West Africa has found a new niche in the international drug trade.

Strikes, Islamist invasion, Sharia law, flight... Malian children, especially those in the north, have borne the brunt of the country's conflict as education takes a hard knock.

Zimbabwean swimming, icon Kirsty Coventry has sparked sharp criticism after she claimed she was now on anti-retroviral medication as a precautionary measure following a mugging at Harare International Airport last Saturday.

Kenya gave the world two groundbreaking innovations in technology: M-Pesa, a mobile banking system, and Ushahidi, a platform for crowdsourcing information during disasters. It is now taking its technological talents to new heights.

The seventh edition of Kwani?, the Kenyan literary journal, is subtitled 'Majuu' – a sheng (street slang) reference to 'overseas' – and is a 570-page testament to the journal's diasporic roots.

Angola's deep-pocketed elites are a boon for luxury retailers in recession-struck Portugal, where the central bank in January predicted a further drop in consumer spending for 2013.

Diaspora entrepreneurs have taken Ethiopian food to stores and pop-up restaurants in the US.