Africa round-up: Thursday 11 June 2015

BBC reporter in Mogadishu tweets about news coming in of an attack on African Union troops.

Sarah Amin, one of the wives of former Ugandan President Idi Aminn has died in London, Uganda's Daily Monitor reports.

He married her at a lavish ceremony in 1975.

According to the Monitor she had been a dancer in the army's band when they met and the couple separated not long after Amin was toppled in 1979.

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At least 300 people, mainly farmers, have reportedly fled towns and villages in Liberia's south-eastern Grand Gedeh county.

Officials say this is because forested land is being taken over by armed men from Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso.

"The guys are carrying on huge cultivations of hundreds of hectares of our forests and they have planted large crops - mainly cocoa and coffee," the county head Peter Solo told the BBC.

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"They have intimidated our villagers who have fled. The villagers say the men have weapons."

The surgeon who performed the world's first successful penis transplant has told the BBC he is delighted the recipient is to be a father.

"I am very pleased, and this is what we intended, that he should be able to stand up and be able to urinate and have intercourse, so it is a milestone for him," said Prof Andre van der Merwe.

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He said the patient's partner is about four months pregnant and though he hasn't seen the woman, and is not going to do a paternity test, he has no reason not to believe him.

"We have to take this as evidence that the transplant worked."

The South African recipient of the world's first penile transplant is about to become a father, one of the surgeons who performed the operation has said, South Africa's News24 website reports.

The 21-year-old recipient lost his penis in a botched circumcision.

Stellenbosch UniversityCopyright: Stellenbosch University

Andre van der Merwe said the patient, whose identity is being protected, had informed the head of Stellenbosch University's Division of Urology that his girlfriend was expecting, which confirmed "the organ is functioning".

Former Portuguese champions Boavista have signed two African internationals today.

Twenty-six-year-old Ghana defender Samuel Inkoom joins on a free transfer for three years after leaving MLS club DC United in December.

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They also snapped up 23-year-old Nigeria striker Uche Nwofor from Belgian club Lierse on a three-year-deal for an undisclosed fee.

Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni told parliament ahead of the reading of the country's budget that Ugandans are producing too many children.

He said this was proving an economic burden for the country.

This is a U-turn as the 70-year-old, who has four children, usually encourages large families, saying a large population is good for a country.

ReutersCopyright: Reuters

Zimbabwe's footballers have refused to board a flight to Malawi where they are due to play a 2017 Africa Cup of Nations qualifier on Saturday.

The players are demanding a $500 (£322) appearance fee, the BBC's Steve Vickers reports from Harare.

Uganda's ethics minister, previously known for his statements on miniskirts and homosexuality, has sparked yet another furore - this time over the issue of "lunchtime sex".

Father Simon Lokodo has said that he will ask the police to carry out raids on guesthouses where people are believed to be meeting to have sex during their lunch breaks.

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But most Ugandans discussing this are wondering if such a clampdown would be the best use of police time.

The BBC's Uganda reporter Catherine Byaruhanga says other people in Kampala have been caught unawares by the concept of lunchtime promiscuity.

Calling this regional summit at short notice is another sign that ending the Boko Haram insurgency is the number one priority for Nigeria's new president.

Since being sworn in less than two weeks ago, Muhammadu Buhari has flown to Chad, Niger and Germany to attend the G7 summit.

All those meetings focused on building an international alliance to fight the jihadists who seem determined to deepen their links with Islamic State.

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During President Buhari's two weeks in power more than 100 people have been killed in Boko Haram gun attacks and bomb blasts.

An estimated 300,000 people die each year from burns - the vast majority of them in sub-Saharan Africa, according to estimates by the World Health Organization (WHO).

In Zambia, there is one man who has spent the last two decades helping burns survivors to recover and lead normal lives.

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Dr Goran Jovic fled the war in his native Serbia in the late 1990s and is Zambia's only reconstructive plastic surgeon, serving the country's 14.5 million people. BBC Africa's Meluse Kapatamoyo went to see him at work in the capital, Lusaka.

Opening a regional summit in Abuja, Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari said the campaign against Boko Haram needed to be waged on all fronts starting with limiting the Islamist militant group's capacity to access funds and weapons.

He also called for better sharing of intelligence.

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Nigeria has pledged $100m (£645m) to help re-launch the Multinational Joint Task Force, which will be based in the Chadian capital, N'Djamena.

It had been suggested a different country would take over the command of the regional force every six months. But Mr Buhari said it would be more effective if Nigeria retained the command throughout the war.

In just a few weeks the world's most prestigious cycling race, the Tour de France, will get under way - and for the first time there will be a cycling team from Africa competing at the event.

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MTN Qhubeka have announced their 11-man shortlist for Le Tour, and remarkably it includes three riders from Eritrea - a country punching above its weight in the sport.

Natanael Berhane is one of them. He spoke to the BBC about how he became a professional.

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari says that his country should retain command of a West African task force being set up to combat the Islamist militant Boko Haram group.

Speaking at a summit of regional leaders in Abuja, Mr Buhari rejected proposals to rotate leadership of the Multi-National Joint Task Force (MNJTF) every six months between the five countries involved - Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon, Niger and Benin.

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President Buhari said the rotation would undermine the force's effectiveness, and insisted Nigeria should retain the leadership for "for the period of the war effort".

For the third week in a row, there has been an increase in Ebola cases in Guinea and Sierra Leone. Not only are the cases of Ebola rising, they are also being reported in a wider geographical area than in previous weeks.

Guinea recorded 16 cases, including two in the capital, Conakry. The city had not had a case for 40 days.

Investigators found that unsafe burials - a key source of transmission - were still taking place in the country.

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However, in neighbouring Sierra Leone most of the 15 cases reported were from quarantined homes in the district of Port Loko.

Liberia this week marked one month since it was declared Ebola-free.

Nigeria missed out on the quarter-finals of the Under-20 World Cup despite a good start to the match against Germany. The 19th-minute goal from Levin Oztunali seemed to knock the Flying Eagles' confidence and they never recovered.

Goalkeeper Joshua Enaholo should maybe have done better with Oztunali's fierce shot from the edge of the area.

Nigeria couldn't be faulted for their effort but lacked the quality in the final third of the pitch to create clear chances.

Getty ImagesCopyright: Getty Images

Mali would have been interested onlookers as they now play Germany on Sunday.

Mobile phone users in Nigeria can now tune in to the BBC World Service radio in English and Hausa by dialling the local number 01 4405 222.

The BBC is collaborating with ZenoRadio to give on-demand access to its audio streams. Until now the BBC World Service has only been available in Nigeria via shortwave, online and satellite. Mobile minutes are cheaper than using data bundles to listen over the internet.

Call up to hear Aminu Kado and Bilkisu Babangida presenting today's Hausa news programme at 15:00 local time (14:00 GMT):

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And Audrey Brown will be bringing you Focus on Africa today at 16:00, 18:00 and 20:00 local time - which will be covering the heads of state summit about Boko Haram:

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The hashtag #2010WorldCupMemories is trending in South Africa, exactly five years after Bafana Bafana took on Mexico in the tournament's opening game in Johannesburg.

It's a week since Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula had to publicly deny that South Africa paid a $10m (£6.5m) bribe to secure the right to host the tournament.   

But Mr Mbalula has been urging his followers to tweet him with their favourite memories:

For the second year in a row, organisers of the Miss Zimbabwe beauty pageant have dethroned the country's beauty queen over a nude photo scandal, reports the state-owned Herald Newspaper.

Emily Kachote was crowned Miss Zimbabwe in April, and was due to represent her country in the Miss World contest in China in December.

But organisers of the Miss Zimbabwe competition say that Ms Kachote "violated the rules and regulations" of the pageant which forbid contestants from having "posed nude professionally or socially".

APCopyright: AP

Ms Kachote had informed the organisers that she had once posed for nude photographs before local tabloids then picked up the story, reports the Herald.

It's budget day for East African nations - and Kenya's private Standard newspaper looks at the task facing Kenya's Finance Minister Henry Rotich.

East African StandardCopyright: East African Standard

The Daily Nation considers if the minister will "burden Kenyans with more taxes".

Daily NationCopyright: Daily Nation

UN peacekeepers regularly barter goods for sex with people in the countries such as Liberia, a draft UN report says.

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The document by the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) says it has found that hundreds of women in Haiti and Liberia have been motivated by hunger and poverty to sell sex.

See the BBC News story for more.

UN humanitarian agencies in Kenya have warned that they will run out of all food supplies for refugees by August this this year.

Food rationing will be begin from next Monday, says Challis McDonough of the World Food Programme.

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There was a funding shortfall of $40m (£25.8m), he said.

Currently Kenya hosts more than 500,000 refugees in various camps - including many from neighbouring Somalia.

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Ghana has suspended Ebola clinical trials due to take place in the Volta region following fears from residents.

The country has not been affected by the epidemic in West Africa, but has been hosting the UN's emergency response mission headquarters which are closing this month.

Ghana had agreed to do an Ebola vaccine trial and patients selected were to be given mobile phones and cash.

BBbCopyright: BBb

Parliament has now summoned the minister for health to brief the house about the situation.

A high court in Kenya has barred the government from describing two NGOS as terrorist organisations or "specified interest groups". (See earlier post 9:27)

However, the court has declined to unfreeze the accounts of Haki Afrika and Muhuri over a technicality as the civil society groups failed to mention the bodies that gave the order in their challenge.

Last month, the Central Bank of Kenya and the Commission on Financial Regulation ordered the freeze after intelligence reports linked the two with financial and material support for the Somali-based militant group al-Shabab - accusations the NGOs deny.

Haki Afrika boss Khalid Hussein described the ruling as "bittersweet".

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The N|uu language used to be spoken across southern Africa, but now it is in danger of dying out.

There are only three people left who still speak it fluently; they are all sisters.

Paul Weinberg Copyright: Paul Weinberg

"They spoke N|uu during their childhood but over the past 50 or so years they haven't been actively using the language," Sheena Shah, a researcher with the Centre for African Language Diversity at the University of Cape Town, told the BBC's Newsday programme.

The youngest is now 82 years old, but she is trying to keep the language alive by giving teaching a class to local children, she said.

Experts say that N|uu has one of the biggest "sound inventories" in the world, with 37 vowels, 45 click phonemes and 30 non-click consonants.

UN envoy Said Djinnit has left his role of mediating talks between rival factions in Burundi.

There have been weeks of protests and a coup attempt over President Pierre Nkurunziza's decision to run for a third term.

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The opposition earlier this week called for Mr Djinnit to step down, accusing him of failing to focus on the bid for re-election, which it feels is the root of the crisis.

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See the BBC News story for more.

The Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari is leading a summit today with regional leaders over how to tackle the threat from militant Islamist group Boko Haram.

Saratu Abiola, who founded an online archive to document eyewitness accounts from victims of Boko Haram, told the BBC's Newsday programme that she wants a more rounded approach to the insurgency.

"There seems to be an increased emphasis on the military solution and I'm not hearing enough about the human cost of violence, seeing it as a humanitarian crisis".

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Two Kenyan non-governmental organisations, accused of sponsoring terrorism, are challenging their ban in court.

Last month, the government froze the accounts of Haki Africa and Muslims for Human Rights. Intelligence reports have linked the two with financial and material support for the Somali-based militant group al-Shabab - accusations the NGOs deny.

The two groups have been fighting for the fair treatment of terror suspects. They have been critical of the assassinations of several radical preachers, who the NGOs believe were killed by security agents. The authorities deny such allegations.

The case has attracted lots of media attention:

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Representatives of the two civil society groups are already in court:

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The newly installed president of Mauritius, a prominent scientist who is the island nation's first female leader, has been reacting to a controversy over comments made by a Nobel prize-winning British scientist.

Sir Tim Hunt resigned after he said that women scientists should work in separate laboratories because they fall in love too easily with their male colleagues and often cry when criticised.

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President Ameenah Gurib-Fakim spoke to the BBC's Newsday programme about her experiences working as a scientist:

"Maybe some people fell in love with me... well good; I feel honoured, although I didn't cry.

"I kept on working despite the odds, because being a woman in the sciences is an issue that remains."

Today's African proverb: If you see someone who is afraid of being identified, he is guilty of something. A Hausa proverb sent by Safynaz Isabelle Cisse in London, the UK.

Click here to send us your African proverbs.

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