US President Donald Trump has threatened political repercussions for anyone wanting to vote for rival Morocco to host the World Cup in 2026.

In a tweet President Trump wrote: "The US has put together a strong bid with the Canada and Mexico for the 2026 World Cup. It would be a shame if countries that we always support were to lobby against the US bid. Why should we be supporting these countries when they don't support us (including at the United Nations)?"

Morocco is the only other contender, as this Tweet points out:

The vote to award the 2026 event takes place on 13 June in Moscow at football's world governing body Fifa's annual congress.

Canada, Mexico, USA and Morocco are blocked from voting given their bids. That leaves 207 eligible national associations, requiring a simple 104 vote majority.

The BBC's sports news correspondent Richard Conway says the three North American countries already have the vast majority of the necessary stadiums and infrastructure already in place.

In contrast, a Morocco-based tournament would require significant investment.

• Read more on BBC Sport

The United Nations says it has found what it believes to be five mass graves in Ituri province, in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

The UN's joint office for human rights said more than 260 people had been killed since December. It said 91 of them were women.

The UN said 120 villages had been looted and destroyed in clashes between the Hema and Lendu communities. It said most of the dead were Hema.

There have been decades of violence between Hema herders and Lendu farmers, mainly over land.

The Congolese government says it is not aware of any mass graves in the area.

Image source, Getty Images

The Libyan military strongman, Khalifa Haftar, has returned to the eastern city of Benghazi after a long absence that included urgent medical treatment in Paris.

The 75-year-old militia leader, smiling and dressed in a black suit, greeted generals from his self-styled army after descending from a plane in his first public appearance for weeks.

Mr Haftar, who has support from Egypt, has long been seen as a contender for national power.

He opposes the internationally recognised government in the capital, Tripoli, frustrating UN-led efforts to reunify the country.

The first Kenyan film set to air at the prestigious Cannes festival in France will not be seen by audiences in Kenya because it has been banned.

Rafiki, which means "friend" in Kiswahili, tells the story of two young women who fall in love. Its director Wanuri Kahiu says it is inspired by the 2007 Caine Prize-winning short story Jambula Tree by Ugandan writer Monica Arac Nyeko.

Kahiu shared the news about the film's domestic ban on Twitter a short while ago:

The decision to ban the film has been criticised by the film's many supporters on social media, as well as Kenya's National Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (NGLHRC).

The body also questioned why the Kenya Film Classification Board (KFCB) chose to ban the film after its head, Ezekiel Mutua, had praised it as "a story about the realities of our time and the challenges our kids are facing":

Mayeni Jones
Nigeria correspondent

Image source, AFP

The army was engaged in a gun battle with members of the Islamist militant group Boko Haram in Maiduguri, northern Nigeria last night.

The city is frequently targeted by Boko Haram militants although early indications are that this may be bigger than recent attacks.

The attack started during the evening call to prayer.

Local residents and media sources in Maiduguri reported hearing gun shots and explosions in the area of Jiddari Polo on the outskirts of the city.

According to AFP news agency, heavily armed Boko Haram fighters attempted to storm a local barracks where other members of the militia are being held.

Residents describe scenes of panic as people try and flee the scene of the attack.

The army said they repelled the attack in a joint effort by the armed forces, local police and civilian militias. As of last night they were pursuing the militants. They encouraged those who fled to return home and report anything suspicious.

It is still not known how many people died in the fight.

Today's African proverb:

Image source, AFP

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

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

That's all from BBC Africa Live until 08:00 GMT. In the meantime, keep up-to-date with what's happening across the continent by listening to the Africa Today podcast or check 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 bird's-eye view of the boats off the coast of Zanzibar:

The Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) has just tweeted that Burundian human rights campaigner Germain Rukuki has been sentenced to 32 years in prison.

They say this is the "heaviest sentence ever handed down [to] a human rights defender in Burundi".

Mr Rukuki was arrested last year after the authorities accused him of continuing to work for a banned organisation called Christian Action for the Abolition of Torture, where he had been the treasurer.

He was charged with rebellion and "undermining the internal security of the state" in July 2017 and has been detained ever since.

Burundi has cracked down on government critics and rights groups since 2015, when President Pierre Nkurunziza survived and attempted coup amid unrest over his bid to be re-elected to a third term.

Image source, AFP

Mobile phone users in South Africa will no longer lose their unused data at the end of the month following intervention from a national watchdog.

Consumers will now be able to roll over their unused data into the next month and can also transfer data to other users in the same network.

Service providers will be required to send notifications to their subscribers telling them when their data falls below 50%, 80% and 100%.

They also lose the right to automatically charge users out-of-bundle rates for extra data - now they can only do so if they have the individual consumer's consent first.

"After the regulations are published, service providers will be given a month comply," the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) said today.

Image source, Getty Images

Kenyan software company Africa's Talking has raised $8.6m in funding, reports Tech Crunch., external

Africa's Talking has developed a tool for two interfaces to talk to each other, known as an API.

This is particularly needed in mobile and online payments where different systems are used by customers and businesses.

It adds to the trend, which Quartz spotted last year, external, of African financial technology companies winning millions of dollars in start-up funding.

Last year a Nigerian start up in the same field, Flutterwave, raised $10m in its first round of funding.

The attraction, Quartz suggests, is that these companies are solving a real market need for financial services.

That, it says, means potentially massive returns.

Image source, Getty Images

South Africa's ruling party, African National Congress (ANC), has called new regulations issued by athletics' governing body IAAF a "blatant racist attempt" against South Africa's Olympic 800m champion Caster Semenya.

"These laws target amongst others Caster Semenya who has been over the past decade constantly put under undue pressure" the ANC wrote in a statement.

The new measures, which come into effect in November, state that female athletes with naturally high testosterone levels will have to race against men or change events unless they take medication.

The IAAF believes the measures will stop women with high testosterone levels gaining a competitive advantage.

The party has implored South Africa's government to intervene against new regulations issued by athletics' governing body, IAAF.

"These new regulations infringe on the Human Rights of athletes, targeting mainly those in East Europe, Asia and the African continent," the party wrote. "The racial undertones of this cannot go unnoticed."

Mrs Semenya has been embroiled in a global debate about gender and athletics since winning the 800 meter gold medal at the 2009 World Championships.

She had previously been asked to undertake gender testing by athletics chiefs but the results have never been made public.

Kenyan news site Tuko, external reports that a Catholic bishop has called on Kenyans to have more than two children, blaming the media for discouraging people from having large families.

Bishop Norman King'oo Wambua of the eastern county of Bungoma reportedly told believers:

The average Kenyan household is made up of four people, according to 2014 data from the UN, external, and the fertility rate is 4.4 live births per woman.

A 327-carat diamond has been found in Botswana, reports Bloomberg financial news, external.

Botswana's diamond miners seem to be on a roll in terms of finding massive gems.

Bloomberg points out that Lucara, the same mining company that found this one, found a 472-carat stone just two weeks ago.

But this is nothing.

In 2015 the world's second biggest diamond was discovered in Botswana. The 1,111-carat stone was the size of a tennis ball.

Image source, Reuters

The largest ever diamond was 3,106-carats. It was found in 1905 only nine metres from the surface in South Africa and was extracted using a pocket knife.

Some suggest that the 110 year gap between the two big gems was down to the mining equipment changing.

It is speculated that the old sorting machines were actually breaking the diamonds.

• Read more: Why have so many huge diamonds been found recently?

After more than two years of deadlock, Guinea-Bissau has announced a new government.

A UN official in Bissau has tweeted the documents which list the new ministers and is signed by the president:

The government has not been able to function because the president sacked the prime minister and the ruling party was not able to agree on a new candidate.

It all started with squabbles over international aid money, according to insiders who spoke to journalist Lorraine Mallinder., external

In 2015 donors pledged, external $1.5bn (£1bn) to Guinea-Bissau.

President José Mario Vaz wanted to use the money for a private agriculture project in his home village but then-Prime Minister Domingos Simões Pereira resisted, the sources suggested.

A few months later the president sacked Mr Pereira.

However, the ruling party sided with the sacked prime minister and a stalemate ensued, with the two sides unable to agree on a replacement.

Earlier this year the West African regional body, Ecowas, imposed sanctions on the country and finally on 16 April the president named veteran politician Aristides Gomes as the new prime minister.

BBC World Service

The Swiss food giant Nestlé has apologised and cancelled a video publicity campaign in Morocco after it came under heavy criticism for being sexist.

The online campaign, entitled "I want to get married", featured five young Moroccan women vying to be chosen by a mother as the ideal bride for her son.

In the first episode, they were asked to make a pudding using a Nestlé product.

It quickly elicited a strongly negative reaction online, with a number of Moroccans condemning it as out-of-date, reactionary and sexist to choose a wife based on her cooking skills.

Historian Samia Errazzouki, who was previously a Morocco-based journalist, tweeted the poster and last installment of the advert:

Tomi Oladipo
BBC Africa security correspondent

Ten aid workers have gone missing near the town of Yei in South Sudan.

The UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says the group, made up of staff from different agencies, had been on its way to conduct an assessment of humanitarian needs.

The missing individuals are reported to be staff of the UN and other organisations.

A senior UN official in South Sudan Alain Noudehou said their whereabouts and condition were not known.

He demanded their immediate release - a suggestion that they'd been seized - but gave no indication of who would have been behind the disappearance.

Government forces and rebel factions are present around the region where the aid workers went missing - part of the fighting that has continued in South Sudan, despite several peace agreements.

This is the second incident of its kind in the country involving aid workers this month.

BBC World Service

The Cameroonian military has withdrawn from the north-western town of Belo after it was attacked by anglophone separatists, known as the Ambazonians.

The move follows weeks of military raids in English-speaking parts of Cameroon. Homes have been burned and many people arrested.

On Wednesday, fighters - believed to be separatists - killed the headmaster and teacher of a school and cut off a student's hand.

A BBC correspondent in Cameroon says the school was attacked because it failed to heed the separatists' call to shut down in protest against marginalisation by the francophone majority.

Read more on Cameroon:

• Cameroon's English-speaking protests explained
• Paul Biya: Cameroon's 'absentee president'
• Cameroon country profile

Overnight rains caused minor flooding on Wednesday in the drought-hit city of Cape Town.

"There has been a lot of flooding in urban areas across the metro and a lot of roadways have been affected," Charlotte Powell, spokeswoman for Cape Town's disaster management centre, told Reuters.

The rain started on Wednesday and intermittent showers are expected to end on Saturday.

On Twitter, social media users remarked on the city's flooded roads.

The region has been suffering from its worst drought in a century.

Cape Town was due to be the first major city in the world to run out of water around March.

Authorities pushed the date back of 'day zero' - the day when taps in homes will run dry - to next year, and residents are expected to limit their daily consumption of water.

Image source, .

Mancho Bibixy, a broadcaster and activist accused of "threatening Cameroon's sovereignty" for his role in anglophone protests, has been found guilty of terrorism.

He first appeared in a coffin at a protest in the western city of Bamenda in November 2016, which he said symbolised anglophone Cameroonians “who seemed to have died before their real death” and therefore should not fear speaking truth to power.

He was convicted of eight counts all together including rebellion and hostility against the state.

Six other men - Tsi Conrad, The Emile Agwe, Tangwa Maloin Tangwa, Azelecha Martin, Guingah Valentine, Junior Awahro Thomas - were found guilty of the same counts by the military court in the capital Yaoundé yesterday.

All seven have been ordered to pay 579m CFA francs ($1m; £770,000) in damages.

Bibixy made an emotional appeal to the judge, saying:

He and his co-accused are being detained in Yaoundé's Kondengui Central Prison awaiting sentencing.

Their lawyers have told the BBC they will appeal the guilty verdict.