Thomas Fessy
BBC News, Dakar

Image source, AFP

The UN has appealed for $2bn (£1.3bn) to provide humanitarian aid to more than 23 million people threatened by hunger in nine countries in the Sahel region as a result of conflict between extremist groups and governments, and climate change. 

The UN says six million of them will require "urgent life-saving assistance" next year, while two million children under the age of five years - mostly in Chad, Mali and Niger - risk suffering from "severe acute malnutrition". 

The humanitarian crisis is unfolding despite better harvests this year.   

In the Lake Chad basin, which straddles four countries, Boko Haram's  insurgency has triggered the fastest growing refugee crisis in Africa, it says.

The number of people forced out of their homes has tripled in less than two years, reaching 4.5 million.

Two popular Kenyan rappers have been speaking to the BBC's Sophie Ikenye about their music style and life.

Maddtraxx and Mejja do a genre of hip-hop music called Genge, which has its origins in the capital, Nairobi.

They said their aim is not to send any message but just to have fun:

The world is not paying enough attention to the plight of people affected by the insurgency waged by militant Islamist group Boko Haram in north-east Nigeria, former UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband has told the BBC.

Mr Miliband, who is the head of the International Rescue Committee (IRC), said international policy-makers and Nigerian authorities needed to step up efforts to help victims of the conflict. 

"It's important for us to be in the places which make the headlines, but also important to be in the places that don't," he told the BBC's Ishaq Khalid during a visit to Yola, one of the areas badly affected by the violence.

"The danger is that people are not in the headline will get forgotten until they end up in the headline for a wrong reason," Mr Miliband added.

Image source, Getty Images

Mr Miliband said there was a "hidden catastrophe" in north-east Nigeria.  

"Some of the people I met who recently returned from Cameroon are in desperate situation and need urgent help," he added.

IRC is one of the few international humanitarian agencies assisting some of the three million people displaced by the six-year Boko Haram insurgency.

Cameroon repatriated some Nigerians who had fled to the country to escape conflict. 

Cameroon said it feared the refugees were infiltrated by the militants who have also carried out attacks on its territory.    

Zambia should charge higher electricity tariffs for its mines to attract investment in power generation, the World Bank said, Reuters news agency reports. 

The country's mining firms consume 55% of power in Africa's second-largest copper producer, and they are likely to resist the move.

Zambia's currency has plunged against the dollar and inflation is rising amidst the backdrop of widespread power cuts.  

The price of its main export, copper, has fallen to a six-year low.  

World Bank senior economist Gregory Smith said the country also needs to strengthen its fiscal position to restore confidence in its struggling economy which is expected to grow less than four percent next year before expanding 5-6% in 2017.

Image source, James Jeffrey

Read: Zambian businesses pummelled by power cuts

Prime Ndikumagenge
BBC Africa, Bujumbura

Five youths have been shot dead at close range in a neighbourhood north of Burundi's capital, Bujumbura, in the latest violence since President Pierre Nkuruniza's decision to extend his decade-long rule despite opposition protests and an attempted coup.  

Bullet-riddled bodies of the five young men lay in a pool of blood on the side of a road in Cibitoke, seen as an opposition stronghold. 

Neighbours and witnesses said the five were shot dead by police officers who came in pick-up vehicles and stormed their homes, saying they were looking for people who had thrown grenades at them.

A sobbing woman said one of the victims had just returned from work. He showed the police his work ID card, but they would not listen to him, she said.

Image source, Reuters

A police spokesman said the five were killed in reprisal fire following grenade attacks which injured two police officers.

Two people were also killed last night.

Street protests against Mr Nkurunziza's continuing rule have turned into some kind insurgency. 

More than 200 people have been killed since violence broke out in April.

Read 09:02 post: Will Rwandan leader seek third term? 

Nick Cavell
BBC Africa Sport

Two teams will qualify for the men’s football tournament at next year’s Olympics in Rio this afternoon when the semi-finals of the Under-23 Africa Cup of Nations are played. 

Hosts Senegal take on former Olympic gold-medallists Nigeria at 15:00 GMT and then at 18:30 GMT Algeria play South Africa. 

The winners not only qualify for the tournament final on Saturday but will also book tickets for Rio 2016. 

The losers will meet in the third-place play-off, also on Saturday, in what is probably a more important match than the final as the winner will grab the final spot for Africa at the Olympics.

Andrew Walker
World Service economics correspondent

The emerging market countries are at a crossroads, facing the possibility of new era of slower economic growth, the World Bank warns in a new report.

But there are some more upbeat aspects in the experts' assessment. They don't reject the idea that this might just be a temporary soft patch.

They also say emerging economies are not as vulnerable as they were in previous decades.

Image source, Reuters

The starting point for this report is the marked slowdown in growth that has already taken place in the emerging market economies since 2010.

Many are affected by sliding prices of commodities such as metals and oil. 

There has also been weaker demand in export markets for their products, which in turn partly reflects what the report calls "anaemic growth in the advanced economies".  

Read more on BBC story here

Tanzanians have been reacting to the changes that President John Magufuli has introduced since his election in October.

Mr Magufuli cancelled today's Independence Day celebrations as part of his campaign against wasteful spending - and spent the morning cleaning the streets near his official residence in the main city, Dar es Salaam (see 09:03 post).  

Tanzanian academic Benson Banna has been telling the BBC's  Newsday radio programme that Mr Magufuli is a change-maker:. 

Caroline Karobia
BBC Africa, Nairobi

Image source, PA

Kenya and the UK have renewed a defence co-operatoon agreement which allows British troops to continue training at Nanyuki in north-eastern Kenya.

A previous attempt to sign the deal collapsed following differences over whether UK troops can be prosecuted in Kenya for any offences they commit in the East African state. 

Under the new deal, UK soldiers who break the law while off duty in Kenya will be prosecuted by Kenya's authorities. 

However, if they commit offences while on duty, they will be prosecuted in Kenya but by UK officials. 

Kenya Defence Cabinet Secretary Rachael Omama says the deal is a product of hard negotiations and both parties are satisfied with the agreement. 

The deal will be seen as a huge success for Kenya which has been fighting for the right to prosecute British officers accused of committing in the country. 

The new deal will be in force for five years.

Sammy Awami
BBC Africa, Dar es Salaam

It is not a common scene in Tanzania - the president, dressed casually and wearing a hat and  gloves, joining hundreds of people in sweeping streets and picking up rubbish in the main city, Dar es Salaam. 

But this is just what newly elected President John Magufuli did this morning after cancelling today's usually lavish Independence Day celebrations and ordering Tanzanians to clean-up their neighbourhoods. 

The scene was replicated across the country, with schools and shops remaining shut as people swept streets, pruned trees, and tidied up their areas from the crack of dawn. 

This is the first time in 54 years that Tanzania has not held celebrations to mark independence from the UK.  

In many ways, the clean -up exercise was symbolic of President Magufuli’s pledge to remove what many Tanzanians see as the rot in public institutions, and their failure to perform effectively.

Last month, Mr Magufuli said it would be "shameful" to spend huge sums of money on the celebrations when "our people are dying of cholera".

Cholera has killed about 60 people in Tanzania in the last three months - many of them in poor areas which lack proper toilets.

Mr Magafuli, nicknamed "The Bulldozer", was elected in October.

Read: Magufuli profile

Rwanda will hold a controversial referendum on 18 December on whether to lift the two-term president limit - a move that could open the way for President Paul Kagame to run for a third consecutive term in elections due in 2017. 

The US - a staunch ally of Mr Kagame - has urged him to step down at the end of his term, warning that any bid to extend his term would undermine democratic principles. 

Mr Kagame hit back, saying the US should not interfere in Rwanda's domestic affairs. 

He has not yet indicated whether he will seek re-election, and is expected to make a final decision after the referendum. 

"The cabinet meeting approved the presidential order determining the date and purpose of the referendum," an official statement said. Rwandans abroad would vote on 17 December. 

Image source, Getty Images

Rwanda's parliament has already approved the constitutional amendment to lift the two-term limit. 

Mr Kagame has ruled Rwanda since the end of the 1994 genocide.

Neighbouring Burundi has been hit by unrest since April, when President Pierre Nkurunziza announced he was running for a third term. He won the subsequent election by a landslide.

Read: Arrogance of power

Image source, AFP

Today's African ‪proverb‬: "A river does not flow through the forest without knocking down trees." Sent by Sallu Kamara from Sierra Leone, and by Nana Efe and Nasiru Tijjani from Nigeria. 

Click here to send us your African proverbs.

Welcome to the BBC Africa Live page where we'll be keeping you up-to-date with news developments on the continent.