Our African proverb of the day:

Image source, Getty Images

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Welcome to BBC Africa Live where we'll be bringing you updates on the news from around the continent.

BBC Africa Live
Natasha Booty

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.

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 photo of Mozambican artist Nelly Guambe taken by her twin sister, Nelsa.

Kenya has a reputation for producing many of the world's best long-distance runners, but that proud heritage has been tainted by a spate of doping cases involving high-profile athletes in recent years.

In May, the head of Kenya’s Olympic Committee said urgent action was needed to tackle the "cancer" of doping among the country's athletes.

Ahead of next week's African Championships, Kenyan runners have been filmed taking this oath against the use of performance-enhancing drugs:

Bekele Atoma
BBC News

Four prisoners have died in northern Ethiopia following days of riots that have seen jails set on fire in several cities.

Angry inmates are demanding to be released under a new amnesty law f or all remaining political prisoners announced on state TV on Monday.

Many have already been pardoned and released in recent months.

About 2,500 prisoners have been affected in Amhara region by the riots, according to the authorities there.

Two prisoners died and three were injured at one prison in the town of Woldiya following the unrest.

Two people died in the main prison in the northern city of Mekele and several others were injured after a fire broke out following a riot in the prison compound, a BBC reporter in the city says.

Yitbarek Alene, chief commander at the Mekele prison, admitted some prisoners were shot while trying to escape.

He said police were carrying out investigations into whether the two inmates who died had been shot or died in the fire.

The government has condemned the unrest, terming it “illegal".

In a statement, Attorney-General Berhanu Tsegaye said the amnesty law was not applicable to those jailed on corruption and robbery charges.

BBC World Service

At least 600 sub-Saharan migrants have succeeded in storming the security fences guarding the Spanish enclave of Ceuta on the north coast of Morocco.

The Spanish Civil Guard said migrants used improvised weapons and splashed some of the security forces with quicklime as they breeched the six metre-high barbed wire barrier.

It said 22 officers needed medical treatment, while the Red Cross said dozens of migrants received injuries.

Spain has overtaken Italy as the prime destination for migrants wanting to reach Europe, partly as a result of Italy's tougher stance on migrants.

Image source, AFP

Milton Nkosi
BBC Africa, Johannesburg

Image source, AFP

The summit bringing together some of the world's leading emerging economies, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - referred to as the Brics, is now drawing to close here in Johannesburg.

One gets a sense that beyond the photo opportunities, gala dinners and hand-printing ceremonies that the five-nation alliance is deepening rather than weakening.

The final agreement signed by all countries, known as the Johannesburg declaration, makes it very clear that it will not be business as usual for the richest countries in the world.

They came here to reject unilateralism and this club may even expand to include other emerging economies such as Turkey, Mexico and Indonesia.

But they have also recommitted themselves to the respect of multilateral institutions like the UN.

You could say that this summit's purpose was to send a clear message to the US president, who was never once mentioned by name.

China's President Xi Jinping could not have put it more succinctly than when he told us "there are no winners in trade wars".

Enthusiastic supporters of Ethiopia's Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed have assembled outside the US State Department in Washington DC as he begins a tour of three cities.

Image source, AFP

Image source, AFP

Image source, AFP

After the US capital, Prime Minister Abiy will visit Los Angeles and Minneapolis, which both have large Ethiopian communities.

He is in the country to drum up political and economic support from the Ethiopian diaspora in the US - census data shows there were 215,060 Ethiopian-born people living in the US at the last count in 2016, external.

They are an important source of revenue, reportedly sending $4bn (£3bn) to Ethiopia annually.

Before the prime minister's appointment in April, members of the Ethiopian diaspora showed their anger at the state of affairs by freezing remittances to their home country.

But the new leader's reformist agenda appears to have won some over.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed learnt about the death of one of the country's top engineers, Simegnew Bekele, when he arrived in the US on his latest diplomatic mission.

His chief of staff has said the prime minister was "saddened and utterly shocked" by the news.

Mr Simegnew, who was found dead in a car in the main square of the capital, Addis Ababa, died as a result of a bullet wound, police say.

Image source, AFP

A PR spokesman for South African utility company Eskom has complained on Twitter that journalists don't understand their briefs, are unable to spell his company's name and ask too many weird, irrelevant questions.

The cash-strapped company hit the headlines after it reported a 2.3bn rand ($175m; £133m) loss for the financial year which ended in March.

South Africa's ruling ANC party has called for more private investment in the state-owned company.

It is also considering splitting up Eskom's operations into three parts, "a company doing production, another doing transmission and then distribution", according to ANC Treasurer General Paul Mashatile.

Simegnew Bekele, the top Ethiopian engineer who was found dead in a car in the capital, Addis Ababa, on Thursday morning, was killed as a result of a bullet wound, the police have said.

A handgun was found in the car.

But at a press conference, Police Commissioner Zeynu Jemal did not say whether police thought the wound was self inflicted or if Mr Simegnew was killed by someone else.

The death of the engineer, who was in charge of Ethiopia's high profile Grand Renaissance Dam project, has shocked many in the country.

As news of his death spread, there was a spontaneous demonstration outside the state broadcaster's offices in Addis Ababa, with people calling for "justice for the engineer”, the BBC's Kalkidan Yibeltel reports.

The Democratic Republic of Congo should be one of the wealthiest countries in the world.

The BBC's Africa Editor Fergal Keane looks at what went wrong, calling it "the greatest single example in history of how predatory elites rip off millions of people and get away with it".

Some quick facts from his report:

• DR Congo has $24 trillion (£18 trillion) in mineral wealth
• That's from gold, diamonds, copper, uranium, cobalt and coltan
• But 70% of the population lives below the poverty line
• King Leopold of Belgium's plunder of DR Congo caused 10 million deaths
• Belgium and the CIA ordered independence leader Patrice Lumumba's murder
• President Mobutu, kept in power by the West, stole half of the country's aid revenue
• Rwanda and Uganda sponsored a rebellion to overthrow Mobutu
• Both nations installed the Kabila family in power
• 5 million died in a decade of war over territory and resources
• The conflict involved nine African nations and numerous rebel groups
• The milennial tech boom fuelled demand for Congolese coltan
• Rights groups allege $750m in mining revenue has been stolen during President Joseph Kabila's rule
• He has stayed in power beyond the constitution's two-term limit
• Protesters have nonetheless become emboldened in their calls for free elections.

Producers: Charlotte Pamment and Piers Scholfield

Graphics: Ian Paul Joyce

A zoo in Egypt's capital, Cairo, has denied painting black stripes onto a donkey to pass it off as a zebra.

Take a look at this photo of the animal and judge for yourself.

Image source, Mahmoud A Sarhan

The picture was taken by 18-year-old Mahmoud Sarhan at International Gardens Park in Cairo and has been shared more than 7,500 times on Facebook, external.

"We finished our tour then we decided to take some pictures... When he [the zebra] came near to me, I realised from the first look that it was a painted donkey not a zebra," Mahmoud is quoted in the UK's Metro newspaper as saying.

In 2009, a zoo in Gaza admitted painting stripes onto two donkeys to replace zebras that had died of starvation during military conflict, external.

While in 2013, visitors to a zoo in China said they felt cheated when the animal in the "African lion" cage turned out to be a hairy Tibetan mastiff dog.

Image source, AFP

The only surviving rhino of a group of 11 that were relocated to a new wildlife reserve has been attacked by a lion, Kenyan authorities say. Nine of the rhinos died two weeks ago and news of the animal's injuries was confirmed at the same time as the death of the 10th lion.

The rhinos had been transported from Nairobi National Park and Nakuru National Park to the country's biggest national park, Tsavo East, as part of a population-boosting programme.

Tourism minister Najib Balala blamed government officials for "negligence, poor coordination and communication" at a press conference announcing the results of an inquest into the rare creatures' deaths.

Dehydration, gastric ulcers and bacteria in the respiratory system were identified as causes of death by the Directorate of Criminal Investigations.

It also said that samples had shown harmfully high salt levels in the water at the Tsavo National Park, but these findings were ignored.

Three more rhinos had been earmarked for relocation but the exercise was called off following the deaths.

South Sudan's government has defended its decision to give each parliamentarian the sum of $40,000 (£30,300), which it says is a loan to buy cars "because they [currently] use motorbikes".

Reports from Juba say the MPs were handed the money in cash.

The country's economy has been wrecked by a five-year civil war, and earlier this month a UN report warned that atrocities committed in the conflict may amount to war crimes. Tens of thousands of people have been killed in the violence and more than 1.5 million people have fled the country.

"Mobility is part of the rights of the parliamentarian," presidential spokesperson Ateny Wek Ateny told BBC Newsday. He said the money had been set aside as part of this year's national budget. Listen to his interview in full:

Police in Ethiopia are investigating the death of engineer Simegnew Bekele, the man leading the Grand Renaissance Dam project, who was found in a car in the main square of the capital, Addis Ababa.

The cause of death is not yet known.

The BBC's Kalkiban Yibeltel has taken pictures of shocked onlookers:

The plan to build a hydroelectric dam on the Blue Nile in northern Ethiopia has been a source of controversy with Egypt, which has said that it will have an impact on its use of the river.

Mayeni Jones
BBC News, Lagos

Image source, AFP

A new report on the violence between herders and farmers in Nigeria says that the conflict has now claimed six times more lives than the Boko Haram insurgency this year.

The International Crisis Group, a non-governmental organisation working to prevent war, says more than 1,300 people have been killed in clashes in Nigeria's middle belt since January and 300,000 have been displaced.

The report says that the conflict stems from wider issues, including climate change and the expansion of farmland.

But it says the escalation of violence in 2018 is due to the growing number of ethnic militias with illegal weapons. It also blames the failure of the government to prosecute perpetrators, and the introduction of anti-grazing laws, widely opposed by herders.

The report also warns that the conflict has dangerous religious and ethnic dimensions because the herders are mainly Muslim Fulanis and the farmers tend to be Christians.

Read more:

• Who are Nigeria's Fulani herdsmen?
• How fake news fuels Nigeria's herder crisis
• The imam who saved Christians from Muslim gunmen

Our African proverb of the day:

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.

BBC Africa Live
Farouk Chothia

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.

A reminder of today's wise words:

Click here to send us your African proverbs.

And we leave you with this photo of a policeman walking past a billboard outside the Brics summit in South Africa's commercial capital, Johannesburg:

Image source, Reuters