Africa highlights: Final pitch for Ugandan votes, Boutros Boutros-Ghali dies

UN peacekeepers from the Democratic Republic of Congo have been accused of sexually abusing four children who were living in a camp for displaced civilians in the Central African Republic, a UN spokesman said Tuesday, AFP news agency reports.

The four victims were sexually abused between 2014 and 2015, AFP quotes UN spokesman Farhan Haq as saying. 

Thousands of peacekeepers from the United Nations, African Union and Europe have been deployed since then to help restore peace.

Last December an independent panel criticised the UN's handling of abuse allegations in the CAR, calling it "seriously flawed" and a "gross institutional failure".  

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Dr Jane Goodall is famous for her pioneering work with chimpanzees.  

When she was a young woman, 55 years ago, Jane set foot on the beach of Gombe, on the shores of Lake Tanganyika in Tanzania. 

Her job was to observe chimps. And what she discovered was to revolutionise our understanding of primates, and just how much they have in common with humans. 

Now in her early 80s, Dr Goodall is still devoted to chimpanzees - and campaigns for a more enlightened attitude towards them and the environment.  

She's been speaking to the BBC's Outlook programme about her work and her lifelong fascination with animals:

Chadian police have arrested five suspected rapists after images of a girl in tears who had allegedly been gang raped were circulated on social media, the AFP news agency reports.

On Monday protesters who knew the victim marched to court to demand justice and compensation for her.

Public prosecutor Louapambe Mahouli Bruno announced the arrests of the five men, along with four accomplices, and said that one person died when police tried to end the protest.

President Idriss Deby Itno described the rape as a "barbaric, vile and unmentionable act" and promised that "justice will be done", AFP quotes him as saying. 

Black students at South Africa's University of Cape Town (UCT) have been protesting at the lack of permanent university accommodation, with a serious shortfall meaning that many are being forced to stay in temporary, overcrowded spaces. 

The protesters have refused to take down a shack, erected on the UCT campus on Monday as a symbol of the lack of appropriate housing.

They have also been using the hashtag #Shackville, evoking the memory of the Sharpeville massacre, where more than 50 black people were killed in 1960 when police opened fire on a protest in the Johannesburg township. 

UCT says that it has "6,680 beds for 27,000 students, so it is always the case that only one in four will be accommodated in the residence system".

In a statement university authorities said that the argument that white, foreign and wealthy students have been given preference over the poorer black students is "simply not true". 

A freelance photographer has been tweeting some footage from the scene:

Kenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta has joined in with the condolence messages following the death of Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the first African to become UN Secretary General.

Mr Boutros-Ghali has been seen as instrumental in boosting UN peacekeeping which has become a key part of resolving conflicts on the continent.

The BBC's Catherine Byraruhanga has this handy guide to Uganda's presidential election on Thursday, including the party hand signals:

Africa's first UN secretary general Egyptian Boutros Boutros-Ghali has died at the age of 93.

The UN security council has observed a minute's silence in his memory.

Mali's President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita has tweeted that Mr Boutros-Ghali's death was an "immense loss for Africa" (see original below in French).

In a later tweet, he wrote: 

"I salute the memory of a tireless peacemaker, a defender of French-speaking communities and supporter of dialogue between civilisations." 

The BBC's Patience Atuhaire in Uganda's capital, Kampala, says that one part of the city was painted blue today and another part was painted yellow.

She's referring to the party colours of the main opposition Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) and the governing National Resistance Movement (NRM).

With just two days to go until the presidential election, they held their final rallies in Kampala.

Supporters of Kizza Besigye could get caps and small vuvuzelas at the FDC rally:

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And Yoweri Museveni T-shirts and jumpsuits were available at the NRM event:

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Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta has announced plans for a new prison for violent extremists. 

He says the facility will prevent offenders from spreading their extremism.

Currently, only death row inmates are kept in separate prison blocks from the rest of the convicts. 

The country’s correctional facilities have previously been described as inhumane, with some heavily congested. 

President Kenyatta, who was speaking at the passing out parade of more than 2,000 prison wardens today, says his government has embarked on a programme to address these concerns.

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One of Uganda's main opposition presidential candidates Kizza Begye says that this election process has not been "free and fair".

He told the BBC:

Quote Message: We know we have managers of the election who are clearly not independent and have a history of running elecitons that are not free. We have security institutions who are clearly biased and therefore we undertook to get into the campaign to rally people to defy all these challenges."

We know we have managers of the election who are clearly not independent and have a history of running elecitons that are not free. We have security institutions who are clearly biased and therefore we undertook to get into the campaign to rally people to defy all these challenges."

Mr Besigye has run against incumbent incumbent Yoweri Museveni three times before and has made similar complaints before.

The chairman of Uganda's electoral commission Badru Kiggundu has insisted that it's impartial and follows the same rules for all the candidates. 

Former UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali took office in 1992 at a time when the world body's influence was growing following the first Gulf War. 

He faced the immediate problems of civil war in Yugoslavia and Somalia and the continuing unrest in the Middle East. 

He was criticised for the UN's failure to stop the Rwandan genocide, and Washington was angered by his opposition to Nato's bombing campaign in Bosnia. 

The UK's mission to the UN has tweeted some photos of Mr Boutros-Ghali with prominent figures of the time, including Mother Theresa and Nelson Mandela. 

The chief executive of Athletics Kenya wants to step down temporarily amid allegations he asked athletes for bribes to reduce doping bans.

Isaac Mwangi denies wrongdoing but wants to leave his post for 21 days while world governing body the IAAF investigates the claims.

The World Anti-Doping Agency said it was "most disturbed" by the claims.

"The allegations have caused me a lot of mental anguish," Mwangi said in a letter to Athletics Kenya.

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BBC Sport revealed last week that Kenya had missed a deadline to prove to Wada it was tackling cheating in athletics, following a string of positive drugs tests and corruption allegations.  

Read the full BBC News story

With just two days to go before Uganda's presidential and parliamentary elections, the BBC's Tulanana Bohela has been asking some young Ugandans about why they're voting.

The country's long-serving leader  Yoweri Museni is being challenged by seven other candidates in the presidential poll.

One young man said: "It's not only my civil right to vote, but it's my role as a citizen to determine the direction of the country."

Watch the video:

The BBC's Emery Makumeno in the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kinshasa, was taking pictures earlier today of the quiet streets there. 

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The opposition and civil society groups had called for a general strike to protest against possible moves to extend the presidency of Joseph Kabila (see 10:33 post).

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Many shops and schools were closed and a lot of people were staying away from the centre of the city.

Our correspondent says that this morning people were afraid to go out fearing that their cars might be stoned.  

But by the start of the afternoon shops were opening and the traffic was getting back to normal, he says.

Two prominent opposition figures in Ethiopia have been released from prison in the capital, Addis Ababa, after months of detention over terrorism charges. 

Habtamu Ayalew and Abraham Solomon have been behind bars since July 2014, despite a federal high court acquitting them off the charges last year. 

Mr Habtamu, a vocal opposition leader, and Mr Abraham, who is a teacher and activist, were charged under the country’s controversial anti-terrorism law. 

They were acquitted mid last year but remained under police custody as the prosecution wanted to appeal. 

This process is continuing, despite their release today.

They were accused of belonging to the banned Ginbot 7 group, which the Ethiopian government has designated as a terror movement. 

Human rights groups have constantly accused the government of using the anti-terror law to crackdown on the opposition and stifle press freedom.

Felix Horne from US-based Human Rights Watch welcomed the news, saying it was "a positive development that they were finally released, but it’s hardly a victory for justice... They should never have been arrested in the first place".

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The final rallies ahead of Thursday's presidential election in Uganda are taking place.

President Yoweri Museveni's campaign team have tweeted a picture of the long-serving leader arriving by helicopter.

Scotland has urged officials in Mozambique to grant legal protection on imports of Scotch whisky.

Scottish Secretary Mr Mundell asked Mozambique's minister of industry to grant the recognition, which would mean only whisky that has been made in Scotland could legally be sold as Scotch in the country.

Exports of whisky to Mozambique have risen strongly in recent years.

He said that Scotland's whisky producers needed to be "protected from imitators, and consumers in Mozambique and elsewhere should be able to have confidence that what they are drinking is the real thing".

Scotch Whisky Association (SWA) chief executive David Frost said: "It is great to see that Scotch Whisky is in such demand in Mozambique and we expect its popularity to increase as the country's economy grows.

"We have the same positive outlook for many African countries with a growing-middle class seeking out high-quality imported products such as Scotch."

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Read the full BBC News story

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Sorting out Nigeria’s $31bn (£20.8bn) budget is a gargantuan task, but the budget chief was sacked after typographical errors and other anomalies were spotted. 

Some civil servants, dubbed the “budget mafia”, are accused of inflating the budget for their ministries, things that should have been spotted before the budget was submitted to the parliament in December. 

Part of the problem was that the budget was rushed as it had to be submitted before 2016 – and some ministries filed late.

It has already been recalled once to amend some obvious errors, so this is all an embarrassment for President Muhammadu Buhari.

MPs set a deadline of 25 February to pass it but given the problems it is not likely to happen till March. 

Nigeria’s parliament has to scrutinise and pass the budget before it can be implemented.