The International Monetary Fund says that Zambia's government is committed to austerity measures to rein in the country's budget deficit.

An IMF team has just finished its visit there and says in a statement that the "current levels of the budget deficit [are] unsustainable".

It also says that reducing energy subsidies will be key to cutting back on government spending.

The IMF says that Zambia's economy has suffered because of low commodity prices and reduced rainfall, which has affected the harvest.

But it adds that prospects are brighter in the medium term as structural reforms kick in.

Image source, AFP

There are five major votes taking place on the continent this Sunday.

• Zanzibar election re-run for the islands' government
• Senegal referendum on reducing presidential terms
• Benin presidential run-off
• Niger presidential run-off
• Congo-Brazzaville presidential election

The results of last year's elections on Tanzania's semi-autonomous Zanzibar islands were controversially annulled after the opposition presidential candidate declared himself the winner.

The BBC's Tulanana Bohela has put together this short video explainer:

We wrote in our 10:22 post that the BBC's Rana Jawad has been given rare access to a new all-women prison in Tunisia, designed to ease overcrowding.

One of the inmates our correspondent spoke to was a former banker who was convicted of stealing public money.

Fatima told her that it's shameful for her family to visit her in prison:

Tulip Mazumdar
Global Health Correspondent

We reported in our 9:03 post that there are two new Ebola cases in Guinea, the first since the outbreak was declared over last December. 

This is yet another blow in the long lingering fight against the virus. But it is not unexpected.

Guinea was in fact the only one of the three worst-affected countries that hadn't had a re-emergence of the virus once it had been declared over.

Both Sierra Leone and Liberia have reported little clusters of new cases after declaring the outbreaks over. But they've been dealt with quickly.

A risk of new flare-ups remains because Ebola can persist in body fluids of some survivors for months after they recover.

A very small number of new cases have been linked to sexual transmission.

The world is in new territory here, scientists are still learning as the worst Ebola outbreak in history continues to unfold.

Image source, Getty Images

It's the South African Powerlifting championships today and the BBC's Christian Parkinson sent us these pictures from the competition in Potchefstroom:

Mary Harper
Africa editor, BBC World Service

The authorities in Somalia's semi-autonomous region of Puntland say the military has surrounded 250 fighters from the Islamist group al-Shabab. 

Puntland's Vice President Abdihakin Abdullahi Haji Omar Amey told BBC Somali that the militants were trapped in a valley, with no food to eat. 

He said some had tried to escape but had been either killed or captured. 

Al-Shabab has had bases in Puntland for several years. 

Last year, a splinter group in the area declared allegiance to so-called Islamic state. 

Most of al-Shabab is allied to al-Qaeda.

Image source, AFP

Milton Nkosi
BBC Africa, Johannesburg

South Africa is on tenterhooks today as the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the governing African National Congress (ANC) begins its two-day meeting near the capital, Pretoria, amid allegations that the wealthy Gupta family is influencing President Jacob Zuma's decisions.

The 100-member NEC is expected to discuss the unfolding political crisis sparked by the revelation by Deputy Finance Minister Mcebisi Jonas this week that he was offered the job of finance minister by the Guptas.

The family denies this.

Newspaper headlines are dominated by the scandal:

Yesterday Mr Zuma denied that he has outsourced his constitutional duties of appointing cabinet ministers to his friends. 

He told a raucous parliament: “I am in charge of the government, I appoint in terms of the constitution."

There were no casualties in the early morning rocket attack on a gas plant in southern Algeria, the AFP news agency is reporting.

It says that jihadists were responsible, but they were beaten back.

"At around 6 am, a terrorist group launched a rocket attack on the Krechba gas plant," AFP quotes an employee as saying.

We reported in our 9:28 post that a yellow fever outbreak in Angola has killed 158 people. 

The head of the Luanda paediatrics hospital, Mateus Campos, said 27 children died there on Monday alone, with many suspected cases turning up each day.

Authorities launched a mass vaccination campaign in February and the government urged residents to sterilise stagnant water before drinking it.

Image source, SPL

Tunisia's long-standing anti-drug law slaps offenders with a minimum, automatic one-year jail term.  

When the BBC's Rana Jawad got rare access to a women's prison in the capital, Tunis, she met one woman who told her that her three children are now staying in an orphanage as she has been charged with smoking a joint. 

The prisons are overcrowded and Tunisia's government is under pressure to jail fewer people.

Our correspondent says that there is a serious ongoing debate among lawmakers to amend some laws 

But the conversation is moving slowly.

Read more on the BBC News website.

A gas plant in Algeria has been hit by rocket fire according to a statement from Statoil quoted by the AP news agency.

AFP is quoting employees at the plant saying that jihadists launched a rocket attack.

Anne Soy
BBC Africa, Nairobi

Kenya has confirmed two cases of yellow fever for the first time in about two decades. 

Both cases were imported from Angola (see 09:28 entry) where an outbreak of the disease has killed more than 150 people. 

The disease has been eradicated in Kenya.

The two Kenyan men with yellow fever arrived from Angola where they had been living and working for more than 10 years. 

The first died on Wednesday at the country's main hospital where the second man has now been admitted. 

Health officials have however assured Kenyans that there is no danger of direct human-to-human transmission as the disease is spread through infected mosquitoes. 

Image source, AFP

A yellow fever outbreak in Angola that began late last year has killed 158 people, up from 50 a month ago, as deaths from the disease transmitted by mosquitoes accelerate, a World Health Organization official said on Friday, Reuters reports.

There has also been an increase in malaria, cholera and chronic diarrhoea in the capital, Luanda, and other cities, partly due to a breakdown in sanitation services and rubbish collection, health officials say. 

South Africa's cartoonists are having fun with the allegations that the wealthy Gupta family have been attempting to influence ministerial appointments in the country.

The family denies that, and so did President Jacob Zuma in a rowdy session in parliament on Thursday.

But that hasn't stopped the satirists:

Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) has been tweeting details of the escape and capture of a lion in the capital, Nairobi.

It got out of the city's wildlife park and was seen in the morning around a busy Nairobi highway.

One person driving by made a short film of the lion wandering along the side of the road, and you can hear all the motorists honking their horns.

KWS' Pual Udot told the AFP news agency that "people were there, hooting their horns, taking selfies and all that and the lion got agitated".

This is the second time a lion has escaped from the park in recent weeks.

Two people have tested positive for Ebola in Guinea, three months after the outbreak was declared over in the country. 

They are being cared for at a treatment centre in the south of the country, close to where the worst Ebola outbreak in history was first identified two years ago. 

It's understood three members of their family had recently died after showing symptoms of Ebola. 

The government says their village is now in lockdown and vaccines are being taken to the area to try and protect those at risk. 

The World Health Organization has warned sporadic cases of Ebola are likely to re-emerge as the virus can linger on in body fluids of some survivors. 

Both neighbouring Liberia and Sierra Leone have reported new cases after the outbreaks were declared over there - but this is another major blow in the continuing fight against Ebola.

Image source, AFP

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