Summary

  • South African DJ Black coffee gets gig on Apple's radio station

  • Brainy Benin boy blitzes Baccalaureate

  • Suspected Boko Haram militants 'abduct' geological researchers

  • Four children are among the dead in South African fire

  • Gabonese police 'injure 10' at rally for return of Jean Ping

Live Reporting

Clare Spencer and Natasha Booty

  1. Kenya's Asians now recognised as country's 44th tribe

    Kenya's Asian community has been officially recognised as the nation's 44th tribe.

    Last week's government announcement followed numerous petitions from Kenyan Asians, but will it make any difference to their lives?

    Riaz Gilani is a 39-year-old butcher who says his family has been in Kenya for a century:

    Gone are the days when we had integration at an early age. My government school was fairly mixed but now we are seeing more of a segregated system... This is now causing problems, and people increasingly ask me if I'm Kenyan!"

    Pritpal Chana, a 20-year-old student from Nairobi, sees things differently:

    I've never felt any sort of disconnect from being Kenyan, so being recognised as tribe doesn't make much of a difference to me. I've never had any kind of segregation just because I'm a Kenyan Indian."

    What Kenyan Asians think about the fact they've been made a tribe

    Listen to more highlights from Newsday.

  2. Freed Boko Haram 'wife' return to captors

    Aisha with her babyADAOBI TRICIA NWAUBANI

    Aisha was showered with expensive gifts by the militant who took her as his wife

    A 25-year-old who was kidnapped by Boko Haram has returned to Boko Haram, her family has told the BBC.

    Aisha Yerima spoke to Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani before she returned, saying:

    I now see that all the things Boko Haram told us were lies. Now, when I listen to them on the radio, I laugh."

    She made those comments shortly after completing a de-radicalisation programme, yet less than five months later she fled her family home and returned to the militants.

    While in captivity previously, she she had married a commander who showered her with romance, expensive gifts and Arabic love songs.

    Psychologist Fatima Akila, who has worked with hundreds of women who were rescued from captivity, says they sometimes have a surprising amount of power:

    These were women who for the most part had never worked, had no power, no voice in the communities, and all of a sudden they were in charge of between 30 to 100 women who were now completely under their control and at their beck and call."

    Read Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani's Letter from Africa in full

  3. Authorities intervene in SA school's braid ban

    Education authorities have intervened in a row over braids being banned in a South African school, reports News 24.

    Earlier this week Siyabonga Ngwenya complained that her niece was among around 11 girls being sent home for having braids from a school in the economic heartland of Gauteng.

    Ms Ngwenya said in a Facebook post that she was "at a loss" that "black girls' hair is still being policed in schools".

    News 24 says the school has been given three months by the education authorities to "come up with an inclusive code of conduct".

    It adds that the education authorities would offer social workers to "help guide the girls to come up with a policy along with the school".

    School rules about black girls' hair have proved controversial before - last year, black female students at the Pretoria Girls High protested at being told to straighten their hair.

    HairOther

  4. 'Seven killed in Cape Town fires'

    Seven people have been killed by fires in two separate incidents in the early hours of this morning in Cape Town, South Africa, reports News 24.

    The news site quoted a fire and rescue spokesperson as saying one man was killed after five buildings were destroyed in an informal settlement, at about 05:00 local time (03:00 GMT).

    The cause of the fire was thought to be an electrical short circuit, News 24 adds.

    In a later incident in another informal settlement, four children, a man and a woman died, but it is still not known what started the fire, says News 24.

    Informal settlement in Cape TownGetty Images

    Both fires broke out in informal settlements

  5. Kaduna residents celebrate two years of uninterrupted electricity

    Mini gridGetty Images

    Mini-grids are becoming an alternative to the national grid all over Africa

    People in remote villages in Kaduna, north-western Nigeria, are celebrating a rare two years of uninterrupted electricity, reports Punch newspaper.

    The newspaper adds that two remote villages managed this by going off-grid, using solar power mini-grids.

    "The villages were far from the reach of the national power grid," Punch explains.

    So the Federal Ministry of Power, Works and Housing set up the renewable power project instead.

    The customers pay for the electricity through their mobile phones.

  6. Tunisian woman tells BBC 'why I joined IS'

    "We saw IS videos with all the Islamic songs," Iman tells the BBC. "We saw them apply Shariah law and wanted to live there."

    The young Tunisian mother is one of the so-called Islamic State (IS) wives who moved to the islamists' Syrian stronghold of Raqqa.

    She and others have since fled, and are now being held by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces who are making ground against so-called IS.

    Iman tells BBC’s Shaimaa Khalil that reality dawned on her when she began "feeling terrified" for her husband and children.

    IS wife: Why I joined the 'caliphate'

  7. Ten opposition demonstrators 'injured in Gabon'

    Ten people have been injured at a rally attended by thousands in the Gabonese capital Libreville as they celebrated the return of opposition leader Jean Ping from Europe, AFP news agency reports.

    Mr Ping was narrowly defeated by incumbent Ali Bongo in last year’s presidential elections, and is still contesting the results despite a Constitutional Court ruling confirming the outcome.

    Gabon’s interior ministry told AFP that there were "no deaths and no injuries" during Tuesday’s demonstration.

    However the AFP journalist witnessed ten injuries and a volunteer doctor at the scene told AFP that two people “suffered deep wounds” requiring “emergency treatment”.

    Jean PingAFP

    Jean Ping is a career diplomat and Gabon's former foreign minister

  8. 'Ten kidnapped' from Nigerian state oil company

    BBC World Service

    Cattle walk through the dried up Ngadda riverbed that flows towards Lake Chad during the rainy season in Maiduguri in northeastern Nigeria on December 6, 2016.Getty Images

    The Islamist militants operate around Lake Chad

    The Nigerian state oil company NNPC says ten geological researchers have been kidnapped by suspected Boko Haram militants.

    The geologists and surveyors of the University of Maidugiri were seized in an ambush near Jibi village in Borno state in the north-east of the country.

    They were contracted to work on oil exploration in nearby Lake Chad. Other local reports say many are feared dead in the ambush, but this cannot be confirmed.

  9. Today's wise words

    Our African proverb of the day:

    Send a wise person not one with long legs.

    Akan proverb sent by Nicholas Nyirenda in Lusaka, Zambia and Nana Adutwum Barimah in Cape Coast, Ghana

    Click here to send us your African proverbs.

  10. Good morning

    Welcome to BBC Africa Live where we will bring you the latest news from around the continent.