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 and scroll to the bottom to send us your African proverbs.

And we leave you with this picture from the Everyday Egypt Instagram account of two men enjoying a train ride in Upper Egypt:

Gunmen in South Sudan have ambushed a convoy travelling from Uganda to the capital, Juba, leaving 14 people dead including a number of soldiers, a police spokesperson has said.

A military spokesperson has confirmed the numbers who were killed and added that nine others were wounded. He told the BBC that some of them are being treated in Juba.

The road from the Ugandan border to Juba is a life-line for South Sudan, correspondents say.

Local media are also reporting the ambush:

Somali officials have now revised their estimate of how many died in this morning's attack in the north-east of the country, the Reuters news agency reports.

The al-Shabab militant group claimed responsibility for the attack on a military base some 70km from Bosaso in the semi-autonomous Puntland region.

It said that 61 soldiers had died.

A military officer who had initially told Reuters that 20 people were killed now says that the death toll was higher.

Major Mohamed Abdi is quoted as saying: "Now we confirm 38 people, mostly soldiers, died and 18 others wounded. I believe some were captured alive and taken away."

You may have been left a bit confused by the fact that there's been heavy rain in South Africa's Western Cape and then wildfires.

The two events are connected but they have not happened in exactly the same place.

The rain storms have been in the east of the province and the fires in the west.

It is the wind that went with the storms that has fanned the fires in the drier part of the Western Cape.

BBC weather expert Stav Danaos has been explaining more to Focus on Africa:

Image source, AFP

We posted earlier about South Africa banning the import of chickens from Zimbabwe following an outbreak of bird flu there.

At the same time, the government is also urging farmers, particularly those in the border areas, to be extra vigilant.

In a statement it says "keepers of chickens, geese and ducks, including backyard farmers, are encouraged to observe minimum biosecurity measures to prevent this disease in their birds...

"Care should be taken to prevent chickens drinking from common water sources where wild birds congregate."

Earlier, South Africa's poultry farmers had said it was concerned that the country could lose 140 million chickens if bird flu spread, Eyewitness News reports, external.

At least 20 foreign journalists have been refused permission to enter South Sudan, Elijah Alier from the country's Media Authority told the AFP news agency.

Earlier this week Eye Radio, external reported that that the journalists were banned for reporting “unsubstantiated and unrealistic stories”.

But Mr Alier did not say why they were refused entry, AFP reports.

According to the AFP foreign journalists who want to visit the country have to be cleared by the Media Authority before being granted a visa.

Alfred Taban, a veteran South Sudanese journalist, is critical of the restrictions.

He says "it gives the impression that South Sudan has something to cover up," AFP reports Mr Taban as saying.

Image source, Reuters

Last week BBC Africa launched Kenya Election Watch, a special weekly podcast about the Kenyan elections.

The second episode is out and this week our colleague Dickens Olewe speaks to Sheilla Masinde from Transparency International about a push by civil rights groups to get the electoral commission to block politicians with integrity issues from running in the 8 August election.

For this interview and more, listen here:

The leader of South Africa's Western Cape province has been tweeting pictures of some of the damage wreaked by the wildfires.

Journalists are also tweeting pictures:

Nearly 10,000 people had to flee their homes because of the wildfires in the Knysna area of the Western Cape.

Benin's President Patrice Talon is in France undergoing a complete medical check up, the country's Foreign Minister Aurélien Agbénonci has told the BBC.

The president has not been seen in public for two weeks prompting intense speculation on social media regarding his health.

Mr Talon did not appear at last weekend's Ecowas summit.

Earlier this week, the foreign minister went on TV to reassure the country, denying that Mr Talon was sick and saying that the president had not left Benin in a hurry.

Rumours were further fuelled by the fact that the foreign minister who usually travels abroad with the president has not done so on this occasion.

Mr Agbenonci says President Talon is expected back in Benin over the weekend.

Image source, Reuters

Jose Tembe
BBC Africa, Maputo

Four Mozambican military officers and five civilians are on trial charged with stealing over $600,000 (£460,000) from the accounts of the country’s army command over a six year period.

According to the prosecution the key figures in the theft were responsible for processing wages for the army.

They used this access to pay themselves and others illicit wages, allowances and other bonuses.

This included depositing large sums in the bank accounts of friends, colleagues and lovers.

The internet has come back on in Ethiopia more than a week after the authorities shut it down. It was turned off to prevent people leaking exam papers, the government said.

Now that it's back, one activist took the opportunity to tweet pictures of a small act of protest.

Befeqadu Hailu says that in a launch event in the capital, Addis Ababa, for a new series of cartoon characters people were asked to write messages about their heroes.

He adds that some wrote down the names of imprisoned journalists and politicians, including Eskinder Nega, Bekele Gerba and Andualem Arage.

Ethiopia has been criticised by rights groups for its restrictions on the freedom of speech.

Reporters Without Frontiers, external puts the country at 150th place out of 180 countries in its press freedom index.

Befeqadu Hailu has himself been detained by the authorities.

Nigeria's Acting President Yemi Osinbajo has gone to the north-eastern city of Maiduguri a day after a suicide attack hit the area.

He's there to start the government's food relief programme:

Nearly two million people need food aid in north-east Nigeria as a result of the Boko Haram insurgency, which has led many people to flee their homes.

The government hopes to distribute 30,000 tonnes of locally grown maize, sorghum and soybeans.

On Wednesday night, 14 civilians were killed and 24 were injured in a suicide attack, police say. Three of the militants were also killed while one was captured alive.

Image source, Sphiwe Hobasi/@MrCow_man

The head of South Africa's Western Cape province Helen Zille says there is a "major crisis" in the areas affected by wildfires where nearly 10,000 people have had to leave their homes, Eyewitness News, external reports.

It adds that four people have been killed as a result of the fires.

On Wednesday, the western part of the province was coping with a heavy rain storm. The winds from that storm have fuelled the fires in the drier eastern part of the province.

Eyewitness News is also tweeting pictures of the aftermath of the fire:

Milton Nkosi
BBC Africa, Johannesburg

The leader of South Africa’s radical Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) Julius Malema says his party will initiate corruption charges against President Jacob Zuma and the newly appointed Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba.

Speaking at a press briefing that focused on corruption, the fiery leader defended the thousands of leaked emails by local media that show alleged corruption by government officials for private gain.

Mr Malema accused Mr Gigaba of being at the centre of “state capture” (the wielding of undue influence over the government) by issuing lucrative government contracts to family friends of Mr Zuma.

Both President Zuma and Finance Minister Gigaba have denied corruption allegations levelled against them.

Image source, Getty Images

Photojournalist Nichole Sobecki has put some images on Instagram from a recent trip to Somalia where she was looking at the impact of climate change.

They've been used to accompany a piece in Foreign Policy magazine, external.

Nichole says the image below shows "Dheg Mohamed taking apart her home before loading the materials onto a cart to be moved.

"Several successive seasons of low rainfall left the well in her family’s hometown of Aynabo, Somaliland, dry, forcing them to relocate elsewhere."

Foreign Policy says Somalia is grappling with rapid desertification, increasingly erratic rainfall, and the destruction of coastal waters by foreign fishing fleets.

The photographer says the picture below shows "Muumina Farah and her daughter camping by the side of the road outside the western Somaliland town of Habas.

"Their male relatives remained behind in northern Somaliland with the family’s surviving animals in a desperate attempt to save what was left of their herd."

At least 43 people in Zimbabwe are reported to have been killed following a bus accident after the driver lost control and crashed into a tree, report the AFP news agency and The Herald, external newspaper.

"The bus was travelling to Zambia when the driver lost control at a curve yesterday evening," Charity Charamba a police spokeswoman told AFP. She added that the accident happened in an area called Nyamakate near the Zambian border.

Cross-border buses usually carry traders from Zimbabwe who travel to Zambia to stock up on goods to sell back home, AFP reports.

Twenty-four injured passengers have been taken to a nearby hospital,The Herald reports

Image source, ZIMBABWE HERALD

South Africa has suspended all chicken imports from Zimbabwe following the outbreak of a strain of bird flu there, the Reuters news agency reports.

Mozambique and Botswana made similar moves earlier this week.

In Zimbabwe, to help contain the H5N8 outbreak, tens of thousands of chickens have already been culled.

Image source, AFP

Sixty-eight-year-old university professor Salem Beitelmal, who was abducted by a militia group in Libya more than six weeks ago, has been released.

No reason was given for his kidnap.

He was the subject of our colleague Rana Jawad's piece about a spate of kidnappings in the insecure country

Both she and Amnesty International have been tweeting about the news:

There are, however, many others who have been kidnapped in Libya.

For more read: Caught in the middle of Libya's kidnapping nightmare.

The Somali authorities have been speaking to journalists about this morning's al-Shabab attack on a military base in the north-east of the country (see earlier entry).

The militants withdrew after more than three hours of fighting with government forces, residents told the BBC.

Al-Shabab said it had killed 61 soldiers, but officials have given a lower death toll.

Major Mohamed Abdi told the Reuters news agency that 20 soldiers had been killed. Whereas the AFP news agency quotes a different source saying that 10 were killed.

Image source, Getty Images

France's legislative elections this weekend will be a test for President Emmanuel Macron's new Republic on the Move party.

The recently formed centrist party is putting forward several hundred candidates from grassroots movements and civil society.

One of them is 27-year-old Herve Berville.

Born in Rwanda, he was adopted by a French family during the genocide, and has studied and worked in Mozambique and Kenya.

He's been telling the BBC Newsday that he is excited to get involved in politics in France.