Cowboy-hat wearing Wellington Jighere from Nigeria crushed his English opponent 4-0 at the World Scrabble Championship in Australia to become first African to bag the word game's global title. Jighere, 32, was among more than 120 competitors who travelled to Perth for the World English-language Scrabble Players' Association Championship, which culminated in Sunday's  final against England's Lewis Mackay.

Botho University engaged in an international research conference [...] ‘The future dynamics of higher education in a global society’ […] The U.S. ambassador to Botswana, Earl Miller, articulated that the US Embassy is committed to the development of the education system of Botswana citing that since last year there has been a 6 % increase of Botswana students studying [...] in the U.S.

When Armand Diangienda picks up an instrument that he has never played, he looks for its hidden rule. That skill [...] was crucial twenty years ago, when he started the Kimbanguist Symphony Orchestra, in Kinshasa, the capital city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In 2014, they travelled to the U.K. to perform with several ensembles, including the BBC Concert Orchestra, in a tour of English cities.

Young women [in Uganda] there confided in [Diana Sierra]: It was difficult, they said, to go to school while on their periods […] Today, Sierra’s company Be Girl is working to ensure that all girls who want to go to school can—even when they’re menstruating. Be Girl’s underwear and reusable sanitary pads include waterproof pouches that can be stuffed with any absorbent material, like cloth, cotton or toilet paper.

Al-Shabaab propaganda video tries to lure fighters with scenes of African hunting safari. The shooting is just one of the surreal scenes in the latest of a series of high-definition videos called "Front Lines" that al Qaeda-linked Somali insurgent group Al-Shabaab uses to recruit members. The U.S. government designated the militant group a terrorist organization in 2008.

Several years ago, Erin Zaikis was working in rural Thailand. She was surprised to see how many children in the village didn’t wash their hands with soap, much less know what soap was. In 2013 Zaikis founded Sundara, a nonprofit working to improve hygiene and prevent disease in poor communities in India, Uganda and Myanmar by recycling used bars of hotel soap. 

The third India-Africa Forum Summit has been depicted as truly historic. It is so for three reasons: it was the largest assembly of African leaders outside Africa; the biggest gathering of Africa’s 41 heads of state/government on Indian soil; and it saw India unveiling a bigger development cooperation package than ever before.

China’s soft power has also been ascendant in Africa. [...] China is leveraging its soft power — culture, investment, academia, foreign aid, public diplomacy — more effectively than before to influence Africa and other regions in the developing world.