An appeals court in Mauritania has reduced a death sentence given to a blogger to a two-year jail term.

Cheikh Ould Mohamed Ould Mkheitir was convicted of blasphemy in 2014.

A top South Sudanese military commander has defected and joined the largest rebel group fighting troops loyal to President Salva Kiir.

Lt Col Chan Garang, an ally of former army chief Paul Malong, defected with 200 soldiers, Reuters news agency reports.

Zimbabwe's Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa has been removed from his post, the country's information minister says.

Mr Mnangagwa, 75, displayed "traits of disloyalty", Information Minister Simon Khaya Moyo said.

The African Union (AU) has announced that up to 1,000 of its soldiers will leave Somalia by the end of this year.

The decision to downscale the AU security mission, also referred to as Amisom, comes in the wake of two major bomb attacks in Mogadishu last month which together left at least 370 dead.

A British aid worker, Ian Squire, kidnapped last month in southern Nigeria has been killed and three others freed, the UK Foreign Office has said.

Squire, an optician, was one of four Britons working for a medical charity in the Niger Delta when taken.

Liberia’s Supreme Court on Monday ordered the country’s electoral commission to resolve a fraud complaint lodged by an opposition party before a runoff vote for the presidency can be held. Supreme Court Chief Justice Francis Korkpor said the National Elections Commission (NEC) was prohibited “from conducting the runoff election until the complaint filed by the petitioners is investigated,” referring to the opposition Liberty Party.