Thomas Naadi
BBC News, Accra

There were scenes of grief on Friday at a funeral service for the 13 victims of a huge explosion that occurred near the mining town of Bogoso in south-western Ghana.

Seven coffins, including that of a 15 month-old baby killed in the fire, were paraded at the grounds in Appiatse village where the funeral service was held.

Mourners were clad in red and black at the funeral service as they paid their last respect to victims.

The bodies will be buried separately.

The January explosion was caused by a crash of a truck carrying explosives to a gold mine with a motorcycle.

More than 500 homes were destroyed and more than 1,000 residents displaced.

The police are yet to conclude their investigations, but a ministerial committee fined the Spanish company responsible for transporting the explosives $6m (£4.6m)

Survivors of the blast are living in temporary shelters as they wait on a government promise to build them new houses.

Winds in excess of 100mph (165km/h), a storm surge and very heavy rain fall have battered the north of the country and southern Malawi. Nick Miller explains.

Image source, Getty Images

Kenya's health ministry is now allowing people to not wear face masks in open places.

The government has however encouraged people attending events indoors to wear face masks and while travelling using public means of transport.

The measures of social distancing and hand washing will remain in place to reduce the spread of coronavirus.

Mandatory quarantine and isolation of confirmed cases has also been stopped.

Indoor meetings and in-person worship in full capacity will resume as long as all those attending are fully vaccinated.

The Health Minister Mutahi Kagwe said the inter-faith council would provide more guidelines on the resumption of services.

The changes follow a significant decline in Covid-19 infections in the country. Positivity rates have remained below 5% for the past month, Mr Kagwe continued.

Kenyans have been urged to get vaccinated with more than seven million people fully vaccinated, comprising 28.5% of the general population of adults.

Kenya imposed mandatory mask wearing in 2020 at the height of the pandemic.

Image source, Getty Images

Most South African political parties have approved the choice of Justice Raymond Zondo as the new chief justice, citing his long experience in the judiciary.

But Julius Malema's Economic Freedom Fighters party dismissed Justice Zondo as a "divisive force" who was "prone to descending into the political arena".

President Cyril Ramaphosa on Thursday announced Justice Zondo's appointment after a lengthy process which started with the public submitting names of their preferred candidates to the presidency.

The judge was the chairman of the state capture commission of inquiry that investigated allegations of corruption during the tenure of former President Jacob Zuma.

The commission's findings implicated big players in government and the private sector.

The leader of the Democratic Alliance party described Justice Zondo as "a safe pair of hands".

"Judge Zondo has a clear track record and will go a long way in restoring faith in the judiciary," John Steenhuisen said.

Freedom Front Plus party leader Pieter Groenewald said Justice Zondo's "reasoning is independent of politics, and he shows no favouritism".

Inkatha Freedoom Party spokesman Mkhuleko Hlengwa said Justice Zondo should be "afforded the necessary support and resources to continue to uphold the rule of law and defend the hard-won rights and freedoms".

Image source, Getty Images

The Lagos state government in Nigeria has commenced publishing the details of convicted sex offenders in the state, including names and pictures, according to local media quoting an official.

It is part of a crackdown on domestic abuse and gender-based violence, under provisions given by section 42 of the Domestic and Sexual Violence Agency Law.

"This measure is one amongst many deployed by the state government to end the culture of impunity and also serve as a deterrence to other sex offenders," Nigeria's The Guardian paper quoted, external the Executive Secretary of Lagos State Domestic and Sexual Violence Agency (DSVA), Titilola Vivour-Adeniyi, as saying.

Letters have also been issued to local governments where the sex offenders used to live, Mrs Vivour-Adeniyi added.

In 2021, the Lagos State Government said it had recorded more than 10,000 cases of domestic abuse and sexual violence in the previous two years.

Image source, Reuters

The Rwandan authorities are considering a proposal to impose a tax on online services, the New Times website reports quoting an official from the tax collection authority.

The proposed Value Added Tax (VAT) is considered as "a necessary one", Jean-Louis Kaliningondo of the Rwanda Revenue Authority (RRA) is quoted as saying.

"When you pay for services such as Netflix, you are using money that you have generated in Rwanda. So, we are asking, why don’t we collect VAT on these services if they are being paid for by our citizens?" he posed.

African countries have increasingly been taxing digital services in efforts to broaden revenue collection.

Last year, Kenya introduced the Digital Service Tax (DST) that imposed a 1.5% flat tax on the value of goods or services sold on digital platforms.

BBC Monitoring
The world through its media

Image source, AFP

President Cyril Ramaphosa has said that South Africa has been approached to play a mediation role in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

Mr Ramaphosa did not say who had made the approach, but said he spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday and urged him to seek a mediated solution to the conflict.

"President Putin appreciated our balanced approach. We believe this position enables both parties to subject the conflict to mediation and negotiation. Based on our relations with the Russian Federation and as a member of Brics, South Africa has been approached to play a mediation role," Mr Ramaphosa posted on Twitter, external.

South Africa's position on the conflict came under the spotlight last week after it abstained from voting on a UN resolution condemning Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Mr Ramaphosa said the country abstained because "the resolution did not foreground the call for meaningful engagement", and accused the UN Security Council, external of being unable to discharge its responsibility to maintain peace and security.

He added that South Africa's response to the war was not an indication that it had no regard for human rights.

Two Tanzanian women are challenging traditional gender roles in the auto mechanics industry.

Mwasiti Salum and Catherine Kimaro work in the coastal city of Dar es Salaam where majority of the mechanics are men.

The society is yet to accept female mechanics but the two are slowly changing their views.

"I once met a woman whose car had broken down on the road. I offered to help telling her I was a mechanic but she insulted me instead of accepting my help," Ms Kimaro told BBC Swahili.

She says there is a lot of money to be made in the automotive repairs industry.

"My father convinced me to join this field after seeing the opportunities that were there," Ms Salum said.

The two women have faced sexual harassment at work which they said was common in most male-dominated fields in the country.

Jose Tembe
BBC News, Maputo

Cyclone Gombe continues to approach Mozambique's northern Nampula province and is expected to land into the country through the district of Missouri.

President Filipe Nyusi has called for increased alert by the authorities.

The cyclone is already being felt with heavy rains and strong winds.

Meteorologists expect it to have wind speeds of more than 200 km/h (124mph) and rain above 200 millimetres accompanied by thunderstorms that will last for three days.

The provinces of Nampula and Zambézia will be worst hit, meteorologists said.

On Thursday, President Nyusi said the cyclone could affect over half-a-million people and destroy thousands of schools and hundreds of hospitals

"Please refrain from sending children to schools, especially in Nampula, Zambézia and Sofala provinces, until the situation normalises. Please avoid using your cell phone when the phenomenon arrives as it can be a source of an electrical discharge and cause death," he said.

Hauwa's son Suleiman is a Nigerian student in Sumy - she says the family are fearful and anxious.

Image source, AFP

Tanzania's health ministry has launched a yellow fever vaccination drive after an outbreak was recorded in neighbouring Kenya.

Minister Ummy Mwalimu has directed provincial referral hospital officials to start administering the vaccine to all those travelling out of the country.

Kenya's health ministry announced the yellow fever outbreak last week.

Fifteen people were reported to have contracted the disease and three people confirmed dead.

Ms Mwalimu has directed experts who are supervising health issues at borders to look at possibilities of issuing electronic vaccination certificates to deal with the challenge of fakes.

She has also called on Tanzanians to take precautions so that the disease does not get into the country and to ensure that the environment is clean to stop mosquitoes from breeding.

Chris Ewokor
BBC News, Abuja

Image source, AFP

A group of 122 Nigerian nationals, including a parent with an infant, is expected to return home on Friday after fleeing the conflict in Ukraine.

The group will arrive in Abuja from the Polish capital, Warsaw, where they had sought safety. The foreign ministry said another group would be evacuated from the Hungarian capital, Budapest on Saturday.

More than a thousand Nigerians have already been evacuated but several thousand more, mostly students, are still thought to be stuck in the country.

In a statement, the ministry advised Nigerians fleeing Ukraine to contact the Nigerian embassy in Hungary.

A total of 1,076 Nigerians living in Ukraine have been evacuated to the country. The government hopes to evacuate 5,000 citizens fleeing the war.

Many of them have crossed into the neighbouring countries of Romania, Poland and Hungary from where they will be ferried back home.

The Russia - Ukrainian conflict is in its second week and about two million people are reported to have fled Ukraine for neighbouring countries.

Ishaq Khalid
BBC News, Abuja

Image source, AFP

Nigerian customs officials say they have intercepted 1,390 sacks of donkey meat in the north-western state of Kebbi near the border with Niger.

Initial investigations suggested about 1,000 donkeys were slaughtered and their meat packed in the sacks, according to Joseph Attah, the head of customs in the region.

He termed it an ‘’illegal trade of wildlife’’ which violates Nigerian laws.

The sacks were being transported in a truck whose destination was not immediately clear.

The driver of the truck and one other suspect have been arrested and will be prosecuted, officials said.

Nigeria has been struggling to tackle the killing of donkeys and the illegal trade of their parts as the population of the animals continue to decline rapidly.

In the past, Nigerian officials said donkey body parts - including the skin - were usually smuggled to Asian countries including China where it’s believed they were used to make traditional medicines and cosmetics.

Our African proverb of the day:

Click here to send us your African proverbs.

A selection of the best photos from across Africa and beyond this week.

That's all for now from the BBC Africa Live team. There will be an automated news feed here until we're back on Friday morning.

You can also keep up to date on the BBC News website, or by listening to the Africa Today podcast.

A reminder of our wise words of the day:

Click here to send us your African proverbs.

And we leave you with this shot of Layene Muslims on their yearly pilgrimage in Senegal:

Image source, AFP

Emery Makumeno
BBC News, Kinshasa

Image source, AFP

Ukraine is to withdraw all of its forces from UN peacekeeping missions in Africa and Europe so they can be redeployed to fight invading Russian troops at home.

Its biggest mission was in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where about 250 Ukrainian troops had been serving.

They will soon leave along with their eight helicopters and other military equipment.

The UN says it is reviewing the impact of the Ukrainian government's decision, and praised their "strong contribution" in DR Congo and other countries.

A spokesman for Monusco, the UN's peacekeeping mission in DR Congo, told the BBC that talks were under way on how to manage the withdrawal.

Kenya's Deputy President William Ruto insists that he and President Kenyatta "just see politics differently".

Victor Kiprop
BBC Africa Business reporter

Image source, Getty Images

Hundreds of motorbike taxi operators in Kenya have been arrested in a nationwide crackdown leading to frustration for commuters and businesses alike.

"We have had very many cancellations and a lot of delays. Deliveries that normally take 30 minutes now take an hour or more," says Priscilla Muhiu from Glovo Kenya.

Glovo is one of several online stores including Jumia Food, Uber Eats, and Bolt Food whose business models rely on boda-boda delivery riders to beat traffic jams in Kenya's major cities and towns.

President Uhuru Kenyatta ordered the crackdown on Monday to weed out criminal elements, after motorcycle taxi operators allegedly stripped a female driver in traffic prompting public outrage and the arrest of 16 suspects.

More than 200 others have since been arrested and fined $305 (£235) each for riding along the pavements and causing obstruction.

Though many Kenyans believe the crackdown is well-intentioned, its inconvenience is being widely felt:

Crystal Palace boss Patrick Vieira says he will not try and influence Michael Olise's decision on his international future.