OUAGADOUGOU (Reuters) - Thirty-seven civilians were killed and more than 60 wounded in an attack by an unidentified gunman on a convoy transporting workers of Canadian gold miner Semafo in eastern Burkina Faso, regional authorities said on Wednesday.

DAR ES SALAAM (Reuters) - A Tanzanian court on Thursday postponed the hearing for the seventh time of a prominent Tanzanian journalist arrested in July in a case his lawyers and rights group say is politically motivated.

CAPE TOWN, Nov 6 (Reuters) - Ghana plans to revise its laws on oil and gas licences in an effort to spur production and will revoke licences from four companies that have not developed their assets, its deputy energy minister said on Wednesday.

FAYOUM, Egypt (Reuters) - Ahmed Abd-Rabo used to get all the water he needed to feed his crops in northern Egypt. Then the canal linking his seven acres to the River Nile started drying up and he had to abandon half the plot.

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Nearly half of Kenyans surveyed by the government's police watchdog IPOA said they had suffered police abuse of power, according to a survey it released on Wednesday, underscoring the scale of the task the body faces in holding officers to account.

CAIRO (Reuters) - Competition in Egypt's ride-hailing and tech-enabled transport market is heating up as rivals from global giant Uber to smaller local firms vie for a slice of the Middle East's largest market.

HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe police on Wednesday blocked a handful of public sector workers from marching to government offices with a petition demanding better pay, reneging on an earlier pledge to allow the demonstration.

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenya's senate voted on Wednesday to raise the government's debt ceiling to 9 trillion shillings ($87.29 billion), as authorities abandon a limit pegged to the GDP due to a growing debt burden.

CAPE TOWN, Nov 6 (Reuters) - Ghana will revoke four petroleum exploration licences from companies that are not developing the assets, the country's deputy minister for petroleum said on Wednesday.

KAMPALA (Reuters) - Uganda will begin refurbishing its century-old rail network this month to boost bulk cargo transportation, after failing to secure $2.2 billion in Chinese funding for a new standard-gauge line, a senior rail official said on Wednesday.

CAPE TOWN, Nov 6 (Reuters) - Ghana's Deputy Energy Minister Amin Adam said on Wednesday that domestic laws must be changed to allow companies already producing to further explore offshore areas for more oil.

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Mozambique's government plans to appeal a South African court's decision to revoke the planned extradition of former finance minister Manuel Chang, wanted in both his home country and the United States, a letter seen by Reuters on Wednesday showed.

DAURA, Nigeria, (Reuters) - The first thing 15-year-old Burhani saw when he arrived at an Islamic reformatory school in October was rows of youths and young men sitting on a courtyard floor, naked, bleeding and in chains.

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenyan bank shares gained in early trade on Wednesday after President Uhuru Kenyatta's bid to remove a cap on commercial lending rates was passed in parliament on Tuesday, a move that could boost the flow of credit to the economy.

EL FASHER, Sudan (Reuters) - Saleha Nour sits selling nuts in the market in El Fasher, Darfur and dismisses her new prime minister's promise of a brighter new future with a wave of her hand.

HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe state workers will go ahead with Wednesday's street protest after the government failed to give in to their demand for U.S. dollar-indexed salaries to cushion them against soaring inflation, union officials said on Tuesday.

(Reuters) - Nigeria launched a crackdown on informal Islamic schools and rehabilitation centres in late September after a man was refused permission to see his nephews at one institution and complained to police. Nearly 1,500 people have been freed so far.

LAGOS (Reuters) - Nigerian police have freed 259 people being held at an Islamic rehabilitation centre in the southwestern city of Ibadan, police said on Tuesday, adding that some complained of being beaten regularly by their captors.

NAIROBI (Reuters) - The Kenyan president's bid to remove a cap on commercial lending rates passed through parliament on Tuesday, after legislators opposed to lifting it failed to muster the required numbers to overturn it.

CHEJU, Zanzibar (Reuters) - Scientists seeking a breakthrough in the fight against malaria have used drones to spray rice fields in Zanzibar - not with traditional pesticides but with a thin, non-toxic film.