongoing for their release.

The local aid workers were taken from a village near Mayendit in Unity state, where a famine has been declared, 680km northeast of the capital, Juba.

The circumstances of the kidnappings were unclear.

Hosni Mubarak, who was overthrown as president of Egypt in an uprising in 2011, will be released from detention in a military hospital after a six-year legal battle over accusations of involvement in the killing of protesters.

"He will go to his home in Heliopolis," Mubarak's lawyer Farid el-Deeb said, adding the ageing former president would likely be released on Tuesday or soon after, but would be barred from leaving the country pending an ongoing corruption investigation.

 Aliko Dangote, president of Dangote group, is now richer than Donald Trump, Republican front-runner; Roman Abramovich, owner of Chelsea football club and Oprah Winfrey, the richest black woman, put together.

Dangote, who came in at the 51st position of the 2016 ranking by Forbes Magazine, is also richer than the combination of all other Nigerians who made the list.

Despite losing $300 million from $15.7 billion (N3.1 trillion) to about $15.4 billion, (N3.05 trillion) in the latest rankings, Dangote remains the richest black billionaire anywhere on the planet.

At $15.4 billion, the 58-year-old is richer than Abramovich ($7.6 billion), Oprah ($3.0 billion) and Trump $4.5 billion.

 A one-month-old girl abducted in an apparent car-jacking in the South African city of Durban on Friday has been found safe and well.

Police stopped a vehicle between Durban and Pietermaritzburg at about midnight on Saturday and found Siwaphiwe Mbambo. Three people have been arrested, one of them the baby's mother, police said.

Two suspects had allegedly car-jacked her vehicle, driving off with the baby.

International aid groups have criticised South Sudan's decision to sharply increase foreign worker visa fees, warning it would aggravate a humanitarian crisis in the famine-hit country.

South Sudan's government recently announced it would charge $10,000 for foreigners working in a "professional" capacity, $2,000 for "blue collar" employees and $1,000 for "casual workers" from March 1.

Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari said on Friday he will continue to rest and undergo further medical tests in Britain within weeks, after returning home from two months of medical leave.

Eleven soldiers have been killed and five wounded in an attack on a military base in Mali as rival armed groups surrounded the city of Timbuktu.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack near the border with Burkina Faso on Sunday but armed groups, including al-Qaeda affiliates, have been increasingly active in recent months, attacking army posts beyond their usual strongholds in the north.

The son of Etienne Tshisekedi, the Democratic Republic of Congo's late opposition leader, has been chosen as his father's successor.

Felix Tshisekedi, 53, will now lead the opposition coalition in crucial negotiations over the departure of President Joseph Kabila from office.