Grandmothers in Zimbabwe are being trained to provide counselling on benches around the nation's capital, Harare. 

Founder of the project, Dixon Chibanda, tells BBC Minute why the friendship bench has been so successful. 

He said the grandmothers are respected and that they hold the "wisdom of society".

Tanzanian conjoined twins Maria and Consolata Mwakikuti are in their last year at secondary school and are looking forward to graduating after their final exams. 

The 19 year-olds are studying in Iringa Udzungwa in Tanzania's south-west region.

Their mother died after giving birth, their father has also passed away, and they were raised by a Catholic church charity, Maria Consolata, which adopted them and gave them their names. 

The BBC's Leonard Mubali travelled to meet them. 

He joined them for a class session and says they were getting on well with their classmates and taking an active part in the lessons. 

He says Consolata was more talkative and engaged than her sister. 

They told our reporter that they want to become teachers and hope to get married to one husband in the future.

Headmaster Edward Fue said he had been shocked when he met the young women last year saying he did not know how to help them because the school did not have special facilities.

The school, with the aid of the local government, have now built a special room for them to rest. They also hired a driver to take them to where they live. 

Our reporter says that the girls are against the idea of being surgically separated.

Results from Thursday's legislative elections in Algeria show that the governing National Liberation Front (FLN) and its allies have won a majority of the seats.

The Reuters news agency is reporting that the FLN has taken 164 seats and the pro-government RND party has taken 97 seats in the 462-seat parliament.

Image source, EPA

A magistrate's court in Zambia will reconvene next week to make a decision about whether the treason charges facing opposition leader Hakainde Hichilema should go to the High Court.

Mr Hichilema's UPND party has been tweeting updates from the court in the capital, Lusaka.

And activists have uploaded some video of Mr Hichilema leaving the court on his Facebook page saying that "armed state police and German shepherd dogs" surrounded the opposition leader as he left the court for prison:

Mr Hichilema was arrested after his convoy allegedly refused to give way to the president's motorcade.

The city of Durban in South Africa has a thriving music and entertainment industry. 

Africa Business Report went along to meet DJ Tira - a record label owner who has created his own unique sound.  

The authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo have arrested 14 Chinese people over allegations that they were trying to illegally export protected timber, the AFP news agency reports.

The acting governor of the Haut-Katanga region Celestin Pande is quoted as saying that they were caught cutting the trees.

AFP also quotes a Chinese official saying that his country respects laws aimed at protecting the environment.

Mr Pande said that over the past four months 17,000 tonnes of ther protected timber had been illegally cut down.

Italian football's reputation around the world has been damaged by the racist abuse Ghanaian player Sulley Muntari received and the reaction to it, the Italian Football Federation's anti-racism advisor says.

Fiona May said the decision to uphold the Pescara midfielder's punishment for protesting against racism while taking no action against fans had "sent a bad message".

Muntari was booked for complaining to the referee about abuse he received from some Cagliari fans and received a second yellow card for leaving the pitch without permission.  

May added she would strike in protest if she were a player.

"I'm frustrated and shocked," she said.

Ex-Tottenham player and BBC football pundit Garth Crooks - a trustee of anti-discrimination organisation Kick It Out - has called for Italy's players to go on strike in protest at Muntari's treatment and the the lack of punishment for the fans responsible.

Read more from BBC Sport

Image source, Getty Images

Kenya is set to introduce a cheap HIV self-testing kit in July, the Star newspaper reports. , external

The kit targets an estimated 400,000 people who do not know their HIV status. 

Experts say the kit is 80% effective and will cost about $7 (£5) and will be available in pharmacies.  

HIV self-testing refers to a process in which a person collects his or her own specimen (oral fluid or blood) and then performs the test.

Martin Sirengo, head of Kenya's Aids programme Nascop, says that people should still go to health facilities to confirm the result. 

He further advises that the tests should be done in private and in the presence of a trusted person. 

Rudolf Eggers, World Heath Organization representative to Kenya, said, "the primary goal of the HIV self-testing is to complement other existing other HIV testing approaches," the Star reports. 

Close to 1.5 million people are living with HIV in Kenya out of which nearly one million are on anti-retroviral treatment.

The Somali official whose bodyguards have been accused of accidentally shooting dead a minister has rejected a cabinet decision for him to be sacked.

Auditor General Nur Farah Jimale said his removal has to be ratified by parliament. 

Prime Minister Hassan Khayre on Thursday announced the sacking of Mr Jimale to allow for an investigation into the shooting of Public Works and Reconstruction Minister Abas Abdullahi Sheikh, Somalia's youngest minister, in the capital, Mogadishu. 

Security forces on patrol came across a vehicle blocking the road and, thinking it was being driven by militants, opened fire.

Mr Abas, who was a refugee in Kenya's Dadaab camp before relocating to Somalia,  was buried yesterday. 

Image source, .

Ghana's Ministry of Finance has suspended the salaries of about 26,000 public sector workers. 

It is part of a drive to clean up government payrolls and fight corruption, but some real employees have also had their records and salaries wiped clean. 

So how do they feel and what difference will it make? 

The BBC's Newsday radio programme heard from some of those affected and our reporter Thomas Naadi.

Milton Nkosi
BBC Africa, Johannesburg

In an unprecedented move three of South Africa's former presidents, FW De Klerk, Thabo Mbeki and Kgalema Motlanthe, have come together in Johannesburg this morning to call for discussions to address what they see as the current threats to the country’s democracy.

The three men have united to form The National Foundations Dialogue Initiative.

Mr De Klerk, the last president to be elected under white-minority rule, told the audience that President Jacob Zuma is not upholding the constitution.

While Mr Mbeki who took over from President Nelson Mandela said that anyone who is undermining the constitution is essentially subverting “the will of the people”.

He also emphasised that the aim of his role in the initiative “is to let the people speak”.

Mr Motlanthe, who was Mr Zuma's predecessor, said that South Africa needs to be “corruption free”.

Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari will not be welcoming his Nigerien counterpart to Abuja today as the visit has been postponed without a new date being announced, Mr Buhari's office says.

In a short statement, Mr Buhari's spokesperson Femi Adesina, says that Niger's President Mahamadou Issoufou "has another domestic engagement".

But the postponement comes at a time of increasing concerns in Nigeria about President Buhari's health.

He has not been seen in public for more than a week and has missed the last three cabinet meetings.

Earlier this week, the president's wife Aisha Buhari said he was not as ill as people perceived him to be.

In March, Mr Buhari returned from seven weeks of medical leave in the UK where he was treated for an undisclosed illness.

Image source, Getty

A British journalist has won a four-year battle against her deportation from Kenya, the Star newspaper reports. , external

Lucy Hannan, who has lived in Kenya since 1988, had been challenging a refusal by the state in 2013 to renew her work permit, saying her presence in Kenya was against the national interest.

High Court Justice Isaac Lenaola criticised then Interior minister Joseph ole Lenku for declaring Ms Hannan a prohibited immigrant.

He directed the relevant government department to extend Ms Hannan's work permit for two more years, the Star reports. 

He said it is in the interest of justice that the journalist be given time to finalise her pending applications, including that for citizenship.

After leaving BBC, she set up Voxcom Ltd, a private media company in Nairobi that produces films for humanitarian organisations including the UN, EU and Oxfam.

Her video recordings were used as evidence by civil society groups in the Supreme Court in a case challenging President Uhuru Kenyatta's election in 2013.

Votes are being counted in parliamentary elections in Algeria.

The ruling National Liberation Front (FNL) is expected to retain its majority despite deep economic problems and uncertainty over the health of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika.

The 80-year-old leader voted from a wheelchair in Algiers, in a rare public appearance since a 2013 stroke.

Observers say there is little sign of enthusiasm among voters. Official results are expected on Friday.

More than 23m people were eligible to vote for 11,334 candidates from 50 different political parties, including opposition Islamist alliances, in Thursday's elections.

Algerian lawmakers are elected for a five-year term in the 462-seat lower house.

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Getty Images

Every Ugandan state secondary school has been gifted two copies of President Yoweri Museveni's autobiography, Sowing the Mustard Seed.

A statement from the ministry of education, which is headed by Mr Museveni’s wife, Janet, says that the book will “promote a proper understanding, appreciation and loyalty to Uganda’s national identity in a bid to foster peace and national cohesion for development".

It says the book should be kept in each school’s library and students should be encouraged to read it.

The book, the statement says, “details the causes of our troubled national history, subsequent liberation and path to national recovery”.

It was published in 1997 and it is largely based on a series of interviews Mr Museveni gave to British historian Kevin Shillington. 

Mr Museveni is currently serving his fifth term.

Two Nigerian officials in the north-east of the country have been sentenced to two years in prison for selling food aid meant for people fleeing Islamist militant attacks and food shortages in the region, the Reuters news agency reports.

It adds that Umar Ibrahim and Ali Zangebe sold 300 bags of rice for 8,500 naira ($27, £21) each that had been donated by an international aid agency.

Millions of people have been displaced in the region by attacks carried out by Boko Haram as well as the fighting between the militants and the army. 

The region is also being affected by severe food shortages.

Reuters says the officials are the first people to be convicted over graft in relation to food aid in Nigeria.

Image source, AFP

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