BBC Sport

Image source, Getty Images

Guinea have called-up uncapped Napoli midfielder Amadou Diawara for their Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers with Rwanda.

The 21-year-old was one of three players who pledged their international allegiances to Guinea in March.

Coach Paul Put has also included Sweden-born goalkeeper Aly Keita, after he missed last month's 1-0 win over visiting Central African Republic (CAR) due to injury.

Keita, 31, was born to a Guinean father and Norwegian mother and plays for Swedish side Ostersunds.

Read the full story here

Ishaq Khalid
BBC Africa, Abuja

Gunmen have shot dead at least 21 people in two attacks in central Nigeria’s Plateau state, officials have told me.

Seven of the fatalities occurred when gunmen on foot opened fire indiscriminately on a small crowd of people near a bar and other shops in the town of Barkin Ladi on Wednesday night, local government chairman Barkin Ladi Dickson Chollom said.

Several other people were wounded.

The area has a history of ethnic and religious conflict but witnesses and the local authorities say both Christians and Muslims were among victims of the latest attack.

On Tuesday night, 14 people, including a policeman, were killed in Riyom area when suspected cattle herders attacked the village of Jol, local government chairman Emmanuel Danboyi Jugul told me.

Hundreds of people have been killed in the state in the past three months in a new wave of violence.

The state government believes the resurgence of the killings is politically motivated ahead of Nigeria’s general elections scheduled for February next year.

You may also be interested in:

• The Plateau state imam who saved Christians from gunmen

Muthoni Muchiri
BBC Africa, Nairobi

Three pupils have been killed after being struck by lightning in Uganda's north-western district of Yumbe.

Ugandan Red Cross Society spokeswoman Irene Nakasiita confirmed that the pupils aged between 9 and 10 died on the spot at Mungoyo Primary School when the lightning struck on Wednesday.

The total number of children affected is 75 and 53 have since been treated and discharged from hospital, she said.

Heavy rains have also destroyed homes and claimed the lives of two people elsewhere in Uganda.

A warning about heavy rain, thunderstorms and lightning was recently issued by the Uganda National Meteorological Authority.

Will Ross
Africa editor, BBC World Service

Campaign group Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called for an investigation into a series of massacres in Beni in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo which has left more than 1,000 people dead over the past four years.

The rights group says over 200 civilians have been killed this year - many were hacked to death with machetes or were shot dead.

It wants the International Criminal Court and UN peacekeepers to investigate and prosecute those responsible.

DR Congo officials blame the violence on Ugandan rebels but HRW says other armed groups as well as Congolese army officers are involved.

It says the attacks are complicating efforts to tackle the Ebola outbreak in eastern DR Congo which has killed more than 100 people since August.

Image source, AFP

Getting sleep on a plane is not automatic for everyone. But for some passengers on a South Airways (SAA) flight headed to Hong Kong from Johannesburg on Monday their sleep almost cost them their valuables.

According to South Africa’s Times Live, external, the cabin crew were informed by some passengers that their money and a watch had gone missing from overhead compartments overnight.

SAA confirmed to Jacaranda FM that the incident had happened on one of its flights and the authorities had been called in when the plane landed and the alleged perpetrators were identified.

The police were not able to find the money and watch, though they were discovered later by cleaners, Times Live reports.

“The missing items were found elsewhere in the aircraft and were returned to their owners,” SAA spokesperson Tlali Tlali told Jacaranda FM, external.

He advised passengers to be careful with their valuables when stowing them in future.

No arrests were made.

Ugandan police have confiscated red napkins from the home of the sister-in-law of prominent opposition politician Kizza Besigye.

The 24 napkins were seized when officers raided Edith Byanyima's home in the capital, Kampala, on Wednesday to search for illegal material, the state-linked New Vision newspaper reported.

Police did not give a reason for confiscating the napkins, but red ribbons are linked to Mr Besigye's Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) party, the newspaper said.

"Since our duty is to detect and prevent crime, our officers went there and indeed obtained 24 red pieces of cloths,” it quoted a police spokesman as saying.

Kampala mayor and lawyer Erias Lukwago condemned the raid.

"These are just cowards. How can you say that having red napkins is illegal?" Mr Lukwago was quoted by the privately owned Daily Monitor newspaper as saying.

Ms Byanyima's sister has tweeted about the story:

BBC Sport

Image source, Getty Images

Liverpool say midfielder Naby Keita is fine after being taken to hospital with a back injury suffered in the 1-0 Champions League defeat by Napoli.

The Guinean, 23, received treatment on the pitch in Italy before being taken off on a stretcher after 19 minutes.

He has been assessed, with the issue being back pain, and will return home with the Reds squad on Thursday.

Liverpool host rivals Manchester City in the top flight on Sunday and Keita has not been ruled out of that game.

Keita, who joined from RB Leipzig for £48m this summer, has made nine appearances for Liverpool this season, including four starts in the Premier League.

Cameroon's presidential election is scheduled to be held on Sunday.

People go to the polls amidst a civil conflict in the country's Anglophone regions.

President Paul Biya is running for a seventh straight term at the age of 85, with a young population seen as key in the vote.

Here are five key things to know ahead of the election.

Video producers: Moses Rono and Suniti Singh

Uganda's military has launched a new condom brand, Ulinzi (Swahili for "protection"), for its soldiers in order to ensure they have safe sex.

Chief of Staff Brig Leopold Kyanda told troops they needed to be "safe first and thereafter you can defend the country".

"If the individual soldier does not ensure that he is secure then there is no way he can defend his country," he added.

Uganda's popular NTV station has put up a video of the ceremony where the condom was launched:

A drunk Ethiopian police officer has shot dead two of his colleagues in the capital, Addis Ababa, state-linked Fana Broadcasting Corporate reports quoting police commissioner Zeynu Jemal.

The attacker was also shot dead, he said.

The shoot-out took place in the central Bole district, where roads were sealed off before reopening, Reuters news agency quoted residents as saying.

Image source, Joseph Kamaru Facebook

Tributes are pouring in for popular Kenyan musician Joseph Kamaru following his death at the age of 79 at a hospital in the capital, Nairobi.

He had been diagnosed with Parkinson's, and this was believed to be the main cause of his death, his son Stephen Maina told Kenya's Daily Nation newspaper., external

Kamaru sang in the Kikuyu language, and was famous for hits such as Tiga Kuhenia Igoti (Don’t Lie to the Court), which focused on rape and sexual harassment long before they became issues of major public concern, Kenya's Standard newspaper reported, external.

President Uhuru Kenyatta said he was one of the most popular musicians in the 1980s.

“He recorded nearly 2,000 songs addressing morality and offering life teachings. The songs stamped his status as a Kikuyu music legend who touched the hearts of music lovers with classic hits such as Gathoni and Charia Ungi,” Mr Kenyatta said in a statement, external.

“He was a courageous Kenyan who used his music talent to implore those in authority to fulfil their mandate by heeding to the voice of the masses,” the president added.

His deputy, William Ruto, led the tributes on Twitter:

Our proverb of the day:

Click here to send us your African proverbs.

Welcome 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 now. 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 this image by Sam Vox from the everydayafrica Instagram account, external of a young boy using a bungee trampoline in Zanzibar:

A committee of Kenyan MPs will visit the women's toilet in parliament as part of its investigation into claims that some lawmakers were allegedly bribed to reject the findings of a report on the importation of fake sugar, the Star newspaper reports., external

The allegations were made by MP Gathoni Wamuchomba.

Ms Wamuchomba said she overheard her colleagues in the toilet talking about being given bribes.

She said she could not identify them because they were locked inside cubicles.

The lawmakers are reported to have received between $200 (£153) and $300 (£230) to reject the report which had been prepared by parliament's Agriculture Committee.

The report, on fake sugar importation, followed public concern after bags of sugar unfit for human consumption were confiscated in several parts of the country.

The Agriculture Committee had proposed that two top government ministers be investigated over the importation..

The speaker of parliament, Justin Muturi, who chairs the Powers and Privileges Committee, said they will visit the toilet next week.

“It is important that we get a proper impression of the space described by [Ms] Wamuchomba,” he said on Wednesday.

She will show the panel where she was and where the rest of the members were.

An accident involving two military planes on the runway of the airport in Sudan's capital, Khartoum, has temporarily closed the airport and forced international flights to divert to Port Sudan.

Eight people were injured as the two Soviet-built Antonov aircraft collided, the AFP news agency reports quoting an airport official who wanted to remain anonymous.

Video footage posted on Twitter appears to show one plane ramming another as it tries to slow down.

People have also tweeted pictures of the aftermath of the crash showing two wrecked aircraft:

This is the third aircraft accident to affect Sudan's military in less than a month, AFP says.

Louise Dewast
Kinshasa, DR Congo

Image source, AFP

Health workers tackling an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo have been severely injured after being attacked by angry residents who believe the virus is not real.

More than 100 people have died since the start of the outbreak in the east of the country two months ago.

Four local health workers from the Red Cross were attacked in the city of Butembo as they were transporting dead bodies for burial.

Residents started throwing rocks at their car and two of the health workers were severely injured.

The bodies of people who die from Ebola are believed to be extremely contagious and so burying them in a safe way is one of the most important steps to limit the spread of the virus.

This is often difficult for families and communities to accept, especially when they are used to traditional burial rites where touching dead bodies is common.

Butembo is the second biggest cluster of new suspected Ebola cases after Beni, another large city in the region.

New cases have also been reported in Tchoima, a busy fishing market town very close to the Ugandan border.

BBC World Service

Days before elections are held in Cameroon, Amnesty International has called on the next government to make it a priority to tackle the country's human rights crises.

It highlights two regions. The far north, where Boko Haram is active, and the Anglophone parts of the country, where there is a separatist rebellion.

Amnesty says that in response to Boko Haram attacks Cameroonian security forces have raided villages, killed civilians and detained thousands, often with no evidence.

It says armed separatists have killed soldiers and civilians and destroyed schools.

Amnesty is calling on the next government to ensure that members of armed groups, as well as security forces who carry out human rights abuses, are brought to justice.

With just three weeks until the Amputee World Cup , externalin Mexico the Nigerian team has turned to a crowd-funding campaign to raise the necessary finances.

The Special Eagles have missed the last three editions of the tournament in 2010, 2012 and 2014 due to a lack of money.

Arsenal Amputee FC's Michael Ishiguzo noticed their plight and the London-based player has set up an online appeal on GoFundMe to raise almost US$68,000 (£52,000).

"These guys have worked so hard and several times they have missed going to the World Cup because it appears the government, the corporate community don't care about them," Ishiguzo told BBC Sport.

"Going to the World Cup is a big deal for them because it will bring them to the global place where there are opportunities like I have."

They hope to raise the necessary funds to cover flights, upkeep and other logistics whilst attending the event which kicks off on 24 October.

• Read more on this from BBC Sport

Image source, .

Image source, AFP

The governor of Lagos, Akinwunmi Ambode, has lost the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) party primary race jeopardising his chances of a second term in next year's general election.

Mr Ambode got 72,901 votes to Babajide Sanwo-Olu's 970,851 votes in Tuesday primaries.

The backing of APC leader and political godfather Bola Tinubu for Mr Sanwo-Olu is being seen as key to his surprising victory.

There had been reports that Mr Tinubu and President Muhammadu Buhari were in disagreement over who to back.

It is unclear if Mr Ambode might leave the ruling party to ensure he competes in the governor election.

Lagos, Nigeria largest city of 20 million people, is key to President Buhari's re-election plan.

Mr Buhari will soon know his main opponent as the main opposition People's Democratic Party (PDP) will this weekend choose its presidential candidate. Former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar and Senate leader Bukola Saraki are seen as front-runners for the pick.