A reminder of today's wise words:
Dirty water still quenches fire."
And we leave you with these pictures from the catwalk at Lagos fashion week, which closed over the weekend:
A reminder of today's wise words:
Dirty water still quenches fire."
And we leave you with these pictures from the catwalk at Lagos fashion week, which closed over the weekend:
BBC Somali service
An unexpected passenger joined a flight in Somalia after a baby boy was born mid-air, Jubba Airways has confirmed to the BBC.
The flight was travelling from Hargeisa, the capital of the self-declared republic of Somaliland, to Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, on Saturday, the Dubai-based airline said.
The woman, who was seven-months pregnant, started to feel contractions shortly after take-off, according to fellow passenger Kamil Abdiaziz - who also happens to be a Jubba Airways employee.
Mr Abdiaziz noticed the woman’s distress and immediately alerted the cabin crew, according to the Somali news website Hiiran.com.
Thanks to the quick actions of the cabin crew and trained paramedics on board, the baby was delivered at 32,000ft.
Hiiran.com has pictures of the new-born baby, who has been named Kamil, after the man who helped his mother.
An ambulance took the mother and the baby to hospital after the plane landed safely in Mogadishu.
BBC Africa, Abuja
Nigeria has the highest number of children - three million of a global total of 20 million - not to have been given the vaccine against measles, a new health report says
Two other African countries - Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of Congo - are also singled out as having high numbers of un-vaccinated children.
The report comes at a time of concern over a possible outbreak during the dry season. In Nigeria, November to March is the peak period for the measles epidemic.
Between January and September last year more than 3,000 suspected cases of measles were reported in parts of the north-east.
Health facilities in the region have been damaged by ongoing conflict and nearly seven million people are in need of health assistance.
The report authors - the Measles and Rubella Initiative, the United States Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, Unicef and the World Health Organization - say large outbreaks of the highly contagious viral disease put children at risk of severe health complications such as pneumonia, diarrhoea, blindness and death.
Earlier this year in Nigeria, a two-week mass vaccination campaign targeting children from 10 months to 10 years inoculated more than four million children in conflict-affected areas.
After President Uhuru Kenyatta was announced by Kenya's electoral commission as the winner of last week's repeat presidential poll with 98% of the vote, he conceded that it was not the end of the matter:
"My victory today is just part of a process that is likely to once again be subjected to a constitutional test through our courts... I will submit to this constitutional path regardless of the outcome.
Those who are going to ask me: 'Are you going to engage in dialogue?' Let them [the opposition] first and foremost exhaust all their constitutional options."
Opposition candidates now have seven days to mount a legal challenge if they think they have the grounds to do so.
Main opposition leader Raila Odinga, who pulled out of the re-run, says he will make an announcement tomorrow about what he describes as "the way forward".
At least one petition has already been filed today at the Supreme Court to challenge Mr Kenyatta's victory.
It was submitted by human rights activist Okiya Omatah before the electoral commission's official announcement:
The US has pledged $60m (£45m) to support a regional counter-terrorism force in the Sahel, a semi-arid area south of the Sahara desert.
Groups linked to al-Qaeda and so-called Islamic State operate in the vast desert region.
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in a statement:
This money will bolster our regional partners in their fight to ensure security and stability in the face of ISIS and affiliated groups and other terrorist networks. This is a fight we must win, and these funds will play a key role in achieving that mission."
The announcement came as the UN Security Council met to discuss how to drum up international support for the force set up by Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger, known as the "G5", reports the Reuters news agency.
US Ambassador Nikki Haley rejected proposals to allow the large UN peacekeeping mission in Malito help the joint force, saying its resources must not be overstretched, Reuters says.
We believe that the G5 force must be first and foremost owned by the countries of the region themselves."
BBC Africa, Nigeria
Some women from north-east Nigeria have testified before a presidential panel investigating alleged human rights violations by the country’s military in the fight against the Islamist militant group Boko Haram.
The women, most of them from Bama area in Borno State, told how their husbands were rounded up indiscriminately by the military in the last couple of years.
Some of them told the panel that they have not seen or heard about their husbands since they were seized about three years ago.
One of them, Yakura Haji Babagana, appealed to the authorities to release her husband if he was alive.
She says her family has been in a miserable state since his arrest and some of the their children have died.
Another woman, Hafsat Palnami, brought along her 24-year-old son, who she said had been tortured by the military while in detention.
She said he was detained for more than three years before being "dumped" in a hospital in the city of Maiduguri where his family later found him with some of his toes missing.
She says since his release about six months ago, he has been unable to talk and walk, and his hearing and sight have also been impaired.
Those who appeared before the panel today in the capital, Abuja, said they believed their relations were not Boko Haram members.
The investigative panel was set up by the Nigerian presidency to look into allegations of human rights violations following reports by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch accusing the military of extra-judicial killings, torture and forced disappearances of thousands of civilians.
The military has always denied allegations of human rights abuses in its fight against Boko Haram.
The committee, which has been touring Nigeria's regions to hear complaints of rights abuses, is expected to finish its assignment and submit its report in the coming weeks.
BBC Africa, Johannesburg
Today’s protests in South Africa against farm murders staged by thousands of farmers using pick-up trucks to block off major roads has again focused attention on racial divisions in the country.
Apart from a small number of black supporters, the protests were largely led by groups of white farmers dressed in black.
This gives an idea of the scale of the protest in the capital, Pretoria:
While many South Africans across the racial divide are sympathetic towards the victims of farm killings, the waving of the old apartheid flag by some protesters has not helped their cause.
Culture Minister Nathi Mthethwa took to Twitter to express his disapproval:
The spokesman for the elite “Hawks” police unit, Hangwani Mlaudzi, told me that it is difficult to have accurate statistics about farm killings as “cases are not classified as farm murders. They form part of all murders under investigation”.
This is a point made by independent fact-checking unit Africa Check as well, which found in 2013 that - despite some people's perceptions to the contrary - white people in South Africa are less likely to be murdered than any other racial group.
The police have often said that the killings are criminal in nature - there is no specific syndicate targeting farmers.
The murders are part of a wider high murder rate.
In cases that have been successfully prosecuted the reasons range from personal grudges from farm workers to those searching for licensed firearms.
Kenyan cartoonist Victor Ndula has penned his take on Uhuru Kenyatta's landslide in the repeat presidential poll.
Mr Kenyatta took 98% of the vote in the repeat election which was boycotted by the main opposition. Turnout was just under 39%.
BBC Africa, Dakar
The brother of Blaise Compaore, the former president of Burkina Faso, has appeared before a judge in Paris, as part of the inquiry into the murder of a journalist in 1998.
Francois Compaore, 63, was arrested on Sunday at the main international airport in Paris as he disembarked from a flight from Ivory Coast.
The brother and adviser of former long-time ruler Blaise Compaore is accused of having a hand in the murder of reporter and newspaper publisher Norbert Zongo.
His arrest came after a court in Burkina Faso issued an international arrest warrant charging him with “inciting murder’’.
Within two months, Francois Compaore will be questioned by a judge, who will decide if he can be extradited.
The government of Burkina Faso has already announced that it will proceed with the extradition request.
But Burkina Faso's Justice Minister Rene Bagoro says it could take a while:
We will do everything in our power to proceed with the extradition request. But the decision rests with the French authorities, and we will wait for their decision.
What I can say is that in such situations the request can lead to big legal battles. My wish is that the international warrant will allow the judge to move forward with the proceedings. People of Burkina Faso are still waiting for light to be shed on this case.”
Following his court appearance, Francois Compaore was released from custody, but has been told he cannot leave French territory without authorisation.
He now holds Ivorian citizenship - he and his brother fled to Ivory Coast after the 2014 uprising.
BBC Africa, Nairobi
A group of breast cancer survivors in Kenya is making knitted prostheses for women who have been affected by the disease.
The Limau Cancer Connection in the capital, Nairobi, has been giving free "knitted knockers" to those who have had a breast removed.
Women who use them say they are more comfortable than silicon prostheses because they don't slip when you sweat.
Watch their story:
BBC Pidgin editor, Lagos
President Muhammadu Buhari has sacked two senior officials in his government over allegations of corruption - one of whom is head of the Nigeria Intelligence Agency (NIA), Ayo Oke.
The other is Babachir David Lawal, the cabinet secretary.
In a statement, presidential spokesman Femi Adesina said the president had acted on the recommendation of a government panel led by his deputy Yemi Osinbajo.
Boss Mustapha has been named as the new Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) with immediate effect.
Mr Adesina said: “President Buhari also approved the setting up of a three-member panel to, among other things, look into the operational, technical and administrative structure of the [NIA] and make appropriate recommendations.”
However, the statement did not touch on what would happen regarding the allegations of corruption levied against the former NIA and SGF bosses.
Mr Oke was suspended in April over the discovery of large amounts of foreign and local currencies in a residential apartment in Lagos' affluent Ikoyi neighbourhood, which was traced to his agency:
Mr Lawal was accused of using his company as a front to get a 200m naira ($555,000; £421,000) grass-cutting contract from an establishment under the supervision of his office set up to clear “invasive plant species” in Yobe State. He denied the allegations.
BBC Amharic service
People in Ethiopia are only interested in the war crimes trial of Eshetu Alemu because it is happening in The Hague (see earlier entry).
He was not a well-known figure in the Derg, Ethiopia's communist-inspired military dictatorship.
Most of the big names have already been tried - and pardoned - over the past few years.
In 2011, 23 top Derg officials, who had been convicted of genocide and crimes against humanity, were freed after about 20 years in prison.
Most of them had originally been given sentences ranging from life imprisonment to the death penalty.
But the trauma of the “Red Terror”, as the regime’s purges in the 1970s were known, is still felt as it touched nearly every household in the country.
Unfortunately many of the families could not bury their loved ones, which culturally has meant there has been little closure.
To commemorate those who were killed during the regime, the "Red Terror" Martyrs' Memorial Museum has been built in the centre of the capital, Addis Ababa.
The thing that interests and troubles most Ethiopians is the fact that Derg leader Mengistu Hailemariam is still at large in Zimbabwe, where he fled when he was ousted in 1991.
In 2007, he was found guilty of genocide in absentia.
BBC Africa correspondent, Nairobi
There was a sense of relief, as well as deja vu, at the national tallying centre, when the chairman of the electoral commission said Uhuru Kenyatta had won the presidential election – this time with a little over 98% of votes.
The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) had verified results from the 266 constituencies where the election had taken place.
And after taking legal advice, commissioners decided to disregard the 25 constituencies where voting was suspended for security reasons.
Kenyans are tired of political wrangling, legal challenges and repeated elections, but it is unlikely this will be the end of the matter.
Opposition leader Raila Odinga, who called on his supporters to boycott the ballot, is expected to reject the result – given a turnout of just 38.84% and continuing legal challenges.
The Supreme Court still has to consider a petition questioning the legitimacy of the poll and, given the ambiguities over electoral law and the way the constitution is interpreted, further legal arguments are expected.
There have been violent clashes between opposition supporters and police in parts of the capital, Nairobi, and the west of the country and how Mr Odinga takes this defeat will determine Kenya’s path over the coming days and weeks.
Kenya's electoral commission has announced that President Uhuru Kenyatta won last week's re-run of the presidential election with 98% of the vote.
His main challenger Raila Odinga, who urged his supporters to boycott the poll, received 0.09% of the vote share.
The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) chairman Wafula Chebukati said today that the poll was free and fair, despite opposition complaints over the vote that led to it boycotting the process.
The IEBC says voter turnout was just under 39%.
Kenya's electoral commission (IEBC) says the results of last week's re-run of the presidential election will be announced shortly.
The IEBC is announcing the results county by county. National broadcaster NTV is live-streaming proceedings:
The BBC's Rod MaCleod has sent in this photo of residents in Kenya's western city of Kisumu, an opposition stronghold, watching the results being announced live on television:
Incumbent President Uhuru Kenyatta is expected to win a landslide in the re-run election as his main rival boycotted the vote.
Kenya's electoral commission says the result of a contentious presidential re-run will be announced this afternoon, despite voting not taking place in 25 protest-hit constituencies.
The AFP news agency quotes Consolata Nkatha, the election board's vice-chairman, as saying:
Having been satisfied that the results of the elections shall not be affected by voting in areas where the election was postponed, we therefore invite the presidential candidates for the announcement of the result."
Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni says his fractured hand has healed because Pope Francis prayed for him to recover.
Speaking at a church service in central Uganda yesterday, President Museveni said:
I had fractured my hand accidentally by hitting something and when I met him [Pope Francis], somehow we were in the same room in the UN General Assembly. I was coming from the podium after making a speech and he was going to make his, so he prayed for me and my fractured hand got healed."
In August, the Monitor reported President Museveni as saying that he hadn't had a sick day more than three decades:
Have you ever heard that Museveni has fallen sick and my legs hanged in hospital, for the last 31 years? This is because I observe some of these health tips which have eventually helped me to prevent some of these diseases. Many of the diseases are preventable.”
An Ethiopian man with dual Dutch nationality has denied charges of war crimes as his trial began at The Hague in The Netherlands.
Eshetu Alemu, 63, is accused of ordering the execution of 75 people during the purges in Ethiopia in the late 1970s, known as "the Red Terror".
Prosecutors had the “wrong person”, the AFP news agency quotes him as saying.
I was really shocked when I heard what prosecutors are accusing me of doing, that I could behave like that as a human being."
He was dressed in a grey windbreaker and jeans, AFP says.
The BBC correspondent in court says reporters are not allowed to take photos of him.
The world through its media
The US has expressed concern over the outbreaks of violence in Kenya following last week's election re-run.
US ambassador Robert Godec said in a statement:
Leaders and politicians should clearly and publicly reject violence and work to keep the peace, and make every effort to ensure their supporters do so as well."
He also urged the security services "to show maximum restraint in the use of force" and protesters to demonstrate peacefully.
We are deeply concerned by reports of excessive use of force by the police; we urge that all such allegations be fully investigated and any officers who have acted outside the law be held to account."
The envoy also appealed to all Kenyans to come together and reject the politics of hatred and division:
We again urge that there be an immediate, sustained, open, and transparent national dialogue involving all Kenyans to resolve the deep divisions that the electoral process has exacerbated."
Opposition leader Raila Odinga pulled out of last week's contest, saying it would not be free and fair.
President Uhuru Kenyatta had been declared the winner of the August vote, which was annulled by the Supreme Court because of "irregularities".
Sudanese music star Hawa Mohammed Adam hopes the lifting of US trade sanctions means she will no longer have to travel to Egypt to receive life-saving treatment for cancer.
She was diagnosed with breast cancer last year and her extended family, friends and fans raised the money to send her to Cairo.
Her cancer initially spread because old scanning machines in Sudan had failed to detect the seriousness of her condition.
"I discovered that I did not only have one tumour, but several tumours," says the musician, who also teaches piano at the University of Sudan and is looking forward to returning to work.
"Despite the fact that that we have very competent doctors, we do not have devices, equipment and tools. We do not have anything."
The US government announced on 12 October that most economic sanctions were being lifted.
They were originally imposed on Sudan in the 1990s for harbouring fugitives such as al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, and included the freezing of all Sudanese government assets in the US and a ban on Washington's allies trading with Khartoum.
A police officer and a civilian have died in clashes in Goma in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo amid protests calling for President Joseph Kabila to stand down.
Several demonstrators were also wounded, BBC Afrique’s Faida Muganga reports from the city.
Today’s strike was organised by an association of civil society groups, including the pro-democracy Struggle for Change (Lucha).
Earlier this month, the national electoral commission said an election to replace Mr Kabila, whose mandate expired last December, could not take place until April 2019.
This flies in the face of an agreement reached last year following protests over the cancelling of elections scheduled for November 2016 that the poll should take place before the end of this year.
On a visit to the country last week, the US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, urged Mr Kabila's government to hold elections next year if it wanted to count on US backing.
The widow of a Burkinabe reporter who was murdered in 1998 has welcomed the arrest of Francois Compaore, the brother of Burkina Faso's ex-President Blaise Compaore.
Francois Compaore, 63, was reportedly arrested at an airport in Paris in connection with the death on Sunday.
Norbert Zongo, the editor of newspaper L'Independant, was investigating the murder of Francois Compaore's driver at the time of his death.
His widow, Genevieve Zongo, said:
It's good news. What I say is, 'As God has begun it, so too must He end it'. This must not stop at his arrest. We want to see the follow-up. Will Francois Compaore be given over to Burkina Faso to face justice?"
Mr Zongo and three of his friends were found dead in a burnt-out car outside the capital, Ouagadougou, with bullet wounds to their bodies. His killing triggered violent protests.
"The Zongo case is a sensitive topic for probing journalists and taboo in government circles," said the Committee to Protect Journalists on the 10th anniversary of Mr Zongo's death in 1998.
Francois Compaore's arrest follows an arrest warrant issued by Burkina Faso in July, on charges of "inciting murders", Mr Zongo's family is quoted as saying.
He was nicknamed the "little president" because of the influence he had in his older brother's government.
BBC News, Johannesburg
Two traffic officers in South Africa are facing disciplinary action for bringing their force into disrepute after a video of them “eating money” went viral on social media.
The video shows the two officers using banknotes to pick their teeth and wipe their mouths, while loud music blares from car speakers.
The pair can be seen eating their lunch from Styrofoam containers in the car boot, which are filled with food in one half and money in the other.
The Ekurhuleni Metro Police Department (EMPD) says the employees, who were in full uniform at the time, have brought the department into disrepute and acted in an unprofessional manner.
Spokesman Wilfred Kgasago says the duo have been served with pre-suspension letters and will appear before a disciplinary committee on Tuesday.
South Africa’s Police Minister Fikile Mbalula posted the video on Twitter over the weekend, applauding reports that the pair would be disciplined:
The brother of Burkina Faso's ex-President Blaise Compaore has been arrested in France in connection with the 1998 murder of a reporter in the West African country, AFP reports his lawyer as saying.
The news agency says that Francois Compaore, 63, was arrested at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris on Sunday over the killings of journalist Norbert Zongo and three others whose burnt bodies were found in a car near Mr Zongo's home.
Burkina Faso issued an international arrest warrant for him in July, on charges of "inciting murders", Mr Zongo's family is quoted as saying.
Francois Compaore was nicknamed the "little president" because of the influence he had in his older brother's government.
Mr Zongo, editor of newspaper L'Independant, was investigating the murder of Francois Compaore's driver at the time of his death.
Francois Compaore fled Burkina Faso in 2014 when his brother's attempt to extend his 27-year rule was met with a popular uprising.
In a protest dubbed “Black Monday” about high number of farm murders in a South Africa, convoys of cars are protesting on motorways in Cape Town and Johannesburg.
Campaigners have urged people to wear black to show their outrage at the spate of farm killings, especially after the death of a white farmer in Klapmuts near Stellenbosch.
Last Tuesday, Joubert Conradie, 47, was shot on his farm and died later at the Stellenbosch Mediclinic.
The BBC’s Pumza Fihlani in Johannesburg says the protests are already causing racial divisions after some of the Afrikaner protesters were seen carrying the old apartheid flag.
Others point out that all races are the targets of killings in South Africa:
Sixty people have been quarantined in Nigeria's northern Kano State after coming into contact with a suspected monkeypox patient, local health authorities say.
Kano State Commissioner for Health, Kabul Getso, said at the weekend that “one of the symptoms of the disease was noticed in the patient, but we are suspecting that the disease is more of chickenpox than monkeypox".
In an interview with BBC Hausa, he denied any suggestions he was downplaying the patient's state.
Until the results of a blood sample - sent to the capital, Abuja, for clinical verification - were returned, it remains a suspected case, he said.
Dr Getso says 11 of Nigeria's 36 state are affected by the monkeypox outbreak "and 94 persons are the victims, out of which only six are confirmed".
Earlier this month a health official in the southern state of Bayelsa was quoted as saying that the virus could be found in monkeys and all bush animals such as rats, squirrels and antelopes.
Health authorities in Nigeria have been warning the public against eating monkeys and bushmeat for the past few weeks.
Health Minister Isaac Adewole said in a recent statement that despite no known cure for the disease existing there was no cause for alarm because the virus was mild.
However, he advised the public to take preventative measures like avoiding crowded places.
The disease was part of a group of viruses that included chickenpox and smallpox, he said.
Reporter BBC News, The Hague
An Ethiopian with dual Dutch nationality is going on trial in The Hague today, accused of multiple war crimes.
Eshetu Alemu is accused of ordering the execution of 75 people in a church during the bloody purges in Ethiopia in the late 1970s, which came to be known as the "Red Terror".
The 63-year-old - an aide to the now-exiled dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam - is also accused of torture and inhumane treatment, including tying prisoners up, suspending them in mid-air and beating their bare feet with sticks.
These are the charges he had hoped to escape by going into exile in Europe. Ethiopia sentenced him to death in his absence.
Now a Dutch citizen, over the next two weeks some of the alleged victims will share their experiences in court with the hope of seeing long-awaited justice done.
Mengistu ruled Ethiopia from 1977 with an iron fist following the overthrow of Emperor Haile Selassie in 1974.
He was then himself ousted in 1991 after a series of revolts by insurgent groups.
This is a rare case for a Dutch district court.
Welcome to BBC Africa Live where we'll be keeping you up-to-date with news and trends from across the continent.