Got a TV Licence?

You need one to watch live TV on any channel or device, and BBC programmes on iPlayer. It’s the law.

Find out more
I don’t have a TV Licence.

Live Reporting

All times stated are UK

Get involved

  1. Video content

    Video caption: Three British tourists missing after boat fire in Egyptian Red Sea

    Three British tourists are missing after a fire on board a boat during a cruise in the Egyptian Red Sea.

  2. Hopes for white rhino revival as DR Congo imports 16

    Mollie Perella

    BBC World Service Newsroom

    A white rhino in South Africa.
    Image caption: The animals have been brought over from South Africa (archive photo)

    Sixteen southern white rhinos have been released in the Democratic Republic of Congo in an attempt to reintroduce the endangered species.

    They were transported from a private reserve in South Africa to the Garamba national park in north-eastern DR Congo.

    The area's last northern white rhino was killed in 2006. One official said efforts to save the species had been "too little, too late", and described the southern white rhino as its closest genetic alternative.

    Conflict and poaching in the DR Congo has caused wildlife populations to plummet.

  3. Head of Nigerian Central Bank detained by police

    Richard Hamilton

    BBC World Service Newsroom

    Godwin Emefiele in 2016.
    Image caption: Godwin Emefiele served throughout Muhammadu Buhari's presidency

    Police in Nigeria say they've detained the governor of the country's Central Bank during an investigation.

    On Friday, Nigeria's new president, Bola Tinubu, announced that he had suspended the governor, Godwin Emefiele, with immediate effect amid planned reforms in the financial sector.

    At his inauguration last week, President Tinubu criticised Mr Emefiele's monetary policies and his handling of the Nigerian currency.

    The naira has weakened progressively under Mr Emefiele's leadership.

    Operations have been handed over to the bank's deputy governor.

  4. Video content

    Video caption: Carlton Queen capsize: 'I was scared for my son - we were going to die'

    A father describes narrowly escaping with his life when the boat he and his son were on capsized.

  5. Scroll down for this week's stories

    We'll be back on Monday

    That's all from the BBC Africa Live team for now. We'll be back on Monday morning at bbc.com/africalive.

    Until then we leave you with an automated feed. You can also can follow the latest news at BBCAfrica.com and catch up with the new BBC Focus on Africa podcast.

    A reminder of Friday's wise words:

    Quote Message: The country rooster does not crow in town." from A Swahili proverb from East Africa sent by Abdalla Alwi Bafagih in Toronto, Canada
    A Swahili proverb from East Africa sent by Abdalla Alwi Bafagih in Toronto, Canada

    Click here to send us your African proverbs.

    We leave you with this photo from a South African protest by Extinction Rebellion calling for an end to oil exploration - it's one of our favourite shots of the past week:

    A man with a jerrycan over his head.
  6. Bobo Wê - Benin's drummer-turned-rapper

    DJ Edu

    Presenter of This Is Africa on BBC World Service

    Bobo Wê

    Bobo Wê is an award-winning rapper and singer from Benin whose love of music started when he learned drumming in church:

    Quote Message: I wasn’t very strong because I was very young, but I kept time and people like the way I played. It allowed me to get a good sense of rhythm, cadence. It really formed me."

    Drumming is a direct influence in Bobo Wê's sound today – he calls his blend of traditional and contemporary music "gangan trap":

    Quote Message: The gangan is a musical instrument here. In English it's called the talking drum. I use it a lot because it's my particular style, and it allows me to show to the world what we have that is original - and to value our culture.'

    Bobo Wê's breakthrough hit was La Rue, released in 2020. The song is about gang warfare and how groups of young men in Cotonou challenge each other to fights to prove their strength and influence:

    Quote Message: I have experienced this several times. Someone calls me and challenges me to a fight, saying 'you better get ready'. Sometimes you don’t have time to prepare. You have to run away first. But then you come back in force with your crew."

    In other songs Bobo Wê talks about jealousy (Jalousie) which he says is rife in Benin, with people wanting to trip up and bring down those they see succeeding, and injustice (Injustice), especially the gulf between the rich and the poor:

    Quote Message: It's the law of the strongest winning, basically. I want people to see the inequality and rebalance things, because in society this imbalance is accepted, which is bad."

    You can hear Bobo Wê on This is Africa this Saturday, on BBC World Service radio and partner stations across Africa, as well as online here: BBCworldservice.com/thisisafrica

  7. Suspected Islamists hack Congolese villagers to death

    Simon Ponsford

    BBC World Service News

    Suspected Islamist militants have killed at least 10 people in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

    Local reports say they used axes and machetes to attack civilians in their homes in Bukokoma village, Nord Kivu province, on Thursday evening.

    The attackers are thought to be from the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a militia linked to the Islamic State group.

    Eastern DR Congo is a hotbed for rival militia who've been blamed for attacks that have killed thousands of people.

    A similar attack last week in Beni territory left at least nine dead.

  8. Thirteen die as communities fight in South Sudan camp

    Wazir Khamsin

    BBC World Service News

    A map of South Sudan showing the capital Juba, and the location of the fighting Malakal.

    The UN mission in South Sudan says at least 13 people have been killed in inter-communal fighting at a camp in the northern part of the country.

    The clashes between two ethnic communities in Malakal began on Thursday after a man was stabbed to death.

    More than 20 people were injured with some needing hospital treatment.

    The Malakal camp - which was set up at the start of the civil war in 2013 - is home to at least 50,000 people.

  9. UN peacekeeper killed in Mali ambush

    Simon Ponsford

    BBC World Service newsroom

    At least one UN peacekeeper has been killed in an attack in northern Mali. Four others were seriously injured.

    The UN says their patrol was hit by an explosion, followed by direct fire.

    The assault was in the town of Ber, in the Tombouctou region that has seen jihadist violence for more than a decade, and thousands of deaths.

    The UN has deployed about 12,00 peacekeepers in northern Mali, to tackle the insurgency - about 300 have been killed.

    Some six million people have been displaced by the unrest.

  10. Preston Mutanga, 14, hired to animate Spider-Man film

    Preston Mutanga
    Image caption: He plans to become an animator full-time

    A 14-year-old boy has contributed a scene to the latest film in the blockbuster Spider-Man franchise after executives spotted his talent on social media.

    Preston Mutanga, who lives in Canada, had recreated the trailer for Across the Spider-Verse shot-for-shot in the style of LEGO blocks and posted it online.

    Christopher Miller, a writer and producer on the film, told Rotten Tomatoes that a colleague first brought Mutanga's talents to his attention - saying "look at this, we should get this kid to do this animation".

    "So we contacted him and his family and offered him a contract to do it. And he made those shots that are in the film," Miller adds.

    "He did it in spring break [from school] and said 'any revisions I can do after my homework' - and it was a delight."

    Mutanga himself says:

    Quote Message: I adored the first movie and was so hyped for the second one, so getting to work with the people who actually made this masterpiece was honestly like a dream."

    The 14-year-old plans to become an animator full-time, according to the New York Times.

  11. Sharp rise in child deaths after Tigray loses food aid

    Line Tsigab

    BBC News Tigrinya

    A woman holds a malnourished infant
    Image caption: The main hospital says 13 malnourished children have died since the start of the year

    In the month since the US and the UN suspended food aid to Ethiopia's war-ravaged Tigray region, doctors at the biggest hospital there say seven malnourished children have died.

    That marked increase in May makes up more than half of the 13 total deaths since the start of year, staff at the Ayder Referral Hospital in Mekelle told the BBC.

    What's more, medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) says nearly 70% of health facilities in Tigray have been deliberately vandalised and had equipment looted to make them "non-functional".

    At present, 32 children are in very critical condition and receiving treatment in an intensive care unit at the Ayder Referral Hospital.

    "Children in the ward are most vulnerable and couldn’t recover with food assistance outside of the hospital,” medic Simret Nigusse told the BBC's Tigrinya service, adding that international humanitarian agencies were wrong to halt operations in Tigray.

    USAid and the UN World Food Programme (WFP) froze aid to Tigray after discovering that food shipments were being diverted and sold at local markets.

    This week both went a step further, announcing they would be suspending food to the whole of Ethiopia, with some exceptions for only the most vulnerable.

    Tigray suffered from dire shortages of food, fuel, cash and medicines during a brutal two-year conflict between forces loyal to Ethiopia's government and the Tigray People's Liberation Front.

    The conflict came to an end last November when the two sides signed a peace deal in South Africa. Aid then began trickling in, though some areas still remain inaccessible.

  12. Burkina Faso offers bounty for 20 'wanted terrorists'

    BBC Monitoring

    The world through its media

    The government of Burkina Faso has offered a bounty of up to $293,000 (£233,700) for 20 "wanted terrorists".

    The security ministry published on its Facebook page on Thursday the list of the 20 individuals "actively wanted for their involvement or complicity in planning or carrying out terrorist acts" in the Sahel country.

    According to French public broadcaster RFI, several people on the list were already included in a previous notice published a year ago by the army.

    An eight-year Islamist insurgency has killed more than 14,000 people and displaced over two million in Burkina Faso.

    This announcement came days after gunmen killed more than 20 people in attacks, most of them security forces.

    The insurgency has been described as the world’s most neglected displacement crisis by the Norwegian Refugee Council.