Nomsa Maseko
BBC News, Johannesburg

Poor management and corruption are the cause of rolling electricity blackouts in South Africa, admits President Cyril Ramaphosa.

The country's poorest have lost out because of corruption, he adds, and plans are being implemented to bring the constant blackouts to an end.

President Ramaphosa has been delivering his political report on the first day of the governing ANC's national conference, where a fresh leadership vote will be held.

Mr Ramaphosa hopes to retain his position despite setbacks brought on by allegations of concealing a crime after a large amount of foreign currency was stolen from his private game farm.

He's had a tough time on Friday delivering his political report after some delegates drowned out his speech with singing and shouting.

Mr Ramaphosa’s speech was further disrupted when former President Jacob Zuma arrived fashionably late – which resulted in the singing of anti-Ramaphosa songs.

The president faces serious challenges from his competitor Dr Zweli Mkhize who hails from Mr Zuma's home province of Kwa-Zulu Natal.

Nomsa Maseko
BBC News, Johannesburg

Image source, AFP

The crucial ANC national conference is off to a rocky start, eight hours later than planned.

President Cyril Ramaphosa’s speech was disrupted by chants of "change, change".

Former President Jacob Zuma walked in to loud cheers, disrupting Mr Ramaphosa’s speech even further.

Delegates from Mr Zuma’s home province of KwaZulu-Natal then started singing anti-Ramaphosa songs as he tried to continue with his speech.

ANC chairperson Gwede Mantashe asked security officers to intervene.

Nomsa Maseko
BBC Southern Africa correspondent

Image source, AFP

The national conference of South Africa's governing ANC party got under way a short while ago, some eight hours after it was due to start.

President Cyril Ramaphosa hopes to be re-elected as party leader at the meeting despite a damaging recent scandal.

Hundreds of delegates sang anti-Ramaphosa songs preventing the chairperson of the ANC from declaring the conference open.

The president avoided an impeachment inquiry earlier this week, when most of his party's MPs voted against adopting a report which found he may have breached anti-corruption legislation, following the theft of a large sum of cash from his farm.

His main leadership rival will be the former health minister, Zweli Mkhize, who has also been the subject of corruption allegations.

Ghana's president says the presence of Wagner fighters in its neighbour is distressing.

Thomas Naadi
BBC News

Russia's presence in West Africa is "neither constructive nor helpful" and Britain is concerned about the Russian mercenaries active in the region, a minister tells the BBC.

UK Development Minister Andrew Mitchell, who is visiting the region, says his nation is committed to helping West African coastal countries halt the spread of militants from the Sahel as well as ensuring general security.

But he has also expressed concerns that it has been "very difficult" to discuss security matters with the Burkina Faso government.

Mr Mitchell has been visiting a military base in northern Ghana to assess the country’s ability to ward off the jihadists.

It comes after Ghana's President Nana Akufo-Addo said Russian mercenaries from the Wagner group have been operating near the country’s northern border with Burkina Faso.

He described Wagner's presence as "distressing" during a meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken this week.

He alleged that the military junta in Burkina Faso had hired Wagner mercenaries to help fight extremists and awarded them a mining concession as a form of payment. Burkina Faso has not commented on the claim.

In recent weeks, hundreds of people fleeing militants attacks in Burkina Faso have crossed the border into northern Ghana.

More on this topic:

• UK withdraws troops from Mali early blaming political instability
• Burkina Faso anger over Russian mercenary link
• How Russia has outflanked Ukraine in Africa
• Inside the Wagner Group

WHO said it stands by its action after India's drug regulator said the syrups complied with standards.

BBC World Service

The head of a Russian cultural centre in the Central African Republic has been injured by a parcel bomb.

The Russian embassy said he had been wounded in the head and was being treated at a hospital in the capital, Bangui.

Russia's mercenary group Wagner blamed France for the incident, accusing it of sponsoring terrorism.

Wagner is active in a number of African countries including Mali and the Central African Republic.

Related stories:

• Burkina Faso anger over Russian mercenary link
• How Russia has outflanked Ukraine in Africa
• Inside the Wagner Group

DJ Edu
Presenter of This Is Africa on BBC World Service

Image source, Ebène

Samba Peuzzi started off as a straight up rap artist, but quickly decided to mine the musical riches of his native Senegal and make a distinctive sound:

Samba Peuzzi takes the idea of cultural pride further. He also believes that Senegalese artists should wear traditional dress when they peform overseas In Senegal many people wear elegant flowing robes and boubous daily on the streets of Dakar, but Peuzzi thinks young rappers tend to don jeans and sweats when they take to the stage:

Though Samba Peuzzi feels his fellow artists have work to do when it comes to making the most of their rich culture, when it comes to the Senegalese public he believes the work is about persuading them to consume music digitally:

You can hear Samba Peuzzi and his music on This is Africa this Saturday, on BBC World Service radio and partner stations across Africa, as well as online here: BBCworldservice.com/thisisafrica, external

Two opposition Senegalese MPs have been arrested for the alleged assault of their pregnant colleague in parliament earlier this month.

It follows the chaos that erupted during a budget debate in parliament, in scenes that were televised. The video of the fight was shared widely on social media.

Massata Samb is said to have slapped the female MP, Amy Ndiaye Gniby, after she scoffed at him during the debate.

She threw a chair at him before another MP, Mamadou Niang, kicked her in the stomach after she was pushed to the ground.

Both Mr Samb and Mr Niang have been detained and are charged with voluntarily causing hurt, their lawyer told the Reuters news agency, adding that the detention violated their parliamentary immunity.

They are expected appear in court on Monday.

You can watch the brawl here:

BBC Monitoring
The world through its media

At least 1,700 people fleeing violence between armed factions in South Sudan's northern Upper Nile state have crossed into Sudan, the state-owned Sudanese news agency Suna has reported.

The UN agency Unicef had earlier said that violence between armed groups in Upper Nile state that started in August was forcing thousands of women and children to flee their homes amid reports of rising civilian deaths, injuries and abductions.

The clashes have since spread to Jonglei and Unity states.

On Wednesday, the UN said that the violence had killed at least 166 people.

A member of Sudan's state-run Humanitarian Aid Commission, Salah Taaj al-Sir, told Suna that large numbers of South Sudanese fleeing the violence had arrived in the border state of White Nile.

He called on aid groups to provide urgent assistance to the refugees.

Lalla Sy
BBC News

Burkina Faso has recalled its ambassador in Ghana for consultations after President Nana Akufo-Addo accused the neighbouring country of inviting mercenaries from the Russian firm Wagner.

Ghana's ambassador to Burkina Faso has also been summoned for a meeting on Friday morning at the foreign affairs ministry, the Burkinabè state information agency said.

President Akufo-Addo made the claim on Tuesday during a meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on the side-lines of the US-Africa summit in Washington.

He described the development as distressing.

The possibility of Burkina Faso using the Wagner group to fight jihadists in the country has been the subject of debate for several months and prompted warnings from Western powers.

But there has not yet been an official confirmation about an agreement between the group and Burkina Faso, even though Prime Minister Apollinaire Kyelem recently visited Russia.

Jose Tembe
BBC News, Maputo

Image source, AFP

Mozambique’s parliament has approved a bill legalising the involvement of local forces in the fight against jihadists in the northern Cabo Delgado province.

Local militias have been assisting the army and its allies from Rwanda and the southern African regional bloc in the fight against jihadists in the province.

Defence Minister Cristovao Chume, who presented the bill in parliament, admitted that the Mozambican army was not strong enough to tackle jihadist activities alone.

He said there was an urgent need to establish local forces to strengthen the army “in combating and containing the spread of jihadist incursions”.

He said they would protect community settlements and public and private infrastructure, similar to strategies used in other jurisdictions where national security was compromised.

The local forces are made up of volunteer former combatants.

Chris Ewokor
BBC News, Abuja

Image source, AFP

Nigerian police say they have started investigations into Thursday morning's fatal train accident in the capital, Abuja.

An Abuja-bound train coming from the northern city of Kaduna crashed into a car, killing the driver, identified as a woman.

Eyewitnesses said the car was attempting to cross the railway line and got stuck as the train approached the Chikakore axis in Kubwa, a suburb of Abuja.

Police spokesperson Josephine Adeh said that investigators were "swiftly drafted to the accident scene and took charge of the situation”.

The body of the victim was evacuated by security personnel who removed the damaged car from the railway track.

Reports said the accident occurred at a level crossing, where the road goes over the track in a highly populated settlement.

The accident comes just days after the train resumed operations which were suspended for nine months due to an attack by gunmen last March.

Will Ross
Africa editor, BBC World Service

Ghana's President Nana Akufo-Addo has said neighbouring Burkina Faso has invited in mercenaries from the Russian firm Wagner.

He said this during a meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and described the development as distressing.

This comes as coastal states in West Africa including Ghana are growing increasingly concerned about the spread of jihadist violence from the Sahel region.

President Akufo-Addo said Russian mercenaries were on Ghana's northern border.

He said he understood that the Wagner group had been offered a mine in southern Burkina Faso as a form of payment for services - presumably fighting Islamist militants.

In a video of the meeting with the US secretary of state, Mr Akufo-Addo describes the development as particularly worrying seeing as Ghana strongly condemned Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

He spoke of the dangerous proliferation of coups in West Africa adding that there were enemies of democracy working hard in the region.

It was a call for people to focus on what Ghana sees as the combined threats of jihadist violence, coups and Russian interference.

BBC World Service

Image source, AFP

India says tests carried out on Indian-made cough syrups linked to the deaths of nearly 70 children in The Gambia have shown no contamination.

The World Health Organization had earlier said initial tests of four products found unacceptable levels of potentially toxic chemicals.

The children died from acute kidney failure after taking the medicines produced by Maidan pharma and exported to The Gambia.

Maiden Pharmaceuticals says it adheres to internationally recognised quality-control standards.

But some of its products have failed to meet national or state-level quality-control standards in India.

India produces a third of the world's medicines, mostly in the form of generic drugs.

Image source, Getty Images

South Africa's former President Jacob Zuma says he has launched a private prosecution against his successor Cyril Ramaphosa.

The announcement was made by the Jacob Zuma Foundation which on Thursday night said President Ramaphosa was charged for "serious crimes" but did not specify the alleged offence.

“President Cyril Ramaphosa has been charged in a private prosecution with the criminal offence of being accessory after the fact in the crimes committed by among others Advocate Downer namely, breaching the provisions of the [National Prosecuting Authority] NPA Act,” the foundation said in a statement.

It added that the crimes carry a sentence of 15 years imprisonment.

In a response on Twitter on Friday, President Ramaphosa accused Mr Zuma of "abuse of legal processes".

He termed the charges "completely spurious and unfounded".

Mike Thomson
BBC World Service News

Image source, Getty Images

Several children in Egypt are reported to have died after being mistakenly given fake antibiotics.

In one case a two-year-old child with a high temperature died after hospital doctors injected him with drugs that turned out to be counterfeit.

Egyptian media say more than $160m worth of fake medicines have been seized there in the past month alone - though the problem is a global one.

A recent report by the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene estimated that counterfeit medicines kill as many as 300,000 children each year.

More on this topic:

• Fake drugs: How bad is Africa’s counterfeit medicine problem?

Nomsa Maseko
BBC Southern Africa correspondent

Image source, AFP

South Africa’s governing ANC starts its national conference on Friday morning to elect its new leadership.

President Cyril Ramaphosa is hoping to be re-elected as party leader after escaping an impeachment inquiry earlier this week.

This after ANC MPs voted against the adoption of a report which found that he may have breached the country’s anti-corruption legislation following the theft of a large sum of foreign currency at his private game farm.

Mr Ramaphosa will face off against former Health Minister Zweli Mkhize for the top post.

It is widely expected that the party’s integrity committee will table its report on the "Farmgate" scandal that almost cost Mr Ramaphosa his job as well as a corruption scandal that entangled his competitor.

It’s alleged Dr Mkhize benefited from a Covid-19 government tender in which communication contracts were awarded to his allies.

This will be followed by the adoption of credentials - a process that could take hours and is usually contested by various factions because that determines which delegates are eligible to take part and vote.

Mr Ramaphosa is likely to retain his position despite recent the setbacks.

More on this topic:

• Cyril Ramaphosa: A quick guide to South Africa's 'Farmgate' scandal

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President Joe Biden outlines a funding boost to the continent during a summit in Washington.