South Africa's National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) has challenged athlete Oscar Pistorius' bid to appeal against his murder conviction, in papers filed in the country's highest court a leading local journalist has tweeted:

The Olympic star was convicted by a panel of five judges of murdering his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp on Valentine's Day 2013. 

He has asked  the Constitutional Court, the highest court, to set aside the conviction. 

The NPA said the appeal had little chance of success, and the court should throw out the case. 

It has not yet decided whether it will hear the appeal.

Pistorius says he shot dead Ms Stenkamp after mistaking her for a burglar at his home, and he did not intend to kill.   

Tamasin Ford
BBC Africa, Abidjan

Hotels across West Africa are boosting security as the threat of attacks by militant groups increases. 

Al-Qaeda-linked militants killed 30 people last week at a top hotel in Burkina Faso's capital, Ouagadougou, while in November, 20 people were killed in a similar attack in neighbouring Mali. 

These attacks and increased threats are hitting a tourism industry that is only just getting off the ground. 

In Ivory Coast commercial capital, Abidjan, it's not hard to miss the increased number of security forces outside hotels.  

Shopping centres were deserted at the weekend after the US embassy told its citizens here and in Senegal's capital, Dakar, to avoid public places - after intelligence agencies heard recordings mentioning attacks in both cities.

Image source, AFP

Hotels in the region are juggling the fine line of beefing up security while not frightening guests. 

Witnesses of the al-Qaeda attack in Ouagadougou describe white foreigners being singled out for execution. 

France has also warned Senegal and Ivory Coast of potential attacks.

Abidjan and Dakar host the regions biggest expat communities - while Ivory Coast's booming economy is attracting a host of business travellers.

Leading Nigerian online television and film distribution service iROKO has announced $19m (£13m) worth of deals, including with French giant Canal+, to boost its share of the African market. 

The deals for content development and capital funding come just weeks after US streaming giant Netflix expanded to 190 countries, putting them in direct competition with the Nigerian firm.

Image source, Getty Images

"We're taking Nollywood content to Africa," iROKO founder Jason Njoku told AFP news agency, referring to Nigeria's popular film industry. 

"We have plans to dub content into French, Swahili, Zulu. So, we'll stand apart from Netflix in terms of localisation of content. We are going narrow and deep into local content. 

"However, Netflix entering into the African market is really exciting, as it reveals the huge potential of the market. For us, we're flattered to be mentioned in the same breath as them," Mr Njoku added. 

In a statement, iROKO said it aimed to produce at least 300 hours of original content in 2016, with the expectation of doubling that by 2018.

Read: iROKO goes global

At least 20 people have been killed and several others wounded in multiple suicide bombings at a market in northern Cameroon, a local official has told Reuters news agency.

The attack was carried out by four suspected suicide bombers, the official added.

No group has said it carried out the bombings but militant Islamist group Boko Haram is active in the region which borders Nigeria.

Nick Cavell
BBC Africa Sport

Image source, AFP

South Africa's Raven Klaasen and USA's Rajeev Ram - the number 13 seeds are through to the quarter-finals of the men's doubles at the Australian Open tennis championship.

They will now face the seventh seeds Jamie Murray of Britain and Brazil's Brunoa Soares.

Klaasen and Ram beat the third seeds the Bryan Bob brothers Bob and Mike of the USA by two sets to one.

Anne Soy
BBC Africa, Nairobi

The World Health Organization (WHO) says that a cholera outbreak in Tanzania has killed 222 people in the last 6 months, with more than 14,303 cases reported across 27 regions.

Earlier this month, Tanzania was one of 11 countries which received a cholera vaccine from WHO. 

However, health officials say a shortage of supplies means it will not be accessible to all Tanzanians.

Tanzania's ministry of health says that rapid response teams have been deployed to most affected areas, and that on average the numbers show that the rate of infection is slowing.

President John Magufuli cancelled Independence Day celebrations on 9 December, and led a clean-up campaign instead.  

It was "shameful" to spend huge sums of money on the celebrations when "our people are dying of cholera", he said at the time.

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images

South African state pathologists are to carry out a post-mortem on a Nigerian man who died after being arrested near Johannesburg on Saturday.

A protest immediately followed, with 300 people surrounding the vehicle where he died, local media report.

The allegation that he was suffocated is being investigated by an independent police complaints body.

Police say that he died after swallowing drugs as they were about to arrest him for possession.

Read the full BBC story here

Suspected suicide bombers have attacked a market in northern Cameroon, with casualty figures still unclear, a local official is quoted by Reuters news agency as saying.

The area is frequently attacked by militant Islamist group Boko Haram.

Image source, Getty Images

Former Ivory Coast captain Didier Drogba is to remain with US Major League Soccer club Montreal Impact, ending speculation the striker could return to former club Chelsea.

Montreal announced that Drogba would join their pre-season training camp.

The 37-year-old tweeted: , external"On way to Qatar to do some preparation work for pre-season."

Drogba held talks with Chelsea in December amid rumours he could join the club's coaching staff and watched a match alongside owner Roman Abramovich.

Then-UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s government tried to stop Nelson Mandela receiving an honorary degree at the University of Lancaster from a member of the royal family, the London-based Times newspaper reports, external.

It says it has seen documents which show that Richard Luce, a foreign office minister who is now a peer, sought to persuade the university to "quietly drop" the plan. 

Baroness Thatcher’s government had branded Mr Mandela's African National Congress (ANC) - then a liberation movement fighting minority rule in South Afreica - a terrorist organisation. 

Despite the pressure, the university awarded Mr Mandela - then a prisoner on Robben Island – with the honorary doctorate in law in 1984.

Mr Mandela met Baroness Thatcher at her official residence after his release from prison in 1990:

Image source, AFP

Read: Prisoner to president

Image source, AFP

Libya's state oil company estimates the country has lost more than $68bn (£48bn) in potential oil revenues since 2013. 

In an interview with the London-based Financial Times newspaper, the head of the National Oil Corporation, Mustafa Sanalla, said a power struggle between the North African state's two rival governments had crippled its oil industry - the main pillar of Libya's economy. 

Local protests and attacks by Islamist militants are also said to have contributed to the losses. 

A new national unity government has been formed but is not yet effective.  

Sammy Darko
BBC Africa, Accra

A meningitis outbreak in Ghana has killed 32 people, health officials have said.

Five regions including Bono Ahafo and some parts of Ashanti are worst- affected by the virus, which was first reported some three weeks ago.

Ghana's ministry of health says the situation is under control and people should not panic.

The story was the main lead in a local newspaper:

What is meningitis?

•Meningitis is an infection of the meninges - the membrane that surrounds the brain and spinal cord

•Meningococcal bacteria are common and carried harmlessly in the nose or throat by about one in 10 people

•They are passed on through close contact

•Anyone can get meningitis but babies and young children are most vulnerable

•Symptoms include a high fever with cold hands and feet, agitation, confusion, vomiting and headaches.

Q&A: Meningitis B vaccine

At least 108 recruits have been injured in a stampede at Kenya's National Youth Service (NYS) Training School in  Gilgil town, north of the capital, Nairobi, the privately owned Daily Nation newspaper reports. 

A transformer had exploded at the school, causing panic among the youth who then tried to flee, it reports. 

Some of the wounded have been admitted to hospital for treatment, the Daily Nation adds.

Ishaq Khalid
BBC Africa, Bauchi, Nigeria

Nineteen civilians and a senior police officer have been killed after suspected Fulani herdsmen attacked a village in Nigeria's northern Adamawa state, police spokesman Othman Abubakar has said.  

Officers were ambushed while rushing to the village to quell the violence yesterday, causing the death of the police chief of the nearby town of Girei, he added.

The herdsmen were said to have launched a reprisal attack against farmers, but there has been no independent confirmation of this. 

There has often been conflict between two groups over land and grazing rights. 

A strong 6.1-magnitude earthquake has struck in the Mediterranean between Morocco and Spain, causing material damage, the US Geological Survey (USGS) says, the AFP news agency reports.

The shallow quake hit the area at 04:22 GMT, 62km (39 miles) north of the Moroccan city of Al Hoceima and 164km east-southeast of Gibraltar, the USGS said. 

It was followed by a 5.3-magnitude tremor. 

The USGS said its initial assessment was that there was "a low likelihood of casualties and damage".

Nearly 630 people were killed in February 2004 when a strong 6.3 earthquake hit near Al Hoceima.

Image source, AFP

A church in South Africa violated the constitution by promoting corporal punishment against children, a statutory body has ruled. 

It was unacceptable for the Joshua Generation Church to promote corporal punishment, regardless of whether this was based on religious teachings, the South African Human Rights Commission said in its findings, external.

Corporal punishment, including "moderate chastisement as a means of instilling discipline in children", violated their rights, it added. 

Church spokesperson Nadene Badenhorst said the church would appeal against the findings, as they would “damage children and destroy families” if they became law, South Africa's Eyewitness News reports, external. 

Image source, AFP

The war against corruption will remain a priority of Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari's government, as it has stunted development and has led to the growth of militant Islamist activity, Information Minister Lai Mohammed has said, the Vanguard newspapers.

Speaking to journalists in the main city Lagos, Mr Mohammed said the government's anti-corruption stance had been applauded globally, including by US Secretary of State John Kerry who had drawn a link between corruption and "terrorism". 

"We agree that corruption is indeed a radicalizer because it destroys faith in legitimate authority," Mr Mohammed is quoted as saying.

At least 17,000 people have been killed since militant Islamist group Boko Haram launched an insurgency in north-eastern Nigeria, vowing to overthrow the government and establish an Islamic state. 

Image source, AFP

The UK government and US philanthropist Bill Gates have announced a $4bn (£3bn) initiative to try to eradicate malaria.

The programme will focus on the development of new drugs and insecticides to combat the mosquito-borne disease. 

In a joint article in the London-based Times newspaper, Mr Gates and UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, say they are optimistic malaria can be wiped out in their lifetime. 

They say the disease kills a child every minute - mostly in Africa - and is both a cause and a consequence of poverty. 

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