Lynsey Chutel

Botswana has decided to deport the American pastor who became notorious over his homophobic comments after the Orlando nightclub shooting. Pastor Steven Anderson was spouting his anti-gay message on a Botswana radio station when immigration officers entered the studios and escorted him out on Sept. 20, according to the radio station’s news report. The Botswana government announced via Twitter that Anderson was now considered a “prohibited immigrant.”

The headquarters of one the Democratic Republic of Congo’s main opposition parties was torched on Sept. 20. According to Reuters, at least two people died in the blaze. A day earlier, an anti-government protest turned deadly, after at least 17 people died in clashes, according to the country’s interior ministry. Opposition parties put the number at 53, while activists say 25 protesters were shot.

South Africa’s parliamentary committee will hold a two-day hearing Sept. 20 and 21 discuss why the country’s data costs are so high after a social media campaign #DataMustFall went viral. The hashtag was started by a popular DJ who says he is trying to turn the social media debate into a movement.

In a newly built innovation hub on Johannesburg’s trendiest block, 20 young scientists from eight different countries stare intently at their computers in a hackathon unlike any other. The code they’re trying to crack isn’t the password of a high-ranking official or executive’s email. Their cause is much more noble: they’re trying to figure out how to beat the deadly, drug-resistant malaria that has become a global scourge.

African telecoms giant MTN has canned its mobile money service in South Africa, the second mobile company to do so this year. MTN South Africa announced Sept. 15 that it was decommissioning the product “due to a lack of commercial viability.”

A spate of violent attacks on passengers is adding to Uber’s woes in South Africa. In two separate incidents last week, men driving Uber cars attacked passengers of the ride-hailing service, police told Quartz on Sept. 15. Police believe the same suspects are behind the attacks in Johannesburg’s northern suburbs.

An American pastor notorious for his homophobic sermons and online posts has been barred from entering South Africa to spread his message. Minister of Home Affairs Malusi Gigaba announced on Sept. 13 that Pastor Steven Anderson, members of his church and any associates traveling with him have been declared undesirable persons and will not be allowed to enter the country.

Edgar Lungu returned to the inaugural podium on Sept. 13, nearly a month after winning Zambia’s presidency. The contested election rocked the normally stable country. Now Lungu has to make good on the promises he made to save the economy.

South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma took out a second mortgage to pay back state funds used to upgrade his sprawling family homestead. On Sept. 12, Zuma’s office issued a statement saying the president paid back the more than 7 million rand, around $540,000, in line with a court ruling earlier this year that found that he flouted the constitution by building his private home with public funds.

President Robert Mugabe was deeply touched by a statue in his own image, but Zimbabweans on social media were less flattering. On Sept. 10 two new statues of the president were unveiled at Mugabe’s official residence in the capital Harare. A moved Mugabe asked citizens to show gratitude to artists, instead Zimbabweans mercilessly mocked the largest of the statues.

Pretoria, South Africa

The Zimbabwean government, the country’s main employer, will cut 25,000 jobs as a desperate measure to save what’s left in state coffers. Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa announced the job cuts and other cost-cutting measures, according to a Sept. 9 report by the state-run Herald Newspaper.

A little girl’s desire to go to school exposed the cracks of citizenship laws in Cuba and South Africa. The girl, now 8, was deemed stateless until a court ordered the South African government to grant her citizenship this week. Her Cuban parents have been fighting for her rights for most of the child’s life.

A successful space mission could alter the destiny of Rustenburg, a dusty mining district in South Africa.

Mozambique’s new central bank governor took office this week, amid hopes that the former International Monetary Fund employee will help repair the country’s relationship with the financial institution and restore investor confidence, after the discovery of a hidden $1.4 billion debt earlier this year. Repairing Mozambique’s fiscal reputation, however, will require more from the country’s government than a key appointment.

Angola’s president José Eduardo dos Santos has fired the country’s finance minister, according to a statement from the government. Dos Santos gave no explanation for his Sept. 5 replacement of Armando Manuel with Archer Mangueira, the head of Angola’s Capital Markets Commission, according to Reuters.

Political infighting in South Africa is scaring off lenders from state-owned companies and potentially weakening everything in the economy from electricity to agriculture.

A hairstyle should not have to be a radical political choice, especially for a girl only just beginning to navigate high school. But this week, a 13-year-old girl’s determination to wear her Afro revealed how race still informed school policies and social perceptions of what is acceptable behavior for black South Africans.

Black South African girls as young as 13 have resorted to public protests for the right to wear their natural hair at a prestigious, formerly whites only school. The image of a schoolgirl sporting an Afro and standing up to a white man went viral on Monday (Aug. 29).

President Robert Mugabe will not allow the growing public anger in his country to grow into Zimbabwe’s Arab Spring. Desperate economic conditions under Mugabe’s 36-year rule have led to a series of protests in recent months. On Friday, Zimbabwe’s fractured opposition parties banded together to organize one of the largest demonstrations in recent years. Police were deployed to crush the march.

This story has been updated.

On his first day on the job, Johannesburg’s new mayor ordered a skills audit and performance review of the city’s staff, assuring anyone who was competent that they would keep their jobs. Herman Mashaba was elected mayor of South Africa’s largest city late on Aug. 22, promising to end corruption and ushering in a new political era for the country’s economic capital.

Gold is finally within Caster Semenya’s grasp. The South African athlete cruised to victory in her heat on Aug. 17 and her semi-final run the next day was effortless. It’s the kind of performance that may see the 800-meters runner break a 33-year-old world record in the Aug. 20 final.

Running blind in the eighth lane, Wayde van Niekerk never looked back or even to his side as he ran to victory in the men’s 400 meter final at the Rio Olympics on Monday. His gold medal is still being celebrated in South Africa, van Niekerk’s home, but his win also quickly became a race debate—a heated discussion about his skin color and ethnicity, not his running technique.