Africa highlights: Thursday 2 July 2015

As part of our series Where Are They Now?, the BBC's Stanley Kwenda speaks to South African singer Yvonne Machaka, better known as Yvonne Chaka Chaka.

She is famous for her song Umqombothi.

She tells us she has been touring around the world but when one of her musicians was misdiagnosed and died after contracting malaria, her life took a new turn.

She is now the UN's goodwill ambassador for malaria.

BBCCopyright: BBC

The Premier League club has tweeted:

Reports from villages near Monguno, north-east Nigeria, say at least 48 people have been killed in a Boko Haram attack.

Witnesses say a group of Boko Haram gunmen arrived in the evening on Tuesday as people were praying.

A politician representing the area said the men were singled out and shot by the jihadists.

This was one of the worst Boko Haram attacks in recent weeks.

AFPCopyright: AFP

Did the town where Tunisian gunman Seifddine Rezgui live turn him into a "soldier of the caliphate"?

The ancient city of Kairouan is one of the oldest Islamic centres in the world and was the capital of the Muslim world in North Africa for four centuries.

Getty ImagesCopyright: Getty Images

Kairouan has also inspired jihadist group Okba Ibn Nafaa to name themselves after the city's founder.

And analyst Alaya Allani, told the BBC's Thomas Fessy that it is probably the most dangerous group in Tunisia right now.

A Swazi journalist who had been imprisoned in Swaziland for criticising the justice system has said on being set free that he has not changed his views.

Bheki Makhubu, the editor the Nation magazine, told the BBC: "If sending someone to prison is supposed to teach someone a lesson then I learned nothing out of my case that made me doubt what I had done."

Mr Makhabu was imprisoned for 15 months along with lawyer Thulani Maseko, who has also been released.

In an earlier post we mentioned a tongue-in-cheek guide to how to write about Somalia. 

It exposed the cliched view of the country from skinny pirates to gun-toting khat-chewing militants.

The writer Safia Aidid was accused on Twitter of copying:

She replied to the accusation:

But she didn't need to as the writer who the tweeter was accusing her of plagiarising jumped to her defence:

EPACopyright: EPA

France's President Francois Hollande is in Benin where he has praised the democracy there, but has expressed concern about some presidents wanting to stay on in power on the continent.

"We witnessed it again in Burkina Faso [last year]. Today in Burundi we are seeing the consequences. When these [constitutional] rules are not respected, are not shared, then there are risks and there are consequences," Reuters news agency is reporting him saying.

Mr Hollande will also be visiting Cameroon and Angola.

The taxi service Uber say their drivers in South Africa are being targeted based on their nationalities, reports Bloomberg.

City Councillor JP Smith told Bloomberg that a traffic officer has been taken off the road, pending further investigation.

The company complains of "aggressive intimidation" in Cape Town and is asking customers to show their support by signing a petition.

The hashtag #CTNeedsUber is trending on Twitter in South Africa.

Getty ImagesCopyright: Getty Images

The UN special representative in Mali Mongi Hamdi has condemned the attack on Thursday morning that killed six UN peacekeepers in northern Mali and called for those responsible to be identified and brought before a court.

This was the first attack against the UN in Mali since a peace agreement was signed in Bamako on 20 June providing for a settlement in a long-running conflict between the government and Tuareg and Arab rebels.

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Zimbabwe's child mortality rate actually rose between 1990 and 2010.

Dr Rutendo Bonde told the BBC's Brian Hungwe that HIV is the biggest contributor to child deaths.

But she also said doctors and nurses moving abroad to work has contributed to the rise.

Listen to the report on Business Daily.

Fresh from receiving the award for being this year's best African president (see 11:48), Kenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta has clearly had a good time using a digger today.

State House KenyaCopyright: State House Kenya

A photo published on his official Twitter account shows a smiling president breaking ground at the Lake Turkana wind power project, a massive renewable energy project in the north of the country.

The three Liberians who have been identified as having Ebola this week may have shared a meal made up of dog meat, the Reuters news agency reports.

Dr Moses Massaquoi from the Ebola task force, said the three villagers "have a history of having had dog meat together".

One has now died of Ebola and the other two are being treated.

The possibility that domestic animals could be carrying the virus is being investigated.

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More pictures are coming in of the Archbishop Desmond Tutu and his wife Leah renewing their marriage vows, 60 years after they got married.

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The couple's daughter, Reverend Mpho Tutu, presided over the vows at a cathedral in Cape Town.

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When she asked her mother if she would take Mr Tutu for better or for worse, Leah Tutu joked that she would stay with her husband for better and for better.

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Aston Villa are set to sign Lille midfielder Idrissa Gueye in a deal worth up to £9m.

The 25-year-old Senegal international arrived in Birmingham on Thursday for talks with the Premier League club.

He would become manager Tim Sherwood's third signing of the summer.

There's been a lot of reaction to our earlier post (11:48) about Kenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta being voted president of the year by the All-Africa Students Union.

Some were quick to praise:

But others were not so impressed:

Six Burkinabe UN peacekeepers have been killed in an ambush in northern Mali.

A helicopter carrying 11 others who were injured in the attack has arrived in Timbuktu.

The Burkinabe patrol was attacked near Goundam, which is about 80km (50 miles) south-west of Timbuktu.

A resident of Douekire, near the scene of the ambush, told me three unmarked pick-up trucks had arrived in the area in the past few days. Residents were worried and had informed the Malian army.

Reports are coming in from Nigeria of dozens of people being killed in the town of Monguno, in the north-east near the border with Chad.

A lawmaker, who hails from the area, has raised the alarm, saying that at least 40 residents are dead, but this could not be independently verified.

The incident happened two days ago but the information is just coming out.

Monguno has been targeted by Boko Haram militants in the past.

AFPCopyright: AFP

It's less than a month since the Nigeria fuel crisis was resolved, but the queues at petrol stations have started appearing again.

BBCCopyright: BBC

The state oil company NNPC says it is because of panic buying, insisting there is enough stock in the country to last 21 days, and more is arriving.

The reality is that only a few petrol stations are selling, hence the queues.

Meanwhile, some energetic youth are making a brisk business selling petrol in jerry cans.

The BBC's Tunisia reporter has been walking around Sousse, just under a week after the attack which left 38 people, mostly tourists, dead.

A Swazi lawyer who was imprisoned for more than a year for criticising the judicial system in Swaziland remains defiant, reports the AP news agency.

Thulani Maseko, who was released earlier this week, said that reforms are still needed and "`the rule of law is the only way to go".

Mr Maseko was imprisoned along with journalist Bheki Makhubu, who has also been released.

Ghanaians are using the hashtag #DearPrezMahama to share frustrations:

In a response to the story about a car smashing through a roof in Durban (see 10:51) Durban resident Njabulo Mzulwini has commented on Facebook that it is quite common for vehicles to fall on houses in her area.

"Durban is a very mountainous place with very steep twisted roads" she explains

A car smashing through a roof is the second unusual car accident in Durban in a week.

Two elderly ladies inside crashed into the middle of a pharmacy last Thursday, reports News 24.

The effort to find all those who have come into contact with Liberia's new cases of Ebola has intensified.

There have been three cases this week, one 17-year-old has died and two others are being treated.

Deputy Health Minister Tolbert Nyenswah, described their condition as "very, very stable".

Between 12 and 14 health workers, who had some forms of contact with those with Ebola, are under "self-observation" at a health centre and "they are in high spirit and doing great," he said.

AFPCopyright: AFP

Safia Aidid has written a tongue-in-cheek guide to how to write about Somalia in the Somali blog Maandeeq.

"Always use the words 'crisis,' 'instability,' 'conflict,' 'anarchy,' or 'terror' in your title. Subtitles may include the words 'refugee,' 'militant,' 'warlord,' 'failure,' 'collapse,' 'clan,' 'radical,' 'terrorist,' 'extremist,' or 'pirate.'

"Also useful are words such as 'nomadic,' 'pastoral,' and 'tribal,' as well as made-up verbs combined with these other words, like the 'Somalization of the crisis.'"

The blog is an echo of Binyavanga Wainaina's essay How to Write About Africa.

AFPCopyright: AFP

Noted.

Kenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta has been voted African President of the year by the All-Africa Students Union (AASU).

The AASU says that thousands of students from across the continent took part in the poll.

Kenya State HouseCopyright: Kenya State House

Mr Kenyatta was chosen for "his ability to build consensus locally and abroad, efforts to change policies for the better and supervise solutions that address Kenya's pressing issues".

Rwanda's President Paul Kagame won the award in a previous year.

South Africans have been joining in with the festivities as Archbishop Desmond Tutu and his wife celebrate 60 years of marriage by renewing their vows in church.

One Tweeter was moved to quote Shakespeare:

Others have drawn inspiration from the couple:

The UN has imposed sanctions on six rival generals in South Sudan's civil war.

The six are famous in the country, but are not particularly well known internationally.

In fact, rebel and government supporters say some of the generals never travel abroad, and do not have overseas bank accounts.

So what is the value of the sanctions?

The decision was probably taken for two reasons: firstly, to punish men considered responsible for some of the worst crimes of a particularly bloody war, and secondly, to put pressure on their bosses.

The message to President Salva Kiir and the rebel leader Riek Machar is this: "hurry up, sign a peace deal - or you could be next".

AFPCopyright: AFP

The Egyptian military says it has regained control of the north-eastern Sinai peninsula after a major attack by Islamic State militants.

IS gunmen carried out suicide bombings and targeted a number of security sites in fierce fighting that went on all through Wednesday.

The army says 17 soldiers and more than 100 militants were killed.

But other sources suggest the number of dead among the security forces was much higher.

ReutersCopyright: Reuters

ER24Copyright: ER24

This morning a car smashed through a roof in Durban in South Africa, the emergency services company ER24 says.

It has posted the pictures on their blog.

ER24Copyright: ER24

The driver of the car explained to ER24 that while he was driving he went over a ramp in the road and this led him to land on the roof. It is still not clear how the ramp could have caused this, ER24 says.

There were no injuries and the driver didn't even go to hospital.

ER24Copyright: ER24

There was someone sleeping in the house but it was in the room next door to where the car landed. They were woken up but also unhurt.

"It's really kind of miraculous" ER24 spokesman Pieter Rossouw told the BBC.

The humanitarian situation in Somalia could slip back into a "severe crisis" if the crops fail this year, the UN's outgoing humanitarian coordinator for the country Philippe Lazzarini has said.

He told the BBC that currently 700,000 are in need of daily assistance in Somalia and two million more are "teetering on the edge" of food insecurity.

He appealed to donors not to abandon Somalia.

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When Kenya offered free primary education to all there was a knock-on effect for Nairobi's Olympic Primary School.

Once known as one of the best performing in Kenya, standards suffered as the school roll almost tripled.

Classrooms swelled and teachers struggled to get through their marking.

Anne Soy explores what can be done to keep standards up and get more children into school.

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The phrase "Baba Go Slow" appears to be making a come back in Nigeria.

It was at one time used to refer to one of new President Muhammadu Buhari's predecessors, Umaru Musa Yar'Adua, and the slow progress he made in tackling the country's problems.

But the term is now trending on Twitter in Nigeria.

Bloomberg news has said critics are mocking President Buhari "as a sluggish elderly man" - or Baba Go Slow - and he has only been in power for just over a month.

In another piece Sola Tayo says it is odd that Mr Buhari "has been given next to no honeymoon".

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Opus is trending on Twitter in Kenya. 

It comes after the Daily Nation reported that new governor of Central Bank has declined a new "posh" house. 

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Instead he will live in communal accommodation, the paper alleges, with people from the Catholic Church's Opus Dei organisation.  

Some Tweeters seem to like this and are even calling for more leaders to be from Opus Dei.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu and his wife are at a special service at Cape Town's St George’s Cathedral renewing their wedding vows 

Journalist JurgSlabbert tweets this picture saying "Tutu and his wife celebrate their 60th Wedding anniversary".

South African reporter Lirandzu Themba is tweeting that commuters in Pretoria have been unable to get to work.

News24 says protests from minibus taxi drivers are stopping buses from operating. But when taxi drivers told commuters to use their vehicles instead, they refused.

Anti-apartheid campaigner Archbishop Desmond Tutu and his wife Leah Tutu are celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary.

The Cape Argus newspaper is celebrating with them.

Egypt has vowed to rid its Sinai Peninsula of militants after major clashes with Islamic State fighters there killed more than 100 people.

Operations will not stop until the area is cleared of all "terrorist concentrations", the army said.

Air strikes continued into the early hours of Thursday.

APCopyright: AP

The UN Security Council has imposed sanctions on six generals accused of fuelling ongoing fighting in South Sudan.

The generals, three each from each side of the conflict, will face global travel bans and asset freezes.

The sanctions come just days after a UN report alleged that government troops and militia had gang raped and burned alive women and girls in Unity State, during an offensive against rebel troops.

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US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power said all those responsible for atrocities in South Sudan must be held accountable.

Today's African proverb: "If the person who defecates in a public place cannot remember, the one who cleans it cannot forget." A Yoruba proverb sent by Kehinde Jayeola, Calabar, Nigeria.

Click here to send us your African proverbs.

Hello and welcome to the BBC Africa Live page for today where we'll be bringing you up-to-date with news developments from across the continent.