The speaker of Somalia's Parliament, Mohamed Mursal, announced on Thursday that an impeachment motion filed against President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo has been formally withdrawn after consultation with MPs, local media report.

The motion, which was submitted by 92 legislators, had already been declared invalid on 11 December after 14 MPs said their names were wrongly used.

The pro-impeachment MPs accused the president of violating the constitution by making unilateral decisions, and by signing what they termed as secret deals with Ethiopia and Eritrea.

The presidential election originally scheduled for Sunday will now take place on 30 December.

This is the latest in a series of delays that have frustrated opposition supporters and deepened their suspicion that President Joseph Kabila intends to cling on to power.

The president has been in office since 2001. He was meant to have stepped down in 2016 under a constitutional prohibition from seeking an additional term.

However, the election to choose his successor has been continually postponed, amid unrest and reported logistical difficulties.

DR Congo has not had an orderly change of government since it gained independence from Belgium in 1960.

Image source, AFP

Louise Dewast
Kinshasa, DR Congo

Last week a fire at a Kinshasa warehouse belonging to the electoral commission destroyed voting machines and ballot papers. DR Congo officials now say they are delaying the vote because they had to order 5 million more ballot papers, many of which have not yet arrived in the country. Today’s announcement could trigger violence as polls have shown that a large number of Congolese people do not want further delays.

Image source, AFP

A presidential election in the Democratic Republic of Congo - due to have been held on Sunday - has been postponed by a week, officials say.

The delay was reportedly caused by problems with deploying voting materials to polling sites across the vast country.

The run-up to the election has seen clashes between opposition supporters and security forces, and a blaze at an election commission depot that destroyed thousands of electronic voting machines.

The vote has already been delayed by two years. It is being held to elect a successor to President Joseph Kabila, who was meant to have stepped down in 2016.

Anti-government protests that started on Wednesday in northern Sudan have been spreading to other cities, including the capital, Khartoum.

The protesters are angered by a proposed hike to bread and fuel prices, and have been calling for a change of government.

On Thursday, a university student was killed during clashes with security forces in a demonstration in the Sudanese city of al-Qadarif.

"The situation in al-Qadarif has become dangerous and the protests have developed to include fires and theft and it's now out of control," lawmaker Mubarak al-Nur told reporters.

Demonstrators in al-Qadarif and in Dongola, 310 miles (500 km) north of Khartoum, also set fire to the local headquarters of President Omar al-Bashir's National Congress Party.

Meanwhile, opposition movement Sudan Change Now has posted a video showing protesters passing through the streets of Khartoum.

Imogen Foulkes
BBC News, Geneva

Migrants and refugees are subjected to "unimaginable horrors" from the moment they enter Libya, a report from the UN human rights office says. The report says they are tortured, raped and killed in detention.

It contains 1300 firsthand accounts gathered by UN human rights officers in Libya as well as countries of origin such as Nigeria, and destination countries like Italy.

In each of the 11 detention centres visited by UN human rights officers, an overwhelming majority of women and teenage girls said they had been gang-raped by people smugglers.

The climate of lawlessness in Libya is fertile ground for illegal trafficking, the UN says, but the report also criticises Europe's policy of preventing migrants crossing the Mediterranean. It says that the push back simply returns migrants to the same horrific conditions in Libya, leaving thousands of desperate people trapped there.

Egyptian police have killed eight suspected Islamist militants in shootouts in and around Cairo, the AFP news agency reports, quoting the country's interior ministry.

Those killed belonged to the Hasm group which is believed to be a breakaway faction of the Muslim Brotherhood, the interior ministry said in a statement.

Four others were reportedly arrested in a raid.

The operations were based on intelligence of planned attacks during celebrations for Coptic Christmas, the ministry was quoted as saying.

Hasm group has claimed deadly attacks on security forces as well as assassination attempts targeting a pro-government Muslim cleric and Egypt's deputy prosecutor general.

Coptic Christians account for around 10 percent of Egypt's 96-million population. They celebrate Christmas on 7 January.

Andrew Harding
BBC News, Johannesburg

Image source, AFP

A new British law banning all ivory sales has been welcomed by a dozen African states, and by campaigners who say poachers have been using the legal trade in antique ivory to cover their own activities.

The law has been described as the best Christmas present for the world’s threatened elephants, and a significant blow for the world’s ivory smugglers.

For years, Britain has been at the centre of a flourishing international trade in antique ivory.

But there’s evidence that the legal trade has fuelled demand, and provided cover for criminal gangs smuggling fresh tusks to China.

Now Britain is shutting its industry down, and calling on other European nations to follow suit. The environment secretary Michael Gove said the UK has shown global leadership.

In Africa, a few governments still argue that a managed ivory trade is the best policy.

But in many countries, elephant populations are being wiped out by heavily-armed gangs and campaigners insist that only a total ban on all ivory trade can save the species.

The fear is that elephants, like the rhinos, could be reduced to living in a handful of protected parks.

Image source, Getty Images

The Egypt Football Association has announced that the Pharaohs will play Nigeria in a friendly on 26 March.

The match will be played in Nigeria during the international break in March.

Both nations have already qualified for the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations finals but will play their final qualifying games ahead of the friendly encounter.

Nigeria host Seychelles in Group E while Egypt travel to face Niger in Group J.

Egypt and Nigeria met in in 2017 Nations Cup qualifying with The Pharaohs earning a 1-1 draw away from home before winning 1-0 in Alexandria to qualify for the finals ahead of the Super Eagles.

It will be the 18th meeting between the two sides with Nigeria holding the upper-hand having won seven times to Egypt's five with another five matches drawn.

Image source, AFP

Officials in the Democratic Republic of Congo have postponed the presidential election scheduled for Sunday, an opposition candidate has told Reuters news agency.

Theodore Ngoy was quoted as saying that the chief electoral official had told presidential candidates that the destruction of polling equipment in a Kinshasa warehouse fire had contributed to the decision.

The official also reportedly blamed the postponement on ethnic violence and a current Ebola outbreak.

There has been no independent confirmation of the report.

The campaign to elect a successor to President Joseph Kabila on 23 December has been marred by deadly clashes.

The president's mandate ended in 2016, but elections have been repeatedly delayed.

Dozens of opposition supporters have been killed in protests demanding that he step down.

Senegal have ended 2018 as the highest rated African nation on the final Fifa world rankings of the year.

The Teranga Lions have not played since November's rankings and so remain at 23 globally.

There has been little movement on the December rankings, external, with very few international games having been played.

Zimbabwe (114), Sierra Leone (115) both moved up a single place thanks to the Philippines slipping two spots after two defeats since November's rankings.

More on BBC Sport.

Image source, Getty Images

Sudanese police have fired tear gas to disperse protesters chanting anti-government slogans in several towns and cities across Sudan.

The protests were initially concentrated in the towns of Atbara, Ed-Damar and Berber in River Nile State, in the north of the country, before spreading to other regions.

At least one person is reported to have been shot dead in the disturbances.

The demonstrators are angered by the rising price of bread and fuel.

On Wednesday, the authorities imposed a state of emergency and a dusk to dawn curfew in Atbara. This was not widely observed, with reports that the police were reluctant to enforce it.

Footage on social media appeared to show protesters attacking the ruling party's offices in Atbara, setting them alight.

Wednesday also saw demonstrations in Port Sudan, a coastal city to the east.

The Sudanese government is expected to remove a raft of subsidies that would lead to further price increases.

The security forces have often used deadly force to break up previous protests over price hikes.

The stepfather of 'Baby Daniel', a three-year-old boy whose death shocked South Africa in 2016, has been found guilty of murder and child abuse by a court in Johannesburg.

"Baby Daniel" died after suffering burn wounds to 60% of his body, as well as broken bones and a severe head injury.

The boy's mother was found guilty of neglect and abuse.

The judge said that while there was no evidence that she had participated in the killing, she had "deliberately neglected to give [the child] proper care."

Kalkidan Yibeltal
BBC Amharic, Addis Ababa

Ethiopia’s parliament has approved a controversial bill that allows Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed to set up a commission to resolve conflicts triggered by identity and border disputes between regional administrations.

The bill was fiercely resisted by some members of the parliament, who declared it unconstitutional. It was eventually approved with a majority vote.

More than 1.4 million people are currently displaced as a result of ethnic conflicts within the country.

The new Identity and Boundary Issues Commission will be tasked with studying the causes of such conflicts and providing solutions to lawmakers.

Most of the opposition to its establishment came from MPs representing the Tigrayan region in the northern part of the country, where the optimism that follows Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s reform measures is weaker than elsewhere in the country.

Currently, ethnic disputes and identity questions are expected to be resolved by the lower house of parliament, which renders the commission irrelevant, the dissenting MPs argued.

The formation of the commission might widen the rift between the new administration and the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front party, a member of the ruling coalition.

Image source, AFP

Will Ross
Africa editor, BBC World Service

The head of the electoral commission in the Democratic Republic of Congo has summoned presidential candidates due to take part in Sunday's election amid reports that the vote could be postponed. An official news conference is scheduled for 14:00 GMT.

On Wednesday, a spokesman warned that the election could not go ahead if all voter materials were not ready. Thousands of electronic voting machines were destroyed in a fire last week.

The governor of Kinshasa, who is from the governing coalition, has imposed a ban on all political rallies in the capital, citing security concerns. Opposition parties have condemned the move as political interference in the election.

Image source, Reuters

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has criticised the newly-crowned Miss World Africa, Ugandan national Quinn Abenakyo, for "wearing Indian hair".

The president used Twitter to say that he had encouraged the beauty queen to "keep her natural, African hair".

His remarks divided opinion on Twitter. Some supported the president while others drew attention to his own hairless pate.

Image source, Twitter

Image source, Twitter

Image source, Twitter

Image source, AFP

A Moroccan man arrested over the murder of two Scandinavian women tourists was a member of a militant group, according to the Moroccan prosecutor general’s office.

Another three suspects are being pursued over the killings, one of whom has a “court record linked to terrorist acts”, a police spokesman told AFP news agency.

"Radical Islam is not ruled out due to the profile of the suspect arrested and of the three men wanted," another official, who asked not to be named, told AFP.

The bodies of Louisa Vesterager Jespersen and Maren Ueland were found with cuts to their necks on Monday.

The women, from Denmark and Norway, had been camping at the foot of North Africa’s highest peak, Mount Toubkal, 10km (6 miles) from the mountain village of Imlil.

The area is popular with tourists and hikers, particularly from Scandinavia.

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Welcome back to BBC Africa Live where we'll be keeping you up to date with news and trends from across the continent.

BBC Africa Live
Lucy Fleming

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 our Africa Today podcast or checking the BBC News website.

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And we leave you this Instagram post of a young woman holding balloons on the Bijagós archipelago off the coast of Guinea-Bissau: