In Senegal, ‘law shops’ help women assert their rights

Citizen engagement, entrepreneurship and innovation, higher education, culture and sport are the main talking points at this week's Africa-France summit in the southern French city of Montpellier. No heads of state or prime ministers from the continent have been invited, but rather a whole host of young entrepreneurs, artists and civil society members. In Perspective, we spoke to Nathaniel Powell, an Honorary Researcher at the Centre for War and Diplomacy at Lancaster University. His research has centred on the relationship between France and Africa in the post-colonial era, with a particular focus on French security policy.

The trial of 14 people accused of plotting to assassinate Burkina Faso's former president Thomas Sankara started on Monday, more than 30 years after he was gunned down in one of the most infamous killings in modern African history. Sankara - a charismatic Marxist revolutionary widely known as "Africa's Che Guevara" - was killed in 1987 during a coup led by his former ally Blaise Compaore.

President Kais Saied has sworn in a record number of women to Tunisia's new government. The move comes after he assumed new executive powers, with the opposition accusing him of a power grab.

The trial into the murder of Burkina Faso's former president Thomas Sankara opens, more than 30 years after he was gunned down. In Mozambique, there are warnings that the mass displacement caused by years of violent Islamist insurgency is leaving communities around Cabo Delgado province with few health services.

Today's Focus takes us to Kinshasa, DRC's sprawling capital city, where growing addiction to "bombé," a new artisanal drug, is rattling authorities. The lethargy-inducing mixture is made of crushed pills (often opioids but composition varies) and chemical residue that's been filtered through exhaust pipes.

The U.N. human rights office called on Tuesday (October 12) for a "prompt, thorough, impartial and independent investigations" into the use of disproportionate force by Libyan authorities against migrants and asylum seekers. Armed forces in Tripoli began a series of mass arrests a week earlier, detaining more than 4,000 people in overcrowded detention centres, U.N. rights spokeswoman, Marta Hurtado told a news briefing in Geneva. "Women, children and men were arrested and handcuffed. Security forces used unnecessary and disproportionate force to detain them, including shooting and beating those who resisted or tried to escape. As a result, at least one person died, five were injured, and more than 4,000 were detained," she said.

In the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, in the heart of Beni territory, plagued by extreme violence from Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) rebels, employees of the Virunga National Park are battling to keep a chocolate factory running. Their aim is to process cocoa locally to prevent it being smuggled to neighbouring Uganda and to create jobs to combat enrolment in illegal armed groups.

The African human rights campaigner has helped convict 800 men of wartime sexual violence against women. She has been given a $1 million prize to help even more women in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Military attacks are once again punctuating the ongoing crisis in Ethiopia. But government officials have not acknowledged a fresh offensive, which Tigray forces say began last week.

From planting trees to raising awareness and developing new solutions for waste, three young environmental activists in Abidjan are looking for inclusive ways to stop global warming.

Saiga antelopes were one of the world's most threatened animals following a mass die-off in 2015. But with signs of a saiga baby boom on the steppes of Kazakhstan, it appears conservation efforts have paid off.

The ex-apartheid fighters locked the ministers in a hotel room after failed talks over a compensation deal. Police arrested a total of 56 people after the incident.