Africa is now home to 55 billionaires, up from previous estimates of 16-25 billionaires, new research has found. These super rich are worth a combined total of $143.88bn (£89.27bn). The UK, in contrast, is home to 84 billionaires, worth a nearly £250bn, according to the 2013 Sunday Times Rich List.

This weekend, the United States conducted two raids against militant Islamists in Tripoli, Libya and Barawe, Somalia. Though the action in Tripoli appeared to be more successful—FBI and CIA agents nabbed Abu Anas al-Liby, a suspected leader of Al Qaeda—the significance of both raids lies less in their immediate success and more in their implications for American involvement in Africa.

There is a growing view both from Nairobi and the cloistered, heavily defended corridors of Villa Somalia – the Somali government’s main compound here in Mogadishu – that al-Shabab’s Westgate Mall attack was an act of desperation. It was, says the theory, a lashing out by a movement on the ropes; a last-ditch attempt to prove its legitimacy and win supporters in the face of continued military pressure on the ground, a brutally damaging internal power-struggle, and a growing sense of irrelevance abroad.

A group of young Colombian musicians known as “Cantares del Pacifico” is crossing the Atlantic for five days in a cultural exchange of music and dance with the west African nation of Ghana. The visit comes after opening diplomatic relationship between the two countries following the establishment of shared embassy between Colombia, Mexico, Chile and Peru in Ghana under the Cali Declaration made in recent accord with the Pacific Alliance.

Internet access was officially declared a right by the UN in 2011, eight years after the World Summit Information Society first met in 2003. Among their goals was to address the global digital divide; to "improve access to information and communication infrastructure and technologies as well as to information and knowledge; build capacity; increase confidence and security in the use of ICTs; create an enabling environment at all levels; develop and widen ICT applications." Despite this, a decade later, 68% of the world does not have access to internet.

Gao, the largest city in northern Mali, is a place of extremes. It’s a sprawl of one- and two-story mud-brick houses that lack power lines and running water, but it’s also home to the garish, McMansion-style estates of Cocainebougou, or “Cocaine Town,” a deserted neighborhood that once belonged to Arab drug lords who controlled the region’s smuggling routes for hashish and cocaine but fled, fearing reprisals from local citizens who blamed them for the Islamist invasion.

When one of South Africa’s biggest newspaper chains was sold last month, an odd name was buried in the list of new owners: China International Television Corp. A major stake in a South African newspaper group might seem an unusual acquisition for Chinese state television, but it was no mystery to anyone who has watched the rapid expansion of China’s media empire across Africa.

It's a June night in Kinshasa, and rapper JB Mpiana's weekly VIP bash is just starting to heat up. Toned groupies splash like mermaids in a sunken pool. Middle-aged businessmen perch on the ledge above to watch. A minute before midnight, JB runs onstage among a huge posse of gyrating dancers in sunglasses. He rips into some of his biggest hits; a bombastic performer, he glides across the stage with a beefy grace, dressed in a hunter-orange jumpsuit and matching cap.