Africa Live this week: 12-16 November 2018, as it happened

Summary

A Sudanese asylum was "forcibly disappeared from Egypt", HRW says
US to cut Africa troops by 10%
Zimbabwe bus catches fire killing many passengers
DR Congo police shoot dead two student protesters
Fresh charges for SA pro-euthanasia activist
Kenyan Catholic priest killed in South Sudan
EU diplomat 'forced to leave Tanzania' over gay rights
World Bank not abandoning Tanzania - Magufuli
Cape Town mulls non-native tree cull
Zimbabwe MDC leader calls protesters 'stupid'
Warm Ghana welcome for ex-UBS fraudster
Stuck African migrants rescued from snow

Live Reporting

Lucy Fleming

Fake news and miscommunicationpublished at 12:54 Greenwich Mean Time 12 November 2018
A comment on Twitter says that "fake news" might at times be the result of miscommunication:
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'Climate of fear' among Tanzania's journalistspublished at 12:41 Greenwich Mean Time 12 November 2018
Maria Sarungi-Tsehai, a communications expert from Tanzania, spoke to the BBC's Anne Soy about the climate of fear among the journalist community.
Listen to what she had to say below:
Media caption,
Fake News conference
'Fake news damages investment'published at 12:23 Greenwich Mean Time 12 November 2018
Joseph Mucheru, Kenya's cabinet secretary for Information, Communications and Technology, gives an example of when fake news impacts on the real world...
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'You need the right information to make the right decisions'published at 12:10 Greenwich Mean Time 12 November 2018
Joseph Mucheru, the cabinet secretary for Kenya's Ministry of Information, Communications and Technology, is now on stage.
He used to be Google's head in sub-Saharan Africa, so he can definitely share some insights on fake news.
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Traditional media need to be betterpublished at 11:52 Greenwich Mean Time 12 November 2018
Nanjala Nyabola, author of Digital Democracy, Analogue Politics, issues a call to newspapers and broadcasters:
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An old African proverb for a modern problempublished at 11:28 Greenwich Mean Time 12 November 2018
An audience member at the BBC's Beyond 'Fake News' conference in Kenya has been sharing his wisdom:
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Stranded commuters in Kenyapublished at 11:26 Greenwich Mean Time 12 November 2018
Thousands of commuters in Kenya's capital, Nairobi, are stranded after public buses withdrew from the roads following a government warning over implementing tough traffic rules.
The laws, which require buses to install seat belts and devices to limit their speed, among other things, have been regularly flouted.
Authorities have said they will impose penalties to offenders.
Commuters have been using trains, motorcycle taxis and carpooling to get to work.
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Facebook 'can't be an arbiter of truth'published at 11:19 Greenwich Mean Time 12 November 2018
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Italy hosts Libya talkspublished at 11:16 Greenwich Mean Time 12 November 2018
BBC World Service
Italian Prime Minister Guiseppe Conte has said he expects Khalifa Haftar, the powerful military commander from the east of Libya, to attend a conference aimed at stabilising the troubled North African country.
Gen Haftar, who is head of the self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA), is seen as the main rival to the UN-backed administration in Tripoli.
Italy is hosting the conference in the Sicilian city of Palermo.
If Gen Haftar does attend, it will be his first meeting with Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj since the two agreed to a ceasefire and election in May.
Libya has experienced deep divisions and internal fighting since Muammar Gaddafi was ousted following the Arab Spring uprisings in 2011.
Fake news is old news...published at 11:10 Greenwich Mean Time 12 November 2018
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Kenyans 'primed to distrust official sources'published at 11:03 Greenwich Mean Time 12 November 2018
An interesting comment from author Nanjala Nyabola:
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An 'elephant in the room'?published at 10:58 Greenwich Mean Time 12 November 2018
Nanjala Nyabola, author of the soon-to-be published book Digital Democracy, Analogue Politics, has been sharing her thoughts in Nairobi:
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Conflicting claims over Zimbabwe 'kidnapping'published at 10:56 Greenwich Mean Time 12 November 2018
Zimbabwe's government has denied claims by opposition leader Nelson Chamisa that its agents tried to kidnap him on Saturday.
A statement from the ministry of information blamed Mr Chamisa's team for the incident, saying it had been harassing "ordinary citizens".
A video posted online showed a scuffle between several men near a car before it speeds away. A voice can be heard saying it was an attempt to kidnap Mr Chamisa.
"This would be appear to be a road rage incident," the statement says.
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What's up next?published at 10:45 Greenwich Mean Time 12 November 2018
BBC Africa's Yemisi Adegoke lets us know:
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We're also talking 'fake news' in Indiapublished at 10:37 Greenwich Mean Time 12 November 2018
We actually have two Beyond 'Fake News' conferences today: one in Nairobi, and one in Delhi.
If you want to hear what they are up to in India, you can follow our colleagues on @BBCIndia:
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Kidnapped Cameroon teachers and students releasedpublished at 10:21 Greenwich Mean Time 12 November 2018
The remaining four hostages kidnapped last week in a school in Cameroon's North-West region capital of Bamenda have been released, journalist Peter Tah reports:
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More than 80 people, majority of them students at Bamenda's Presbyterian Secondary School, were taken on 4 October by gunmen.
The government has accused separatists in the English-speaking region of being behind the kidnapping.
The Anglophone separatists have, however, denied they were involved.
The secessionist movement took up arms last year to demand independence for the North-West and South-West regions - the two English-speaking regions in a country where French is the most widely spoken official language.
Army deployed in cashew nut rowpublished at 10:13 Greenwich Mean Time 12 November 2018
Breaking
Tanzanian President John Magufuli has officially deployed the army to buy and collect all cashew nuts from farmers in the southern region of the country after rejecting offers from 13 firms to buy the cash crop.
On Saturday, Mr Magufuli accused private traders of attempting to rip off thousands of farmers and ordered them to increase their price offers to around $1.3 (£1; €1.15) per kilogram (2.2 pounds).
See earlier post
Do you agree with this point?published at 10:01 Greenwich Mean Time 12 November 2018
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Let us know on Twitter - @bbcafrica, external
What types of 'fake news' are mostly shared in Kenya and Nigeria?published at 09:57 Greenwich Mean Time 12 November 2018
Image source, AFP
Image caption,
Social media apps are being used to share and spread false information
BBC research found that national identity was less of a factor in the spread of fake news in Africa than it was in India.
In Kenya, scams related to money and technology were a stronger driving force, contributing to around a third of fake news stories shared on Whatsapp, while fake stories relating to terrorism and the army were widely shared in Nigeria.
In both countries, health scares were prominent among widely-shared fake news stories, and many news consumers visited both credible and fake news sources without distinguishing between them.
The researchers spent hundreds of hours with 80 participants across the three countries, interviewing them at home about their media consumption as well as examining how they shared information via Whatsapp and Facebook during a seven-day period.
They also conducted an extensive analysis of how fake news spreads on Twitter and Facebook in India.
Fake news conference promoting debate on Twitter...published at 09:23 Greenwich Mean Time 12 November 2018
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What do you think of what our speakers are saying? Tweet @BBCAfrica and let us know!