Image source, AFP

Armed groups in DR Congo are being called on to cooperate with efforts to improve security as the country battles an outbreak of the Ebola virus.

The calls for cooperation come from leaders of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the UN peacekeeping operations.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the virus endangered everyone, while the UN Under Secretary-General for peacekeeping Jean-Pierre Lacroix said the UN hoped to resolve the unstable security situation and would concentrate its efforts on the city of Beni, the epicentre of the outbreak.

More than 300 cases of Ebola, and 191 deaths have been reported in the east of the country and more than 5,000 people are under surveillance.

Image source, AFP

The UN envoy to Libya has said that a National Conference will be held in the country in the first weeks of 2019, which should be followed within months by elections.

Polls had been scheduled for December 2018 following France-backed talks.

The envoy, Ghassan Salame, told the UN Security Council that the Conference would give Libyans a forum to discuss their future. He said the internationally recognised House of Representatives had deliberately failed to approve legislation to hold elections.

The decision to hold the conference follows meetings held across Libya by a UN-mandated, non-governmental group in which more than 7,000 people took part. This highlighted the discontent with the corruption, economic chaos and lack of a single unifying government in the country.

Since the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 two rival governments and various militias have been fighting for control of Libya.

Read more:

• Libya country profile
• Why is Libya so lawless?
• How Libya holds the key to solving migration crisis

Friday's African proverb:

Image source, Getty Images

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

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

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 check the BBC News website.

A reminder of Thursday's African proverb:

We leave you with this image of Israeli Ethiopian Baruch Gobza posing for a portrait during the Jewish Ethiopian Sigd holiday in Jerusalem:

Image source, EPA

Residents of Adenta, near Ghana's capital, Accra, have taken to a main road after a pedestrian was knocked down by a car, local media are reporting.

People in the area are tweeting pictures of black smoke billowing from burning tyres.

Reports say that people have been demanding a footbridge across the busy highway.

The US is ready to do business with Africa in order to help the continent's economy to grow says Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of African Affairs Tibor P Nagy Jr.

His comments come ahead of his two-week trip to Togo, Guinea, Mali and Nigeria.

He's been talking to the BBC's Sophie Ikenye.

The Prince of Wales tried out some choice phrases in Pidgin as he addressed Nigerians in the commercial capital Lagos at the end of his nine-day tour of West Africa.

Pidgin is spoken by tens of millions of people across the region, even though it is not officially recognised.

The heir to the throne spoke about the work of his youth charity in supporting entrepreneurs.

Learn more about Pidgin and follow BBC Pidgin here.

A post on our Facebook page, external highlighting comments about equality for women by Nigerian lawmaker Aishatu Dukku has drawn a big reaction.

She told a gathering of women politicians from around the world that "you cannot mention the word equality [in Nigeria], the men do not want to hear it".

Bill Acquah responded:

Daniel Yaw Adademy said:

And many other comments follow a similar argument, but M Rabiu Abubakar says:

BBC World Service

An Egyptian court has given long jail terms to 60 people accused of forming a terrorist cell affiliated to the Islamic State group.

Nineteen of the defendants were imprisoned for life, and the rest were sentenced to 15 years behind bars.

It is understood the group's activity was to be focused in the south of the country.

Image source, AFP

Zimbabwe's President Emmerson Mnangagwa has described the death of 47 in a road accident on Wednesday night as a "sad day for our nation".

In a hard-hitting condolence message he said that he wanted the transport ministry to declare the accident a national disaster.

He has also called for the traffic police to enforce the rules. They must "use this bloody accident to close in on all those bus operators, drivers and road users who put profit and speed above life".

He added:

On Wednesday night, two buses collided outside the small town of Rusape, in the east of the country.

One of the buses veered into oncoming traffic while trying to overtake a haulage lorry, an eyewitness told local media.

Two children were among those killed while 70 others were injured.

Image source, AFP

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has hit out at the state of press freedom, external in Tanzania hours after two of its members of staff were released after being briefly held by the country's immigration authorities (see earlier post).

The two, South African Angela Quintal and Kenyan Muthoki Mumo, went to Tanzania to call for Tanzanian authorities "to halt their ongoing crackdown against a free press", CPJ said.

Its executive director, Joel Simon, added:

The CPJ said the authorities took their staff members' phones and sent a false tweet from one of their Twitter accounts saying that they had been released. They also tried to access their emails.

A spokesman for the country's immigration department said that the two had been held because they did not have the correct documents to work in the country.

BBC World Service

Image source, AFP

Prominent Ethiopian opposition politician Birtukan Mideksa has returned home from exile in the United States.

She was one of several opposition leaders imprisoned for life, accused of instigating protests following the controversial 2005 election.

Around 200 demonstrators were shot dead by the Ethiopian police at what was the start of a sustained crackdown on the opposition.

Ms Birtukan, a former judge, was released in 2010.

Correspondents say her return from exile is the latest sign of how the political landscape has been radically reformed since Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed came to power in April.

At her family home in Addis Ababa, Ms Birtukan said she had long feared she would never see her family again.

Andrew Harding
BBC News, Johannesburg

Image source, SA Parliament

A spectacular $130m (£100m) "heist" at a bank in South Africa has provoked a furious political storm, revealing how deeply corruption is now entrenched in local government and beyond, the BBC's Andrew Harding reports.

The losses at VBS are relatively small compared to some of the more outlandish corruption scandals already buffeting South Africa.

However, the story of the bank's alleged looting and destruction involves such a wide cast of villains and victims that it has the makings of an era-defining outrage.

"Corrupt and rotten to the core," concluded Terry Motau, the lawyer appointed by the central bank to investigate VBS.

In parliament on Tuesday, the chief whip of the main opposition Democratic Alliance (DA), John Steenhuisen, accused members EFF members of being "VBS looters". EFF lawmakers reacted angrily, calling him a "white racist". A brawl quickly followed.

Read more from Andrew here.

A BBC documentary about young girls being forced to live and work with priests in shrines has been awarded an award for the best documentary in the human interest category by the Association for International Broadcasting.

The programme focused on Brigitte Sossou Perenyi, who was one of those girls.

Twenty years after she was freed, she went on a journey to understand what was behind the practice and ask why her family gave her away.

You can watch an extract here:

Click here , externalto watch the full documentary, a co-production between BBC Africa's investigations unit, Africa Eye, and Our World.

Alhassan Sillah
BBC Africa, Conakry

In Guinea's capital, Conakry, two more opposition supporters have been killed by soldiers, eyewitnesses say.

This brings the number of opposition supporters killed in demonstrations and other political actions to 100 this year.

Both victims were said to have been crossing the street in an opposition stronghold on their way to watch a European Champions League football match.

Their killings come barely 24 hours after Prime Minister Kassory Fofana told the ministers of security and justice to open an inquiry into the deaths of the previous 98 victims.

Last month, Amnesty International criticised the growing violence in the country saying that "protests in Guinea have been marked by appalling violence from all sides, including excessive use of force by the security forces".

Image source, AFP

BBC World Service

The Tanzanian authorities say two members of staff from the Committee to Protect Journalists were detained because they had broken the conditions of their entry permits by holding meetings with local journalists (see earlier entry).

The South African journalist Angela Quintal and Muthoki Mumo from Kenya were released and later given back their passports.

“After arresting them and educating them, we released them the same day... The entry permits forbid employment or business activities. If they want to engage themselves in anything more than a normal visit then they have to request appropriate permits,” spokesperson for Tanzania's immigration ministry Ally Mtanda said, the Citizen newspaper reports, external.

The government of President John Magufuli is facing mounting criticism because of its increasing intolerance of political dissent.

Earlier this week, the European Union recalled its ambassador to Tanzania because of what it called the deterioration of human rights and rule of law there.

Image source, Houses of Parliament

A Nigerian female politician has lambasted her male counterparts in a speech at a special meeting in the British parliament.

Aishatu Dukku, who is a member of the Nigeria's House of Representatives for a constituency in the north of Nigeria, told the gathering of women politicians from around the world that there is "not a level playing ground" when it comes to getting involved in politics.

She said that there are only 21 women out of 360 members of the House of Representatives.

"For us in Nigeria you cannot mention the word equality, the men do not want to hear it," she added.

Ms Dukku is the first woman to represent her constituency in the north-east of the country and she said she broke the taboo of women being involved in politics only with the support of her husband and father.

You can watch her speech in this video on Facebook if you scroll forward to 56 minutes:

Kenya's Football Federation (FKF) has condemned a Confederation of African Football (Caf) decision to reinstate Equatorial Guinea to the Women's Africa Cup of Nations.

They say they are "profoundly astonished" by the move, which represents "a great injustice" and plan an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

Equatorial Guinea had been excluded by the Caf in October for fielding an ineligible player.

On Wednesday Caf reversed that decision following an appeal from Equatorial Guinea, who were restored to the finals in place of Kenya.

Kenya were awarded a place in the finals in October when Caf ruled Equatorial Guinea had fielded an ineligible player in qualifying.

Read more on BBC Sport

Christopher Farai Charamba
BBC Africa

Image source, AFP

Malawian Vice-President Saulos Chilima has been omitted from the cabinet list by President Peter Mutharika in a reshuffle, the government has said.

Mr Chilima’s name was not on the list of cabinet members released by the chief secretary to the government, Lloyd Muhara, on Wednesday.

Earlier this year, the vice-president announced he would run against Mr Mutharika in next year’s election after he quit the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), citing alleged corruption in the country.

In July, the president’s office withdrew Mr Chilima’s security clearance, saying he would only have that privilege when performing government duties.

He remains the vice-president but will not attend cabinet.

In 2011, then Vice-President Joyce Banda successfully challenged her sacking in court and she was reinstated.

She later went on to win a presidential election.