Somalia on lockdown ahead of presidential elections

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 International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) will assess the need for harsher sanctions in response to a racist incident in Ukraine and plans to pressure leagues around the world to amend their rule books to define sanctions for racist behaviour, the new IIHF president said. Luc Tardif took office as head of the IIHF a day before the hockey world was rattled by footage of Andriy Deniskin, a forward at HC Kremenchuk in the Ukrainian Hockey League (UHL), taunting HC Donbass defenceman Jalen Smereck, who is Black, by pretending to peel and eat a banana. Smereck, 24, took a leave of absence after the incident. HC Donbass announced on Sunday it had reached a mutual agreement to terminate the American's contract.

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.

Chile's opposition moves to impeach the country's president, Sebastian Pinera, for the controversial sale of a mining company through a firm owned by his children, which appeared in the Pandora Papers leaks, Congressman Tomás Hirsch says.

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.

Exactly 34 years ago today, the charismatic Pan-Africanist and Burkina Faso's then President, Thomas Sankara, was shot dead aged 37 by soldiers during a coup on 15 October 1987. Four years before his assassination with 12 others, Sankara and his close friend, Blaise Compaoré, staged a coup that brought them to power. This is the story of how he shaped Burkina Faso decades after his assassination.