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 us your African proverbs.

And we leave you with this photo of a tuktuk taxi picking a passenger in Nigeria's largest city Lagos

Authorities in South Sudan will lift a ban on around 20 foreign journalists who had been refused access to the country, the AFP news agency reports quoting a top media official.

The government had earlier this month said the journalists had been barred from entry over "unsubstantiated and unrealistic stories".

AFP reports that The National Dialogue Steering Committee, a group of veteran politicians, had put pressure on the body that regulates media to lift the ban.

Alfred Taban, the committee's chief of media affairs, said the ban aimed to bar journalists who had been critical of the country:

Media Authority chief Elijah Alier Kuai said permits would be granted to all foreign journalists and there was "no problem" with the reporters coming to South Sudan.

Cameroon have drawn 1-1 with Australia in their second Confederations Cup match in Russia.

Cameroon took the lead right at the end of the first half with Andre-Frank Anguissa scoring his first international goal.

Image source, Getty Images

Australia's captain Mark Milligan equalised from the penalty spot in the 60th minute after Alex Gersbach was brought down.

The draw makes it very unlikely that Cameroon will progress to the next round after they lost their first match.

They have to beat Germany on Sunday and hope other results go their way.

The Confederations Cup is for the continental champions plus the host of next year's World Cup.

The Confederation of African Football has issued a thinly-veiled warning to Egyptian clubs to stay out of the political crisis in the Gulf.

Long-simmering tensions between Qatar and its neighbours boiled over earlier this month when Saudi Arabia and a number of other Arab states to cut all ties with Qatar over the oil and gas-rich kingdom's alleged support for terrorism.

Qatar, the 2022 World Cup host nation, has rejected the accusations.

The political earthquake in the Gulf has also affected beIN Sports - the Qatari sports network which has the sole rights in the Middle East to broadcast tournaments such as the Africa Cup of Nations and the World Cup.

Image source, Reuters

Read the full story here

Kenyan authorities have moved to reassure people after there was an outbreak of cholera at a hotel in the capital, Nairobi, hosting a health conference.

Nearly 50 people are now being trated in hospital.

Nairobi county Health Minister Dr Benjamin Muia told the BBC:

BBC World Service

The Egyptian authorities say police have killed seven men they believe were involved in recent attacks on Christians and Coptic churches in which about 100 people were killed.

The interior ministry said that the seven were killed in a shootout in Assiut, 400km ( 248 miles) south of the capital, Cairo.

Security forces say they found automatic weapons, munitions and fake military uniforms at the site.

In Cairo, the government has extended a state of emergency for another three months.

Hamdi Ali fled Somalia after surviving an attack by Islamist militants al-Shabab that killed her father.

She sought refuge in Uganda in 2008, and is now running a tea business to support herself and young daughter.

She’s been speaking to the BBC’s Patience Atuhaire.

Anne Soy
BBC Africa, Nairobi

The move to legislate the provision of sanitary towels to school-going adolescent girls has been well received by many Kenyans.

Since 2011, the Kenyan government has been setting aside funds to buy and distribute the commodity to girls from disadvantaged backgrounds.

The new legal provision, however, requires government to provide the towels to every school-going girl who has reached puberty - it becomes an obligation rather than an option - so it will require a bigger budget.

There generally exists non-partisan political goodwill to fulfil this goal.

But the authorities will need to ensure the prudent use of that money to make sure every girl who needs the sanitary towels gets them.

School management teams will be charged with the responsibility of purchasing and distributing the towels.

Image source, AFP

Sammy Awami
BBC Africa, Dar es Salaam

Tanzanian President John Magufuli has said that under his presidency schoolgirls who become mothers will not be allowed to go back to school after giving birth.

The president was speaking at a public rally in Chalinze town, about 100km west of the main city Dar es Salaam.

"After calculating some few mathematics she’d be asking the teacher in the classroom ‘let me go out and breastfeed my crying baby,'" reasoned President Magufuli.

As for the man responsible for the pregnancy, the president said he should be imprisoned for 30 years and put the energy he used to impregnate the girl into farming while in jail.

"These NGOs should go out and open schools for parents. But they should not force the government [to take back the pupils].

"I'm giving out free education for students who have really decided to go and study, and now you want me to educate the parents?” President Magufuli said.

The president added to a round of applause:

In Tanzania, are at least 8,000 girls who drop out of school every year due to pregnancy, according to a Human Rights Watch report, external.

Image source, AFP

At least four people were killed in a car bomb targeting a police station in Somalia's capital, Mogadishu today.

A VOA journalist has shared a video of workers sweeping the streets eager to get things moving again:

It was called "Morning Tea" - a brutal flogging with a hosepipe.

Every morning for four months, Seun Femi's captors beat him at a makeshift prison in Libya.

"They would flog my head, my hands, my bum," says the 34-year-old. "The guard would beat me until he got tired."

Two of Seun's fingers were broken during one of the brutal sessions. But the Nigerian says it could have been far worse. One man was beaten to death in front of him.

"I thought I was going to die in that prison," he says.

Seun was one of the tens of thousands of West Africans who cross the Sahara Desert into Libya every year, from where they hope to be trafficked by boat to Europe.

Read more about Seun's story here.

When Gambian President Adama Barrow took office earlier this year there were hopes that his government would turn things around, both politically and economically.

Nearly six months on, the BBC's Shaimaa Khalil has been to the Serekunda market to find out what businesses there make of the country's new leader and his policies.

Ghana's Supreme Court has said that former President John Mahama acted unconstitutionally when he allowed two detainees of the US military prison Guantanamo Bay to be transferred to Ghana to live, local media are reporting.

The two men, Khalid al-Dhuby and Mahmoud Omar Bin Atef, who had been held for a decade without charge, moved to Ghana at the beginning of last year.

The court ruled that the president should have consulted parliament before agreeing to the transfer, the reports say.

It gave parliament three months to approve the transfer deal. If that deadline is not met then the two former detainees could have to leave the country.

Mr Mahama stepped down from the presidency after he lost the December 2016 election.

Image source, Getty Images

Emmanuel Igunza
BBC Africa

At least 50 people have contracted cholera at a hotel hosting a health conference in Kenya's capital, Nairobi, officials say warning that the number of cases could rise. They add that all those infected are now in isolation in a city hospital.

The source of the disease is still not yet clear but it is normally transmitted through infected food or water.

Last month, five people died of cholera in Nairobi forcing authorities to set up surveillance centres across the capital.

Sammy Awami
BBC Africa, Dar es Salaam

Image source, AFP

Tanzanian President John Magufuli has ordered the public water company to cut water supplies to all government institutions which have not been paying their bills, state-owned publication Habari Leo reports.

Speaking at the launch of a mega water project yesterday in the coastal area, Mr Magufuli warned ministers, district and regional commissioners in charge of institutions whose water supply would be terminated, that it would be a sign that they had failed in their responsibilities.

He also called on the water company to follow up on bill defaulters, especially big companies.

“If you can't charge those big companies, how is it possible that you come after these poor ordinary citizens?”

Kenyans came together to celebrate diversity and promote peace in the first colour run event in the country, held in the capital, Nairobi.

The event is inspired by Hindu festival of Holi, known the festival of colour.

Milton Nkosi
BBC Africa, Johannesburg

The constitutional court decision that parliament's speaker can ask for a secret ballot in a no-confidence motion certainly puts more pressure on President Jacob Zuma. But it does not seal his fate.

The ball is back in speaker Baleka Mbete's court.

Ms Mbete has been President Zuma's protector-in-chief in parliament.

A secret ballot is now very likely. The judges effectively told her to hold one and we know from her court submission that she was "not against" it.

But it is still highly unlikely that ANC MPs will vote President Zuma out of power by supporting a vote of no-confidence, particularly one that was brought by the opposition.

They will use their majority to keep him in office.

Image source, AFP

The BBC's Charlotte Attwood is currently in Goma, in the east of the Democratic of Congo, and she's come across a man who she suggests could be the most avid BBC listener in the city. So much so that it is part of his name.

She pictured him holding up a work identity card showing that his name is Babinga Kasikabo BBC. And he says "BBC" is also included on his birth certificate.

Babinga listens to the BBC in Swahili and French, and follows our Facebook pages.

Despite there being a new president in The Gambia many Gambians are still risking their lives crossing the Mediterranean Sea in the hope of starting a new life in Europe.

Worried by the number of deaths along that perilous journey, Gambian rapper Bro K wrote a song about it: "Say No To The Back Way".

He's been talking to the BBC's Newsday programme:

Charlotte Attwood
BBC Africa

Residents of Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) north-eastern city of Beni report that heavily armed men attacked a military base at 0230 GMT (4.30am local time) and then proceeded to a school and the mayors office.

The group then took over the main radio station in the city for an hour before the army recaptured it.

Military sources in Beni say the men were Mai Mai militia and following heavy confrontation with the army, calm has now been fully restored to the city.

Local journalists say there are now four bodies lying in front of the mayor's office. They are believed to be the bodies of the attackers.

Mai Mai is the term used for many self-defence militias operating in and around Beni.

The attack comes after militants raided the central prison in Beni last week, killing 11 people and freeing more than 900 prisoners. Only 75 are reported to have been recaptured.

Image source, AFP