The PM's flagship plans to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda faces fierce opposition in the House of Lords.

Ryan Mendes' late penalty gives Cape Verde victory over Mauritania and a place in the Africa Cup of Nations quarter-finals.

That's all from the BBC Africa Live team for now. We'll be back on Tuesday morning. There'll be an automated service until then.

You can listen to the Focus on Africa podcast here. It focuses on the decision of three junta-led West African states to withdraw from the regional bloc Ecowas.

Our proverb of the day:

Click here to send us your African proverbs.

We leave you with a photo of a youg boy at the salt ponds at Bardawel lake in Egypt's North Sinai:

Image source, Getty Images

Danny Aeberhard
BBC World Service News

Image source, Reuters

Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has announced details of a proposed partnership with African countries encompassing energy, investment and agreements on migration.

She presented what's called the "Mattei Plan" to parliament and a summit of African leaders.

Her government says it'll commit $60bn (£40.7bn) initially.

Ms Meloni's right-wing government has struggled to implement promises to clamp down on irregular migration.

She's promoting investment in African economies as a way of reducing the need to migrate.

She also wants to turn Italy into an energy hub linking North African suppliers with Europe.

One senior African attendee - the head of the African Union Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat - stressed the continent needed actions, not words.

The UN says one of its peacekeepers was killed while taking affected civilians to hospital.

Moses Kollie Garzeawu
Journalist, Monrovia

Liberia's new President Joseph Boakai has declared drug abuse a "national health emergency".

"The drugs epidemic, especially the use of kush, is disturbing. It’s destroying the youth and future generation of our country," he said, in an address to parliament.

The ministry of health, the drugs enforcement agency and the ministry of youth and sports will be part of a "multi-sectoral" team that will tackle drug abuse, Mr Boakai said.

He added that he and Vice-President Jeremiah Koung "will be the first" to take a drugs test and he urged others to follow.

Mr Boakai's decision follows growing concern that drug abuse is destroying the lives of many young, unemployed Liberians.

The most recent drug to flood Liberia's ghettoes is kush. Said to be a mixture of cannabis, chemicals and medicine, it is cheap but its effects are devastating, making young men walk around like zombies in the middle of traffic in the capital, Monrovia.

Sometimes, residents wake up to find two or three dead bodies lying by the roadside - the suspicion being that kush killed them, though there is no medical evidence in Liberia to confirm this.

Mr Boakai was sworn-in as president last week after scraping a win in November's run-off election.

He defeated football star George Weah, who failed in his bid to secure a second term as president.

It comes after the former president said he would not vote for the party he once led.

Brentford's Yoane Wissa hails the "togetherness" of his DR Congo team after they booked a place in the Afcon quarter-finals with a penalties win over Egypt.

South Africa's former President Jacob Zuma has been "summarily" suspended as a member of the governing African National Congress (ANC), the party has said in a statement.

The ANC's top leadership body, the national executive committee, concluded that "exceptional circumstances exist to justify and warrant an immediate decision to suspend" Mr Zuma, the statement added.

It comes after Mr Zuma announced last month that he will be campaigning for a new party in general elections due later this year.

The ANC said it was forced to act to "preserve its integrity and prevent further damage to its reputation".

A senior official of South Africa's governing African National Congress ( ANC), Fikile Mbalula, will send a letter to former President Jacob Zuma, informing him of the party's decision to suspend him, the local IOL news site is reporting.

The decision was taken by the ANC's highest decision-making body, the national executive committee, after Mr Zuma announced last month that he will be campaigning for a new party in general elections due later this year.

A senior official of South Africa's governing African National Congress (ANC) has confirmed that former President Jacob Zuma has been suspended as a member of the party, AFP news agency is reporting.

ANC secretary general Fikile Mbalula said that "Zuma and others whose conduct is in conflict with our values and principles, will find themselves outside the African National Congress", AFP reports.

Image source, Reuters

South Africa's governing African National Congress (ANC) has decided to suspend former President Jacob Zuma as a member of the party, local news sites are quoting unnamed ANC sources as saying.

The decision was taken by the ANC's top leadership body, the national executive committee, following Mr Zuma's announcement last month that he would campaign for a new party, uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK), in general elections due later this year, News24 and TimesLive are reporting.

Mr Zuma said would remain a member of the ANC but it "would be a betrayal" to campaign for the ANC of current President Cyril Ramaphosa.

Mr Zuma has addressed several meetings of uMkhonto we Sizwe, which means spear of the nation, and is the same name as the former armed wing of the ANC. It als uses the same abbreviation, MK.

The ANC has previously vowed to take legal action to prevent the new party from using the name.

Mr Zuma stepped down as ANC leader at the end of his two terms in 2018. His preferred candidate lost the race for the leadership of the party to Mr Ramaphosa.

Mr Zuma was then forced to resign as South Africa's president about two months later following heavy pressure from within the ANC. He was succeeded by Mr Ramaphosa.

Mr Zuma was jailed in 2021 for contempt of court after refusing to testify before a panel investigating corruption during his presidency.

He is currently facing separate charges of corruption over an arms deal that the government negotiated. He was a senior leader of the ANC at the time, but not the president.

He has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, saying he was the victim of a political witch-hunt.

Haruna Ibrahim
BBC Hausa

Image source, Getty Images

Nigerians love their food, be it fried potato and plantain for breakfast, jollof rice for lunch or tuwo (rice balls) for supper – dishes often prepared on gas cookers.

But with the price of gas rising, cooks are now turning to charcoal, made from burning firewood.

A 3kg cylinder of gas, the smallest bottle available, now costs about $3 (£2.70).

This is almost twice the price it was last year, pushing it far beyond what middle-income earners can afford.

Habiba Abubakar, who runs a business selling cooking equipment online, says the demand for charcoal-fuelled stoves is on the increase.

But this has raised concern about the heath of people.

Dr Kwaifa Salihu, a consultant physician in the capital, Abuja, told the BBC that people who use charcoal are often more at risk of getting respiratory illnesses such as asthma.

Using charcoal-fuelled stoves indoors could also be life-threatening because of the carbon monoxide it gives off, he said.

This is in addition to the harm done to the environment as a result of tree-felling.

The authorities have over the years failed to implement a ban on illegal logging - a major issue, as parts of northern Nigeria are battling with desertification.

More than 50 people - including two UN peacekeepers - have been killed in heavy fighting along the border between South Sudan and Sudan, officials say.

Armed men from South Sudan's Warrap State carried out raids in the neighbouring Abyei region on Saturday, Abyei information minister Bulis Koch was quoted by Reuters news agency as saying.

The motive for the attack is unclear, but the Associated Press news agency reported that the fighting was linked to a land conflict between members of the Twic Dinka and Ngok Dinka ethnic groups.

Both South Sudan and Sudan claim ownership of Abyei, in a dispute that has remained unresolved since the former gained its independence in 2011.

The UN force in the region, known by the acronym Unisfa, said that a Ghanaian peacekeeper was killed on Saturday after their base came under attack.

A Pakistani peacekeeper was killed on Sunday when UN troops came under heavy fire while transporting wounded civilians to hospital, it added.

The UN quoted local authorities as saying that 52 civilians had lost their lives and 64 others were seriously wounded in the fighting.

David Bamford
BBC World Service News

Fishermen on board two trawlers hijacked by pirates off the coast of Somalia have been rescued in separate naval operations.

The Seychelles coast guard says it captured three pirates and freed six crew members of a Sri Lankan fishing boat that had been seized in the Arabian Sea.

At the same time, an Indian warship has intervened to rescue 17 people taken hostage on an Iranian-flagged fishing vessel in the Gulf of Aden.

There's been an upsurge in activity by Somalia-based pirates coinciding with the recent wave of missile attacks in the same area against international shipping by Houthi forces in Yemen.

David Bamford
BBC World Service News

Image source, Getty Images

Pope Francis has said African bishops were a "special case" regarding their opposition to his decision to allow blessings for same-sex couples.

But he remained confident that gradually everyone will be reassured by the Church's declaration.

In an interview with an Italian newspaper, the Pope said African church leaders and their supporters saw homosexuality from a cultural point of view as "something bad".

He said last month's new document, Fiducia Supplicans, was intended "to include and not divide".

Pope Francis said he was not concerned about conservatives breaking away from the Catholic Church due to his reforms, saying that talk of a schism was led by what he called "small ideological groups".

Image source, AFP

A controversial auction of about 70 personal items of South Africa's anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela - including his hearing aids, walking sticks, and reading glasses - has been suspended.

New York-based Guernsey's auction house wrote on its website "Mandela, The Auction SUSPENDED", external, without giving a reason, but it follows an outcry in South Africa.

Mr Mandela's eldest daughter, Makaziwe Mandela, planned to sell the items at an auction on 22 February, saying she wanted to use the money to build a memorial garden in his honour, near his burial site.

The state's South African Heritage Resources Agency (Sahra) challenged her decision in court, but lost the case.

It said it would appeal against the ruling.

South Africa's Arts and Culture Minister Zizi Kodwa said that blocking the sale was necessary as Mr Mandela "is integral to South Africa's heritage".

"It is thus important that we preserve the legacy of former President Mandela and ensure that his life's work experiences remain in the country for generations to come," he said.

Mr Mandela’s grandson, Ndaba, was quoted by local media as saying he too was opposed to the auction.

Mr Mandela's ID book was also among the items listed for slae.

“Who sells their father’s ID book?, external That’s insane. You’re robbing South Africa of its heritage.” he told News24.

Mr Mandela died in 2013 at the age of 95.

He was imprisoned for nearly 30 years for fighting white-minority rule, and became South Africa's first black president in 1994. He stepped down five years later.

BBC Newsday
World Service radio

Sierra Leone's Foreign Minister Timothy Musa Kabba has denied accusations by the junta-led regimes of Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso that the West African regional bloc Ecowas is under foreign influence.

The three countries jointly announced their exit from Ecowas on Sunday, saying that the bloc is "under the influence of foreign powers, betraying its founding principles" and "has become a threat to member states and peoples".

Mr Kabba, who was part of the team that has been mediating between Ecowas and the junta-led regimes, has told the BBC's Newsday radio programme that the accusations are "unfortunate" as Ecowas's intervention was intended to "find a solution to the impasse" and ensure peace, security and stability in the region.

"And we are not in any way under the influence of any external power to mediate between Ecowas and Nigerien authorities," he added.

Relations between the bloc and the three countries have been tense after the bloc suspended their membership and hit them with economic sanctions, after coups in Niger in 2023, Burkina Faso in 2022 and Mali in 2020.

BBC Monitoring
The world through its media

Sudan's paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) group says it has shot down an Iranian-made drone allegedly belonging to the Sudanese army as fighting rages between the two forces in the capital Khartoum and other areas.

The group said on X, external (formerly Twitter) on Monday that it "secured a notable triumph this morning, successfully intercepting and downing an unmanned aerial vehicle operated by the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and its extremist backers from the former regime".

"The aircraft, identified as an Iranian Mohajer-6, represents the third such drone recently neutralised thanks to the valorous efforts of our courageous soldiers. Despite this success, we continue to face challenges," it added.

The army is yet to comment on the incident.

Local media outlets have reported increased drone strikes by the army against RSF positions in Khartoum and the adjacent cities of Omdurman and Bahri.

The army has stepped up airstrikes against the RSF in recent weeks as fighting continues in the country for the ninth month.

Image source, Dinesh Balliah/X

Dozens of journalists in South Africa held a vigil late on Sunday for their counterparts that have been killed in Gaza during the ongoing war with Israel.

At least 83 journalists and media workers have been killed since the fighting broke out last October, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), external said on Sunday.

CPJ has said the Israel-Gaza war is "the deadliest period for journalists since CPJ began gathering data in 1992".

"We are also paying homage to our colleagues in Sudan, in the Democratic Republic of Congo and anyone really who is being affected. However, as we know, the journalists who are being killed in Gaza, it is unprecedented," Deshnee Subramany, the vigil's organiser, told state broadcaster SABC.

South Africa has been one of the fiercest critics of Israel in the ongoing Gaza war.