Image source, Reuters

Protests in Tunisia began overnight on Monday and have continued into Tuesday ahead of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's visit to the north African country.

Rights activists and journalists say they object to the prince's regional tour because of Saudi Arabia's record on press freedom and human rights.

US media has reported that the CIA blames Mohammed bin Salman for the gruesome murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey last month.

But Saudi Arabia says the claims are false and insisted that the crown prince knew nothing about plans for the killing.

US President Donald Trump has also dismissed the accusations, contradicting his own national intelligence agency.

Protests and strike action by Tunisians have made international headlines in recent years.

In 2011, Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, who had led Tunisia for 23 years, was toppled amid an unprecedented wave of protests sparked by anger over high unemployment and poverty.

And just last week, Tunisia saw its biggest strike in five years as 650,000 public sector workers protested against low pay.

Ugandan media are sharing footage of residents helping police to tug ashore a boat that sank in Lake Victoria on Saturday evening, killing at least 30 people.

The party boat was designed to transport 50 people but is said to have been carrying 120 passengers when it capsized at the weekend. Many are still missing.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has said the operators of the unlicensed vessel would be "charged with criminal negligence and manslaughter, if they have not already been punished for their mistake by dying in the accident".

Kalkidan Yibeltal
BBC Amharic Service, Addis Ababa

Electoral reforms are high on the agenda as Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed hosts dozens of opposition leaders in his office to discuss what he called "the building of democratic institutions and culture".

The meeting, which is being attended by the newly appointed chair of the election board, Birtukan Mideksa, signals the beginning of a series of talks between the governing Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) and opposition groups ahead of elections in 2020.

In his opening address Mr Abiy affirmed his government's commitment to hold a free and fair election and support the opposition which he urged to be less fragmented.

Image source, Getty Images

The prime minister also spoke about a free press, according to his office's Twitter account:

Many of the country's main opposition groups had been based outside Ethiopia and only recently returned, following the prime minister's programme of reforms since taking office seven months ago.

But ethnic unrest has continued to challenge the new administration.

More than one million people are displaced across the country by ethnically motivated attacks and conflicts.

Image source, Elaine

A grassroots intervention programme is trying to reduce domestic violence in Rwanda by teaching men how to do household chores, and a recent study has suggested it is having a positive effect on communities.

Muhoza Jean Pierre used to beat his wife. He saw her as someone he married to just have children and and look after them.

"I was following the example of my father. My father would not do anything at home. If ever I came home and found something not done yet, I would abuse her," he said.

"I would call her lazy, tell her she was useless and should go back to her parents' house."

But joining a group known as Bandebereho, or role model in Kinyarwanda, helped transform his behaviour. Classes covered everything from cooking and cleaning to discussions on how to challenge traditional gender roles.

"They would ask us if a man can sweep the house, and we would say 'he can'," he said.

"And then they would ask us: 'Who among you does that?' And there was no one."

• Read the full story here

BBC World Service

The Zimbabwean opposition leader has distanced himself from post-election violence that led to the deaths of six people earlier this year.

Nelson Chamisa told an inquiry into the killings that his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) had not sanctioned the demonstration on 1 August, the day after the vote.

He said several party officials were detained during the protests, adding that the MDC was more often a victim of violence, not an instigator of it.

Video footage from the demonstration shows soldiers opening fire on the crowds.

Image source, AFP

The privately owned Lesotho Times newspaper says it has learned , external that the nation's MPs are demanding a 100% pay increase.

The newspaper reported that Prime Minister Thomas Thabane had instructed Finance Minister Moeketsi Majoro to explore a "revised salary structure" for parliamentarians.

It quoted an unnamed MP as saying their "entry point" in talks with the government was to demand a 100% hike, while another MP said they were prepared to forfeit interest-free loans they received provided their salary was doubled.

Lesotho's MPs are already among the nation's best-paid people and if the demands are met, their new monthly salary would double to $5,344 (£4,191), according to the newspaper.

It says the average factory worker in Lesotho earns up to $144 a month.

• Read more: Lesotho country profile

Tuesday's African proverb:

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

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

That's all from BBC Africa Live today. 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 today's wise words:

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

And we leave you of this hair-raising picture from high in the sky of Kakum National Park in Ghana.

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Getty Images

Brazil's attorney general has opened an inquiry looking into allegations that former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva received donations for helping a Brazilian company get business in Equatorial Guinea, reports Lusa news agency.

He is already in prison serving a 12-year sentence for corruption.

In 2017, Lula was found guilty of accepting an upgrade to a beachfront flat he was buying from an engineering firm in return for help in winning contracts for Petrobras, Brazil's state oil company.

This time he is being accused of receiving bribes in return for brokering deals between Equatorial Guinea and a Brazilian construction company ARG.

Cameroonian singer Dencia has defended her controversial skin lightening product during its launch in Nigeria.

Whitenicious was promoted by US model Blac Chyna at the event in Lagos.

The cream has received criticism for encouraging "self-hate" and "colourism".

Dencia said: "Why isn't it OK if someone wants to lighten their skin? What's wrong with that?"

Watch:

Model Halima Aden was born in Somalia, but brought up in a Kenyan refugee camp. She's now proud to be one of the first models to wear a hijab.

She talks about carving out a model career in the United States and the obstacles she's faced:

Africa has been highlighted as the continent where women run the greatest risk of being killed by their intimate partner or a family member, a UN report says.

It occurred at a rate of 3.1 deaths per 100,000 people, according to new data released by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

BBC 100 Women wanted to find out more about the women behind the numbers.

So they looked into some of the deaths reported on one day - 1 October 2018.

On that day Judith Chesang and her sister Nancy were out in the fields harvesting their sorghum crop.

Image source, Family handout

Judith, a mother of three, had recently separated from her husband, Laban Kamuren, and had decided to return to her parents' village in the north of the country.

Soon after the sisters began their duties, he arrived at the family farm where he attacked and killed Judith.

Local police say he has since been killed by villagers.

Read our profiles of four other women killed on that same day.

Teresa Njoroge served time in Kenya for a financial crime she didn't commit.

When her sentence began, she chose to take her three-month-old baby into prison with her. Sharing a cell with 50 to 60 other inmates, she was shocked by the plight of the women she met and the revolving door of crime and poverty.

After her release - and exoneration - she set up Clean Start Kenya, an organisation that empowers female inmates to better prepare for reintegration into society.

You can listen to her talk through her prison experience with another woman who was wrongly convicted, Sunny Jacobs from the US, in the BBC's The Conversation:

Image source, Getty Images

At least one million bees are suspected to have died of poisoning in a wine-producing area of South Africa.

Brendan Ashley-Cooper told the BBC that an insecticide used by wine farmers, Fipronil, was thought to have killed the insects on his farm.

Fipronil has been blamed for the deaths of millions of honey bees in Europe.

Campaigners say Fipronil is highly toxic to insects, and its use was restricted in Europe in 2013.

Read more on the BBC News website.

Floods destroyed more than 400 hectares (1,000 acres) of rice in Niger's south-eastern Diffa region, AFP news agency reports the local governor as saying.

Nearly 3,000 tonnes of rice worth 717m CFA francs ($1.13m) have been lost as a result, Governor Mahamadou Bakabe is reported as saying on state television last night.

AFP adds that the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said last month that flooding had already claimed 45 lives since June.

The rains destroyed nearly 17,400 homes and killed more than 33,000 heads of livestock, it said.

Image source, Getty Images

A general has denied leading a coup attempt in 2015 in Burkina Faso, reports AFP news agency.

Gen Gilbert Diendere appeared in front of a military court in the capital, Ouagadougou, in his first testimony at his trial.

Gen Diendere was formerly head of guarding former President Blaise Compaore who was ousted in a popular uprising in 2014.

The general is charged with treason, murder and threatening state security.

Image source, Getty Images

Three Chinese nationals in Kenya have been charged in connection with a corruption scandal involving the recently-built railway between the coastal city of Mombasa and the capital, Nairobi.

They are are accused of offering investigators a bribe of around $5,000 (£3,900) during an investigation into a ticketing scam.

This is the latest controversy over the project which was paid for with a Chinese loan of more than $3bn.

Critics said it was too expensive and questioned a decision to use diesel locomotives.

Two senior Kenyan officials were charged in August over allegations they made more than $2m by falsifying compensation claims for the land to build the Chinese-operated railway.

BBC World Service

Ambulance staff in the Somali capital Mogadishu say at least eight people have been killed and 15 injured in a car bomb explosion.

The vehicle was detonated beside a row of shops in the Wadajir District of the city.

Somalia's National Intelligence and Security Agency says the bomber has been arrested.

While no group has yet said it was behind the attack, the Islamist militant group al-Shabab frequently bomb government and civilian targets in the city.

This attack is in addition to an earlier attack we reported on a religious centre, killing a cleric and at least 14 of his followers.

A police spokesman said al-Shabab gunmen and a suicide bomber targeted the Sufi Muslim shrine in the city of Galkayo.

The US embassy in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, has been closed due to an alleged terror threat.

A statement released by US embassy Saturday said it had received “credible and specific information of a possible terrorist threat against US government facilities in Kinshasa”.

The DR Congo government spokesman told BBC Afrique’s Poly Muzaila that the US embassy is trying to create panic ahead of elections and that the embassy did not communicate with government security services about the threat.

Image source, Getty Images