Provides an overview of Morocco, including key dates and facts about this north African country.

An overview of the media in Morocco, including links to broadcasters and newspapers.

Provides overview of Tunisia, including key dates and facts about this North African country.

An overview of the media in Tunisia, including links to broadcasters and newspapers.

For the latest updates, go to bbc.com/africalive

The 31-year-old was found dead under the rubble of his home in Turkey two weeks after the earthquake.

Claims about poverty, unemployment and insecurity feature prominently in this election campaign.

Ghana is seeking a $3bn loan from the IMF but the president is pushing ahead with a huge new cathedral.

Nicolas Negoce
BBC News, Lomé

Image source, @Fimo228

Designers and models from across the continent have come together this weekend in Togo's capital, Lomé, for the city's International Fashion Festival, known as Fimo.

There have also been workshops on photography and make-up.

Image source, @Fimo228

Fimo's theme this year is eco-responsible fashion as the clothes industry is seen as one of the most damaging to the environment.

Some designers have come up with creations with less polluting materials, or with abandoned fabrics.

Others are giving a second life to old clothes.

Image source, @Fimo228

BBC World Service

Image source, Reuters

South Africa's state-owned power firm, Eskom, has announced an intensification of its programme of planned power cuts.

Supplies will be cut off from 20:00 local time until 05:00.

The company said shorter blackouts would then be implemented until further notice.

Last week, President Cyril Ramaphosa declared a state of disaster to try to deal with the crisis.

Eskom is plagued by corruption, and has an ageing network of poorly maintained coal-fired power stations.

There have been power cuts in parts of South Africa every day since the beginning of the year.

Read more on this story:

• Eskom crisis: What does South Africa’s state of disaster mean?
• South Africa's power cuts hit vineyards: No power, no pinot

An African Union spokesperson says that Sharon Bar-li was not the person accredited to attend.

Mary Harper
Africa editor, BBC World Service

UN Secretary General António Guterres has announced the largest-ever allocation from its Central Emergency Fund.

He was speaking on the sidelines of the AU summit in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.

Mr Guterres said the $250m (£208m) would be spent on what he described as "the world's forgotten crises" including famine in Africa.

This might sound like a lot of money but earlier this month the UN said it needed $2.6bn just to help the population of Somalia which is enduring its worst drought in four decades.

The food crisis is one of the main topics on the agenda of African leaders at the summit.

The others are a continent-wide free trade deal and Africa's many conflicts. It appears that none of these issues will be solved anytime soon.

A video that appears to show Israeli diplomat Sharon Bar-li being escorted from the African Union heads of state summit is circulating online.

The Times of Israel, external quotes an Israeli foreign ministry spokesperson as blaming South Africa and Algeria for the incident.

The video appears to show a security guard approaching the Israeli delegation while the opening ceremony was going on.

There was a discussion and Ms Bar-Li, who is Israel's Deputy Director General for Africa, then left alongside a security guard.

“Israel views seriously the incident in which the deputy for Africa, Ambassador Sharon Bar-Li, was removed from the African Union hall despite her status as an accredited observer with access badges,” foreign ministry spokesperson Lior Hayat is quoted by the Times of Israel as saying.

“It is sad to see that the African Union has been taken hostage by a small number of extremist countries such as Algeria and South Africa, driven by hatred and controlled by Iran,” Mr Hayat said.

"They must substantiate their claim," a spokesperson for South Africa president is quoted by the AFP news agency as saying.

Israel's status at the AU has been the subject of debate recently.

It gained observer status in 2021, but this decision was queried, with Palestinians urging a rethink, and a committee was formed last year to look at the issue.

In recent years, Israel has aimed to form closer ties with African countries.

Earlier this month, Chad's President Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno was in Israel to open an embassy in Tel Aviv.

BBC World Service

Image source, EPA

The most powerful trade union in Tunisia is staging rallies in a number of cities in protest against President Kais Saied.

Thousands of members of the UGTT union denounced the soaring cost of living and the recent arrests of prominent anti-government figures, including a top union official.

At the biggest demonstration in the southern city of Sfax, protesters brandished banners, reading "Tunisia is not for sale" and "Stop the attack on union freedoms".

President Saied has accused what he called "traitors" of being responsible for price rises and food shortages.

Image source, Reuters

Twelve cheetahs from South Africa have been flown to India as part of an agreement to introduce dozens of the mammals there over the next decade.

Asiatic cheetahs became extinct in India in the late 1940s because of excessive hunting and loss of habitat.

In 2020 India's Supreme Court ruled that African cheetahs, a different subspecies, could be brought into the country at a "carefully chosen location" on an experimental basis.

The Indian Air Force has tweeted pictures of the boxed animals arriving "after a 10-hour flight from Johannesburg".

They were then flown by helicopter to Kuno National Park.

These big cats will join eight received from Namibia last year.

Earlier this week, Uttam Sharma, director of Kuno National Park, said the big cats will be placed in quarantine enclosures upon their arrival.

The 12 cheetahs have been living in quarantine in South Africa since July.

Wildlife experts have raised concerns about the long quarantine periods the cheetahs are being subjected to, and say that it could harm their health and fitness.

However, Mr Sharma said that all preparations to receive the big cats "had been completed".

Proponents of the project say that the reintroduction of cheetahs will build up local economies and help restore ecosystems that support the big cats.

But some worry that relocation of animals is always fraught with risks and releasing the cheetahs into a park might put them in harm's way.

Image source, EPA

The global financial system is "dysfunctional and unfair" and is "failing developing countries", UN Secretary General António Guterres has said at the opening of the annual African Union leaders' summit.

In a stinging rebuke he said that countries are being "left in the lurch" as they are denied debt relief and being charged "extortionate interest rates", he told his audience in Ethiopia.

"As a result, vital systems are starved of investment."

He called for a total rethink of the "global financial architecture" that made decisions that reflected the "needs of developing countries".

Mr Guterres also said he was deeply concerned about a rise in violence in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

In addition, he talked about climate change and the war in Ukraine, saying Africa was suffering the effects of crises it had not created.

Also speaking at the start of the summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed had a similar message.

"Nearly all of us want to put our economies back on a growth trajectory but this will not happen without sufficient restructuring to make our external debt sustainable," the Reuters news agency quotes him as saying.

Nigeria’s Central Bank launched newly designed naira ban aimed at curbing soaring inflation, cash hoarding and counterfeiting.

Image source, Reuters

Kenya's Beatrice Chebet and Ugandan Jacob Kiplimo took the honours at the World Cross Country Championships in Bathurst, Australia.

Chebet, 22, managed to take the women's title in a dramatic closing stage which saw her Ethiopian rival Letesenbet Gidey collapse within sight of the tape.

Chebet completed the 10km-course in 33 minutes 48 seconds.

Gidey was later disqualified after being illegally helped to her feet before reaching the finish.

Ethiopian Tsigie Gebreselama took the silver medal and Agnes Jebet Ngetich from Kenya came third.

Kiplimo's victory in 29 minutes and 17 seconds in the men's race was less dramatic. The 22-year-old however did cause a bit of an upset by beating distance favourite and fellow Ugandan Joshua Cheptegei.

Cheptegei picked up the bronze medal and Ethiopian Berihu Aregawi came second.

Kalkidan Yibeltal
BBC News, Addis Ababa

Image source, EPA

African heads of state have begun their annual continental meeting in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.

This year’s African Union summit is being held amid increasing insecurity in parts of the continent and a major food crisis as several countries face severe drought.

This is the first major gathering of leaders from across the continent in Addis Ababa since the AU brokered a peace deal between the Ethiopian government and forces from the country’s Tigray region. The deal ended one of Africa’s deadliest armed conflicts.

Following the agreement fighting has stopped and access to humanitarian aid has increased.

Now the AU has to address security problems from the Sahel in West Africa to the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Meanwhile millions face hunger in the Horn of Africa due to the most severe drought in two generations.

The two-day summit is also expected to call for a boost in the implementation of the continent-wide free trade deal.

President Buhari vowed to defeat Boko Haram when elected in 2015. Is north-east Nigeria safe now?