That's all from the BBC Africa Live page today. Keep up-to-date with what's happening across the continent by listening to the Africa Today podcast or checking the BBC News website. 

A reminder of today's wise words:

Click here to send your African proverbs.

And we leave you with this Instagram photo of someone breakdancing in the Cameroonian city of Douala:

Odeo Sirari
BBC Swahili Service

Five leaders of Tanzania’s main opposition Chadema party have been released on bail after being questioned.

They are now required to report back to the police on Thursday 1 September, the day their party is planning to hold countrywide demonstrations.

Among those arrested was Chadema’s presidential candidate last year, Edward Lowassa – the main challenger to President John Magufuli who won the poll.

It was not immediately clear why they were arrested, but speaking to the BBC Swahili’s Dira ya Dunia programme, Chadema official Peter Msigwa said they had discuss plans for Thursday at a meeting.

This directly defies a police order that bans such gatherings.

Pumza Fihlani
BBC News, Pretoria

Image source, Twitter various

The reports of alleged racism at a Pretoria girls school, (see earlier posts), have resonated across South Africa.  

One of the protesters told me that this is about the identity as black people:

South Africans, particularly young black South Africans, have been using social media in recent months to raise questions about beauty, cultural tolerance and racism.

They have been challenging what they describe as colonial standards that should have been dismantled years ago.

Zimasa Mabela, who saw the sea for the first time at the age of 18, is the first African woman to command a navy vessel.

She is in charge of a de-mining ship based in Cape Town, South Africa and talks to another pioneer, Jasmin Labarda - the first woman in the Philippines to become a chief mate - on the BBC World Service programme The Conversation about life at sea. 

Listen to the South African commander tell how her desire to see the world led her to join the navy:

Click here to listen to the whole programme.

We have been reporting today that protests have surrounded a school in Pretoria, South Africa, where black students were allegedly told to straighten their hair.

The spokesperson for Gauteng province's education department Oupa Bodibe has told the BBC's Focus on Africa radio programme that he is calling for an investigation. 

After visiting the school he said its code of conduct was not accommodating to black hairstyles and called for an investigation:

The video of an adult telling schools girls that they will all be arrested has been viewed more than 10,000 times:

Abdinoor Aden
BBC Africa, Nairobi

Kenya’s Sports Minister Hassan Wario has today maintained he will not reverse the decision to disband the National Olympic Committee of Kenya (Nock) over the ongoing “Rio fiasco” scandal.

This is despite fears of an imminent ban from International Olympic Committee (IOC) over orders to dissolve it last week.

Senior Nock officials are currently being investigated – and could face criminal charges (see earlier posts) – over alleged mismanagement of Kenya’s Olympic team and officials during Rio Olympics.

Mr Wario said an eight-member team would also look into the allegations.

Complaints ranged from problems with accreditation and transportation to missing kit and trouble with accommodation.

As part of the investigation, police raided the Nock headquarters and found cartons containing kits meant for athletes.

However, athletics boss Jackson Tuwei has warned the decision to disband Nock could affect the country’s reputation after registering good results in the just concluded Olympics.

Speaking separately, retired athlete and Nock President Kipchoge Keino raised similar concerns.

Kenya is expected to send a delegation to IOC headquarters in a fortnight to defend its decision.

Image source, AP

New research suggests, external that Lucy, an ancient human whose fossil remains show she lived more than three million years ago, probably died falling from a tree. 

Lucy was discovered in Ethiopia in 1974. 

She is made up of several hundred pieces of bone fossils.

John Kappelman and his colleagues from the University of Texas analysed the fractures and breaks in the bones and say they are likely to have been sustained at the time of her death as a result of a fall from a considerable height.

They produced this animation of Lucy's hypothetical fall:

Image source, University of Texas at Austin

The findings support the case that the species would climb trees to escape predators.

But the man who discovered Lucy, Donald Johanson, told the UK's Guardian paper, external that the story is "neither verifiable nor falsifiable, and therefore unprovable".

The BBC’s John Solombi in Dar es Salaam says police have arrested officials of the main opposition party Chadema party, including former presidential contender Edward Lowassa.

It is not clear why they have been arrested.

Chadema is planning countrywide rallies on Thursday to protest at what it says are infringements on freedom of expression and democracy in Tanzania since President John Magufuli came to power last year. 

His government has barred public and in-door political rallies in the country. 

Image source, Reuters

Thousands of sheep and goats are currently being exported to Saudi Arabia from the port of Berbera in the self-declared republic of Somaliland.

The BBC’s Ahmed Said Egeh snapped some of them in the holding pens at the port:

Our reporter says one million head of livestock have already been shipped to Jeddah and and another 500,000 will be exported next week.

They are all tested by vets to make sure they are disease-free before they are loaded on to ships:

The Muslim Hajj pilgrimage starts next week and afterwards Muslims will celebrate Eid al-Adha.

The festival means "feast of sacrifice" and marks God's gift of a ram as a substitute for Abraham's sacrifice of his son. 

During Eid, Muslims buy a ram to sacrifice and share the meat with those less fortunate than themselves.

Image source, AP

Spanish and Italian naval ships have rescued thousands of people off the Libyan coast today, AP news agency reports. 

Some 3,000 people were rescued this morning from more than 20 wooden boats. 

While some people reportedly cheered as the rescue boats arrived and jumped to swim, others stayed in their boats looking after their children, like this man cradling his five-day-old baby.

Image source, AP

 AP adds that most of the people on the boat are from Eritrea. 

Emmanuel Igunza
BBC Africa, Nairobi

Kenyan commercial bank shares have continued to plummet at the Nairobi Stock Exchange days after President Uhuru Kenyatta signed a controversial law that caps interest rates. 

The new law means banks will be allowed to charge no more than 4% above the rate set by the central bank, which is currently 10.5%.   

It is the culmination of nearly two decades of attempts by MPs and consumer groups to lower interest rates which they say have frustrated start-ups in the country.  

The Kenya Bankers Association has warned that the cap is not in the interests of the country but says its members will fully comply with the law once it comes into effect. 

But many ordinary Kenyans, especially young entrepreneurs, have welcomed the move.

Kariuki Maina told me that interest rates were so high when he was setting up his drinks delivery company that he couldn't even take out a loan from the bank and went to a co-operative instead.

Image source, Getty Images

EU observers monitoring the conduct of Saturday's presidential election in Gabon say it lacked transparency. 

Bulgarian MEP Maryia Gabriel told journalists in the capital, Libreville: 

The incumbent, Ali Bongo, and his main rival, Jean Ping, have both claimed to have won the election but the official results are not due until tomorrow.

The Kenyan press is depicting a rivalry between Japan and China over their involvement in Africa.

Kenya's Daily Nation says that after Japan announced it would give 10bn Kenyan shillings ($98m; £75m) to Kenyan healthcare, China's deputy foreign minister questioned whether they would actually stick to the promise.

Aggret Mutambo says in the Daily Nation that the two countries have "pushed their rivalry to Africa".

He has suggested a motive behind the competition:

Meanwhile The Star says the same, in cartoon form:

Ferdinand Omondi
BBC Africa, Nairobi

A Kenyan court has granted bail to two Olympic officials being investigated over alleged mismanagement of the team in Rio.

Bail for Francis Paul, the secretary-general of the National Olympics Committee of Kenya (Nock), and Pius Ochieng, Nock's vice chairman, was set at $2,000 (£1,530).

The judge barred them from accessing their offices, talking to witnesses and told them to surrender their passports.

Prosecutors had requested they be remanded in custody for 21 days as they investigate them for offences of theft, abuse of office and neglect of duty.

A third official, Stephen Soi, has already been granted bail on medical grounds and did not appear in court.

Mr Soi's bail terms will be determined on Wednesday as his lawyer said he was in hospital and prosecution has asked for time to verify this.

Pumza Fihlani
BBC News, Pretoria

I have just arrived at Pretoria High School Girls in South Africa's capital where students from surrounding universities have gathered outside, some carrying placards.

This one reads in Zulu: "Natural beauty. Leave our sisters alone”:

Black pupils at the school say they are being forced to straighten their natural hair because it is "untidy" and say the school’s policy is racist and discriminatory.

The school has refused to comment.

The groups gathered outside are singing songs from the anti-apartheid struggle and are calling for an end to racism.

An emergency yellow fever vaccination campaign in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola is coming to an end with millions of people reached.

Hundreds have died in what has been described as the largest outbreak of the disease in 30 years. 

See more photos: Vaccinating a megacity

We have been reporting all day about the fall-out from schoolgirls' protest in South Africa after black students were allegedly told by a school in Pretoria to straighten their hair.

The school rule book, external has very specific hair stipulations, here are a few excerpts:

It also goes on to say that relaxing hair is banned but only, it appears, if it changed the girl's hair colour:

And it gives strict instructions on cornrows:

Ferdinand Omondi
BBC Africa, Nairobi

The prosecution in the case of the Kenyan Olympic officials accused of mismanagement of the team in Rio (see below) says it is investigating the suspects for criminal culpability in the offences of theft, abuse of office and neglect of duty.

It has requested they be remanded in custody for 21 days.

The defence is opposing the detention request.

No charges will be laid today.

It looks like court proceedings are about to get under way in Kenya for the Olympic officials arrested over the weekend for alleged mismanagement of the country's team in Rio (see earlier post).

The BBC’s Ferdinand Omondi is in court in the capital, Nairobi, and snapped Francis Paul, in the suit, and Pius Ochieng, leafing through documents.

Image source, BBc

Mr Paul is the secretary-general of the National Olympics Committee of Kenya (Nock) - dissolved in the wake of the Games.

Mr Ochieng is Nock's vice chairman and was Kenya's Rio team general manager - he was arrested on Sunday after Mr Paul and two other officials had been detained and questioned.

Our reporter says it appears the court is set to order that these two, along with Stephen Soi - the head of the Rio delegation - be remanded in custody for 21 days:

But Mr Soi  is not in court today – he has been released on bail on medical grounds.

His deputy, James Chacha, who was also arrested over the weekend, is not to be charged, our reporter understands.

Nathi Mthethwa, South Africa's arts and culture minister, has tweeted in support of students protesting against a school for allegedly insisting black pupils straighten their hair:

We reported earlier that pictures of this girl protesting have gone viral: