Lucy Fleming
BBC Africa Live

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 Friday's wise words:

Click here to send us your African proverbs.

And we leave you with a photo from our weekly gallery of Africa's top shots - of Muslims in Morocco celebrating the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad with a procession in the town of Sale:

Image source, EPA

BBC Focus on Africa's satirical Presidents - Olushambles and Kibarkingmad - take a wry look at global warming:

The Indomitable Lionesses of Cameroon have drawn against hosts Ghana at the Women's Africa Cup of Nations meaning they are through to the semi-finals with the Black Queens out of the tournament.

In the other match Mali have beaten Algeria 3-2 - so Mali join Cameroon in the next round.

Gabon's Preident Ali Bongo, who has spent a month having treatment at a Saudi hospital, will be transferred next week to the Moroccan capital, Rabat, to convalesce, a presidential source has told the AFP news agency.

The 59-year-old reportedly suffered a stroke when he was on a visit to the Saudi capital Riyadh last month.

On Wednesday, the magazine Jeune Afrique reported sources saying Mr Bongo was going to be moved to London in the UK for specialised treatment.

Illegal churches in the South African city of Johannesburg causing a disturbance to neighbours are to be closed down this festive season, South Africa’s IOL reports.

The news website says the city’s police chief David Tembe and Johannesburg mayor Herman Mashaba confirmed the move at the opening of a festive season safety campaign, external.

Earlier this week Mr Mashaba complained in a tweet that the city had more problems with churches than with drinking dens in residential areas, known as shebeens:

Chris Ewokor
BBC Africa, Abuja

A video being widely shared on social media in Nigeria appears to show Islamist militants carrying out a significant attack against the military.

Hooded attackers can be seen bombarding a military base with rocket-propelled grenades and soldiers are shot in trenches before their weapons are seized.

Attacks against the Nigerian military are on the increase.

Earlier this week there were reports that at least 44 soldiers had been killed when a base in Borno state was targeted by Boko Haram jihadists linked to the Islamic State group.

It is not clear if the video is of that attack.

The military has not commented on the raid.

But in what could be a subtle confirmation, Nigeria's parliament said it would investigate the circumstances surrounding the killing of the 44 soldiers at the military base.

Ameyu Etana
BBC Afaan Oromo

Image source, SIBU SIRE COMMUNICATION

Villagers in Ethiopia are celebrating the “resurrection” of a man who was thought to be dead.

Hirpha Negero, a father of five, was pronounced dead on Tuesday at around 10:30 local time (07:30 GMT).

According to local tradition in the remote village in Sibu Sire district in the central Oromia region, a gun was shot twice to mark his passing and as a sign for villagers to come to a funeral.

Within an hour, village undertaker Etana Kena’a had placed Mr Hirpha in a coffin ready for the funeral proceedings later in the day.

However, during the funeral, at around 15:30 local time, mourners heard knocking from inside the coffin.

‘‘People were shocked and ran away, I couldn’t get anyone to help me,” Mr Etana said, explaining that when he opened the coffin Mr Hirpha needed assistance.

The “resurrected” man told the BBC what he had experienced inside the coffin: “I heard someone crying. I was suffocating and trying to tear away the shroud. I was so weak, unable to speak out."

Then he said he managed to start calling, "Is there anybody around?"

After the initial shock, the burial ceremony then turned into a celebration.

The undertaker, who is also Mr Hirpha’s uncle, said: “I have buried more than 50 or 60 bodies. I have never anything seen like this before. He seemed to be dead.”

Mr Hirpha said he had had visions when he was unconscious of “a beautiful green place” where a man dressed in white told him to "go back".

Dr Birra Leggese told the BBC that Mr Hirpha had probably been in a “deep coma”.

A couple of months ago in the same area of Oromia region a self-proclaimed prophet made the headlines when he tried to resurrect a corpse three days after he was buried – to no avail.

Ishaq Khalid
BBC Africa, Abuja

Suspected militants from the jihadist group, Boko Haram, have abducted more than 50 people in a remote area of Borno State in north-east Nigeria.

Residents near Bulakesa close to the border with Cameroon say most of the victims had already been displaced by conflict and they were seized whilst out collecting firewood.

The attack happened on Saturday but the news is only just emerging because of the remoteness of the area, where there is poor phone coverage.

The Nigerian authorities have not yet commented on the incident, which comes just days after dozens of soldiers are reported to have been killed when jihadists attacked an army base.

Read: Midwife murders reveal brutal tactics

Image source, AFP

Two prominent opposition politicians from the Democratic Republic of Congo have said they are teaming up to challenge for the presidency in next month's elections.

Felix Tshisekedi - the son of Etienne Tshisekedi, who died last year after spending decades in opposition - will be a presidential candidate with Vital Kamerhe as his running mate.

The two men, who made the announcement in Kenya, had previously agreed to back a unity candidate, Martin Fayulu, in an effort to defeat the man chosen by the governing party, Emmanuel Ramazani Shadari.

Analysts say the opposition's failure to stick with one candidate is likely to play into the hands of the governing party.

Long-delayed elections are scheduled to take place in DR Congo on 23 December when President Joseph Kabila, in power for 18 years, will step down.

A woman in central Kenya has been jailed for six years for forcing her 13-year-old twin daughters to undergo female genital mutilation (FGM), a charity involved in the case has told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Mercy Chege, a director at Plan International, is quoted as saying:

Florence Muthoni, from Tharaka-Nithi county, was arrested on Wednesday and sentenced by a magistrates court the following day in the town of Chuka, Thomson Reuters Foundation reports.

FGM, which involves removing all or part of a girl or woman's external genitalia - including the clitoris, was outlawed in Kenya in 2011.

But the practice continues in some communities who see it as a rite of passage or as necessary socially if a girl wants to get married.

Ms Chege said the twins were receiving medical treatment.

The police were still investigating the matter as their mother had refused to say who had performed the circumcisions, she added.

Read: What does FGM actually involve?

Will Ross
Africa editor, BBC World Service

Image source, AFP

An unusually high number of babies have become infected with the Ebola virus in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo in recent days, the World Health Organization (WHO) says.

In its latest update, the WHO says of 36 new cases over the week, seven were newborn babies and infants younger than two-years-old.

It is thought that mothers can pass on the virus through their breast milk.

The UN health agency also said it was concerned that informal health centres were contributing to the spread as proper disease controls were not in place and in some clinics syringes were being used more than once.

Two-hundred-and-nineteen people are thought to have died in what is DR Congo's worst-ever outbreak.

It started when one family decided not to circumcise its women 30 years ago.

That idea spread and now an entire village in Sudan has eradicated female genital mutilation (FGM); they don't even talk about it anymore.

Elsewhere in the country, the majority of girls and women are cut.

Now, Sudan's government, with help from international aid, is hoping to put an end to FGM nationwide, by 2030.

The BBC's senior Africa correspondent Anne Soy went to meet some of the people turning their back on the practice and witnessed the change they are bringing to their communities.

Image source, Getty Images

Sexual harassment is a problem for women who work at the African Union Commission, an internal investigation has found.

The inquiry was instigated in May and it invited all staff members who had cases of complaint to come forward for a confidential interview.

The investigating committee found “almost unanimous confirmation” of sexual harassment in the evidence of the interviewees, external, an AU statement says.

The investigation found that those most vulnerable to such exploitation were “short-term staff, youth volunteers and interns”.

Those responsible “position themselves as ‘gate-keepers’ and ‘king-makers’", it said.

These staff “are well-positioned to make believable promises to young women that they will be offered contracts”, it continues.

Reporting incidents of sexual harassment was often counterproductive as there was no process, interviewees said.

South Africa’s Mail & Guardian paper says the inquiry was established after it reported on a petition signed by 37 female members of AU staff complaining about sexual harassment at the commission, external.

The AU Commission, which has its headquarters in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, said that given the findings and serious allegations it would establish "a comprehensive sexual harassment policy that protects the victims and takes the strongest punitive measures against any perpetrator".

Will Ross
Africa editor, BBC World Service

Kenya police chief Joseph Boinett has been served with a court petition by lawyers representing people who say their relatives were killed by the police.

Relatives of 22 people who died in 2016 and 2017 filed a case in court last week against the head of the police and the attorney general, whom they accuse of failing to investigate the alleged killings.

Neither of them have commented on the case.

Human rights groups say there has been an increase in the number of people killed by the Kenyan police - most victims are suspected criminals in the capital, Nairobi, and Mombasa.

Local media reports that close to 200 people have been killed by the police this year.

Image source, AFP

Watch: Inside the world of Kenya's 'killer cop'

Image source, Souhail Khmira

Eight-times African champions Al Ahly have sacked their coach Patrice Carteron after he fell just short of winning them a ninth crown.

The Cairo giants were beaten over two legs in the 2018 final by Tunisia's Esperance.

His final game in charge saw the team go out of the Arab Champions Cup in the early rounds, to a team from the UAE.

Carteron had only been appointed in June, after the sacking of previous coach Hossam El Badry.

He won the competition in 2015 when he was coach of TP Mazembe and was expressly appointed because of his former success.

Read the BBC Sport story for more.

A lawyer for an ex-militia leader from the Central African Republic (CAR) has told judges at the International Criminal Court (ICC) that his client was tortured after his arrest last month and before his extradition to The Hague on Saturday.

Alfred Yekatom, known as "Rambo", led a mostly Christian "anti-Balaka" militia which formed after mainly Muslim rebels seized power in the CAR in 2013 - and the country descended into religious violence (see earlier post).

It was Mr Yekatom’s first appearance before the judges since coming into ICC custody. He is facing charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes, including the forcible deportation and torturing of civilians, external.

But defence lawyer Xavier Jean Keita said the judges should know that his client’s fundamental rights had been violated since his arrest in the CAR on 29 October.

Now a serving MP, Mr Yekatom had been arrested after he drew a gun in the parliament and fired shots in the air.

Mr Keita said the arrest was “brutal in nature” and that afterwards Mr Yekatom had been kept in a presidential detention unit where he had been beaten with the butts of Kalashnikov rifles – traces of the torture were still visible on his body.

The MP had been denied access to his lawyer in Bangui and was not informed of the charges against him until he was transferred to The Hague, he said.

One journalist tweeted a photo of Mr Yekatom listening to the proceedings:

Judge Antoine Kesia-Mbe Mindua said the rights of a suspect were important, but Friday's hearing was only to inform Mr Yekatom of the charges.

He set 30 April 2019 as the date for confirmation of charges hearing, the next step in the legal process – and advised the defence lawyer to file submissions about Mr Yekatom's complaints.

Image source, AFP

The UK is to give £50m ($64m) in aid money to help stop female genital mutilation (FGM) in Africa.

The government says this is the biggest single investment to date in the world to help end FGM by 2030.

The practice involves removing all or part of a girl or woman's external genitalia, including the clitoris, with some treating it as a rite of passage.

ActionAid welcomed the funding but said focusing on FGM alone "was not enough" to eradicate violence against women.

Announcing the aid money, International Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt said FGM could not be eliminated in the UK "without ending it globally".

Read the BBC News story for more

Hugh Schofield
BBC News, Paris

Image source, Dapper Foundation

A report commissioned by the French president, due to be published later on Friday, is expected to recommend a change in the French law to allow the return of thousands of African works of art.

President Emmanuel Macron started this ball rolling a year ago when - on a visit to Burkina Faso - he said that within five years France should have started the process of temporary or definitive restitution of artworks to Africa.

The report he then commissioned recommends a dramatic shift in the debate.

Basically its authors - Bénédicte Savoy of France and Felwine Sarr of Senegal - say that any work of African art from the colonial era that is now in French museums should be presumed to have been acquired without fully informed consent, unless it can be proved otherwise, and they want the law changed so the pieces can be returned.

In theory this could open the door to a wholesale restitution of artworks, and the emptying of museums like the Quai Branly in Paris where there are some 70,000 pieces from Africa.

Supporters hope that other European museums - like the British Museum in London - might also come under pressure.

In practice there is some scepticism about the viability of the proposals.

The idea is that African governments would first have to submit demands for specific artworks, and it is not clear how many are ready to do so.

Read more: A guide to Africa's 'looted treasures'

A war crimes suspect from the Central African Republic (CAR) is currently before judges at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague.

Alfred Yekatom, known as "Rambo", led a mostly Christian "anti-Balaka" militia which formed after mainly Muslim rebels seized power in the CAR in 2013 - and the country descended into religious violence (see earlier post).

You can follow events on these links tweeted by the ICC below:

Many children were orphaned after the Rwandan genocide of 1994 when at least 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed over a 100-day period .

One of them is Ibrahim Kassim, who is now in his twenties. He's set up an organisation called Hope of the Future Family, which aims to help others like him find out about their relatives.

He spoke to BBC Newsday's programme about what he knows about his background:

Read: Rwanda outgrows its genocide orphanages