Rana Jawad
BBC North Africa correspondent

An attack on a checkpoint in western Libya has killed four security personnel and injured seven, about 30km (19 miles) from the coastal town of Zliten.

The mayor of Zliten, Miftah Hamadi, told the BBC there were three assailants in the deadly attack targeting a checkpoint – one died and two escaped.

They first approached the checkpoint in a car and went on foot to launch the attack using guns, hand grenades and knives.

A witness told the BBC that three security personnel had their throats slit.

The mayor believes the attack was carried out by militants from the Islamic State (IS) group.

IS lost its major stronghold in central Libya nearly two years ago.

Since then its fighters have carried out deadly attacks on checkpoints in the country, as well as once targeting the election commission headquarters in the capital, Tripoli.

Image source, Reuters

South Africa's Foreign Minister Lindiwe Sisulu is set to meet officials from the US embassy in Pretoria in the wake of a tweet from President Donald Trump about the country's land reform programme.

Mr Trump said he wants Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to look into "farm seizures" and the "large scale killing of farmers".

In a statement, Ms Sisulu described the comments as "unfortunate" adding that "it is regrettable that the tweet is based on false information".

The leader of the radical EFF opposition party, Julius Malema has also commented on Mr Trump's tweet, calling him a "pathological liar".

For more on this story:

• Reality Check: Debunking South Africa's farmer murder rates
• South Africa rejects Donald Trump's tweet on farmer killings

Girmay Gebru
BBC Horn of Africa

Image source, Girmay Gebru/BBC

The heavy rains in Ethiopia's northern Tigray region have not deterred thousands of girls from taking part in the annual Ashenda festival, which celebrates the Virgin Mary. It gives girls carte blanche to sing and dance over the three-day celebration.

At the eve of the festival, which first started centuries ago, girls plait their hair in an elaborate design called Ga'me and head to the market, where they buy necklaces and other traditional cosmetics.

Image source, Girmay Gebru/BBC

The girls also gather Ashenda grass from the riverside. Ashenda means "the tall green grass" in the region's language, Tigrinya, and gives the festival its name.

The grass is sewn together and worn on the girls' waists as a skirt.

The girls form groups of eight to 12 with a lead singer and a drummer, and they gather in the public squares of Mekelle, Tigray's main city.

For the first time this year, Tigray's culture and tourism bureau allowed the festivities to take place at Baloni Stadium.

Image source, Girmay Gebru/BBC

The party goes on from sunrise to sunset. The celebrating girls see the festival as a source of fun and a place to assert their independence and freedom while keeping the thousands-year-old tradition alive.

The girls see the festival as an opportunity to tell the world that they are proud of the Virgin Mary.

Image source, Girmay Gebru/BBC

The festival is growing into a bigger and more colourful spectacle each year and is now drawing thousands of onlookers from around the country and foreign tourists.

Image source, Girmay Gebru/BBC

The Ethiopian government plans to get the festival recognised by Unesco.

Ashenda is also celebrated from 30 August to 1 September in Aksum, central Tigray, and goes by a slightly different name, Ayni Wari.

Image source, Girmay Gebru/BBC

Jonathan Paye-Layleh
BBC Africa, Monrovia

Police in Liberia are searching for five young men who are feared drowned after a canoe capsized in a river about 45km (37miles) south of the capital, Monrovia, on Wednesday morning.

State radio reported Thursday morning that there is "crying all over the place" as the search continues.

Local people in Dolo, near where the accident happened, say the boys were returning from football practice.

The scene of the accident is close to the country’s international airport, Robertsfield, and the American-owned Firestone Rubber Company, the world’s single largest rubber plantation.

Image source, Reuters

South Africa's former President Jacob Zuma has accompanied his son, Duduzane, to court in Randburg, near Johannesburg.

Duduzane Zuma is facing charges of culpable homicide relating to a car accident in which one woman was killed.

Journalists have been tweeting video from the courtroom.

The case has been postponed until October, News24 reports, external.

BBC Monitoring
The world through its media

Image source, Getty Images

Madagascar's High Constitutional Court (HCC) has cleared 36 candidates to run in the country's upcoming presidential elections after receiving nomination papers from 46 presidential hopefuls.

The HCC published the final list of candidates for the first round of the election on its website, external.

The main candidates running in the 7 November poll is President Hery Rajaonarimampianina, and other former presidents, including Andry Rajoelina, Marc Ravalomanana, and Didier Ratsiraka.

The elections have been controversial as President Rajaonarimampianina earlier this year introduced a new law which barred key opposition candidate Mr Ravalomanana from running.

The law was scrapped after street protests and in a bid to avert a political crisis, the constitutional court ordered the president to form a government of national unity and hold elections.

Ugandan musician-turned-MP Bobi Wine is appearing in a civilian court shortly after his release form a military court in the northern town of Gulu.

Ugandan TV stations are streaming the proceedings live on YouTube:

The military court dropped the charges of the illegal possession of firearms, but he may now face treason charges in the civilian court.

A state-owned newspaper is tweeting that he has now been charged with treason in the civilian court:

Image source, Getty Images

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari has praised two airport security men who returned a bag full of cash and valuables, saying their behaviour "reflects the new Nigeria that we all desire".

Their act of honesty bowled the president over, who issued a press statement celebrating the men who chose "to be examples of good, honest Nigerians".

The bag, which contained "a handsome amount of American dollars, phone, wrist watch, and other valuables" was accidentally dropped by a woman at Lagos airport, according to a press release issued by the State House.

The security men in question, Francis Emepueaku and Achi Daniel, declined a cash gift for returning the bag and said "they were merely doing their duties," the press release said.

"Honesty remains the best policy. We must exhibit such behaviour in whatever position we find ourselves, whether high or low," the president said.

"Nigeria will no longer be a byword for corruption and plundering of public resources. That is the path we have chosen to take, and our country will eventually get to a new shore," he added.

Mr Buhari won the last election on a platform of fighting corruption but has been criticised for the slow progress he’s made, reports the BBC's Stephanie Hegarty in Lagos.

The Ugandan musician-turned-MP Bobi Wine has been re-arrested according to his lawyers.

The BBC's Catherine Byaruhanga says he was put in a police vehicle with his wife and will be taken to the chief magistrate's court:

Local media have been reporting on the re-arrest, which happened seconds after he was released from a military court.

This is how it unfolded on a Ugandan TV channel:

Image source, NTV

And moments later...

Image source, NTV

Patience Atuhaire
BBC Africa, Kampala

Image source, AFP

Things are moving fast in the case against Uganda musician-turned-MP Bobi Wine.

We've been quoting reports from state-owned media that a military court has dropped charges of the illegal possession of firearms against Bobi Wine, whose real name is Robert Kyagulanyi.

But now it appears the state may still pursue treason charges against him in a civilian court.

The army lawyers said Bobi Wine should be handed over to the police to face the charges in a civilian court, together with the other MPs in detention.

His lawyer Medard Segona told the court that, although he was relieved by the military decision, he objected to his client now being handed over to the police to face fresh charges.

He demanded that the MP be declared a free man so he could be taken for medical treatment.

The court has adjourned and the panel has yet to rule.

Bobi Wine sat silently in court, hands clasped together, even though he was not in handcuffs.

He was arrested following violence during a by-election campaign in the north-eastern town of Arua.

His family and lawyers have said he is in fragile health after he was beaten and tortured, claims that have been dismissed by President Yoweri Museveni.

Image source, AFP

There has been tension across the country since Bobi Wine, other MPs and over 30 supporters were arrested over a week ago.

Police had deployed heavily and sealed off the homes of a number of opposition politicians. Opposition figure Kizza Besigye has recently been arrested in Kampala.

The police have said the deployment was a preventive measure, based on intelligence, that some politicians were going to stage protests, and attack security installations and officers on duty.

Image source, Getty Images

South Africans have hit back at US President Donald Trump's tweet on the land reform debate.

Mr Trump has asked US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to study "South Africa land and farm seizures and expropriations and the large scale killing of farmers", according to a tweet he posted on 23 August.

The South African government rejected his comments, calling it a "narrow perception which only seeks to divide our nation and remind us of our colonial past".

South Africans on Twitter were equally unimpressed:

A military court in the northern Ugandan town of Gulu has withdrawn charges of the illegal possession of firearms against musician-turned-politician Bobi Wine, state-owned New Vision newspaper is reporting, external.

The opposition politician, whose real name is Robert Kyagulanyi, has been in detention for more than a week.

His arrest and detention, along with other politicians, sparked a week of political tension. Protests in the capital, Kampala, on Monday left one person dead and more than 100 people arrested.

A BBC reporter in Kampala tweeted this picture of a private television station with live coverage of Bobi Wine's court appearance, saying that charges had been withdrawn.

Image source, Getty Images

US President Donald Trump has got involved into South Africa's land reform debate on Twitter, saying that he will get US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to study the issue and the "large scale killing of farmers".

His comment comes after South African President Cyril Ramaphosa answered questions about a proposed programme of land redistribution in the South Africa's National Assembly.

The BBC has reported that it was difficult to prove with statistics that white farmers were more likely to be murdered than black farmers.

The South African government responded to Mr Trump, rejecting his comments and saying that they were divisive:

Around 10% of land in white ownership has been transferred to black owners since the end of apartheid, which is only a third of the ANC's target.

The government is currently looking at how to change the constitution to clarify the legality of expropriating land without comepnsation.

Read more: Is South Africa’s land reform an election gimmick? - BBC News

African proverb of the day:

Image source, Getty Images

Click here to send us your African proverbs.

Welcome to the BBC Africa Live page where we'll be keeping you up-to-date with news stories on the continent.

BBC Africa Live
Damian Zane & Natasha Booty

That's all from the BBC Africa Live page for now, we'll be back on Thursday. 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 our wise words:

And we leave with this image of the Ivorian dish "attiéké poisson" taken by Cameroonian journalist and entrepreneur Diane Audrey Ngako:

AFP news agency reports that Zimbabwe's Constitutional Court has ajourned after eight hours of arguments and is expected to issue its ruling on Friday at 14:00 local time (12:00 GMT).

Nine judges, led by Chief Justice Luke Malaba, are hearing the case brought by the opposition MDC Alliance over the results of July's election which it says was rigged.

The party's lawyer Thabani Mpofu told the court there had been a massive cover-up and doctoring of results and he wanted to see President Emmerson Mnangagwa's victory overturned.

The governing party's lawyer, Thembinkosi Magwaliba, and the electoral commission said the opposition had failed to produce any evidence of fraud.

The BBC's Shingai Nyoka in the capital, Harare, says the Zimbabwean authorities are acutely aware of the simmering tensions the case has brought.

President Mnangagwa, who narrowly avoided a run-off election by taking 50.7% of the vote, has urged the court to throw out the opposition challenge.

An opposition activist in Malawi has appeared in court to be charged with ridiculing the president.

Manice Hale's lawyer told the BBC that the authorities accuse her of implying in a social media post that President Peter Mutharika is dishonest and demented.

The trial follows warnings from President Mutharika that anyone who insults him risks facing the law. Ms Hale has been released on bail of $250 (£194) and instructed to hand in her passport.

Her lawyer believes her arrest is the first under Malawi's Protected Flag, Emblems and Names act to be made specifically for comments aired on social media.

The case has drawn attention partly because Manice Hale - popularly known known as Abinti Manice - is the niece of the president's elder brother, the late president, Bingu wa Mutharika.

Ms Hale is a member of the new opposition UTM party, which was formed when the country's Vice-President, Saulos Chilima, left the governing party to compete in elections scheduled for next year.

Her trial is expected to resume in September, according to her lawyer Chikosa Silungwe.

Ugandan musician-turned-MP Bobi Wine was originally due to appear in a military court in the capital, Kampala, on Thursday to face charges relating to the illegal possession of firearms.

But the case will now be heard in the northern city of Gulu, the BBC's Catherine Byaruhanga reports.

The reason for the move is unclear, but Wine is thought to have a lot of supporters in Kampala. On Monday protesters took to the capital's streets to demonstrate against his continued detention.

More than 100 people were arrested and one demonstrator was killed in clashes with security forces.

Image source, AFP

BBC Monitoring
The world through its media

Islamic State militants have imposed heavy taxes on traders and companies in north-east Somalia in what seems to be an attempt to match revenue collection tactics of rival Islamist militant group al-Shabab.

The group has also increased attacks against government forces in southern Somalia, a development that may have informed its move to impose taxes in the semi-autonomous north-eastern state of Puntland.

IS sent threatening text messages to traders and businesses instructing them "to pay a permanent amount of taxation fees" or risk death.

The militant group's expansion into southern Somalia makes a confrontation with al-Shabab inevitable.

Although IS has struggled to control territory, it has significantly increased attacks in Somalia in recent months, especially in al-Shabab's southern strongholds.

But it still trails al-Shabab by a distance. The move to impose taxes in Puntland signals IS’s bold attempt to disrupt al-Shabab's financial system.