BBC Africa Live
Natasha Booty

That's all from BBC Africa Live this week. Keep up-to-date with what's happening across the continent by listening to the Africa Today podcast or check the BBC News website.

Our African proverb of the day:

Click here to send us your African proverbs.

And we leave you with this picture taken at a primary school in South Africa on the 100-year anniversary of Nelson Mandela's birth.

It's one of our favourite photos taken this week.

Image source, AFP

Jose Tembe
BBC Africa, Maputo

Image source, Getty Images

Close to 600 cases of dogs attacking people were reported in the central Mozambican province of Tete during the first six months of 2018. That is a 60% increase compared the same period last year.

Dog bites can be lethal as many people in Mozambique are not vaccinated against rabies. Victims are often children.

Stray dogs are now being rounded up and killed to prevent more cases, a senior health official for Tete province told daily newspaper Noticias.

Dr Alex Bertil also said that while two people had died in the region last year after being bitten by dogs, no such deaths had been recorded there in 2018 year.

All district health units in the province have now been equipped with anti-rabies vaccines, he is quoted by the news outlet as saying.

To prevent contracting the disease in a rabies-risk area, medical doctors advise taking these three steps:

• Immediately clean the wound with running water and soap for several minutes
• Disinfect the wound with an alcohol- or iodine-based disinfectant and apply a simple dressing, if possible
• Go to the nearest medical centre, hospital or clinic as soon as possible and explain that you've been bitten or scratched.

Source: NHS, external

Kennedy Gondwe
BBC News, Lusaka

Image source, AFP

Police and government authorities in Zambia have cleared Congolese rhumba star Koffi Olomide to perform in the country next weekend, contrary to media reports earlier in the week that the singer would be arrested on arrival.

It follows allegations published in the state-owned Times of Zambia newspaper that he assaulted a photojournalist in Zambia during a previous tour.

He has also been accused of sexually assaulting his dancers, kidnapping them and employing them without valid permits in France.

The article prompted the 62-year-old to hire lawyers to talk to the authorities to clear his name.

Now Zambia police spokesperson Esther Katongo says Mr Olomide is free to enter Zambia.

She says there is no international arrest warrant for him from Interpol, no criminal record in Zambia, and says "an assault case that was reported at Lusaka Division by a journalist was closed due to lack of evidence".

The rhumba star is not new to controversy. In 2016, he was caught on camera kicking his female dancer on arrival in Kenya. He was swiftly deported.

In 2012, he was convicted in the Democratic Republic of Congo of assaulting his producer, resulting in a three-month suspended prison sentence.

The altercation with his producer was over a debt of about $3,700 (£2,800), the court heard.

In 2008, he was accused of kicking a cameraman from DR Congo’s private RTGA television station and breaking his camera at a concert in the capital, Kinshasa, following a disagreement over recording rights.

In the end, the speaker of the national assembly stepped in to resolve the dispute, brokering a reconciliation between the star and owner of the TV station.

Navin Singh Khadka
Environment reporter, BBC World Service

Image source, Getty Images

Nigeria has one of the highest deforestation rates in the world and conservationists say the charcoal industry is fuelling the problem, as demand for charcoal grows internationally.

Last year the UK imported more than 10,000 tonnes of charcoal from Nigeria, according to UN figures.

"Deforestation is alarming and disheartening for some of us who work in the conservation sector," says Stephen Aina, a conservation officer with the Nigerian Conservation Foundation.

He says forests in Oyo State and in areas sharing a boundary with Benin have been largely destroyed, because of their location close to Lagos port. Kwara State, he says, is now one of the major hotspots of charcoal production in the country.

Poland, a major exporter of charcoal, also imports the fuel from Nigeria before re-exporting it, according to a World Wildlife Fund Germany.

It's a problem in other African countries too. “Tree cover loss in the Democratic Republic of Congo reached a record high in 2017, increasing 6 percent from 2016,” a recent report by the Global Forest Watch said, saying agriculture, artisanal logging and charcoal production were to blame.

It isn't illegal to source charcoal from tropical forests, but most British retailers do claim their supply chains originate in sustainable woodlands.

The majority of the bags, though, have no information about the country of origin, let alone specific forests. But most do carry the logo of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) - the world's biggest certification scheme of wood products.

"I am sure there has been tropical charcoal coming into the UK market,” admits FSC boss Kim Carstensen. “I am sure most of these would have been without the FSC logo," she adds, "but I cannot guarantee that there hasn't been any problem with some of the FSC certified materials.”

• Watch the full TV report on Focus on Africa at 17:30GMT

Mustafa Dawood died in June 2018 after fleeing an immigration raid in the UK. He was 23-years-old.

He fell 12 metres (40ft) to his death after climbing onto the roof of a factory next to the car wash where he was working illegally.

It was a brutal end to a short life - one that had already seen him flee war in Sudan and make a perilous journey across Europe eventually settling in south Wales.

So why did Mustafa die, and why are politicians and campaign groups now clamouring for justice?

Read the full story from BBC Wales.

Image source, ABDALAZIZ OSMAN

Tomi Oladipo
BBC Africa security correspondent

The US has extended its designation of the al-Shabab jihadist group as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation to include a Kenya-based wing of the group known as al-Hijra.

Washington says al-Hijra is interconnected with al-Shabab and consists mainly of Kenyan and Somali members.

The move comes at the end of a legally required five-year review of al-Shabab’s status as a terror group.

With these terror designations, the US says it aims to expose and isolate individuals or organisations it considers a threat – and to deny them access to its financial system.

Image source, AFP

The Somali group al-Shabab has had this label since 2008, the same year al-Hijra was formed in neighbouring Kenya. The State Department says this wing has been openly recruiting for al-Shabab in Kenya and facilitating travel for its members to Somalia "for terrorism purposes".

Security analysts suggest that al-Hijra was involved in planning the siege on Kenya’s Westgate shopping mall in 2013.

A United Nations report named Aboud Rogo – a radical Kenyan cleric – as al-Hijra’s ideological leader.

Rogo was killed in 2012 but continues to inspire Swahili-speaking jihadists in eastern Africa.

• Read more:Who are Somalia's al-Shabab?

Image source, Getty Images

Senegalese referee Malang Diedhiou is hanging up his whistle after a career that has seen him take charge at the Fifa World Cup, Confederations Cup and the Olympics.

Diedhiou, 45, a Senegalese customs inspector, was involved in four matches at the recent World Cup in Russia.

He was in charge of the Group games between Costa Rica and Serbia and then hosts Russia against Uruguay, and the knockout match between Belgium and Japan.

• Read more on BBC Sport

The construction of a Kenya’s first high-speed railway network should be good news.

But part of the line is being built through a national park in the capital, Nairobi.

Activists say this poses a major threat to wildlife, which attract tourists from around the world. They accuse the Kenyan government of ignoring environmental law and failing to conduct a preliminary impact study.

But the government says it did what was required under Kenyan law.

Image source, FADEL SENNA

Women in Morocco have hit back at an online campaign, which tells men to police women's clothing, by saying women have the right to wear whatever they want.

"Be a man and do not let your women and girls go out in tight clothes" is the name of the Facebook group whose members say men should curb street harassment by stopping women from "wearing obscene clothes" in public, such as bikinis or "revealing clothing".

The debate spread to Twitter, alongside a hashtag which translates into English as #BeAMan. This outraged many who responded with their own hashtag, meaning #BeAFreeWoman.

Some have mocked the idea of covering women up and called the message "patriarchal" and "misogynist".

"Everyone has the exclusive freedom to take a decision to wear any kind of clothing on the beach... We live in a state of law, not in a religious state," one commentator wrote on Facebook. "Be a man and leave her alone" said another critic.

"Because I am a free Moroccan woman, my campaign will be 'be a man and take care of yourself', said Magda Karami.

BBC Arabic says the "Be a man" trend can be traced back to Algerian bloggers in 2015, and has "since spread to other Arab countries".

South African comedian Trevor Noah has defended himself after being criticised by the French Ambassador to the US for saying "Africa won the World Cup".

The Daily Show host made the comments on his satirical show a day after France beat Croatia to win football's most coveted prize on Sunday.

Fourteen of France's 23-man squad would be eligible to play for African nations.

French politician Stéphane Tiki, who was born in Cameroon, disagrees with Noah, telling BBC Newsday the players are French first and foremost.

Trevor Noah has said his statement should be put in context: "When I am saying, 'They are African', I am not saying it as a way to exclude them from their Frenchness, but using it as a way to include them in my Africanness."

To deny that duality was something he "vehemently" disagreed with.

• Read more: Trevor Noah defends 'Africa won the World Cup' joke

Milton Nkosi
BBC Africa, Johannesburg

The South African government has offered relatives of miners killed in the 2012 Marikana massacre the sum of 100m rand ($7.4m; £5.7m) in compensation.

Police shot dead 34 miners on strike over wages, saying they were acting in self-defence.

The shooting at the Lonmin platinum mine was the most deadly police incident since the end of apartheid in 1994, and shocked the nation. Ten others were killed in the days leading up to the mass shooting. The violence left 70 injured, and police arrested more than 200 others.

Families of the miners are being offered the settlement for general damages.

A group called the Socio-Economic Rights Institute represented more than 300 claimants who sued the government for loss of support and shock. It says it will consult the families about the offer.

Former President Jacob Zuma established a commission of inquiry led by a retired judge.

Its findings led to the removal of a police commissioner. It also recommended investigations into police conduct and exonerated senior political figures, including current President Cyril Ramaphosa, who was a director at Lonmin at the time.

He was alleged to have called for action to be taken against the wildcat strikers, but the commission said it found there was no evidence "even on a prima facie basis" that he was guilty of such allegations.

Image source, AFP

A 24-year-old Kenyan woman has been sentenced to death by hanging for killing her boyfriend.

Ruth Kamande was 21 when she was charged with murder for stabbing her 24-year-old boyfriend Farid Mohammed to death. Since her arrest in 2015, she has been held in Lang'ata women's jail in Nairobi, where she won a prisoners' beauty pageant.

Kenyan media have focused on her looks through the trial, dubbing her the "prison beauty queen".

Rights group Amnesty International has called on Kenya's High Court to reverse its decision to sentence Kamande to death, calling the practice "cruel, inhumane and outdated".

Kenya has not enforced hanging as a capital punishment since 1987. Amnesty said this latest sentence, if enforced, would be "a blow to the country's "progressive record in commuting death sentences to terms of imprisonment".

Before sentencing, Kamande testified that her boyfriend threatened to kill her when she found out he was HIV-positive. She said she had acted in self-defence:

“Mohammed told me that he would rather kill me and himself than have his status exposed. l stabbed him severally using a kitchen knife, which fell on my chest from his hands after I overpowered him, after putting my two thumbs in his eyes to save my life."

But Jugde Jessie Lessit said Kamande showed no mercy, still shows no remorse and deserves nothing less than death.

"She stabbed again and again and took pleasure in it. It wasn't at a go, there were intervals," Judge Lessit said.

Nigeria’s former finance minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has been appointed to the board of directors of Twitter.

Mrs Okonjo-Iweala served under President Olusegun Obasanjo from 2003 to 2006 and President Goodluck Jonathan from 2011 to 2015.

She tweeted the news of her appointment, saying she was "excited" to work on a platform that connects people and ideas.

Twitter, like other Silicon Valley companies, has been criticised for not being inclusive enough.

With Mrs Okonjo-Iweala's appointment, Twitter's 10-member board now has three women, two of whom are black.

Image source, Getty Images

Mayeni Jones
BBC News

News agencies say four Cameroonian soldiers have been arrested for their involvement in a disturbing video which has caused outrage on social media.

In the clip men wearing military fatigues shoot two women, including one with a baby on her back, and a little girl.

They are heard accusing the victims of being connected to the Islamist militant group, Boko Haram.

Both the UK and the US have expressed concern over the video and have called for those involved to be held accountable for their actions.

Details of the arrests are still unclear, but a spokesperson for the government denies they took place. Communications Minister Issa Tchiroma Bakary told the BBC that the government did not yet know the origins of the video.

He added that there were two versions of the clip: one where soldiers were wearing Cameroonian uniforms, and another where they appeared to be wearing Malian ones.

Image source, WhatsApp

Amnesty International said it had credible evidence that the men in the video were indeed Cameroonian soldiers based on an analysis of their weapons, speech and uniforms.

Two military sources told the Reuters news agency the video was filmed in 2014 or 2015, in the early months of Cameroon's operations against Boko Haram.

The Cameroonian army is deployed in the country's Far North region to counter frequent incursions by Boko Haram fighters from Nigeria, where they are based.

Rights groups have accused the Cameroonian armed forces of carrying out war crimes in their fight against the militant group.

Image source, Getty Images

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

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

That's all from BBC Africa Live today. Keep up-to-date with what's happening across the continent by listening to the Africa Today podcast or check the BBC News website.

Our African proverb of the day:

Click here to send us your African proverbs.

And we leave you with this picture from the Rwandan side of Lake Kivu.

Archaeologists in Egypt have unsealed a massive black sarcophagus, which some suggested might contain the body of Alexander the Great or unleash a deadly curse.

But instead it revealed three skeletons and a red liquid which gave off a pungent smell.

Image source, Getty Images

The archaeologists said the bodies were likely to have been those of soldiers from the time of the Pharoahs, with one having a wound that appeared to have been caused by an arrow.

The sarcophagus was found at a construction site in the city of Alexandria earlier this month, sparking fevered speculation over what it might contain.

Image source, Getty Images

A former Zimbabwean footballer is among 12 people who have been sentenced to prison in the UK for plotting to claim more than £450,000 ($586,000) in maternity payments for babies which did not exist.

According to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), Liberty Masunda, 43, was sentenced to three years in prison after a jury in Wolverhampton city convicted him of conspiracy to defraud the government.

The 11 other members of the group were given sentences ranging from 14 months to seven years.

"As a result of their actions, there has been a loss to the taxpayer of £450,000 in false payments," prosecutor Gurminder Sanghera said.

"Many of the defendants denied knowing about the fraud, or that their bank accounts were used. Evidence put forward by the CPS showed they each played an integral part of the scheme and ultimately the jury has found them guilty,” Mr Sanghera added.

Masunda had played for Zimbabwe and South Africa's Kaizer Chiefs as a striker.

The 12, including members of the same family and their partners and friends, made at least 158 fraudulent applications for maternity allowance over a 52-month period, the CPS said in a statement.

False maternity allowance claims, usually in the names of third parties, were submitted to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), the CPS said.

The claim form required a maternity certificate to be completed and submitted. The defendants produced forged certificates by falsifying GP stamps on them, the CPS added.

Image source, Getty Images

A prominent member of South Africa's governing African National Congress (ANC), Thandi Modise, has hit back at campaign groups over their plan to bring a private prosecution against her for alleged animal cruelty, including the deaths of pigs and goats, on her farm.

The move to prosecute Ms Modise, who is the chairwoman of the upper chamber of parliament, amounted to an "abuse of judicial processes for narrow political ends", parliament's spokesman Moloto Mothapo said in a statement.

The campaign groups wanted to "advance a narrow narrative of failure of black farming", he added.

"The threat to privately prosecute coincides with the process led by Parliament regarding [the] possible amendment to Section 25 of the constitution to expropriate land without compensation [from white farmers]," Mr Mothapo said.

It is important to note that state prosecutors have declined to charge her because she had "delegated people she trusted to look after the farm while she is away fulfilling her parliamentary responsibilities", he added.

Mainly Afrikaner lobby group AfriForum plans to prosecute Ms Modise after the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals reported that dozens of animals had died on her farm in 2014 because of neglect.

Private prosecutions are extremely rare in South Africa, and are usually brought when lawyers are confident that the state had blundered by refusing to charge a suspect.

See earlier post: 'Dozens of animals died on farm'