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The Nigerian parliament has approved a long-awaited bill seeking to overhaul the country’s oil and gas industry.

Nigeria's economy relies heavily on revenue from fossil fuels and the ambitious law is expected to dramatically change Nigeria’s oil sector, by boosting foreign investment and revenue as well as loosening government control of the state oil company.

It’s also expected to change the terms of royalty payments by multi-national oil companies and boost oil and gas exploration across the country.

According to the Reuters news agency, the share of generated wealth allocated to oil-producing communities is set to double.

The controversial bill took more than a decade in parliament before today’s passage. But its final approval will be a remarkable success for President Muhammadu Buhari’s government which reintroduced the bill last year.

Rwanda's prime minister has visited Bujumbura to cerebrate the 59th anniversary of Burundi’s independence in a significant move to normalise the two countries’ relations after six years of tensions.

Burundi and Rwandan authorities fell out in May 2015 as the former accused the latter of a hand in a foiled coup against the late president Pierre Nkurunziza.

Both countries’ social media users welcomed the presence of Rwanda’s PM Edouard Ngirente in Burundi as a mark of political will to end the dispute.

Rwandan President Paul Kagame and Evariste Ndayishimiye of Burundi have recently expressed their wishes to end hostilities, that included military confrontations.

Cross-border trade and the movement of people were hugely affected by the row that now looks to be easing after six years.

Kenenisa Bekele, who has won three Olympic gold medals, has not been shortlisted to represent his country at the forthcoming Tokyo Games after he boycotted local trials in May.

He has not commented on the decision by Ethiopia's athletics body.

Kenenisa has previously accused some people of working against his selection and said he was unhappy about the timing of the trials.

A BBC team who visited Ethiopian athletes earlier this week in the capital, Addis Ababa, did not seen him among the team.

Ethiopia’s marathon team will be led by Shura Kitata, who outran Kenya’s Eluid Kipchoge to win the London marathon in October 2020.

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The selection for Ethiopia's Olympic team, especially the marathon, has been a thorny issue.

Its president Ashebir Wolde Giorgis told journalists the final shortlist will be announced next week.

He said the final decision would be made by the national technical committee, a group which consists of coaches and veteran athletes.

"We don’t have to worry much as we will be sending an athlete who is capable of representing Ethiopia,"’ he told reporters.

An MP has angered many by saying "foreign" dancing, singing and flag-waving at wedding ceremonies in France is "unacceptable" and a "disturbance".

Anne Genevard of Les Republicains party described the kind of celebrations that are typical of French families of North African heritage:

She told parliament that "those who get married in a French town hall in a public building must comply with the codes of the Republic".

Ms Genevard’s comments add to the controversies already triggered in France over headscarves, halal food and other issues concerning France's non-white citizens.

Social media users slammed the MP and said her comments were racist.

"They legislated how we dress, what we eat and now they want to legislate how we dance and celebrate," wrote Nacéra on Twitter.

"Your racism and your xenophobia are leading you astray. Fortunately there are still normal people in parliament," said another user called Nicole Odera.

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Three soldiers in Gabon have been sentenced to 15 years in jail for an attempted coup in 2019, when President Ali Bongo was recovering from a stroke.

Lt Kelly Ondo - a commando leader and member of the Republican Guard - and his two co-defendants have been fined 31m CFA francs ($56,100; £40,700) each and expelled from the army.

All three were found guilty of endangering the internal security of the state, criminal conspiracy and theft.

Their lawyer Jean-Pierre Moumbembe says he will appeal the sentence.

Meanwhile, the gendarmes who joined them were all acquitted as requested by the prosecution.

Two other putschists were shot dead by the security forces at the time of the attempted takeover in January 2019.

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A Yoruba separatist in south-western Nigeria says gunmen stormed his home in the early hours of Thursday, killing two and abducting eight others.

Both the military and police spokesmen are yet to respond to BBC's requests for comment on the alleged incident, which Sunday "Igboho" Adeyemo alleges was an attack by government forces.

It comes days after the leader of another separatist group, the outlawed Indigenous People of Biafra (Ipob) which wants a breakaway state in the south-east where the ethnic Igbo people form the majority, was arrested.

Mr Adeyemo has cancelled a rally that scheduled to happen in Lagos on Saturday, and is calling on the international community to come to his rescue.

He has in the past drawn criticism for trying to give Fulani herders a seven-day ultimatum to leave south-western Nigeria.

Nigeria is home to more than 300 ethnic groups and three dominant ones: the Igbo in the south-east, the Yoruba in the south-west, and the Hausa in the north.

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Africa's top health body has strongly criticised the European Union's decision to exclude AstraZeneca vaccines made in India from their “Green Pass” programme for travellers.

The director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, John Nkengasong, says the EU's move was not driven by science and data because vaccines produced in India have not proven to be less efficient than those in the EU.

Mr Nkengasong also called on the EU to stay away from policies that could undermine Africa's fight against the pandemic.

The World Health Organization (WHO) says it is in talks with the EU to resolve the matter, but insisted that individual EU states still have the flexibility to accept vaccines that have been authorized by the WHO, such as Covishield, the India-produced AstraZeneca vaccine.

The EU's Digital Covid certificate comes into effect today with the aim to facilitate travel during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Eight European nations are reported to have cleared Covishield for the "Green Pass" - they are Estonia, Austria, Germany, Slovenia, Greece, Iceland, Ireland and Spain.

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It is feared that 10 members of the same family who died in northern Nigeria had eaten poisoned food.

The victims include children as young as two. A relative says a woman in the family used sodium carbonate - commonly known as washing soda - to prepare a meal after mistaking it for salt.

He said the woman, her two children and seven siblings died after eating it in the village of Jangeme, in Zamfara state.

A spokesman for Yariman Bakura Specialist Hospital, where the victims were taken, told the BBC that doctors tried unsuccessfully to save their lives.

He said that all those who took the food died one after another - some in quick succession.

It comes less than a fortnight after a similar incident in the central state of Kwara when 10 members of the same family died after consuming a poisonous herbal concoction as traditional medicine.

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Moroccan authorities have expelled Belgian lawyer Christophe Marchand who had entered the country to defend whistle-blowing journalist Omar Radi following his arrest on charges of espionage and rape.

Radi denies the charges.

Mr Marchand was detained in the airport of Casablanca and denied contact with his client before he was flown back to his country.

The Moroccan authorities said they expelled the Belgian lawyer because of his "hostility" towards Morocco and his "biased" reports "aimed at damaging the reputation of the country".

Radi, who has written about corruption among senior civil servants and police violation of human rights, is accused by the Moroccan authorities of espionage and rape.

He has been on hunger strike for 83 days to protest his innocence.

Human rights organisations say Radi has been kept in solitary confinement and his rights to visits have been restricted.

They describe his case as politically motivated and call for his immediate release.

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An aid group says a key bridge in Ethiopia's Tigray region has been destroyed, further hampering efforts to deliver assistance to hundreds of thousands of desperate people.

The International Rescue Committee said the bridge over the River Tekeze near the town of Shire was down.

A Twitter handle that has been chronicling the conflict in Tigray has tweeted photos of the bridge. It is not clear how the structure was damaged.

Humanitarian agencies are also facing the challenge of electricity, phone and internet lines being cut.

Rebel forces have been gaining ground in Tigray since seizing the regional capital, Mekelle, on Monday.

A spokesman for the foreign ministry, Dina Mufti, said the rebels needed to abide by a ceasefire declared unilaterally by the government earlier this week.

South Sudan’s First Vice-President Riek Machar has launched the consultative process for a commission that is key to the 2018 revitalised peace agreement.

The unity government was tasked with creating a Commission for Truth, Reconciliation and Healing in the agreement.

This also includes establishing an independent hybrid judicial court to investigate and, where necessary, prosecute individuals bearing responsibility for violation of international law.

The hybrid court for South Sudan will have jurisdiction over the following crimes: genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and other serious crimes under international law and applicable South Sudanese laws.

The timeline is for crimes committed from 15 December 2013 until the end of the transitional period.

Mr Machar said the commission will seek to ensure transparency.

“We want to provide the aggrieved a chance to speak. We talk of peace, but peace without justice does not hold,” Mr Machar said.

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Display dummies that mimic the human form have been banned in a northern Nigerian state because they "violate" Islamic teachings.

Such mannequins are "also responsible for immoral thoughts among some members of the public", according to the head of Kano state's Islamic police force, Hisbah.

Harun Muhammad Sani Ibn Sina says a public sensitisation campaign against mannequins is being introduced, after which any offenders will face arrest and prosecution.

Kano is one of 12 Nigerian states practising the Sharia legal system alongside the country's secular laws.

Tailors, supermarkets and boutique owners are all subject to the new rules and face raids in future to check they are complying, Sheikh Ibn Sina adds in the statement.

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South Africa’s highest court has cleared President Cyril Ramaphosa of allegations by the country’s anti-corruption watchdog that he wilfully misled lawmakers over donations for his campaign for the leadership of the governing African National Congress (ANC) in 2017.

In its ruling, the Constitutional Court said Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane erred when she found that Mr Ramaphosa deceived parliament about a payment for the campaign.

Mr Ramaphosa’s campaign received about 300m South African rand ($21m; £14m) and his critics have called for the list of donors to be made public.

The top court’s ruling came two days after it sentenced President Ramaphosa’s predecessor, Jacob Zuma, to 15 months in prison for defying its order to testify before a judge-led commission of inquiry into corruption.

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South Africa is urging "total restraint" from the security forces in neighbouring Eswatini, where activists say eight people have been killed during protests.

The small, landlocked nation is the last absolute monarchy in Africa - and pro-democracy demonstrators are demanding political reforms.

"The South African government calls on the security forces to exercise total restraint and protect the lives and property of the people," read the statement from the foreign ministry.

"We are particularly concerned by reports of loss of life and destruction of properties."

The internet has been shut off and a curfew imposed in the country where King Mswati III, who came to the throne 35 years ago, rules by decree.

The government has denied that the king fled to South Africa on Monday night when protests intensified this week.

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Journalists in Mozambique have accused the police of assaulting three of their colleagues who were investigating alleged detention of young people.

The youths were allegedly detained at a police in the northern Nampula province over links to a video that had captured a municipality police officer assaulting a vendor.

The Mozambique branch of the Media Institute for Southern Africa (Misa) said the TV journalists were assaulted and detained when they went to interview the arrested youths at the station.

“The agents didn't have time to listen to us to understand our concern. They accused us of defaming and tarnishing the reputation of the police,” said Simão Mugas, a reporter at TV Muniga.

One of the journalists lost his motorbike in the confrontation.

The officers also temporarily retained a camera belonging to TV Sucesso.

Misa said all measures will be taken to hold the police officers to account.

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Mauritius will on Thursday reopen its white sandy beaches, three months after they were closed because of coronavirus.

The public will be allowed to swim or walk but picnics remain prohibited.

Other Covid restrictions have also been eased, with public and private gatherings allowed but with a maximum of 50 people.

Sports halls, gyms and places of worships have also been allowed to reopen but must not have over 50 people at any moment.

Dominique Marie, a resident, told the BBC that it was a "relief for many who had been waiting for this".

"I rushed to the gym at 06:00 and trained for an hour and I can tell you it was really nice to be back to the gym," he said.

Kindergartens, public gardens and parks also opened, as well as restaurants, food courts and fast-food outlets.

Cinemas, casinos, bars and discotheques remain closed.

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Britain says it is seeking an explanation from the Nigerian government on the circumstances of the arrest of Nnamdi Kanu, who leads a banned group seeking a breakaway state in south-eastern Nigeria.

Mr Kanu,53, holds British and Nigerian citizenship. He faces treason-related charges in Nigeria, but fled the country in 2017 while on bail.

He was re-arrested on Sunday, according to the Nigerian government, but no details were given of where and how he was captured.

The British High Commission in Nigeria told the BBC that it was seeking clarification on the ‘’possible legality’’ of Mr Kanu’s arrest.

It said it was ready to give him "consular assistance".

A spokesperson, Dean Hurlock, said Mr Kanu was neither arrested in the UK nor extradited from there.

He said the UK expects his trial to follow due process.

Mr Kanu is currently in the custody of Nigeria’s secret police after a Federal High Court ordered for his detention on Tuesday.

His trial is expected to resume on 26 July.

Read more:

• The man behind Nigeria's separatists

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Burundian human rights activist Germain Rukuki was freed on Wednesday afternoon after spending four years in prison, his lawyer told the BBC Great Lakes.

Mr Rukuki was sentenced in 2018 to 32 years in jail on charges that included threatening state security and being part of an insurrection during protests in 2015 against former President Pierre Nkurunziza.

He denied the charges.

Last week, a court of appeal in the city of Bujumbura reduced the sentence to one year - opening the path to his release.

Last December, President Evariste Ndayishimiye pardoned four journalists who had spent a year in prison for ‘undermining state security’ under his predecessor, charges that they denied.

After a year on power, President Ndayishimiye has been praised for positive moves toward human rights, freedom of press and reviving the country’s international relations.

But opposition in the country and international rights defenders deplore ongoing rights violations and political intolerance.

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Ugandan internet users will from Thursday start paying a 12% excise duty on mobile data.

The levy replaces the infamous "social media tax" - an over-the-top (OTT) services daily tax introduced in 2018 on use of social media.

The new excise duty comes into effect as the new financial year begins.

It was introduced earlier this year through an amendment by parliament.

It will not be charged on mobile data purchased for provision of medical and education services, but it is not clear how the distinction will be made.

The "social media tax" triggered protests in July 2018 that were led by opposition politician Robert Kyagulanyi, better known as Bobi Wine, which were violently dispersed by the security forces.

Many Ugandans found ways to bypass it by using Virtual Private Networks (VPNs).

The tax failed to raise as much money as was anticipated. The revenue authority said in July 2019 that it had collected about $14m (£10m) in the 2018-2019 financial year against a projected $80m from the tax.

Taxing of internet use continues to cause public outcry in Uganda, especially among young people who are increasingly using the internet to start small businesses.

More about Uganda:

• Uganda country profile