That's all from the BBC Africa Live team for now, but we'll be back on Friday morning.

In the meantime there will be an automated news feed and you can also check the BBC News website or listen to our 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 photo of Rwandan schoolchildren looking on at UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson as he joined them in class during his visit to the country:

Image source, AFP

Jose Tembe
BBC News, Maputo

Image source, Julio Mavota

Three roller-bladers hope to make history in Mozambique by completing a 3,000km (about 1,865-mile) journey from the north of the country to the south.

In total five of them started their expedition on 30 April, setting off on their roller-blades from the border area of Negamuno, in the district of Mueda in the jihadist-hit northern province of Cabo Delgado.

Image source, Julio Mavota

On Thursday the group was down to three on the last leg of the journey - hoping to reach the capital, Maputo, on Saturday.

The expedition has been aimed at promoting roller-blading and roller-skating and encouraging young people to take up sport, the organisers say.

In each place, the roller-bladers have passed through they have taught locals, including children, the art to rolling on wheels:

Image source, Julio Mavota

Image source, PA Media

Senegalese-born TikTok star Khaby Lame is now the biggest TikToker in the world.

The 22-year-old did it without saying a word, surpassing US TikTok creator Charli D’Amelio.

Lame currently has 142.8 million followers on the app, compared to D’Amelio's 142.3 million.

In November 2020, D’Amelio became the first TikTok user to cross the 100 million subscriber mark.

Lame started his TikTok account in March 2020 during the coronavirus pandemic after he lost his job working at a factory in Italy.

On his account he posts funny videos where he points out how some people over-complicate things for no reason.

Find out more about the secret to his success:

Peter Jegwa
Lilongwe, Malawi

Image source, Malawi police

Malawi’s Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) has arrested former police chief George Kainja two days after he was sacked

He has been charged in connection a $150m (£123m) corruption scandal involving government contracts.

The president fired him on Tuesday after the ACB named him as one of 53 current and former officials who had received money from, or helped, British-Malawian businessman Zuneth Sattar between 2017 and 2021. Mr Satter denies any wrongdoing.

A statement from the ACB said Mr Kainja had been arrested “for receiving advantage” from the Mr Satter when he was awarded a contract worth $875,000 to supply 350,000 food rations to the Malawi Police Service.

“The investigations conducted by the bureau established that Dr George Kainja solicited an advantage in form of a vehicle and $8,000,” the ACB statement, made available to the BBC, said.

Mr Kainja has appeared in court in the capital, Lilongwe, where he denied the charges. He was granted bail at the hearing.

The ACB also arrested Mwabi Kaluba on Thursday. He is a former deputy police commissioner accused of corruptly obtaining $20,000 from the British businessman “as an advantage for giving assistance in the procurement contract of the food ration packs”.

Mr Kaluba has not yet appeared in court or commented on the allegations.

Peter Jegwa
Lilongwe, Malawi

Image source, Getty Images

Malawi’s Vice-President Saulos Klaus Chilima has denied allegations of corruption contained in a report about a $150m (£125m) corruption scandal involving government contracts.

He accused the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB), which published the report earlier this week, of failing to get his side of the story.

He was named among 53 current and former officials who had received money from or helped British-Malawian businessman Zuneth Sattar between 2017 and 2021. Mr Satter denies any wrongdoing.

Following the report, President Lazarus Chakwera stripped Mr Chilima of his powers – though he cannot sack his deputy.

But he has fired the country’s police chief George Kainja and his own chief of staff Prince Kapondamgaga, who were also named in the report. Mr Kainja denies the allegations while Mr Kapondamgaga has not yet commented.

Mr Chilima was elected vice-president when his party, the UTM, formed an electoral alliance with President Chakwera’s Malawi Congress Party and seven other parties to challenge former President Peter Mutharika’s Democratic Progressive Party in June 2020.

“For the record, the state vice-president vehemently denies the allegations that have been levelled against him, and will welcome the opportunity, at an appropriate time, of challenging the said allegations,” a statement from Mr Chilima’s director of communication said.

Nigerian senator Ike Ekweremadu, who has been charged along with his wife with conspiring to transport a child to the UK in order to harvest organs, last tweeted about being made a visiting professor at the University of Lincoln.

The tweet from 12 June includes photos of him receiving the gift of a copy of the Magna Carta, a document from 1215 regarded as the basis of many English laws:

A University of Lincoln spokesman said: "Visiting professors are often, as in this case, non-resident at the university, unpaid and advisory.

"We are deeply concerned about the nature of these allegations but as this is an active police investigation, we cannot comment further at this stage."

• Read more: Ike Ekweremadu - Nigerian senator accused of organ-harvesting plot

Cameroon's Jeando Fuchs is hoping that hard work and playing time with English League One club Peterborough can earn him a trip to the World Cup.

Kalkidan Yibeltal
BBC News, Addis Ababa

Image source, AFP

Tigrayan forces in northern Ethiopia have called on the European Union to put pressure on the government in Addis Ababa to ensure the resumption of basic services in the embattled region.

Much of the region has been without access to banking, electricity and telephone service for months.

This is despite a humanitarian truce agreed between the warring parties in March.

Following the deal, there has been an increase in the amount of aid reaching Tigray, where a brutal civil war has left millions of people in desperate need of aid.

The statement from Tigrayan forces comes after the recent visit to Tigray by the EU’s commissioner for crisis management and humanitarian aid, Janez Lenarčič.

During his trip to Tigray's capital, Mekelle, he called for the “urgent scaling up” of humanitarian assistance and the restoration of basic services.

Tigrayan forces said they appreciated the EU’s position that aid was not "reducible to the number of trucks reaching Tigray in any given day”.

Ike Ekweremadu is said to have arranged the transport of a boy to the UK for organ-harvesting.

BBC World Service
Newsroom

Image source, Getty Images

A powerful trade union in Tunisia has rejected conditions set by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a loan to help tackle the country's economic crisis.

The head of the UGTT - Noureddine Taboubi - said the union supported reforms, but not what he called the painful options demanded by the IMF.

On Wednesday night, an IMF official said the organisation was ready to start formal talks on a financial bailout.

Last week, the UGTT called a one-day national strike of public sector workers that brought much of the country to a standstill.

Image source, Getty Images

South Africa has ended the mandatory wearing of face masks to stop the spread of coronavirus.

People had been required by law to use one in public indoor spaces or when using public transport.

The health minister also repealed other Covid-19 restrictions, including those that limited the size of gatherings and required tourists to show a vaccination certificate or negative Covid test.

“The Covid-19 virus is not yet gone... we are just stronger than before, especially with vaccination," Health Minister Joe Phaahla is quoted by the Reuters news agency as saying at a news conference.

The minister urged those eligible for booster shots or people who had not yet been vaccinated to get their jabs.

Around half of the country's 40 million adults have received at least one vaccine dose, with 46% fully vaccinated, Reuters reports.

According to the official figures, South Africa has been the worst-hit country in Africa with more than 3.9 million confirmed cases and more than 100,000 deaths.

President Cyril Ramaphosa vows to have learnt the lessons but many South Africans are not convinced.

Boris Johnson earlier said he would defend the Rwanda asylum policy to Prince Charles if it came up.

Joice Etutu
BBC News, Kigali

Image source, Getty Images

The Duchess of Cornwall has called for members of the Commonwealth to work together in ending violence against women and girls.

During a Commonwealth Heads of Governments high-level panel in Rwanda’s capital, Kigali, the wife of the heir to the British throne addressed an audience that included the First Lady of Rwanda, Jeannette Kagame, the UK prime minister’s wife, Carrie Johnson, and Baroness Scotland, secretary general of the Commonwealth Baroness Scotland

“Every member state should support the Commonwealth’s ‘No More’ campaign in ending domestic violence and sexual abuse. There is strength in unity,” Camilla said.

Mrs Kagame agreed, saying gender-based violence persisted in countries around the Commonwealth: “How many more women and girls should be sacrificed? Today is the perfect day to say ‘No More’.”

Ending gender-based violence is a key priority which the 54-state member association aims to attain by the year 2030.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), one in three women is affected.

Didier Bikorimana
BBC Great Lakes Service

Image source, AFP

The M23 rebel group says it will not withdraw from a key border town in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo unless the government commits to honest talks.

The town of Bunagana - on the border with Uganda - fell into rebel hands last week.

On Monday, the heads of state from the East African Community approved the deployment of a regional force to combat armed groups in eastern DR Congo and ordered an immediate ceasefire and “withdrawal from positions recently taken”.

But M23 spokesperson Major Willy Ngoma told BBC Great Lakes the group was fighting for its “survival” and would not budge.

“Why would we be afraid of anyone? As long as we fight for our survival, for the future of our children, for the future of this country - what should we be afraid of? Nothing,” he said.

M23 says it fights for Kinyarwanda-speaking Congolese - those it says are marginalised, but the government accuses the group of being a Rwandan proxy.

Maj Ngoma said a unilateral ceasefire in April was proof enough that the group was interested in talks.

The Congolese government has labelled the group a “terrorist organisation” and accused it of receiving logistical support from Rwanda and said a regional force “should not include elements from the Rwandan army”.

Rwanda has consistently denied any involvement in M23.

Maj Ngoma said the group had not received “even a needle” from Rwanda.

Image source, AFP

A top Nigerian senator and his wife have been identified as the couple who have been charged with conspiring to transport a child into the UK in order to harvest organs.

Ike Ekweremadu’s spokesperson confirmed to BBC Igbo that the senator had been charged in the UK over the case.

The 60-year-old lawyer and politician has been a senator since 2003 and belongs to the opposition People's Democratic Party (PDP).

He served three terms as Nigeria’s deputy president of the Senate from 2007 to 2019.

His wife, Beatrice Nwanneka Ekweremadu, is expected to make an appearance with him later at the Uxbridge Magistrates' Court in the UK.

Dorcas Wangira
Africa health correspondent

Image source, Getty Images

South Africa has confirmed a case of monkeypox - the second non-endemic country in Africa after Morocco to do so.

The country’s National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) has confirmed that the case identified involves a 30-year-old man residing in the Gauteng province.

Contact tracing has begun - the infected person has no recent travel history.

Scientists are struggling to explain a recent rise in monkeypox cases around the world that are not linked to travel to the African countries where it is endemic.

Monkeypox, a mild viral infection, usually occurs in remote areas near tropical rainforests in west and central Africa where animals such as infected rodents, rats and squirrels can pass on the virus to humans.

It can be spread when someone is in close contact with an infected person. The virus can enter the body through broken skin, the respiratory tract or through the eyes, nose or mouth. Those infected in the UK have been advised to avoid having sex while they have symptoms.

According to the Africa Centres for Disease Control (CDC), there has been a significant increase of the spread of the monkeypox virus on the continent.

During its weekly briefing, Dr Ahmed Ogwell, acting director of Africa CDC, said there had been a 38% increase in suspected cases and a 12% increase in confirmed cases of monkeypox in the past week.

This year Africa CDC has so far documented:

• 1,642 cases of monkeypox (1,571 suspected and 71 confirmed)
• 73 deaths linked to monkeypox.

The World Health Organization (WHO) is expected to make an important announcement on whether to declare monkeypox a public health emergency of international concern.

Likewise, it is also working towards renaming the virus in order to reduce to stigmatisation associated with it and its link to Africa.

More on this topic:

• What is monkeypox and how do you catch it?

Student Temiloluwa asks The Academic Staff Union of Universities president why lecturers have been on strike.

Richard Hamilton
BBC World Service Newsroom

British police have charged two people from Nigeria with trying to bring a child into the UK to harvest their organs.

Police in London said the man and woman - Beatrice and Ike Ekweremadu - had been remanded in custody and would appear in court later on Thursday.

The force said a child had been taken into care.

It said the investigation was launched after detectives were alerted to potential offences under modern slavery legislation last month.

• More on this story: Two charged with child organ-harvesting conspiracy

Nigeria's government makes a U-turn over its decision last month to withdraw from international basketball for the next two years.