Africa highlights: IMF 'impressed' by Nigeria, Trump 'Morocco for Mexico' row

The spokesperson for Tanzania's Ministry of Foreign Affairs has told me that the Burundi talks between the government and the opposition scheduled to be held here tomorrow have been postponed. 

She did not give a reason but she said instead that regional ministers will hold a closed-door "consultation meeting".

Earlier, Burundi's government said it would not participate in the talks as no date had been agreed.

It also said that it would not negotiate with supporters of violence.

Zimbabwe has promoted the first woman to the post of Air Commodore, the number three position in the country's air force, the state-owned Herald newspaper reports. 

Ellen Chiweshe told the paper: 

"It was a man's world and it was difficult to break into."

Air Force Commander Perrance Shiri, pictured below fitting a hat onto Ms Chiweske as part of her promotion ceremony said: "The sky is the limit. There is nothing that can stop women from attaining high posts,'' The Herald reports. 

The heraldCopyright: The herald

With half the votes now counted following last week's presidential election in the Central African Republic the two leading candidates are neck and neck.

Faustin Touadera - who was the early leader as the counting began, has 166,934 votes so far - and is now only leading Anicet Dologuele by 271 votes. 

There were 30 candidates in all vying to replace interim leader President Catherine Samba-Panza.

Twenty of the candidates had called for a halt in the vote count citing irregularities, but the authorities said on Tuesday that they would not stop the tally.

If no candidate gets more than 50% of the vote then there will be a second round run-off on 31 January.

AFPCopyright: AFP

Tweets about Temba Bavuma are now trending in South Africa after he became the first black African to score a century for South Africa in Test cricket (see 16.33 post).

South Africa's sports minister is among those celebrating:

Many others are also tweeting the pride they feel following Bavuma's century against England.

But some have also pointed out that Bavuma's performance does not change some more fundamental problems:

Some Nigerians who say they have lost family members in last month's clash between the army and members of the country's main Shia Muslim sect have been protesting in the northern city of Zaria.

They have been telling BBC Hausa's Nura Ringim that they want the bodies of their loved ones back for a "proper burial".

No official figure for the number who were killed has been released, but the sect members believe it runs into hundreds.

The violence followed allegations that members of the sect had attempted to assassinate Nigeria's army chief.

BBCCopyright: BBC

Temba Bavuma has become the first black African to score a century for South Africa in Test cricket. 

Bavuma was playing in Cape Town in the second test against England. 

He made the century under blistering temperatures with his family watching from the stands at a packed Newlands stadium.

South Africa was suspended by the cricket's international body (the ICC) for more than 20 years because of the government's policy of apartheid or racial segregation. 

The BBC's Test Match Special team has been tweeting updates from the game: 

You can relive the action as it happened on the BBC's England v South Africa live page. Play has now finished for the day. 

Here's how they covered Bavuma's big moment: 

BBC cricket correspondent Jonathan Agnew gave his view of the achievement:

Algeria's government has announced proposed changes to the constitution including a two-term limit for the president, the Reuters news agency is reporting.

Current President Abdelaziz Bouteflika was elected for a fourth term in April 2014.

The reforms will be put to parliament later this month before becoming law, Reuters says.

BouteflikaCopyright: Bouteflika

Falling prices on stock markets in China and the US have marked the beginning of trading in 2016. 

Add sharp drops in commodity prices and it's a worrying start to the year for many economies in Africa. 

Ally Khan Satchu, the chief executive of Rich Management based in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, says it's having a big effect on the continent.

He's been talking to Newsday:

Residents of the South Sudan's capital, Juba, have been warned against misusing the 777 emergency police number for non-emergency matters, reports Juba's Eye Radio.

According to officials, some Juba residents have been abusing the emergency services number by calling the unit to look into family quarrels.

“For instance, if you are fighting with your wife, our people tend to call us and tell us to take the wife to prison. That is not the mandate of 777,” Col Atem Marol, Director-General of the emergency unit, told Eye Radio. 

Eye RadioCopyright: Eye Radio

APCopyright: AP

British-Nigerian Star Wars star John Boyega is one of five new faces up for the Rising Star Award at the Bafta Film Awards in London next month.

Boyega plays Finn in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which has already taken $1.5bn (£1bn) worldwide since its release last month. 

Read the full story

APCopyright: AP

Watch John Boyega interviewed by a BBC Newsround viewer

The Zimbabwean MP Justice Wadyajena, who is facing a charge of allegedly insulting the first lady Grace Mugabe - has applied for the charges to be dropped.

He is arguing that  the section under which he is being charged was declared unconstitutional by the country’s highest court last year.

His trial was supposed to start in Victoria Falls today.

IMF chief Christine Lagarde has tweeted her reaction after meeting Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari in the capital, Abuja.

The government is facing an $11bn (£7.4bn) budget deficit and is trying to cope with the loss of revenue following the big drop in oil prices.

BBCCopyright: BBC

Zambia's President Edgar Lungi has signed the country's amended constitution into law at a ceremony in a stadium in the capital, Lusaka.

The BBC's Meluse Kapatamoyo captured the signing moment as well as some of the celebrations.

BBCCopyright: BBC

One of the major new measures is that the president will now have to be elected by more than 50% of those who voted, which means a second round may be necessary.

In the past, the person who got the largest share of the vote won the Zambian presidential election.

For example, Michael Sata won the 2011 election with 42% of the vote.

Comic RepublicCopyright: Comic Republic

The online comics featuring African superheroes produced by a Nigerian company Comic Republic are now getting 25,000 downloads per issue, Quartz Africa reports.

The comics feature characters like Guardian Prime, a 25-year old Nigerian fashion designer by day who uses his extraordinary strength to fight for a better Nigeria, Quartz says.

The company - which has been around four just two years - may be a sign that there is a hungry market for African comic book characters, it adds.

Chief executive Jide Martin uses his childhood memories to guide his company: “I thought about when I was young and what I used to make my decisions on: What would Superman do, what would Batman do? I thought, why not African superheroes?”

Sudan has been picked to host this year's annual east and central African regional football tournament known as the Cecafa Cup.

The country last hosted the regional tournament in 2013.

Uganda will stage the Cecafa Under-17 and Women's Championship this year, while Burundi will host the Under-20 event.

Read more here

Another bout of instability has hit China’s stock market, but does it matter for Africa?  

Shares in Johannesburg were caught up in Monday’s global contagion. 

But the wider significance is about one of the underlying reasons for China’s renewed financial turbulence – the slowdown in the country’s economic growth. 

It has been going on for a few years, but the big question remains: Will it be a smooth transition to more sustainable growth or a turbulent one and just how much slower will China’s economic expansion turn out to be? 

That really does matter for Africa. 

China buys Africa’s commodities, its oil copper and more. 

China is also a significant source of investment in Africa, and slower growth will affect the resources available. 

So the day to day moves in Shanghai’s stock market don’t make that much of an impact in Africa. But they are a warning sign of something that does.

ReutersCopyright: Reuters

The government of Burundi has reiterated its rejection of talks with the opposition scheduled for tomorrow in Tanzania aimed at ending the deadly violence in the country. 

“No dialogue tomorrow [nor] on 16 January as many may think, because there has been no consensus on that date," Joseph Bangurambona, the permanent secretary in Burundi's foreign affairs ministry, told Reuters news agency on Tuesday.  

The unrest began last April when President Pierre Nkurunziza announced he would seek a third term.

ReutersCopyright: Reuters

The campaign team for the US Republican presidential contender Donald Trump has admitted that footage in its newly released first video advert was of Morocco, not the US-Mexican border. 

In the video, Mr Trump says he will stop illegal migration by building a wall along the southern border with Mexico. 

At the same time, and without clarification, the advert then shows video footage of migrants trying to cross from Morocco into the Spanish enclave of Melilla. 

Mr Trump has since said the mix-up is irrelevant, and a member of his campaign team has told US media that the use of the footage from Morocco was "1,000% on purpose". 

Fact-checking website PolitiFact had earlier traced the footage to a TV report in 2014 shown on Italian RepublicaTV: 

Melilla, a tiny Spanish territory on North Africa's Mediterranean coast, is a major crossing point for sub-Saharan Africans seeking work or asylum in Europe.

ReutersCopyright: Reuters

Read more about migration into Melilla

If you work in the aid sector and have got a little fed up with the jargon that's sometimes bandied around then Michael Kleinman, writing in the Guardian online, has put together a tongue-in-cheek glossary defining the following commonly used phrases:

• Deliverables – a polite way to describe NGO reports that no one will ever read
• Expert – an individual who has spent at least three consecutive days in a given country or who has read a lot of articles
• Paradigm shift– what your organisation undergoes when your main donor announces it will no longer fund your thematic area of work or the region you work in