Earlier this week, the former spokesman for ex-Liberian President Charles Taylor's rebel National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) movement was found guilty of immigration fraud in the US for lying about his role in his country's civil war, external.

Tom Woewiyu’s conviction comes months after the Liberian warlord known as "Jungle Jabbah" was sentenced to 30 years in prison in the US for falsely saying he had never belonged to an armed group.

Around 250,000 people were killed in Liberia's brutal 14-year civil war.

Image source, AFP

Elizabeth Blunt, who reported on the civil war from Liberia in 1990, has written a blog about how she testified in Woewiyu’s trial in Philadelphia:

She said that Woewiyu, now 73, had been "a good choice for a PR man, a fancy dresser and a great talker, with just a whiff of the used car salesman”.

The former BBC reporter said most of her evidence was straightforward:

Read Elizabeth Blunt's full blog, external, which also explains why campaigners have had to find creative ways to go after alleged war criminals.

Woewiyu is due to be sentenced in October.

Twenty-two-year-old Derick Omari holds smartphone and laptop lessons for blind people in Ghana, where many struggle to get education or jobs.

He wants to create a world that works for those who don't have the same opportunities as others.

Derick has been talking to BBC Newsday's Alan Kasujja.

A woman from the Democratic Republic of Congo who climbed up on the Statue of Liberty in New York and sat on the monument's base has been charged with trespassing.

Tourists were evacuated from Liberty Island in New York Harbour on Wednesday during a three-hour stand-off involving local and federal authorities.

She was identified as Therese Okoumou, a 44-year-old naturalised US citizen.

Ms Okoumou said she was protesting against President Trump's zero-tolerance policy on immigration.

She pleaded not guilty to charges of misdemeanour trespassing and disorderly conduct in a Manhattan court on Thursday.

Image source, Reuters

Ms Okoumou, donning a T-shirt emblazoned with the words "White Supremacy is Terrorism", told reporters outside the courthouse that she scaled the landmark in an impromptu protest.

"When they go low, we go high and I went as high as I could," she said, quoting former First Lady Michelle Obama. "No children belong in a cage," she said.

Read more in this BBC News story.

The team running Mozambique's national carrier, Lam, has been sacked after flights were cancelled because the airline ran out of fuel.

Among the many passengers affected by the cancellations was Prime Minister Carlos Agostinho do Rosario.

The decision to sack Lam's board was taken by an extraordinary session of the airline's General Assembly, the BBC's Jose Tembe reports from the capital, Maputo.

The fuel problems are a result of a financial crisis at Lam, he adds.

Image source, Lam

The Ghanaian government has banned all imports of Tilapia fish.

Tilapia farmer Janefa Sodji hopes the ban will have a positive effect on the industry in Ghana, although some people have raised concerns.

South Africa's Robben Island Museum has condemned a charity for planning to auction a night in the cell occupied by Nelson Mandela for 18 years, EWN News reports., external

CEO Sleepout, which raises money for homeless people, had begun an online auction to sleep on Robben Island with the highest bidder getting to spend the night in the former preisdent's cell.

It has since postponed the auction.

Robben Island Museum's Morongoa Ramaboa says that CEO Sleepout had been in touch about spending the night on the island but there was no agreement that the cell itself would be used, EWN reports.

Image source, Getty Images

Bidders in the online auction are now being given the opportunity to stay the night in Liliesleaf farm, external, a property owned by the late president and anti-apartheid leader.

The URL for the Robben Island competition now redirects to the Liliesleaf farm page. Opening bids start at $11,000 (£8,300), and the charity says the farm can host up to 400 people.

The raid on the farm, which was an ANC hideout, led to the Rivonia Trial - which saw Mandela and other anti-apartheid activists jailed. The farm opened as a museum in 2013.

Seven people died, including four Ugandan soldiers, in clashes on Lake Edward between forces from the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda, according to a Congolese official quoted by the AFP news agency.

Lake Edward straddles the border between the two countries.

The administrator of Congo's Beni region, Donat Kibwana, is quoted by AFP as saying that a Congolese naval patrol was attacked on Thursday morning "by a Ugandan patrol boat".

The Ugandan boat sank and four Ugandan soldiers and three civilians died, he added.

Jaribu Muliwavyo, a local MP, told a Congolese Virunga Business Radio that the clash was over fishing rights.

A Ugandan army spokesman, Brig Richard Karemire, blamed the attack on "some gunmen who hurled a grenade onto our patrol boat", reports Uganda's New Vision newspaper, external.

He is quoted as saying that two Ugandan soldiers had been critically injured.

Image source, Getty Images

Our proverb of the day:

Image source, Guenterguni

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

Welcome to the BBC Africa Live Page where I'll be bringing you the latest news from across the continent.

That's all from BBC Africa Live on Thursday. 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 our wise words for the day:

Click here to send us your African proverbs.

And we leave with this photo from Dakar Street Style on Instagram:

Image source, AFP

South Africa police say the person who killed two worshippers at a South African mosque last month was a psychiatric patient with no link to extremism.

“The man had schizophrenia, we could not link him to any extremist or radical activity,” Hangwani Mulaudzi, spokesman for the Hawks police investigation unit, told AFP news agency.

The attacker, who was armed with "a big Rambo knife", had struck as people gathered in Malmesbury mosque, north of Cape Town, before refusing to hand over his weapon and being shot dead by police, PC Henry Durant told South Africa's News24, external.

After the attack, South Africa's Muslim Judicial Council said in a statement it was "shocked to its core to learn of a brutal attack", explaining the two victims had been observing I'tikaaf when they were killed.

I'tikaaf prayers are held over the last 10 days of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, Business24 explains., external

BBC World Service

Forty children's homes and orphanages have closed in Uganda in the past week after the government ordered all unregistered facilities to shut down.

In all, more than 500 homes will be affected and it's unclear what will happen to the children they look after.

The government accuses some orphanages of involvement in child-trafficking and dubious adoption practices.

But other care home managers argue that, whether certified or not, they have stepped in where the government has failed, rescuing street children and saving others who were severely malnourished.

Just 70 homes have been cleared to continue operating, along with the single government-run reception centre.

Kennedy Gondwe
BBC News, Lusaka

The Football Association of Zambia (Faz) has appointed Belgian Sven Vandenbroek as the new coach for the national team - the Chipolopolo. He replaces Wedson Nyirenda who resigned last month to join South African side Baroka FC.

Vandenbroek, who was assistant coach for Cameroon when they won the Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) last year, has been tasked with making sure Zambia qualifies for next year’s continental showpiece and the World Cup in 2022.

Faz acting general secretary Adrian Kashala said:

The length of his contract has not been disclosed.

Zambia won the Africa Cup of Nations in 2012 but failed to qualify for last year’s tournament.

Image source, Getty Images

A spokesman for Nigeria's governing APC has dismissed reports of a split in the party as the work of "mischievous and ill-advised" individuals who may not even be party members.

The breakaway faction, known as Reformed APC, is led by Buba Galadima, a former ally of President Muhammadu Buhari. Members of the splinter group say that the president's government is incompetent.

Their emergence is seen as a major threat to Mr Buhari’s bid for a second term in office.

The statement from the APC National Publicity Secretary, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, continues:

Image source, AFP

Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni has defended the country's new social media tax, saying in a Facebook post that users had been enriching foreign-owned telecoms companies without benefiting the national economy.

He also said taxes on mobile money transactions would be charged at a rate of 0.5%, rather than the 1% initially announced. He said this was due "to a miscommunication", but Uganda's Daily Monitor newspaper says it was lowered following public outcry, external.

Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Google Hangout, YouTube, Skype and Yahoo Messenger are among the platforms identified by Uganda's revenue service for the daily tax of $0.05 (£0.04).

In his statement posted on Facebook, President Museveni called social media a "luxury by those who are enjoying themselves or those who are malicious...all the moral reasons are in favour of that tax".

He added that Ugandan social media users were "endlessly donating money to foreign telephone companies through chatting or even lying".

The new law has provoked outrage in Uganda.

Critics say it amounts to censorship and that the daily levy is too expensive for most Ugandans.

A group of Ugandan lawyers and journalists filed a petition against the new tax earlier this week, calling it unconstitutional and contrary to "individual rights and freedoms".

Sherrie Silver choreographed Childish Gambino's This is America video, external, and now she gives her top tips on being a great dancer.

BBC World Service

The International Criminal Court in The Hague has issued a second arrest warrant for a senior commander of an armed group in Libya.

Mahmoud al-Werfalli is accused of war crimes for allegedly executing dozens of prisoners.

Mr Werfalli commands a unit in the self-styled Libyan National Army, which is the dominant force in eastern Libya.

It does not accept the internationally-recognised government in Tripoli.

This latest arrest warrant comes after a video surfaced on social media in January, which appears to show him shooting 10 people in front of a mosque in the city of Benghazi.

The ICC's first arrest warrant for Mahmoud Al-Werfalli was issued last August for the alleged murders of 33 people in seven different incidents between June 2016 and July 2017.

Image source, AFP

BBC World Service

The anti-corruption commission in Sierra Leone says that former Vice-President Victor Foh and former Mines Minister Minkailu Mansaray have been arrested on charges of corruption.

The arrests come a day after another commission appointed by President Julius Maada Bio concluded that corruption was rampant under the government of his predecessor, Ernest Koroma.

On Wednesday, President Bio declared on television that corruption was serious enough to destroy Sierra Leone.

The ex-president's APC party has dismissed yesterday's report as politically-motivated.

Image source, AFP

BBC World Service

The first phase of a Chinese-built Free Trade Zone - billed as Africa's largest - opens today in Djibouti.

The nearly 50 sq km (31 sq miles) zone will house manufacturing and warehouse facilities, an export-processing area and a services centre.

It's expected to handle trade worth $7bn (£5.3bn) within two years, and create 15,000 jobs when complete.

With a strategic location on the Gulf of Aden, Djibouti already handles most imports for neighbouring Ethiopia, and aims to become a gateway to South Sudan, Somalia and the Great Lakes region.

The zone forms part of China's new chain of infrastructure investments in 60 countries. China already has a military base in Djibouti, as does the United States.

Mercy Akide, the former striker for Nigeria's national women's football team, has been speaking to BBC Sport Africa about her dream of coaching the Super Falcons.

She also revealed her position on some of life's key questions:

• Facebook or Instagram?
• American or Nigerian food?

Answers below: