That's all from the BBC Africa Live team for now. We'll be back on Thursday morning.

There will be an automated news feed here until then. You can also get the latest on the BBC News website and listen to the Africa Today podcast.

A reminder of Wednesday's wise words:

Click here to send us your African proverbs.

And we leave you with this photo of women celebrating International Women's Day in Madagascar:

Image source, Getty Images

Alfred Lasteck
BBC News, Dar es Salaam

Image source, Getty Images

For the first time in Tanzania's history, the president has attended an International Women's Day event organized by the main opposition party, Chadema.

President Samia Suluhu Hassan's presence was welcomed by Chadema chairman Freeman Mbowe, who said it was the fruit of meetings aimed at achieving reconciliation.

Ms Samia, who addressed thousands in the meeting, said that reconciliation was ongoing in Tanzanian politics, and that some steps had already been taken meanwhile others were in progress, including the finding of a new constitution.

In her address, President Samia added it had been difficult to start the reconciliation process as some in her ruling party "were not ready".

"There was a lot of debates here and there, and the same appeared to the country’s opposition. So both parties have some of its people who are not happy with the step of political reconciliation,” Ms Samia added.

She is Tanzania's first female president, having taken office following the death of John Magufuli in 2021.

Mr Magufuli was accused by the opposition of being authoritarian, and cracking down on its leaders and members.

Jose Tembe
BBC News, Maputo

Mozambique's transport operators have announced that they will no longer cross into South Africa's KwaZulu-Natal province because of growing insecurity on the road.

Bus and taxi operators would stop at the Ponta do Ouro border, and passengers would have to catch other means of transport to continue with their journey, often to Durban, the biggest city in KwaZulu-Natal.

Gangs in KwaZulu-Natal have continuously stopped Mozambican-registered private and commercial vehicles, robbing passengers and torching vehicles.

The most recent attack was on Saturday, with Mozambicans retaliating on Monday by torching a South African-registered vehicle on their side of the border.

The commercial vehicles carry both Mozambicans and South Africans.

The road is busy, with Mozambicans often travelling from Maputo, to Durban to buy goods to sell in shops and markets in Mozambique's capital.

For their part, South Africans mostly come to Mozambique for a holiday - and the beach in Ponta do Ouro is popular with them.

So, the decision will not only negatively affect the business of transport companies, but also other sectors.

The head of the Mozambican Federation of Road Transport Operators (Fematro) said they had no choice because it had become too dangerous to drive in KwaZulu-Natal.

"We have suspended our activities," he said at a press conference.

However, transport companies would continue operating on the road between Maputo and South Africa's biggest city, Johannesburg, though some attacks have also been reported on that route.

The latest development is bound to increase pressure on the Mozambican and South African governments to improve security, and ease tensions between communities on both sides of the border.

Some Mozambican gangs have been accused of stealing vehicles in South Africa, and some reports suggest that the targeting of Mozambican-registered vehicles is a retaliatory measure - though the attacks are random.

Laura Wolvaardt, the leading run-scorer at the Women's T20 World Cup, urges administrators to make the most of the Proteas' run to the final.

Freddy, which has caused the deaths of 21 people, may become the longest-lasting storm on record.

BBC World Service

Activists in Zimbabwe are warning of possible mayhem in this year's general election after discovering that redrawn electoral boundaries have located dozens of wards in Antarctica.

The pressure group, Team Pachedu, found that other co-ordinates provided by the electoral commission pointed to spots in the middle of the Indian Ocean as well as Zambia, Eswatini and South Africa.

The activists said the erroneous demarcation of wards would result in candidates campaigning to the wrong audiences and voters not knowing in which constituency their home was located.

There has been no word so far from the electoral commission.

After forming a month ago, Cyclone Freddy may now be the longest lived tropical storm in history, repeatedly bringing heavy rain and damaging winds to Mozambique and Madagascar.

Hurricane/Typhoon John, which lasted 31 days in 1994, holds the current record.

BBC Weather's Chris Fawkes has the details:

The prosecution in the trial of six men charged with the murder of Italy's ambassador to the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2021 has asked for the death penalty to be imposed on them, AFP news agency has reported.

Luca Attanasio was killed in conflict-hit eastern DR Congo when gunmen ambushed a UN convoy in which he was travelling. A local driver and an Italian police officer were also killed.

Prosecutor Bamusamba Kabamba said the victims had been kidnapped and "dragged deep into the forest before being killed", AFP reports, adding that the accused had been portrayed at a previous hearing as kidnappers who wanted a ransom of $1m (£845,000).

The accused are being tried by a military court. Five of them are in detention and have denied the charges. The sixth is on the run, and is being tried in absentia, AFP reports.

DR Congo has not executed anyone since 2023, though courts still hand down death sentences.

BBC World Service

Fighting is continuing between the army of the Democratic Republic of Congo and M23 rebels in violation of Tuesday's ceasefire.

Local media said there were clashes on several fronts in the eastern province of North Kivu.

The rebels are reported to have seized a number of villages, including Karuba which is around 30km (19 miles) from the regional capital Goma.

The army has accused M23 of shelling UN peacekeepers and Burundian soldiers from an East African force recently deployed in an effort to stop the violence.

The rebels say they want a peaceful solution but have the right to defend themselves if attacked.

Image source, Getty Images

Award-winning Sudanese writer Leila Aboulela has retold the story of a British army general killed by the troops of the Mahdi - a religious leader in Sudan in the late 19th Century - in her new novel, River Spirit.

The book gives a Sudanese view of Gordon of Khartoum, whose story has travelled around the world in history books and Hollywood films - but almost always with a British outlook, glorifying him as a colonial-era hero.

General Charles Gordon died defending Khartoum in 1885 following a siege by Sudanese forces.

Aboulela says the 1966 film Khartoum, starring Charlton Heston as Gen Gordon and Laurence Olivier as the Mahdi, was full of inaccuracies.

“The only accurate thing was the weapons apparently... It wasn’t even filmed in Khartoum,” she told the BBC's Newsday programme.

“So I wanted to retell the story and make it from a Sudanese point of view and how they saw events unfolding.”

The story of Gen Gordon is also one of the foundational stories for Sudan as a nation, the novelist says.

For much of the 19th Century it was ruled by the Ottoman Empire and then in the early to mid 20th Century it was under joint British-Egyptian rule, before becoming independent in 1956.

“What the Mahdi did - it brought the Sudanese together almost for the first time. They felt united against the foreigner, whether they were Egyptians, Ottomans or British,” she said.

Her novel also puts women at the heart of the story, looking at their roles from nurses and vendors to cooks and spies.

“They are mentioned as footnotes in history or not mentioned at all - but they were part of the army... they were very much playing an active part and it was interesting to explore that.”

BBC World Service

Thirteen men have been executed in Somalia's semi-autonomous region of Puntland.

Nine of them were accused of belonging to the militant Islamist groups al-Shabab and Islamic State.

Six were former soldiers convicted of murder.

They were executed by firing squad in the northern cities of Garowe, Bosasso and Galkayo.

Human rights groups say executions are on the rise in Somalia.

Most of those put to death are suspected Islamist militants, rapists and members of the security forces.

Jibat Tamirat
BBC Horn of Africa

Image source, www.comedianeshetu.com

A crowdfunding campaign backed by Ethiopian comedian Eshetu Melese has led to more than $1.6m (£1.35m) raised within 48 hours for a charity that plans to build what it describes as the first nursing home facility for homeless people in the country.

The money has come from 15,200 donations, with the highest amount being $10,000.

The GoFundMe campaign is aimed at helping the charity Mekedonia to raise $2m.

"Make a difference in the lives of countless elderly and mentally challenged people who live under dire circumstances on the streets - help us build home for the homeless," it says.

The comedian also helped the charity raise donations from local banks, though that amount is unclear.

Eshetu is a young stand-comedian and TV host in Ethiopia. He has become popular in recent years for a show that features talented children.

Such campaigns rely heavily on donations from the huge number of Ethiopians in the diaspora - especially in North America and Europe - and they appear to have poured their hearts out.

"It is not the size of the gift that matters but the size of the heart," the fundraising page says.

Ugandan police have arrested a group of women who were protesting against the continued detention of their husbands.

The women, mostly activists, said it was meaningless to celebrate International Women's Day without their partners.

They also expressed frustration over the high cost of living.

Local media said the women were taken to a police station in the capital, Kampala.

Rights groups have accused Ugandan authorities of arbitrary detention of hundreds of government critics.

Kenyan gynaecologist, Dr Jemimah Kariuki, says her path to becoming a doctor hasn’t been easy.

Image source, Getty Images

A high court in Zimbabwe has blocked the release of electronic voters' roll to the public citing national security concerns that would expose the document to manipulation.

This follows a court case filed by opposition MP Allan Makharm after the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) refused to give him a copy that he requested in October last year.

The MP said the electronic copy was ideal for scrutiny as the printed version would be inconvenient and too expensive for him.

However, the Harare High Court on Tuesday said the voters' roll was a sensitive document to be released to the public without addressing security concerns raised by Zec.

The court said the electoral commission was mandated to protect the roll from manipulation and abuse.

Zimbabwe is scheduled to hold general elections in July.

Image source, AFP

Armed policemen have laid checkpoints on roads leading to State House in the capital, Nairobi, amid fears of planned opposition protests.

Motorists are being stopped and searched at various points on the roads.

It follows the lapse of a 14-day ultimatum issued by the opposition for the government to address concerns about the high cost of living.

Opposition leader Raila Odinga has been leading a series of anti-government rallies countrywide.

Image source, Twitter / Uganda police

Uganda's police on Wednesday briefly closed a busy expressway that connects the capital, Kampala, to the country's main airport after a security scare.

A bomb squad was deployed to conduct an investigation along the Entebbe expressway before it was cleared for public use, according to tweets by police., external

Motorists were diverted to the old road that runs near the expressway until investigations ended and normal traffic flow restored.

"We would like to applaud our bomb squad and crisis intervention teams... The suspicious object was removed and the highway reopened," police said

The Chinese-funded expressway was opened in 2018 and is the first-ever toll road in the country.

BBC World Service

Image source, Getty Images

The United Nations says about 100,000 people have fled into Ethiopia from the self-declared republic of Somaliland in the past month.

Many others are internally displaced following fighting in the disputed city of Las Anod which has killed more than 200 people.

The UN said the refugees have gathered in the Doolo region of Ethiopia which is enduring its worst drought in four decades.

It takes aid workers two days of driving to reach the refugees who are sheltering in public buildings or sleeping outside.

Image source, AFP

Ghana's Deputy Defence Minister Kofi Amankwa-Manu has apologised for military excesses after soldiers were deployed early Tuesday in Ashaiman, a suburb of capital Accra.

The deployment followed the killing of a young soldier allegedly stabbed to death by unknown assailants in the area.

Social media users have been sharing pictures and videos of alleged soldiers' brutality on civilians during the operation.

"If decent, innocent residents of Ashaiman were caught up in these operations, I, in my capacity as deputy defence minister, I apologise for that, " Mr Amankwa-Manu said in an interview with a local TV, external.

"It is only proper that we admit when there are excesses in operations of this nature. But we are not going to apologise for [undertaking] the operations."

Mr Amankwa-Manu said the operation was sanctioned by the military high command “to bring to book the perpetrators of this heinous crime”.

A local MP said about 72 people were arrested in the operation.

The Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) is yet to comment on the matter.

Vumani Mkhize
BBC Africa Business

Image source, Getty Images

South Africa’s gross domestic product shrank by 1.3% in the fourth quarter of 2022, much more than was expected.

Analysts had predicted a decline of just 0.4%, and blamed the record blackouts for taking a significant toll on productivity.

The impact of the rolling blackouts was bound to have a knock-on effect on the economy. Only two days of the fourth quarter were without power cuts.

Businesses have been paralysed by the disruptions and have seen production costs rise as they have to purchase contingency power.

Seven of South Africa’s 10 industries experienced a decline in the last three months of 2022. The agriculture and mining industries were the biggest victims, both contracting by over 3%.

Overall the South African economy grew by 2% in 2022, but is still well below the 5 to 6% target band that economists say will make a dent in the country’s 33% unemployment rate.

More on South Africa's power crisis:

• South Africa's minister of electricity: Can Ramokgopa end load-shedding?