That's it from us today. Listen to the Africa Today podcast and keep up-to-date with stories from across the continent on the BBC News website.

We leave you with this photo of students in Soweto joking around on their way home from school. They are on a street in the South African township littered with stones after a protest over unaffordable electricity prices and new pre-paid metres.

Image source, Reuters

The Ivorian ban on skin-lightening products has been widely welcomed on the BBC Africa's Facebook page, external:

Botlhe Kamerun Segokgo says black people who bleach their skins are "mentally enslaved".

Ibrahim Abolaji agrees: "This decision is long overdue. I wonder why African governments have waited so long to stop this behaviour. I hope other African countries would move to save African women."

Image source, AFP

Ngwenya Hlazo adds: "Free at last! Our women are beautiful in our natural skin, those that bleach their skin turn us off."

Ifeanyi Orji Perfect says: "Apart from health concerns we should be the way our creator made us.

Caleb Danny Peterson tells African women to be proud: "Who deceived you that being light skinned is beautiful? I love dark girls honestly."

Ivory Coast's former President Laurent Gbagbo will go on trial for crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court (ICC) on 11 November 2015.

At his initial hearing in The Hague in December 2011, he became the first former head of state to appear at the ICC.

The case follows an ICC investigation into the four months of conflict that began in Ivory Coast when Mr Gbagbo refused to hand power to his long-time rival Mr Ouattara, who was declared winner of the 2010 presidential election.

Image source, Reuters

African Union chief Nkosozana Dlamini Zuma has reiterated her comments on CCTV, external about Burundi in a series of tweets, external.

She says that the environment there "is not conducive for elections".

She also questions the decision by Burundi's constitutional court that the president's third-term bid is legal: "Other than the #Burundi Court, all interpretations of the constitution & #Arusha Agreements are clear that there shouldn't be a third term."

Heavy rains are not unusual in Tanzania's main city of Dar es Salaam, but the recent heavy downpours have overwhelmed the infrastructure, reports the BBC's Hassan Mhelela.

Image source, Michuzi

The damage is still being assessed but police say two people have been killed and many hundreds have been made homeless.

Some of the major roads into the city have been closed because water levels were rising rapidly and bridges have been submerged.

Image source, Michuzi

Yusuf Ibrahim Yakasai
BBC Hausa, Kano

Nigerian customs officials have arrested four Chinese nationals accused of smuggling textiles into the country.

Bales of material worth millions of dollars have also been confiscated after 26 warehouses were raided in Kano, the commercial centre of northern Nigeria.

In the last decade, more than 20 textile factories have closed in the city, unable to compete with cheaper foreign imports. There is only one factory still in operation.

A court in Algeria has jailed 14 people and fined seven foreign companies over a massive fraud case.

There were allegations of money laundering and embezzlement of public funds over the construction of a motorway, the AFP news agency reports

Started in 2006, it was due to be completed four years later at a total cost of $6bn (£3.9bn); but it is has yet to be finished and costs have risen to more than double that figure, it says.

A map showing the spot where a silver ingot - believed to be treasure of Scottish pirate William Kidd - was found in Madagascar.

Image source, Google/BBC

Three thousand refugees from Burundi have arrived in Tanzania over the past few weeks, according to the UN refugee agency.

The BBC's Tulanana Bohela has been to Kagunga, where new arrivals are crammed onto the shore of Lake Tanganyika.

They are fleeing the political tension in Burundi created by President Pierre Nkurunziza's third-term bid.

Fears are growing that the crisis in Burundi could undermine the development of neighbouring East African nations, the BBC's Russell Padmore reports.

"We are expecting if the situation in Burundi gets worse there could some economic effect on Uganda," Nebert Rugadya, a business commentator in Kampala, told the BBC.

Image source, AP

The footage showing Boko Haram fighters on trucks and motorcycles fleeing the air force indicates that Nigeria's military is willing to get involved in the propaganda war, the BBC's Africa security correspondent Tomi Oladipo says in his latest piece.

Image source, Nigerian military

The BBC Africa Business Report team is pictured today filming in a cave two hours from Toliara in the south of Madagascar where a local company extracts bat droppings - known as guano - used to make fertiliser:

Treasure thought to have belonged to notorious Scottish pirate William Kidd has been discovered off Madagascar.

Capt Kidd was executed in 1701 for piracy after returning from a voyage to the Indian Ocean.

He was actually appointed by the Crown to tackle piracy and capture enemy French ships. To find out more about him, click here.

Image source, AFP

Does the name Jean-Yves Ollivier ring any bells? He's the man behind some of the continent's oil deals and is now coming out of the shadows.

The Frenchman says his career has been built on trading favours. At first he helps someone but does not ask anything in return.

But "the gain comes afterwards and for a mutually beneficial project", he tells Bloomberg, external in a profile piece.

Image source, Monica Schipper

Chris Ewokor
BBC Africa, Abuja

Bushmeat is a popular delicacy here in Nigeria, but with the advent of Ebola people have been less keen to eat it. The handling of wild animal meat is believed to spread the virus to humans.

Now that the Ebola scare is dying down, animals killed by hunters are again being seen for sale along major highways.

Here are some rabbits and a snake on display along the Abuja-Kubwa expressway.

The US embassy in Burundi's capital, Bujumbura, has criticised the police action that broke up a demonstration outside the embassy on Tuesday.

In a Facebook post, external it says that those protesting against the president's third-term bid were not violent nor was police protection requested, but the demonstration was dispersed with tear gas and warning shots in the air.

The embassy says that "protesters should be able to communicate their message without being met with violence and reprisal".

Image source, AFP

Alex Duval Smith
Bamako, Mali

Despite his attempts to steer clear of it, the African Union's representative in the Sahel, former Burundian President Pierre Buyoya, could be drawn into his country's electoral row.

Burundian residents in Mali - who say they number about 50 - were hoping today to hold a protest over President Pierre Nkurunziza's third-term bid and then hand a letter to Mr Buyoya's office.

The protest was not allowed to go ahead, but the Burundians here say they will hand the letter over tomorrow.

Herve Yonkeu
BBC Africa

From today, residents of Central African Economic and Monetary Community (Cemac), do not need visas to travel within the six-nation union.

Visas were supposed to have been abolished last year, but Gabon and Equatorial Guinea had not complied.

But following Wednesday's Cemac heads of state meeting in Gabon, they agreed to waive visas for all who carry biometric passports or biometric ID.

A full French investigation has been launched into the child sex abuse allegations made against French peacekeepers in Central African Republic. Details of a United Nations inquiry into allegations that 14 soldiers were involved in the abuse was leaked last week.

French President Francois Hollande said that "if some soldiers have behaved badly, I will show no mercy".

The BBC's Maud Jullien in Burundi's capital, Bujumbura, has been talking to the family of a 28-year-old who was killed this morning by a grenade that exploded in front of his house.

Seen here mourning his body, the family believe a supporter of the ruling party threw it:

Another person was killed in Cibitoke district, where protests against the president's third-term bid continue, by police who reportedly fired in the air.

In what looks like a revenge attack, a member of the ruling party's youth wing, Imbonerakure, was burnt and killed by protesters in Nyakabiga district.

Image source, AP

The BBC's Great Lakes service says that outside Bujumbura, in the rural area of Gisozi, a protester was also killed after police fired at a demonstration against President Nkurunziza.