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

BBC Africa Live
Damian Zane

That's all from BBC Africa Live for today. You can keep up-to-date with what's happening across the continent by listening to the Africa Today podcast or checking the BBC News website.

A reminder of Wednesday's proverb:

Click here to send us your African proverbs.

And we leave you with some more pictures of the Demera festival in Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa, which marks the eve of the Meskel holiday. See our entry for more details.

Image source, Noah Nasiali

Kenya's Noah Nasiali is now a widely acclaimed farmer, having won a Facebook prize worth up to $1m (£760,000) for his efforts to improve the lot of farmers.

But he was in deep financial trouble a mere seven years ago, having lost more than $300,000.

"I lost all the family savings. Nobody wanted to talk to me. They wanted to know, 'what have you done?'," he told BBC Focus on Africa.

"I grew cabbages and fresh beans for contract suppliers, and they never came to collect them. I did not know how to sell [the vegetables]," he added.

He soldiered on - and eventually formed the Africa Farmers Club, external on Facebook, as he did not want any farmer to suffer the huge setback that he had experienced.

"We share information. We help each other and this is the strongest pillar of the Africa Farmers Club," Mr Nasiali told BBC Focus on Africa.

Image source, AFP

The US First Lady Melania Trump has announced that she will be visiting Ghana, Malawi, Kenya and Egypt on her solo tour of the continent in October.

She called them "four beautiful and very different countries" when talking about the details at a meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.

Mrs Trump said the trip will be organised with the US government's international aid agency and would be part of her Be Best campaign, which aims to improve child welfare, especially when it comes to online behaviour and addiction to opioids.

"Each of us hails from a country with its own unique challenges, but I know in my heart we are united by our commitment to raising the next generation to be happy, healthy and morally responsible adults," AP news agency quotes her as saying.

Nigeria's main unions are set to start a nationwide strike on Thursday after talks with the government over raising the minimum wage broke down, Reuters news agency reports.

"We are going ahead with our planned action," Peter Ozo-Eson, general secretary of the union umbrella body, the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) told Reuters.

The government had promised to review the minimum wage in the face of the rising cost of living. The NLC says it should be tripled to $164 (£125) a month.

South Africans have expressed outrage following the alleged rape of a seven-year-old girl in a restaurant toilet.

A 20-year-old man allegedly followed her into the women's restroom before snatching her and raping her in the men's section, police said.

The suspect was arrested at the scene and charged with rape and possessing drugs. He has been remanded in custody and has not yet been asked to plead.

South Africa has one of the highest incidences of rape in the world.

The police recorded 40,035 rapes in the 12 months leading to 31 March, an average of 110 each day,the fact-checking organisation Africa Check says., external

Read more on the story here.

Image source, AFP

Image source, EPA

Nigeria's women's basketball team have beaten Greece 57-56, external at the world cup finals to make it through to the last eight.

It was a tense final quarter as Nigeria started the period 11 points ahead, but Greece fought back to take the lead with just moments to go.

But Nigeria won the tie in the last seconds.

The team now go on to play USA in the quarter finals - the first time an African team has got that far at the basketball world cup.

Crowds have started gathering at Meskel Square, the main square of Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa, for the eve of the Meskel festivities and our colleagues from BBC Amharic have taken these photos.

According to Ethiopian Orthodox Christian tradition, the holiday marks the finding of the cross that Jesus was crucified on.

The eve of Meskel is known as Demera and before sunset a huge bonfire is lit.

The bonfire signifies the efforts that were made in trying to find the cross.

Priests from churches around the city have come to the square with drums that are used in religious ceremonies.

Other priests came to the square with traditional umbrellas that are also used in the church.

BBC World Service

A least 15 people have been killed in an ethnic Tuareg camp in north-eastern Mali, close to the border with Niger.

According to the local MP, heavily armed Fulani herdsmen attacked Tinipchi near Menaka town on Tuesday and killed all the men they found - sparing the lives of the women and children.

There have been frequent clashes between Tuaregs and Fulani, partly due to competition over land and water but also due to the presence of a group linked to Islamic State.

A Tuareg militia is fighting against the jihadists - many of whom are Fulani.

In 2012 most of northern Mali was seized by Islamist militants but they were pushed out after French military intervention.

BBC World Service

A former president of Benin has strongly criticised a new law which requires anyone wanting to stand in presidential elections to pay the equivalent of around $450,000 (£340,000).

Nicephore Soglo, who was president in the 1990s, described the recently-approved law as brutal and clumsy.

He said President Patrice Talon's government was excluding anyone who was young, poor or disadvantaged.

Provided Benin's constitutional court confirms the law, parties will need to pay a similar fee to take part in parliamentary elections.

The next elections are due in 2020.

Image source, AFP

There's no doubt that South Sudan's civil war, which began in December 2013, has caused massive destruction.

Several reports have detailed horrific accounts of killings and sexual violence, but it has been hard to get an estimate of the numbers who have died.

In 2016, the UN said that 50,000 people had been killed, but now after detailed statistical work, the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine estimates that 380,000 people have died as a result of the war.

That figure is made up of nearly 190,000 who died directly as a result of violence and a similar number of people whose deaths can be attributed to the humanitarian crisis that the war has caused.

The report's authors say it highlights the need for humanitarian workers to be given unhindered access throughout the country.

Earlier this month, President Salva Kiir and his former deputy, Riek Machar, signed a peace agreement but both their rival forces have accused each other of fresh attacks, reports the BBC's Tomi Oladipo.

Previous peace deals between both sides have broken down and despite considerable international pressure, there is some scepticism as to whether this latest agreement will hold.

Image source, AFP

Thomas Naadi
BBC Africa, Accra

Image source, .

Ghana's disaster management organisation (Nadmo) has admitted that Vice-President Mahamudu Bawumia handed out expired cooking oil to the victims of recent floods in the north of the country.

The oil, which had expired last month, was part of a package of relief items presented by the vice-president.

Nadmo officials say the oil had been isolated in a warehouse and was supposed to have been disposed of, but it was mistakenly added to the relief items when they were being loaded onto a vehicle for distribution.

They are currently in the region to retrieve the expired oil.

Meanwhile, there are reports of people having stomach upsets after consuming the oil.

Nadmo spokesman George Ayisi told the BBC that they are yet to confirm whether their condition is directly linked to consumption of the cooking oil.

Members of Ghana's main opposition party have called for an investigation into how the mistake was made.

The recent floods in northern Ghana have killed more than 30 people and displaced thousands of others.

Image source, .

Image source, Care

In a village outside Rwanda's capital Kigali, a group of boys are learning how to stop gender-based violence and the power imbalances in the #MeToo era.

While girls learn about investment to achieve financial independence, the boys are taught how to report abuse and how to respect the girls and women in their lives in a classroom next door.

These sessions take place after official academic classes are finished for the pupils at the Safe School for Girls, which is co-educational.

Each weekday afternoon the boys and girls split up to learn different ways to improve the lives of women across Rwanda.

"If we happen to see such violence, we report them and make sure the people who have [committed the violence] are judged," Rini Mutijima, an 18-year-old at the school, tells the BBC.

Read more about the classes here.

Image source, Getty Images

Eight soldiers have been killed in an explosion in north-western Burkina Faso, President Roch Marc Christian Kabore has said, AFP news agency reports.

"I have just learned that eight Burkinabe soldiers died after their vehicle drove over a home-made mine planted by the enemies of our people," he is quoted as saying.

The attack took place in Soum province, where militant Islamists are known to be active, AFP reports.

Will Ross
Africa editor, BBC World Service

There has been a prison break in north-west Cameroon involving separatist rebels.

Eyewitnesses in Wum, north of the regional capital Bamenda, say the shooting at the town's prison lasted several hours and around 70 prisoners escaped.

The man who instigated the attack was apparently shot and wounded but was taken away by colleagues.

This is the third prison-break in recent months.

For the last two years violence has been escalating in the English speaking north-west and south-west regions of the country with reports of atrocities against civilians being carried out by the Cameroonian military as well as by separatist rebels.

The World Bank is set to lend Somalia $80m (£60m), the first loan it has given the country for 30 years, Reuters news agency reports.

It cut ties with Somalia when the conflict broke out in 1991 and though it resumed work in 2003, it did not fund the government directly, Reuters adds.

The bank has drawn up its first development strategy for the country that is aimed at strengthening basic services like access to clean water and improved health and education.

The UN-backed government has managed to bring stability to some parts of Somalia, but it continues to battle Islamist militant group al-Shabab for control of the whole country.

Andrew Harding
BBC News, Johannesburg

Image source, AFP

In South Africa, consulting firm Bain is being investigated by a commission looking into alleged wrongdoing at the country's tax collection agency.

It's the latest multinational in the cross-hairs of South African investigators.

It started with the British public relations firm, Bell Pottinger. It was accused of stoking racial tensions in South Africa for profit and forced into bankruptcy.

Then the global auditors KPMG were implicated in an alleged plot to siphon money from the state.

Now Bain, a giant management consultancy, has abruptly offered to pay back cash it received for providing controversial advice to the country’s beleaguered tax agency, SARS.

The country is experiencing a moment of reckoning, as it seeks to get to the bottom of the corruption that flourished during the years Jacob Zuma was president.

South Africans call it “state capture”, the allegation that Mr Zuma and wealthy tycoons sought to corrupt institutions like the tax agency in order to loot the state, and to get away with that looting.

Many South Africans are waiting to see if their own political and business elites will face trial.

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The number of migrants attempting the journey from Libya to Europe has gone down since last year, but the proportion of those who die on the way has risen.

One person died or went missing for every 18 people who crossed via the central Mediterranean route between January and July 2018, compared to one in 42 people in the same period in 2017, according to the UN refugee agency, UNHCR.

Aid agencies and other non-governmental organisations operating search and rescue ships face increased restrictions. On Monday the last private vessel working in the area had its registration revoked.

The EU-backed Libyan Coastguard still carries out rescues. But migrants are then held in detention centres, which rights groups have criticised as overcrowded and squalid.

This report contains disturbing images:

Reporter: Clive Myrie Camera/Editor: Rob Magee Producer: Nick Springate

Nick Cavell
BBC Africa Sport

Image source, EPA

Nigeria and Senegal have made history at the Women’s Basketball World Cup on the Spanish Island of Tenerife by becoming the first African nations to reach the second stage of the tournament.

Nigeria beat Argentina 75-70 to record their second win of the finals.

The victory meant that they finished second in their group and progress to the play-offs where they will face Greece later on Wednesday.

The winners of that match will then go on to play the USA in the quarter-finals.

Senegal lost 75-66 to China but that was good enough for them to finish third in their pool and they advance to face Spain. The winners of that qualifier will play Canada in the quarter finals.

Image source, EPA

Since coming to power President Emmerson Mnangagwa has been keen to tout his "Zimbabwe is open for business" message.

As if to prove a point he's now revealed that he offered US President Donald Trump land at the tourist resort of Victoria Falls to build a golf course.

Mr Trump is well known for having built golf courses across the US and in other parts of the world.

The Zimbabwean president made the offer at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, in January, he explained when speaking to a gathering of potential investors in New York this week.

Apparently departing from his prepared comments about how he wants to encourage more tourism, he said:

The audience laughed and clapped.

President Mnangagwa said "American tourists are always welcome in Zimbabwe".

He is in New York for the UN General Assembly.

You can see his comments at 13 minutes 50 seconds into this video: