Patience Atuhaire
BBC News, Kampala

At least five medical workers in Uganda have been confirmed to be infected with the Ebola virus as the outbreak continues to spread in the central region.

Dr Herbert Luswata, the secretary general of the Uganda Medical Association, told the BBC that the five were exposed to the virus in the first stages of the outbreak when there was less awareness and that they did not have sufficient protective gear.

All of them are currently receiving treatment at Mubende hospital, the main Ebola isolation centre.

A total of 24 people have been confirmed to be infected with the virus in the country, five of whom have died.

The Uganda Medical Association had previously called for Ebola hotspots to be put under quarantine to stop the further spread of the haemorrhagic viral disease.

In a statement on Tuesday, trainee medical workers said they would not return to work until all of them had been tested for Ebola and those found infected offered treatment.

The intern health workers had said they will strike until their working conditions improve.

President Yoweri Museveni is expected to address the nation on the outbreak on Wednesday night.

Umaru Fofana
BBC Africa, Freetown

Image source, Getty Images

Sierra Leone’s Information Minister Mohamed Rahman Swarray has played down a comment made by the country’s first lady that her husband holds a PhD in staging military coups.

Fatima Bio said at a fundraising event in the US over the weekend that President Julius Maada Bio was a teacher of coups and therefore nobody could overthrow him.

Her comments were a reference to protests held on 10 August in opposition strongholds over the rising cost of living and to the fact that her husband had been a part of two coups in the 1990s.

“I am not aware of any university where they offer coup studies,” Mr Swarray told the BBC

In 1992 Mr Bio and other junior military officers overthrew the civilian government of Joseph Saidu Momoh. In January 1996 he staged a palace coup and succeeded Captain Valentine Strasser as head of state.

Two months later he held elections and handed over to a civilian rule.

Mr Swaray said the 1992 coup “was the most popular in the history of this country… because several attempts at a democratic change of government had failed”.

He said the palace coup happened “because President Bio wanted to ensure that they kept to their commitment to the people to deliver a return to multiparty democracy as laid out in their original plan”.

The information minister fell short of condemning the first lady’s statement, saying instead that he was only “putting it into context”.

He said the president was one of the morale guarantors in West Africa to return Guinea and Mali - where the military has seized power - to democratic civilian rule.

The first lady has still not clarified her statement.

Sharon Chepchumba says it will be a 'big dream' if Kenya can become the first Africans to reach the second round of the Women's World Volleyball Championship.

Moussa Dadis Camara is accused of being behind the deaths of 150 protesters - he denies the charges.

Tunisia's federation denounces the racism that marred Tuesday's defeat against Brazil, but questions the culprits' identity.

Guinea's oldest chimpanzee has died aged about 71, the environment ministry has said.

Fana had lived alone as she became less mobile after a bad fall nearly 25 years ago paralysed her left upper limb, AFP news agency reports.

She lived in a forest around the village of Bossou in the far south-eastern corner of Guinea.

Her death brings the number of Bossou chimpanzees down to six or seven, AFP reports.

The chimpanzees drew international attention in 2009 after researchers found they used stone hammers and anvils to crack open nuts - something that they were not known to do.

Fana was found dead on 19 September and she was buried the next day in the presence of local villagers, the ministry said.

She had been showing signs of exhaustion in recent months, it added.

BBC World Service

A rights group says the security forces in Lesotho are engaging in a "dangerous pattern" of abuse, including unlawful killings and torture.

Amnesty International said police had killed and injured students during a protest in June.

A man died in suspicious circumstances while in detention last year.

The security forces have been accused of torturing suspects by beating them with spades and repeatedly pouring cold water on their faces while their limbs are bound.

The police have blamed "rogue elements" for the abuse. One legal firm in the capital Maseru is pursuing 58 cases of alleged police brutality recorded in the past four years.

Amnesty has tweeted its report:

Jonathan Paye-Layleh
BBC News, Monrovia

Image source, Jonathan Paye-Leyleh

Liberia is grappling with a shortage of rice, causing panic-buying and anxiety.

The country's staple started disappearing from shops and marketplaces several weeks ago, prompting hundreds of desperate rice retailers and consumers in the capital, Monrovia, to spend days and nights in queues to scoop small quantities of the commodity from the warehouse of a foreign company that still has a small consignment.

Some of them have gone on to profiteer, reselling the commodity at skyrocketing prices.

Police have been deployed to assist the company’s security, as crowds of anxious people try to force their way into its premises.

As the crisis continues, large-scale buyers say they are being compelled by the company to also buy unrelated goods they do not need.

The shortage seems the worst in recent years and the tales of the visibly frustrated buyers in queues are similar.

Many told the BBC they had spent days sleeping around the company’s premises and had had their money stolen by thieves infiltrating the crowd.

Some people have fainted while others sustained injuries in a stampede to the warehouse.

A spokesman for the company, Fouani Brothers Corporation, said a worse shortage was on the horizon.

James Doe Gibson told the BBC its current stock would "last for about two weeks".

President George Weah has said he does not believe that there is a rice shortage as importers had told him they had rice to last up to next year.

But he said he would look into the matter, urging people not to "listen to the noise in the streets".

Liberia spends about $200m (£189m) each year on importing rice.

John Chilembwe led opposition to British rule in Malawi - now he's got a statue in Trafalgar Square.

A spokesman for the Ugandan army has confirmed that one of its military helicopters crashed in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo on Tuesday, Reuters news agency has reported.

Felix Kulayigye said "there were fatalities, but I don't have any extra details at the moment", Reuters reports.

Earlier, the agency quoted an unnamed DR Congo army spokesman as saying two helicopters had crashed, leaving 22 people dead.

Chris Ewokor
BBC News, Abuja

Nigeria’s presidential election campaigns have officially started ahead of next year’s general election.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (Inec) has cleared 18 candidates to run for president in the February 2023 election.

Rampant insecurity, chronic unemployment and a worsening economic outlook are among issues the candidates are expected to address.

But political observers fear that the campaigns might be transactional rather than issue based, and money may be used to buy votes.

Nigeria has a population of more than 200 million, out of which more than 95 million voters have been registered to cast their ballots.

At least 22 people were killed after two Ugandan army helicopters crashed in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo on Tuesday, a spokesman for the Congolese army is quoted by Reuters news agency as saying.

There is no independent confirmation of the report.

We will bring you more details once we get them.

Fifty civilians are also missing, authorities say, as the country battles an Islamist insurgency.

Guy Bandolo
BBC News, Yaoundé

A video of a man whipping a group of students at a school in Cameroon has sparked outrage online.

The video, which now has more than 148,000 views on Twitter, shows a man in a white coat using a white rope hitting the students who are lying on their stomachs in school uniforms.

There are at least 30 students, including girls, in the video.

The incident took place on Tuesday at a private school in the capital, Yaoundé. One of the school's officials told the BBC that the students were being punished for being late.

The minister for secondary education, Nalova Lyonga, was due to visit the school on Wednesday following the incident, the owner of the school told the BBC.

Many people on social media have condemned the whipping.

"We really need to stop school violence. It is abuse," one Twitter use said.

"That's why Africa has so many dictators. We are afraid to question authority, even when that authority is wrong," another said.

However, some have said that they have no problem with it, including this tweeter: "We were whipped like this, it made us disciplined, orderly, focused, practical, pragmatic and more organised."

The use of corporal punishment is prohibited in schools in Cameroon, but the practice continues.

Earlier this month, a teacher was suspended for causing a pupil to rupture his spleen after beating him at a technical high school in the south of the country.

The secondary education minister then announced a national conference on violence in schools that is scheduled for 20 to 23 December in Yaoundé.

Patricia Oyella
BBC News, Kampala

The Ugandan army has begun an investigation into a military helicopter crash in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo on Tuesday.

The army has appointed a 12-member team that starts work today, said Brig Gen Felix Kulaigye, the spokesperson of the Uganda Peoples Defence Forces (UPDF).

The chopper crashed as it took off shortly after delivering food and other essential items to soldiers currently fighting alongside Congolese forces against a Ugandan rebel group, the Allied Democratic Force rebels.

The tail rotor of the helicopter reportedly struck a tree, causing it to spin and crash.

The number of the dead and injured have not been released.

Brig Gen Kulaigye says that information will be available after the next of kin have been informed - but that the injured have been taken to a military hospital in Bomb, 30km (18 miles) from the capital Kampala.

Two soldiers however survived without injuries after they jumped out of the helicopter.

The latest accident comes a few days after another military helicopter landed on an elderly woman’s house in the western city of Fort Portal.

Image source, AFP

Ghana's President Nana Akufo-Addo has been accused of using a musician's work without permission or credit to advertise the country to tourists.

Ghanaian musician Kirani Ayat said he reached out to the government for support before shooting his Guda music video but he was turned down.

The video was shot in northern Ghana and features scenic views and showcases the local culture.

On Tuesday Ayat lashed out at the president after he shared a promo video:

"The President of Ghana has used my video 'Guda' in this ad to promote Ghana. I was actively reaching out to the Ministry of Tourism in 2018/19 to use this video to push tourism in the North and got no reply, yet today it’s in an ad and no one reached out to me for permission," he wrote.

Scenes in the musician's video featuring women posing on top of a giant tree and others dancing have been featured in the tourism advert.

Here is the artist's video:

Kirani said he worked a 12-hour shift as a security guard for seven days over a three-month period to save money for the video production costs.

"I reached out a couple of times to no avail. I was depressed throughout that period," the musician wrote.

The government is yet to respond to the copyright allegations.

Ghanaians on social media have encouraged the musician to sue the government for copyright infringement.

Ghana has previously marketed the country for tourism with the famous year of return initiative launched in 2019 termed a great success by the government.

Several international celebrities visited the country that year.

BBC World Service

A leading rights group campaigning against torture says that law enforcement agents and militias in Libya killed at least 581 civilians between the start of 2020 and March this year.

The World Organisation Against Torture says the number of those killed includes people executed in detention facilities or tortured to death.

The report is the first to focus on extrajudicial killings in Libya and is based on a two-year investigation carried out by Libyan civil society organisations, which interviewed survivors and witnesses.

The report says that the cases it was able to document are only the tip of the iceberg.

Former Nigeria international John Mikel Obi retires from football after winning the Africa Cup of Nations and Champions League during his 18-year career.

Image source, EPA

Kenya's President William Ruto on Tuesday appointed his cabinet ministers and advisers who include 10 women and elected politicians.

The president had promised 50% appointments to women but out of the 22 ministers, only seven were women but he further appointed two more women as advisers and a female secretary to the cabinet.

The appointments are being seen as rewarding his loyalists who campaigned for him across the country.

Politicians have made a grand comeback to the cabinet after the previous administration, in which he was a deputy president, had introduced technocrats to the executive.

There was a debate during election campaigns whether ministers should be involved in politics as some of the technocrats openly campaigned for veteran politician Raila Odinga - who was being backed by then President Uhuru Kenyatta.

By-elections will have to be held in areas where the senators and MPs have been named in the new cabinet.

Kenya's Daily Nation newspaper described President Ruto's new cabinet as a "heavily political", while the Standard newspaper website, external said the cabinet was "heavily populated by politicians rewarded for loyalty".

Chris Ewokor
BBC News, Abuja

Image source, Getty Images

The Central Bank of Nigeria has raised interest rates for local bank lending to 15.5%, its highest level yet, just two months after it was pegged at 14%.

It comes as Nigeria’s inflation continues to spike - exceeding the 20% mark as at August.

The bank's governor Godwin Emefiele said the monetary policy committee voted unanimously to raise the rate after deliberating on the impact of the widening margin between policy rate and the inflation rate.

"The committee thus agreed unanimously to raise the policy rate to narrow the interest rate gap and rein in inflation," Mr Emefiele said in a statement.

Nigeria’s economy continues to struggle amid dwindling reserves and poor foreign exchange earnings.

Local banks are also slow in lending to businesses, insisting on stringent processes including the provision of adequate collateral.

Business owners say borrowing at high interest rates puts their businesses at risk.