Africa highlights: Trump hits out at Somali migrants, Ethiopia protests erupt again

Olufunke Oshonaike is about to appear at her sixth Olympic Games - only the second African woman to do so.

The table tennis player told the BBC that she even competed when she was seven months pregnant, despite her "big belly":

South Africa's governing ANC got its lowest ever share of the vote - 54% - in Wednesday's local elections.

But the party's support has dipped below 60% before and recovered:

BBCCopyright: BBC

This time round though the party has lost control, or come close to losing control, of a number of key urban areas.

The opposition Democratic Alliance have been hailing some major victories across the country.

But the ANC remains the country's dominant party and its leaders have promised that it will listen to the voters.

Read more: South Africa local elections: ANC suffers major setback

The BBC's Ahmed Adan spotted this minibus taxi with chickens strapped to the roof on the Thika Road in Kenya's capital, Nairobi:

 We imagine they were speeding towards a weekend party.  

For the first time ever refugees have their own team in the Olympics in what the International Olympic Committee called "a message of hope for all the refugees in our world".

There are 10 members of the team, including South Sudanese runners Paulo Amotun Lokoro, Yiech Pur Biel, Rose Nathike Lokonyen, James Chiengjiek’s and Anjelina Nadai Lohalith who all lived in Kakuma refugee camp in north-west Kenya.

To celebrate this success, the camp is holding its own games today:

While we don't have the up-to-the minute commentary on these games, this tweet indicates the volley ball score at one point:

Lawyer Nicholas Opiyo, who is working with Uganda's lesbian and gay community, has just told the BBC that the parade scheduled for Saturday has been called off.

"We do not want to put anyone in danger,” he said.

This comes after the police raided a Gay Pride event in Kampala last night. Earlier today, the country's Ethics Minister Simon Lokodo warned organisers that any other events would be similarly dealt with.

AFPCopyright: AFP

Thomas Mapfumo is known as the "Lion of Zimbabwe" for his popular political folk music that was the soundtrack to the country's independence struggle in the 1970s.

But now he's an ardent supporter of the latest round of protests in Zimbabwe, including the #ThisFlag movement against President Robert Mugabe's government.  

He told the BBC "this man wasn't actually the right man to be the president of Zimbabwe because he divides people".

Listen here:

South Africa's main opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) is saying that it has won most votes in Tshwane, the area that includes the capital, Pretoria.

The official results of the country's municipal elections don't yet reflect this projection and put the DA neck-and-neck on 42% with the country's governing ANC.

Nationally, the ANC has won a majority of the votes, but it has suffered setbacks in some key urban areas. 

The party has seen its worst performance at the ballot box since the end of apartheid in 1994.

Our sports journalist has tweeted the list of African nations with the most Olympic medals, and Kenya comes up top.

We'll see over the next few weeks if they manage to keep that top spot.

Recently Kenya's parliament passed a bill which makes it compulsory for companies to allocate special places where working women can breastfeed. 

But Kenyan senator Martha Wangari revealed to BBC Newsday that there aren't actually any of these feeding zones in parliament itself.

She said that with her baby, who is now 14 months old, she had to go back home to pump milk. 

She says that she is going to ask all the female parliamentarians "not to leave parliament" until they put a creche in place:

BBCCopyright: BBC

A Malawi court has denied bail to an HIV-positive man who is facing charges of having sex with more than 100 adolescent girls, reports AFP news agency. 

Forty-five year-old Eric Aniva appeared before a packed courtroom without a lawyer, because he could not afford one, AFP adds.  

Magistrate Anderson Masanjala denied him bail saying "it is wise for Aniva to remain on remand so that police can finish their investigation," AFP reports. 

He could be jailed for life if found guilty of underage sex.  

Mr Aniva was arrested last month on the president's orders, after he revealed to the BBC that families paid him between $4 and $7 to have sex with their children.

The BBC's Ed Butler says in some remote southern regions of the country it is traditional for girls to be made to have sex with a man known as a hyena after their first period.  

Mr Aniva's trial will resume on 15 August. 

Read: The man hired to have sex with children

Uganda's Ethics Minister Simon Lokodo has issued an order preventing further gay pride events, Nicholas Opiyo from rights group Chapter Four Uganda has told me.

We reported earlier that police had raided a gay pride event last night and one participant had jumped out of a sixth floor window to avoid police abuse.  

If more events do go ahead, Mr Opiyo has been warned that the minister will mobilise a bigger police force, and even citizens, to interrupt the event.  

Members of Uganda's LGBT community were planning to hold more gay pride events this weekend.

AFPCopyright: AFP

Anti-government demonstrations have broken out for a second time within in a week in Ethiopia's northern city of Gondar.

A resident of the city has told the BBC's Emmanuel Igunza in Addis Ababa that there are chaotic scenes as hundreds of people took to the streets.

Images circulating on social media also show a lot of people demonstrating - but these have not been verified.

The protests started this morning from the city's court and then demonstrators reportedly clashed with police

Earlier today, Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn described last Saturday's demonstration as "unauthorised" (see earlier post).

At the root of the protests is a request by representatives from the Welkait community - known as the Welkait Amhara Identity Committee - that their land, which is currently administered by the Tigray regional state, be moved into neighbouring Amhara region. 

But wider grievances have also been raised.

Read more: Ethiopia protests: What's behind the trouble in Gondar?

AFPCopyright: AFP

A Moroccan boxer has been arrested by Brazilian police over allegations of sexually assaulting two female cleaners in the Rio de Janeiro Olympic village.

Hassan Saada, 22, was held on suspicion of committing the assaults earlier this week, a police statement said.

The boxer, who fights in the light-heavyweight category, was due to take part in his first bout on Saturday.

A Brazilian judge has ordered he be detained for 15 days, pending an investigation, media reports said.

Read more on the BBC News website.

This tweet from Kenya's president may look like a harmless photo opportunity with school children visiting state house but it has been under deep scrutiny.

President Uhuru Kenyatta got into hot water about it when people compared it to other photos of a school visit six weeks before.

The difference was a red carpet, chairs and most of the students were white:

Mary Kulundu says on Kenyans.co.ke the opposition Orange Democratic Movement first made the comparison in this tweet:

Since then it made the national TV news with NTV reporting the story.

The TV report points out that the school given the red carpet treatment started out as a white-only school. While it is now multi-racial, the only black child sitting down has a broken leg. 

The school costs 645,000 Kenyan shillings ($6,300; £4,900) per term, whereas the public school where the children got no chairs is free to attend, reports NTV.

East African heads of state have now gone into closed-door discussions at their meeting about the situation in South Sudan.

The BBC's Emmanuel Igunza has seen the presidents from Sudan, Somalia and Kenya as well as Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni:

BBCCopyright: BBC

The leaders are expected to talk about an AU and UN proposal to send troops into South Sudan as a protection force.

Fighting broke out in the country's capital, Juba, early last month, and since then there have been major questions hanging over the success of the peace process.

Zimbabwe's army commander has said that his soldiers will deal with threats from activists using social media to mobilise anti-government protests, reports the state-owned newspaper the Herald.

This is the first time the military has commented on the demonstrations. 

Lieutenant-General Valerio Sibanda, the Zimbabwe National Army Commander, said in an interview with the newspaper that social media activism was cyber warfare:

Quote Message: We are training our officers to be able to deal with this new threat we call cyber warfare where weapons - not necessarily guns but basically information and communication technology - are being used to mobilise people to do the wrong things."

We are training our officers to be able to deal with this new threat we call cyber warfare where weapons - not necessarily guns but basically information and communication technology - are being used to mobilise people to do the wrong things."

Read more on the BBC News website:

Zimbabwe's #ThisFlag protest

How African governments shut down social media

South Africans are joking on Twitter that the local election results must mean that Jesus has returned:

It all stems from President Jacob Zuma's 2014 claim the ANC would rule “until Jesus returns”. 

Tweeters are reminding him of it now that the ANC has lost control of South Africa's Eastern Cape metropolitan region of Nelson Mandela Bay.   

Ethiopia's Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn has said that the recent anti-government demonstrations in the states of Amhara and Oromia were "unauthorised" and had "no owner", the government-affiliated Fana Broadcasting Corporate reports.

Last Saturday, thousands of people in the northern city of Gondar, in Amhara, took to the streets.

There have also been on-going protests in Oromia.

Ethiopia has been criticised for its repression of dissenting voices, and in parliament there is not a single opposition MP.

Fana reports that the PM said that "the government will be obliged to ensure rule of law and will discharge its responsibility".

Mr Hailemariam also said that the government will try to work out issues through dialogue.

BBCCopyright: BBC

Read more: Ethiopia protests: What's behind the trouble in Gondar?

In reaction to the decline in the dominance of his party, the ANC, in South Africa's local elections Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa said it’s a moment of introspection:

Quote Message: We are going to listen very, very carefully to our people. We will analyse what our people are telling us. We will do it openly and honestly.”

We are going to listen very, very carefully to our people. We will analyse what our people are telling us. We will do it openly and honestly.”

He also pointed out that the ANC secured more than 50% of the vote and a lot of people are still voting for the party: 

Quote Message: A party that has almost 15 million people voting for it, as opposed to the last election where we had 11 million people voting for us. My simple arithmetic tells me that it is not a decline."

A party that has almost 15 million people voting for it, as opposed to the last election where we had 11 million people voting for us. My simple arithmetic tells me that it is not a decline."

AFPCopyright: AFP

More than 95% of the votes have been counted so far.

Read more: South Africa local elections: ANC suffers major setback