According to Dr. Pelpuo, Ghana has risen from the 10th richest country in Africa to the 8th within a year, with its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) now surpassing GH¢100 billion. He described the development as evidence of renewed economic direction and stability.

Speaking in an interview with Citi FM on Sunday, February 22, 2026, the Minister attributed the improvement to decisive leadership and prudent economic management during the first year of the Mahama administration.

“This government is a committed government. The President has shown that leadership can make a big difference. With this past year, Ghana can be different altogether. We were in 10th place among Africa’s richest countries. After one year of administration, good governance, and committed leadership, we rose to 8th position, with a GDP above GH¢100 billion,” he stated.

Dr. Pelpuo added that the government remains focused on consolidating these gains, noting that job creation and targeted labour policies will be central to sustaining growth and improving living standards across the country.

Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, known as “El Mencho”, died on Sunday as he was being taken to the capital Mexico City, after being seriously injured in clashes between his supporters and the army.

Four CJNG members were killed in the town of Tapalpa, the central-western Jalisco state. Three army personnel were also injured. The US had given Mexico information that assisted the operation.

CJNG retaliated by setting cars alight, building roadblocks and attacking security forces in eight states.

The US State Department issued a shelter-in-place warning for US citizens in the states of Jalisco, Tamaulipas, as well as some areas in Michoacan, Guerrero and Nuevo Leon.

Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo later urged people to remain “calm”.

In a post on X, she wrote that “in most parts of the country, activities are proceeding normally”.

El Mencho, a 59-year-old former police officer, ran a vast criminal organisation responsible for trafficking huge quantities of cocaine, methamphetamine and fentanyl into the US.

The US State Department had offered a $15m (£11.1m) reward for information leading to El Mencho’s capture.

In a statement, the Mexican defence ministry said the operation was “planned and executed” by the country’s special forces.

Aircraft from the Mexican Air Force and the National Guard were also deployed.

It also said that several armoured vehicles and weapons – including rocket launchers – were seized during the operation.

The US had been providing information to Mexico that assisted its operation, the statement said.

Eyewitnesses have filmed plumes of smoke rising over several cities including Guadalajara – one of the host cities of the forthcoming Fifa World Cup.

In the tourist hotspot of Puerto Vallarta, on the Jalisco coast, potentially thousands of tourists are trapped in the resort because of the unrest.

Throughout Sunday, there were reports of gunmen on the streets in Jalisco and elsewhere.

The governor of Jalisco, Pablo Lemus Navarro, on social media advised residents of the state to adhere to a code red warning and stay in their homes.

He also said that public transport was suspended in the state.

US carriers United Airlines and American Airlines, as well as Air Canada, have cancelled flights to Puerto Vallarta and Guadalajara. A flight operated by Delta Airlines bound for Guadalajara from Atlanta was diverted to Austin, according to flight-tracking site Flight Aware.

Former US ambassador to Mexico and Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau described El Mencho on social media as “one of the bloodiest and most ruthless drug kingpins.”

He added that El Mencho’s death was “a great development for Mexico, the US, Latin America, and the world”.

Who was El Mencho, Mexico’s most wanted man?

Mike Vigil, former Chief of International Operations for the US Drug Enforcement Administration, described the operation as “one of the most significant actions undertaken in the history of drug trafficking”. He was speaking to CBS, the BBC’s US news partner.

The killing of El Mencho represents a victory for the Mexican president in her fight against the country’s drug cartels.

It also could strengthen her relationship with US President Donald Trump, who has threatened to target the cartels on Mexican soil.

Last January, Trump told Fox News that after targeting drug trafficking boats “we are going to start now hitting land,” adding that “the cartels are running Mexico”.

President Sheinbaum later responded by saying a US troop deployment across the southern border was “not on the table”.

However, if the security forces can’t bring the situation under control quickly, the Mexican administration’s victory may be overshadowed by the cartel’s violent response.

The Jalisco cartel has gained notoriety for a series of attacks on security forces and public officials.

It has downed an army helicopter with a rocket-propelled grenade, killed dozens of state officials, and has even been known to hang the bodies of its victims from bridges to intimidate its rivals.

CJNG cartel – Mexico’s major drug trafficking player

The CJNG cartel – which had its original power base in Jalisco in 2010 – is now present across Mexico.

The US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) considers it to be rivalling the powerful Sinaloa cartel, which has a presence in all 50 US states.

CJNG is also a key supplier of drugs to the US, earning billions from fentanyl production.

Irkutsk regional Governor Igor Kobzev offered his “deepest condolences to the families and friends of the victims”. He earlier said one Chinese tourist had managed to escape.

The depth at the site of Friday’s accident was 18m (59ft), and the divers had to use underwater cameras to search for the bodies.

Baikal – the world’s deepest lake with a maximum depth of 1,642m (5,387ft) – is a popular tourist destination. It often freezes during harsh winters and has seen a number of deadly accidents over the years.

The bus fell into three-metre-wide ice fissure on Friday, Kobzev said in a post on Telegram.

“I would like to remind you once again that going out onto Lake Baikal’s ice is not just prohibited right now. It’s mortally dangerous,” the governor said, urging tourists to use only official tour operators.

He added that all the Chinese tourists – including a 14-year-old child – had travelled independently.

A criminal investigation into the cause of the tragedy is now under way.

Shortly afterwards Kobzev took to social media again, saying that “sadly, even this tragedy hasn’t taught people a lesson”, informing that six people trapped in their cars had been rescued in two separate incidents on Friday and Saturday.

In late January, a Chinese tourist died after a car he was travelling overturned on the frozen surface of Lake Baikal.

The high court’s decision, which included the “fentanyl” tariffs Trump imposed on Canada, China and Mexico, reinforced Canada’s position that the levies were “unjustified”, US-Canada Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc said on X.

But LeBlanc noted the challenges ahead in Ottawa. There is the “critical work” to do in dealing with impacts from levies on steel, aluminium and automobiles, which Trump said will remain.

There is also the upcoming review of the Canada-US-Mexico trade deal, the USMCA, which covers a market of more than 500 million people.

The actual impact of the Supreme Court decision on Canadian tariffs is limited.

Last year, the Trump administration imposed tariffs on Canada and Mexico, with Canada facing 25%, later raised to 35%, with the president arguing both countries must do more to stop migrants and the illegal drug fentanyl reaching the US.

But the vast majority of trade, some 85%, under these “fentanyl” tariffs were already levy-free under a USMCA exemption.

LeBlanc’s office declined to comment on Trump’s proclamation imposing a 10% global tariff to replace the duties imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA, which the Supreme Court struck down.

The White House clarified the USMCA exemption will continue under the new 10% tariff, which will take effect on Tuesday.

Beyond the remaining US tariffs on sectors like steel and automobiles, the biggest issue for Canada on its US trade agenda is the USMCA review. This summer, all three partners must decide whether to extend the deal, which was negotiated during Trump’s first term.

A North American free trade deal has been in place in some form since the early 1990s, and has led to deeply integrated economies.

In Mexico this week, LeBlanc told reporters that both countries “remain absolutely committed to a trilateral trade agreement”.

The Trump administration has been less enthusiastic about saying they want the USMCA renewed, and officials have suggested Washington would prefer separate bilateral deals with Canada and Mexico.

He also said he will meet US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer in the coming weeks to discuss the review talks, which are expected to kick into high gear ahead of a 1 July deadline.

It would be the first sign of formal trade discussions between the US and Canada after talks were halted last October by Trump, who was upset over an anti-tariffs advert sponsored by Canada’s province of Ontario that aired on US networks – including during the World Series.

Greer, in an interview on Fox Business earlier this week, said it has been “more challenging” negotiating with Canada than with Mexico.

“They continue to have certain barriers. They refuse to sell US wine and spirits on their shelves.,” he said. “There are a variety of issues that they have not addressed and they aren’t addressing, and this makes it a big challenge and an obstacle for starting real negotiations with them.”

Greer has previously named rules on dairy imports and a Canadian law called the Online Streaming Act, which requires American media companies like Netflix and Spotify to pay to support Canadian content, as other trade irritants.

As the rocky negotiations continue, Canada has sought to build trade ties outside the US, which currently buys about 75% of its exports, with a goal of doubling non-US exports by 2035.

Many Canadian business groups on Friday said that uncertainty remains.

Dennis Darby, CEO of Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters, said businesses are ultimately looking for a successful renewal of the USCMA that “puts an end to recurring trade disruptions”.

“Predictable, rules-based trade is essential for manufacturers on both sides of the border,” he said.

Addressing a press conference at the Embassy in Accra today, Friday, February 20, 2026, Mr Olson said Customs and Border Protection officers would determine the length of stay granted to each visitor upon arrival in the United States.

He explained that although the standard period for a B visa, which supporters would need to apply for, is generally six months, the duration of stay is not automatic and remains at the discretion of the immigration officer at the port of entry.

“For a B visa, the standard generally is six months, but it’s not automatic. So, it is incumbent upon the amount of time that the CBP officer gives you. If they give you 90 days, you have 90 days. You have three months.

“If you’re given six months, you have six months which is a long time. I think we can all agree that six months is enough time to go watch the World Cup matches, spend some time with friends, go on a vacation if you wanted to do that, and still return,” he said.

The Charge d’Affaires stressed that Ghanaians must respect US immigration laws and regulations, including adhering strictly to the terms of their visas. He warned that overstaying is considered a breach of the law and could result in penalties such as deportation and future visa denials.

Mr Olson further clarified that while Ghana currently benefits from a five-year multiple-entry visa arrangement, consular officers retain the authority to limit the validity of a visa where necessary.

“The consular officer can limit the validity of a visa. It is in their power to do that. There is no automatic five-year multiple entry. Generally, that’s the standard, and we generally apply that for most travelers.

“You’ll have the opportunity to go again, if you wish. But, limiting the length of time is a normal thing for any country that’s watching its immigration, obviously, and controlling the visitor flow,” he said.

He disclosed that the US Embassy has opened tens of thousands of new visa appointment slots in an effort to reduce waiting times and encouraged prospective applicants to apply early or reschedule for earlier interview dates where possible.

The caution comes amid heightened interest from Ghanaian supporters seeking to travel to the United States for the global football tournament, with embassy officials reiterating that compliance with immigration rules is essential to maintaining travel privileges.

The court’s Friday ruling was “deeply disappointing”. The justices who joined the majority opinion should be “absolutely ashamed” and lacked the courage to “do the right thing”, Trump said, turning his response into a sweeping attack against a co-equal branch of government.

The broadside was remarkable even for a president known for blowing past political norms and publicly berating those who challenge his authority.

“I’m ashamed of certain members of the court. Absolutely ashamed for not having the courage to do what’s right for our country,” Trump said at the start of a press conference at the White House, which was held a few hours after the decision was released.

Trump did not mince words from there as he assessed the decision, which held that presidents do not have inherent authority to impose sweeping tariffs on any country.

For the next 45 minutes, Trump criticised the ruling and made the case that he would find other methods to continue imposing tariffs on other countries. But throughout he repeatedly returned to the justices in ways that made clear he felt personally slighted by the decision.

The president did not discriminate against Republican and Democratic appointees, either.

The six justices who struck down Trump’s tariffs were equally divided among the court’s liberal and conservative wings. Three – Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson – were appointed by Democratic presidents. The other three were appointed by Republicans. Chief Justice John Roberts is a George W Bush pick who wrote the majority opinion, and Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett were appointed by Trump in his first term in office.

Trump went after them all.

“They’re just being fools and lapdogs for the Rhinos and the radical left Democrats,” Trump said, using shorthand for a term – Republicans in Name Only – that is deployed by some on the right to disparage other Republicans deemed not sufficiently loyal to the party.

The president also claimed that the court was influenced by “foreign interests” in its decision, though he did not provide any details or evidence for the assertion.

“It’s my opinion that the court has been swayed by foreign interests,” he said.

Trump declined to elaborate when a reporter pressed him to explain what he meant.

When asked if he regretted nominating Gorsuch and Coney Barrett, the president stopped short of saying that he had made a mistake. But Trump said their votes were an “embarrassment” and brought up their families, a highly unusual move.

“It’s an embarrassment to their families, to one another,” Trump said.

At the same time, Trump heaped praise on the three members of the court, Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Brett Kavanaugh, who voted to keep his tariffs authority intact.

He gave special attention to Kavanaugh, his other first-term appointee.

In a lengthy dissent, Kavanaugh said the government would be forced to refund billions in tariff revenue and said the process would be a “mess.” The president thanked Kavanaugh, as well as Thomas and Alito, “for their strength and wisdom and love of our country”.

Court watchers and trade experts said Trump’s reaction wasn’t surprising given how much he had invested in the outcome of the case.

“I think the court was well aware of the importance to the president of this decision,” said Alan Wm Wolff, a former deputy director-general of the World Trade Organization.

Colin Grabow, a trade expert at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank in Washington, said the decision represented “a victory for the rule of law”.

“It’s unfortunate that he attacked these justices,” Grabow said.

“The Supreme Court said [Trump] went too far,” he added. “President Trump took that as an affront. It’s not a surprise.”

In a press statement issued on Friday, February 20, 2026, the government indicated that the matter will be referred to arbitration under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

The statement, signed by the Spokesperson to the President and Minister for Government Communications, Felix Kwakye Ofosu, noted that the decision comes after eight years of negotiations that failed to produce an agreed outcome on the boundary.

Government explained that the move aims to prevent further escalation of tensions arising from recent incidents involving institutions of both countries and to promote an amicable resolution.

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What led to him being arrested started with information that came out in the massive Epstein file release in January, around activities while he was a trade envoy for the British government. But it will not have stopped there.

It was emails in those files that seem to be between Andrew and the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein that led to Thames Valley Police getting involved.

One email in particular stood out. In November 2010, after Andrew had returned from a UK government-funded trip to Asia, he was sent a series of country reports relating to his trip.

Within five minutes of receiving them he seems to have forwarded them to Epstein, who had by this point already been convicted and spent time in prison for sex offences.

There were further email revelations from the files.

A month later, on Christmas Eve, Andrew appeared to email Epstein a confidential briefing on investment opportunities in the reconstruction of Helmand Province, Afghanistan, which was overseen at the time by British armed forces and funded by UK government money.

In a further email dated 9 February 2011, Andrew seems to suggest Epstein invest in a private equity firm he had visited a week before.

These will have formed the beginning of what today turned into a full investigation by Thames Valley Police. But detectives will have not relied only on the emails that we have seen.

In order to build a case they will have gone to the government and to the palace asking for emails that might explain what was going on. The palace said last Monday that it would “support” Thames Valley Police.

Detectives will also have done their own trawl of the three million documents in the Epstein files, and they will have asked for unredacted copies from the FBI or the US Department of Justice. The National Crime Agency is helping UK police forces with those requests.

So far we have seen only the tip of the iceberg, but detectives may have seen more of what lies under the surface

It is highly unlikely that the police arrested Andrew on Thursday on the basis of just a couple of emails people have seen within the Epstein files.

At this stage, Andrew has only been arrested. He has not been charged. He has always denied any wrongdoing arising from his relationship with Epstein and has not responded to specific BBC questions about the files released in January.

And a reminder, this arrest has nothing to do with allegations Andrew has previously faced from Giuffre, who said she was made to have sex with Andrew on a number of occasions in the early 2000s. An out-of-court financial settlement was reached between Andrew and Giuffre in 2022, which made no admission of wrongdoing on Andrew’s part.

The police released Andrew under investigation on Thursday evening. Typically with arrests relating to white collar crime, people are held for a few hours to allow for searches and initial questioning. Being released under investigation does not rule out further questioning at a later date.

Nowdetectives will have a big decision to make. This could take weeks.

Police officers with a crown on their cap badges will sit down with lawyers from the Crown Prosecution Service and decide if there is sufficient evidence to charge the King’s brother.

If they decide to take the case to court, it will be called R v Mountbatten-Windsor, or in layman’s terms, the King against the King’s brother.

A statement from Thames Valley police was released Thursday that said, “As part of the investigation, we have today (19/2) arrested a man in his sixties from Norfolk on suspicion of misconduct in public office and are carrying out searches at addresses in Berkshire and Norfolk.”

“The man remains in police custody at this time.”

King Charles II said after arrest that “the law must take its course” in the investigation of his brother.

Mountbatten-Windsor, the British former prince, was stripped of his title last year over his friendship with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, amid ongoing furore over accusations against him of sexual assault, which he denies.

Police officers were investigating him for several allegations that emerged after US authorities released more than 3 million pages of documents relating ⁠to the disgraced financier.

Some of those files suggested that Mountbatten-Windsor had, in 2010, forwarded to Epstein reports about Vietnam, Singapore and other places he had visited on ‌official trips as UK trade envoy. In one confidential memo, he sought Epstein’s views on investment opportunities in Afghanistan’s Helmand province.

“We will not be naming the arrested man, as per national guidance. Please also remember that this case is now active so care should be taken with any publication to avoid being in contempt of court,” the police statement added.

Assistant Chief Constable Oliver Wright said: “Following a thorough assessment, we have now opened an investigation into this allegation of misconduct in public office.

“It is important that we protect the integrity and objectivity of our investigation as we work with our partners to investigate this alleged offence. We understand the significant public interest in this case, and we will provide updates at the appropriate time.”

Mountbatten-Windsor should cooperate with the United States authorities in their investigation, the UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has said. “No one is above the law,” he added. Mountbatten-Windsor has consistently denied any wrongdoing.

“This is such an unprecedented action and move for a prince that was one time the queen’s favourite child, who held a number of high-profile roles within the British establishment, who gradually had this fall from grace because of his association with a convicted pedophile,” said Al Jazeera’s Milena Veselinovic, reporting from London. “This is yet another blow to the branding of the monarchy.”

Michael Walker, a political commentator and contributing editor at Novara Media, says the developments are “incredibly damaging” for the UK’s monarchy and establishment, more generally.

“There is an impression that even though Andrew has been pushed out of the royal family, it was always one step behind,” he told Al Jazeera.

“There is no impression that the royal family sort of learned about these things and was genuinely morally outraged so therefore pushed Andrew to the side,” he added.

“It always seems like they are a step behind, there’s a PR disaster and they say, ‘How do we distance ourselves from this man who is an embarrassment’ – as opposed to “How do we sort of bring about consequences for this man who has morally erred’.”

The arrest comes after the royal family last week committed to cooperate with the police on any investigation regarding Mountbatten-Windsor.

It is Zuckerberg’s first appearance before a jury after years of backlash against Meta, which also owns WhatsApp and Facebook, which he co-founded.

Meta’s lawyers have argued that the lead plaintiff in this case, known by her initials K.G.M., was harmed by other factors in her life, not by her use of Instagram.

The trial, in which Google’s YouTube is also a defendant, is being closely watched for its implications for thousands of similar lawsuits facing social media firms.

TikTok and Snapchat, which had also been named in the lawsuit, settled shortly before the trial was scheduled to begin. Terms of the settlements were not disclosed.

Lawyers for K.G.M. or Kaley, who started using Instagram and YouTube as a child, have accused social media firms of working to addict young users, despite being aware of risks to mental health.

She attended the proceedings on Wednesday, sitting directly across from Zuckerberg, who arrived at court with an entourage of security and associates.

Bereaved parents were also among those in the courtroom to watch the proceedings.

Mark Lanier, representing K.G.M., pressed Zuckerberg about his efforts to get users to spend more time on his platforms, confronting the executive with emails he had written.

In 2015, for example, Zuckerberg told a group of executives that his goals for the year included seeing “time spent increase by 12%” and the “teen trend be reversed.”

A year earlier, he had identified time spent as “the most concerning” metric being tracked by the company.

Gesturing to his client, Lanier noted that the emails were written when she was only nine or 10 years old, and already using Instagram.

Zuckerberg admitted that “at an earlier point in the company” he would give executives goals to increase time spent, while also insisting that was no longer how the company operated.

He also said that if something is of value, “people tend to use it more.”

Lanier noted that people who are addicted to something also tend to increase their use.

“I don’t know what to say to that,” Zuckerberg replied. “I think that may be true, but I don’t know if that applies here.”

In questioning last week, Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, challenged the idea of social media addiction, arguing that even 16-hours of Instagram use in a single day did not show an addiction.

The trial is expected to last several weeks. It is also set to include testimony from former Meta employees who have since spoken out about the company’s practices.

YouTube boss Neal Mohan was also expected to appear but is no longer being called to testify, the BBC has learned.

The case is one of thousands of similar lawsuits brought by families, state prosecutors, and school districts that are currently winding their way through U.S. courts.

The lawsuits accuse Meta and other social media platforms, including TikTok, Snapchat and YouTube, of functioning in an addictive manner that ultimately has harmed many children.

In one such case, 29 state attorneys general are urging a California federal court to order the platforms to make several changes immediately, before any trial, including requiring Meta to remove all accounts known to belong to users under 13 years of age.

A growing number of countries are restricting social media use among young people. Australia implemented a ban on social media accounts for people under 16 late last year.

The UK, Denmark, France and Spain are considering similar measures.

The trilateral meetings, held in Geneva, went on late on Tuesday but only lasted two hours on Wednesday.

Although US envoy Steve Witkoff had expressed optimism over the talks, both the chief Russian negotiator and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky indicated they had been “difficult”.

Some progress was made on “military issues”, including the location of the front line and ceasefire monitoring, according to a Ukrainian diplomatic source.

But an agreement on the issue of territory – without which no ceasefire can be envisaged – remains elusive, with Moscow and Kyiv’s positions still far apart.

Russia has not budged in its demand for full control of the eastern Donbas region – made up of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions – which is a non-starter for Ukraine.

While conceding talks were challenging, Kremlin negotiator Vladimir Medinsky added that they had been “businesslike” and said another meeting would take place “soon”.

Zelensky also described the negotiations as “not easy” due to the difference in the two sides’ positions.

Ukrainian negotiator Rustem Umerov cut a less downbeat tone, saying the discussions had been “substantive and intensive” and that while there had been progress, no details could be disclosed “at this stage”.

“This is complex work that requires alignment among all parties and sufficient time,” Umerov said.

Shortly before the end of the talks was announced, Zelensky accused Russia of “trying to drag out negotiations that could already have reached the final stage”.

The Russian and Ukrainian delegations last metin US-brokered talks in Abu Dhabi in January, which led to the first prisoner exchange in several months. On Wednesday, Zelensky indicated that another swap might be forthcoming.

US President Donald Trump, who spearheaded diplomatic efforts to end the war, has been signalling impatience with the deadlock between the two sides.

On Monday, he said Ukraine had “better come to the table, fast” – a sentiment Zelensky has since rejected, saying it was “not fair” that his country should be the one asked to compromise.

Four years on from the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, a substantial distance still exists between Moscow’s demands and what Kyiv might consider a “just peace”.

Kyiv has long rejected Russia’s demand for the eastern Donbas, which would mean relinquishing Ukrainian sovereign territory, including several heavily fortified cities and a long defensive line in the region of Donetsk.

Many Ukrainians believe giving that territory up would leave the country vulnerable to another Russian invasion. Zelensky himself has drawn parallels with the 1938 Munich Agreement, when European powers let Hitler annex the Czech territory of Sudetenland.

On Tuesday, Zelensky told US media outlet Axios that any plan to hand over the Donbas would be rejected by Ukrainians if it were put to a referendum.

The Ukrainian president is also working to ensure that robust security guarantees to deter Russia from attacking again are provided by Kyiv’s western allies.

Another sticking point in the talks is the status of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant.

The power plant – Europe’s largest – sits on the front line and has been under Russian control since March 2022. Ukraine wants Moscow to return it and Zelensky has previously said Kyiv could share control of the plant with the Americans – an arrangement Moscow is unlikely to agree to.

Officials from Britain, France, Germany and Italy were present in Geneva and held talks with the Ukrainians on the sidelines of the trilateral meeting.

European representatives have struggled to be included in the US-led negotiations, but Zelensky said European participation was “indispensable” for any final agreement.

Next Tuesday will mark the fourth anniversary of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The war, which has resulted in tens of thousands of military and civilian casualties and displaced millions across Ukraine, continues to shape the lives of Ukrainians, with daily deadly aerial attacks across the country.

The British-Latvian dual national is among those who say they have been caught out by upcoming changes to passport rules for dual nationals, which are due to kick in on 25 February.

Entry requirements for dual nationals are being overhauled as part of sweeping changes to the immigration system, the government says, will streamline and modernise the UK border.

But for Jelena, who has lived in the UK for 16 years, the changes are a “betrayal”, and others in the same situation have told BBC News the prospect of being denied entry is causing anger and concern.

Here are how the new rules will work – and why Jelena and others like her are furious about it.

How are passport rules for British dual nationals changing?

Under the existing rules, a British dual national whose other nationality is in a country not subject to UK visa requirements could travel to the UK using their foreign passport.

But from 25 February, that will no longer be the case.

Instead, they will need to show either a British passport or a new digital version of the certificate of entitlement to attach to their second nationality passport – and without one of them, they could face being denied the right to travel back to the UK.

Neither British passports or certificates of entitlement are automatically issued to people who obtain citizenship, which means some dual nationals have never applied for them, even if they have lived in the UK for decades.

Both documents take several weeks to obtain, and there are costs, too. A British passport costs around £100 for an adult, while the certificate of entitlement costs £589.

These new rules for dual nationals are linked to the rollout of the Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) system this month, a major immigration reform which will require visitors to the UK who do not have a visa to apply for a £16 entry document before arriving.

The government said it plans to increase the ETA fee to £20 in the future.

Dual nationals cannot apply for an ETA and must instead meet the new documentation requirements, with checks now carried out by airlines when departing for the UK.

The new rules do not apply to Irish passport holders, but other EU citizens will be affected.

According to the 2021 census, 1.2% of UK-born residents were UK-other dual citizens (587,600), and 6.5% of non-UK-born residents were UK-other dual citizens (648,700).

The government has said the reforms bring the UK’s immigration system into line with countries like the US and Australia.

But critics say the looming deadline and a lack of communication around the changes have left people scrambling to apply for new documents, with dual nationals who are out of the country on holiday or visiting family facing the prospect of being stranded until they can acquire a passport or the certificate.

How are people being impacted by the new rules?

Jelena, who was born in Latvia and has lived in the UK ever since coming to study, became a British citizen in November.

The 34-year-old chartered surveyor told BBC News she delayed applying for a British passport when she became a citizen as she was travelling to see family for Christmas, so could not send off her Latvian passport as part of the application process.

Jelena only learned of the changes recently and is unable to apply for new documentation immediately as she is due to go on a long-planned trip to South America in a few weeks and may not get her passport back in time to travel.

“As it stands, after South America, I won’t be able to return to my flat [in Glasgow], which my husband and I own, in the country I have lived in for nearly 16 years, studied in and paid taxes,” she told BBC Your Voice.

Jelena intends to change her travel plans by returning to Latvia after her trip to apply for a British passport from there, potentially facing a wait of several weeks or months for it to arrive.

“I’m lucky that my employer is flexible about me working from abroad – if that wasn’t the case, I wouldn’t have a job because of this,” she said.

“If I hadn’t applied for citizenship and just had an EU passport, I would be in a better situation than I am now,” she added.

“The irony is that I’ve chosen to be part of this country, but it feels like I’m being deported. It feels like a betrayal.”

‘I found out about it on Facebook’

Petra Gartzen, a UK-German dual national who has lived in the UK for four decades, said she was furious at the lack of communication about the upcoming changes and is frantically trying to obtain a Spanish passport, as she is staying there for a few months over the winter.

She told BBC News: “They changed the rules when I was already in Spain. There was no lead-up, no major announcement – I found out about it from a Facebook post, and just thought, now what?”

The government says publicly available information has been in circulation about the upcoming changes since October 2024, but critics say it has not cut through to people affected.

Petra, a tech industry analyst, was told she would need to travel from southern Spain to Madrid for an appointment to apply for the “ridiculously expensive” certificate of entitlement while outside the UK, further increasing the cost.

Petra has now applied for a UK passport from Spain, but that has had its own complications. “They agreed to accept a notarised copy of my German passport so I did not have to send that off, but they also wanted my original citizenship certificate – which I don’t have, it’s in the UK,” she explained.

Petra now has a “nervous wait” to see whether the documentation she provided is accepted and processed in time for early March, when she is due to travel back to the UK before heading to the US for work.

She said she felt let down by the way the changes have been introduced, adding: “I’ve been a British citizen since 2019. The UK is my home – I’ve lived there for 40 years, I own a home, I work and pay tax. My whole life is there.”

Swiss dual national Shaun West said he was considering not replacing his British passport and renouncing his British citizenship due to the new requirements.

“There’s no worth in it for me,” said the university professor, who became a Swiss citizen after Brexit.

He said he would rather pay the ETA fee to temporarily enter the UK to see his parents, adding: “[The government] said I’ll lose consular services. I’m not bothered. [They said] you won’t be able to live here. I’m not going to.”

West said he learned about the rule change “utterly by accident” while reading online about how it affected Canadians, and that he believed it was discriminatory against dual nationals.

Norwegian dual national Linn Kathenes, who lives in the UK, said she was only notified by the Home Office about the new rules last week.

The teacher said that the changes mean she is now in a race against time to make arrangements for an upcoming overseas school trip.

Kathenes explained that she is waiting to collect her Norwegian passport, which she had to renew. She needs to send over the document before she can begin the process of getting the UK passport required to travel.

“I don’t see another way, I just have to gamble”, she said.

The Home Office has been contacted about her case.

Campaign group the3million, which represents EU citizens in the UK, has also criticised the government’s communication about the changes.

“The Home Office has not done enough to warn dual nationals of the serious impact this will have on them,” the group’s head of policy and advocacy, Monique Hawkins, said.

She has called on the government to “urgently hit the pause button” and introduce a “low-cost, one-off travel authorisation” for dual nationals whose travel plans have been disrupted.

A Home Office spokesperson said: “Public information advising dual nationals to carry the correct documentation has been available since October 2024, and a substantive communications campaign about the introduction of ETA has been running since 2023.

“This requirement applies to all British citizens regardless of other nationality and is the same approach taken by other countries, including the United States, Canada and Australia.”

The scandal unfolded last month after videos emerged of Jerí meeting several times outside his official schedule with businessman Zhihua Yang, who was under government scrutiny.

Jerí had previously apologised for the meetings, but denied any wrongdoing and accused his rivals of a public smear campaign.

His removal from office makes him the third consecutive president to be ousted, after he replaced former leader Dina Boluarte who was impeached in October last year.

Jerí has been Peru’s seventh president since 2016, amid a tumultuous political landscape in which a succession of leaders have left the post under contentious circumstances.

Peru’s Congress will vote on Wednesday for its next interim president.

Lawmakers voted 75 to 24 in favour of impeaching Jerí after a series of controversies dubbed “Chifa-gate” – after a local name for Chinese restaurants.

Security camera footage of Jerí’s meetings with Yang, who owns several businesses and was granted a state concession for an energy project, was first reported by local media.

In one of the videos, Jerí could be seen wearing a hooded top during a late-night visit at one of Yang’s restaurants.

Also present at one of the meetings was another Chinese citizen who was under house arrest while being investigated for alleged links to an illegal timber network.

Peruvian law requires presidents to document all their official activities, but the now former leader did not record those meetings.

Ruth Luque, one of the lawmakers who backed the censure measures, said she wanted a leader who would put public interest and security first.

“We ask to end this agony so we can truly create the transition citizens are hoping for,” she said, according to Reuters. “Not a transition with hidden interests, influence-peddling, secret meetings and hooded figures. We don’t want that sort of transition.”

Pressure had been mounting for Jerí to resign in the wake of the scandal as he faced a corruption investigation launched by the attorney general and his approval ratings plummeted.

His impeachment marks another chapter of instability for Peru, which is due to hold a general election in April, when power will be transferred to a new president.

Jerí’s predecessor Boluarte was ousted following a tenure that was plagued protest, scandals and a surge in gang violence.

Less than a week after Jerí assumed power, protests organised by young Peruvians demanding the political class to do more to combat crime and corruption left one dead and more than 100 people injured.

He was 84.

“Our father was a servant leader — not only to our family, but to the oppressed, the voiceless, and the overlooked around the world,” the Jackson family said in a statement.

Civil rights leader Rev. Al Sharpton said in a statement that “our nation lost one of its greatest moral voices” and paid tribute to a man who “carried history in his footsteps and hope in his voice.”

“Reverend Jackson stood wherever dignity was under attack, from apartheid abroad to injustice at home. His voice echoed in boardrooms and in jail cells,” Sharpton said.

A cause of death was not immediately given. Jackson’s family said he died peacefully surrounded by his loved ones.

He was admitted to a hospital in November and had been living for more than a decade with progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), according to his Rainbow PUSH Coalition. PSP affects patients’ ability to walk and swallow and can lead to dangerous complications.

Jackson revealed he had Parkinson’s in 2017. He was treated as an outpatient at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago for at least two years before he shared the diagnosis with the public.

Public observances will be held in Chicago and future plans for celebration of life events will be announced by the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, the Jackson family said in its statement Tuesday.

Jackson was born in Greenville, South Carolina, and rose to prominence in the civil rights era, participating in demonstrations alongside the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. His activism spanned decades, including two runs for the Democratic presidential nomination, in 1984 and 1988.

In the first race, he won more than 18% of the primary vote and a handful of primaries and caucuses.

“Merely by being black and forcing other candidates to consider his very real potential to garner black votes, which they need, Jackson has had an impact,” read a 1984 New York Times profile.

Four years later, he built on that success by winning 11 primaries and caucuses.

Jackson began his work as an organizer with the Congress of Racial Equality, participating in marches and sit-ins. He attended North Carolina A&T State University and graduated with a degree in sociology. He began rallying student support for King during his divinity studies at Chicago Theological Seminary and participated in the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery march in Alabama.

Shortly afterward, Jackson joined the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, or SCLC, to work alongside King full time. He drew praise from King as a young man running the SCLC’s economic development and empowerment program, Operation Breadbasket — “we knew he was going to do a good job, but he’s done better than a good job,” King said.

As he grew as an organizer, Jackson married Jacqueline Brown, who survives him, in 1962. They have five children, including former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., D-Ill.

Jackson, who was at the motel in Memphis, Tennessee, with King when he was assassinated in 1968, did not let up after King’s death. He took his vision for Black liberation even further by founding People United to Save Humanity, or PUSH, in 1971. He resigned from the SCLC that year to start PUSH after he was suspended from the organization; he was accused of using the SCLC for personal gain. PUSH worked to improve economic conditions of Black communities in the country and later expanded to politics with direct action campaigns and social areas through a weekly radio show and awards for Black people.

Jackson’s 1984 presidential bid prompted the launch of his National Rainbow Coalition, which opposed President Ronald Reagan’s policies and advocated for social programs, voting rights and affirmative action. PUSH and the National Rainbow Coalition merged in 1996 and are now the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition.

His 1984 campaign angered some Democrats who said his ideas were too left-leaning and would hurt the party in the general election. Jackson dismissed the concerns.

“The great responsibility that we have today is to put the poor and the near-poor back on front of the American agenda,” Jackson said of the 1984 campaign in a 1996 interview with PBS. “This is a dangerous mission, and yet it’s a necessary mission!”

Jackson’s 1984 campaign was marred when he referred to Jewish people as “hymies” and called New York City “hymietown” in a Washington Post interview. He initially denied having made the remarks and accused Jewish people of targeting his campaign. He later admitted having used the slur and offered an impassioned apology.

In 1991, Jackson was elected as one of Washington’s two “shadow senators” to lobby for D.C. statehood and served one term.

Jackson also helped win the release of several detained and captured Americans around the world. In 1999, he negotiated the release of three U.S. soldiers being held in Yugoslavia. President Bill Clinton awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom for those efforts a year later.

Jackson’s other successes included winning the release of a U.S. Navy pilot in 1984 from Syrian captors after his plane was shot down, at least 16 Americans held in Cuba in 1984, 700 women and children from Iraq in 1990 and two Gambian Americans from prison in the West African country in 2012.

Tributes poured in for Jackson, with politicians on both sides of the aisle praising his work on civil rights.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said in a post to X that Jackson “was a legendary voice for the voiceless” and “inspired us to keep hope alive in the struggle for liberty and justice for all.” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., called Jackson “one of the most powerful forces for positive change in our country and our world.”

Former President Joe Biden said Jackson had inspired generations of Americans, including elected leaders, adding, “I’ve known Reverend Jackson as history will remember him: a man of God and of the people. Determined and tenacious. Unafraid of the work to redeem the soul of our Nation.”

President Donald Trump said in a post to Truth Social on Tuesday that Jackson “was a good man, with lots of personality, grit, and ‘street smarts.'”

“He loved his family greatly, and to them I send my deepest sympathies and condolences,” Trump said in the post. “Jesse will be missed!”

In recent decades, Jackson was outspoken about leading politicians, including former President Barack Obama. He condemned Trump’s presidency, saying, “Fifty years of civil rights have been threatened.” Jackson endorsed Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., in the 2020 presidential election, and Sanders made sure to praise him on the campaign trail.

“It is one of the honors of my life to be supported by a man who has put his life on the line for the last 50 years fighting for justice,” Sanders said at the time.

Char AdamsThe Rev. Jesse Jackson, the Baptist minister and two-time presidential candidate whose booming oratory and populist message propelled the civil rights movement in the decades after the assassination Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. died Tuesday, his family said.

Charcoal smuggling is common in the southern African country and is a major driver of rampant deforestation, although this method of transporting illicit goods is relatively new.

Forestry officers acted on a tip to intercept the “funeral” procession at a roadblock, a forestry official in Chikwawa, 40 km (25 miles) south of the commercial city of Blantyre, told Reuters.

Inside the hearse, they found an empty casket and about 30 large bags of charcoal packed beneath it, totalling 3 million Malawian kwacha ($1,747), said Chikwawa district forestry officer Hector Nkawihe.

If found guilty, the suspects face up to five years in prison or fines, he said. Most Malawians rely on charcoal for cooking as electricity blackouts are common.

The suspects were briefly detained but later escaped custody, leaving the impounded hearse behind, Nkawihe said.

“They face two charges of illegal possession of forestry products and transportation of the same,” he said.

A police spokesman confirmed the incident to Reuters and said the suspects remained at large and had not yet been charged.

U.S. President Donald Trump has accused Nigeria of failing to protect Christians from Islamist militants in the northwest.

Nigeria denies discriminating against any religion, saying its security forces target armed groups that attack both Christians and Muslims.

The U.S. carried out strikes targeting Islamic State-linked militants in December, and a small U.S. military team has been operating on the ground to boost Nigeria’s intelligence capabilities.

In recent days, several planes carrying U.S. troops and equipment have departed for Nigeria’s northern states, according to flight-tracking data reviewed by Reuters.

Major General Samaila Uba, spokesperson for Nigeria’s Defence Headquarters, said the troops would train and advise local forces, but not take part in combat.

Earlier this month, Nigeria’s military said it expected around 200 more U.S. troops.

Presidential spokesperson Sunday Dare said Nigeria needed “massive support from the U.S. government” in the form of fighter jets and munitions, but declined to provide numbers or a timeframe.

Nigeria’s 240 million people are evenly split between Christians, mainly in the south, and Muslims, mainly in the north.

It acknowledges serious security problems, including those from Islamist fighters, but denies that Christians face widespread or systematic persecution.

Authorities backed by the army had helped evacuate 188,000 people since early February to protect them from overflowing river waters that swept across 110,000 hectares in the northwest.

Most residents of Ksar El Kebir, 213 km north of Rabat, are now allowed to return home, except for those living in a few neighbourhoods, the interior ministry said on Monday.

INVESTMENT PLAN TO UPGRADE INFRASTRUCTURE

Train and bus rides were offered free of charge to transport residents who had sought shelter with relatives in other cities or in centres and camps provided by authorities, state TV reported.

Morocco plans to spend 3 billion dirhams ($330 million) to upgrade infrastructure and support flood-affected residents, farmers and shop-owners in the inundated areas, the prime minister’s office said last week, declaring the hardest‑hit municipalities disaster areas.

The Oued Makhazine dam, which had reached 160% of capacity, was forced to gradually release water downstream following exceptional inflows, resulting in rising water levels in the Loukous River, which inundated Ksar El Kebir and the surrounding plains.

Rainfall this winter was 35% above the average recorded since the 1990s and three times higher than last year, official data showed.

Morocco’s national dam-filling rate rose to nearly 70% from 27% a year earlier, with several large dams being partially emptied to absorb new inflows.

The exceptional rainfall ended a seven-year drought that had prompted the country to increase investments in desalination.

In a statement, Dr. Bawumia said he received with sadness news of the deaths, as well as reports that several others were injured in the attack.

He extended condolences on behalf of the NPP and his wife, Samira Bawumia, to the bereaved families and wished the injured a speedy recovery.

Dr. Bawumia stressed that Ghanaian traders must not be left vulnerable as they go about their businesses and urged the government to deepen intelligence collaboration with neighbouring countries to ensure the safety of Ghanaians abroad.

He also called for the strengthening of Ghana’s framework for preventing and countering violent extremism and terrorism to better protect citizens.

Below is the full statement:

STATEMENT ON SOME GHANAIAN TRADERS KILLED IN BURKINA FASO

I have received with shock news that some Ghanaian traders have been killed, while several others were injured, in a terrorist attack in Burkina Faso.

The NPP, Samira, and I extend our condolences to the families of the bereaved and wish the injured a speedy recovery.

Ghanaian traders must not be left exposed to such peril as they go about their trade.

I urge the government to deepen intelligence collaboration with all our neighbours to ensure that Ghanaians are protected wherever they find themselves.

Our well-established framework for preventing and countering violent extremism and terrorism must be strengthened.

Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia
Flagbearer, New Patriotic Party

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Speaking at the “Accra Reset’s Addis Reckoning” forum on the sidelines of the 39th Assembly of the African Union on Sunday, February 15, President Mahama emphasized that currency conversion requirements remain a major obstacle to boosting trade within Africa.

Referencing concerns raised by Wamkele Mene, Secretary-General of the African Continental Free Trade Area, the President questioned the logic of current payment systems on the continent.

“The Pan-African payment and settlement system is a thing whose time has come — and with urgency. I should be able to ship my goods to Kenya and get paid in cedis rather than a foreign currency,” he stated.

According to President Mahama, reforming payment systems is a key component of the broader Accra Reset agenda, which seeks to dismantle long-standing structural dependencies within Africa’s financial architecture.

Beyond financial reforms, he highlighted improvements in transport and logistics as signs that continental integration is steadily progressing. He commended ASKY Airlines for enhancing connectivity across West Africa and noted the expansive African route network of Ethiopian Airlines. He also pointed to emerging maritime services along the West Coast, including reefer vessels redistributing cargo between Dakar and Douala, and plans for a proposed ferry system connecting Accra, Lagos, and Monrovia.

“Once supply and demand are in place, the logistics will follow,” he observed.

President Mahama stressed that Africa’s growth would generate shared global benefits, echoing sentiments that African prosperity strengthens global prosperity.

However, he repeatedly called for decisive action.

“We take time. And we behave like time is waiting for us,” he said, urging African leaders to move beyond policy discussions toward concrete, measurable implementation.

“As we said, this is the Addis reckoning. From Addis, we must stop talking and start implementing.”

While his speech did not fully allay their concerns, it was seen as reassuring allies that, while US relations may have frayed under Donald Trump, they will not break.

Rubio’s was not the only US political voice at the security summit, however.

And even if the secretary of state’s remarks had not been so well-received – if he had sharply criticised Europeans the way Vice-President JD Vance did at the conference last year – there were other US politicians doing their best impression of the Persian poet, counselling: “This too shall pass.”

“If there’s nothing else I can communicate today,” California Governor Gavin Newsom said at a conference event on Friday, “Donald Trump is temporary. He’ll be gone in three years.”

Newsom was just one of dozens of American legislators and governors in attendance – including some Democrats, like the Californian, who may contend for their party’s 2028 presidential nomination.

Many emphasised that the US would remain a strong partner to Europe, along lines similar to those offered by Rubio, but without his criticism of cultural decline on the continent.

“The reason we’re here is to provide reassurance that we understand how important our European allies are,” Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire said.

A Republican in attendance, Senator Thom Tillis, echoed her, noting that the US and Europe were not in a “civil war”. He cautioned American allies not to get caught up in the “rhetoric of American politics”.

That has been easier said than done recently, as Trump has imposed steep tariffs on many US trading partners, and he and some of his top aides have been blunt in their desire to reshape the international order, use American military power, and refocus American foreign policy on the Western Hemisphere.

The president’s designs on Greenland – which he repeated before departing the White House for a weekend in Florida on Friday – have been only the most jarring example of the shift in the American outlook.

Trump’s willingness to push boundaries and test the limits of his power has not been limited to foreign affairs. Several Democrats took time in Munich to address additional domestic concerns.

Virginia Senator Mark Warner warned that the president’s talk of nationalising elections and instituting stringent identity requirements for voting via executive order mean the freedom and fairness of November’s midterm congressional elections are at stake.

“I never thought I would say that in 2026 America,” he said.

Trump has defended his effort – and the SAVE act, which would implement a national voter identification requirement legislatively – as both popular with a sizable majority of Americans and necessary to prevent voter impersonation at the ballot box.

Senators Mark Kelly and Elissa Slotkin, who were the focus of a recent unsuccessful indictment attempt by the Department of Justice for their video urging US soldiers to disregard “illegal” orders, both commented on being in the administration’s spotlight.

The US, Slotkin said, was “going through something profound”, before adding: “We’ll get through it.”

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez proved to be one of the conference’s biggest attractions, alongside Rubio.

She drew a line between growing wealth inequality – a focus of her domestic policy agenda since she won an upset victory in Congress in 2018 – and the rise of authoritarian governments.

“It is of the utmost urgency that we get our economic houses in order and deliver material gains for the working class,” she said.

“Otherwise, we will fall into a more isolated world governed by authoritarians who also do not deliver to working people.”

Ocasio-Cortez was another Democrat who may have presidential ambitions. While her appearance could enhance her foreign policy experience, it also underscored some of the risks associated with stepping onto the international stage.

At one point, she struggled to answer whether the US should defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion.

While Ocasio-Cortez comes from a different wing of the Democratic Party, her view that Western democracies must provide a compelling alternative to authoritarian governments is similar to one Joe Biden expressed during his presidency.

Trump, with his “America First” foreign policy and talk of preserving Western culture, provided a decidedly different view of world affairs.

And in 2024, a plurality of Americans voted to return Trump to the White House, setting off a tumultuous year in which Vance’s confrontational Munich speech was just the scene-setter.

While Rubio has smoothed over some rough edges, the Democrats who travelled to Munich sought to offer a more distinct counterpoint.

“Right now, Europe just wants us to be better, right? And I think this has been a very good conference to reassure nerves,” Arizona Senator Ruben Gallego said. “Sometimes you have to remind them that this is not all Trump… We’re still here.”

Several of the men and women sent to Cameroon on a January 14 flight from Alexandria, Louisiana, did not know their destination until they were put on a Department of Homeland Security flight and placed in handcuffs and chains, the newspaper said, citing government documents and attorneys for the deportees.

DHS, the State Department and Cameroon’s Ministry of External Affairs did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment. Reuters could not immediately reach attorneys representing the detainees.

The administration of President Donald Trump has not announced any deal under which Cameroon agreed to accept deportees from other nations.

Two years on from the death of Navalny at a Siberian penal colony, Britain and its allies have blamed the Kremlin following analysis of material samples found on his body.

Speaking from the Munich Security Conference, Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said “only the Russian government had the means, motive and opportunity” to use the poison while Navalny was imprisoned in Russia.

According to Tass news agency Moscow has dismissed the finding as “an information campaign”, but Cooper said there is no explanation for the toxin, called epibatidine, being found.

While Cooper announced the findings, a joint statement was issued by the UK, Sweden, France, Germany and the Netherlands.

Cooper met with Navalny’s widow Yulia Navalnaya at the conference this weekend.

“Russia saw Navalny as a threat,” Cooper said at the event.

“By using this form of poison the Russian state demonstrated the despicable tools it has at its disposal and the overwhelming fear it has of political opposition,” she added.

In the statement the allies said: “Only the Russian state had the means, motive and opportunity to deploy this lethal toxin to target Navalny during his imprisonment in a Russian penal colony in Siberia, and we hold it responsible for his death.

“Epibatidine can be found naturally in dart frogs in the wild in South America. Dart frogs in captivity do not produce this toxin and it is not found naturally in Russia.

“There is no innocent explanation for its presence in Navalny’s body.”

The Foreign Office said the UK has informed the Organisation on the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons of Russia’s alleged breach of the Chemical Weapons Convention.

Praising Navalny’s “huge courage”, UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said “his determination to expose the truth has left an enduring legacy”.

“I am doing whatever it takes to defend our people, our values and our way of life from the threat of Russia and Putin’s murderous intent,” he added.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot also said his country “pays tribute” to Navalny, who he suggested was “killed for his fight in favour of a free and democratic Russia”.

Navalny – an anti-corruption campaigner and Russia’s most vociferous opposition leader – died suddenly in jail on 16 February 2024 at the age of 47.

In 2020 he was poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent. He underwent treatment in Germany, and was arrested at the airport upon his return to Russia.

‘Extremely rare’ toxin

Epibatidine, the toxin the UK and its European allies have said was used to kill Alexei Navalny, was first derived from a group of poison dart frogs native to northern South America.

Though epibatidine has previously been investigated as a pain killer and for relief from painful inflammatory conditions of the lungs, it has been deemed too toxic to use clinically.

Speaking to BBC Russian, toxicology expert Jill Johnson said it was “200 times more potent than morphine”.

By acting on receptors in the central nervous system, it can cause “muscle twitching and paralysis, seizures, slow heart rate, respiratory failure and finally death,” Johnson said.

The extremely rare neurotoxin is only found in one wild frog species in tiny quantities, and only when the frog eats a specific diet, she told the BBC.

Researchers believe the frogs acquire it through their diet because animals from different habitats have displayed different levels of the toxin, and those raised in captivity have none.

Johnson described it as an “incredibly rare way to poison a person”.

She added: “Finding the wild frog in the correct location that is eating the specific diet to create the correct alkaloids is almost impossible…almost.”

Before Saturday’s announcement, Navalny’s wife Yulia Navalnaya had consistently argued that her husband was killed by poisoning while serving a prison sentence in an Arctic penal colony in 2024.

In September last year, Navalnaya said analysis of smuggled biological samples carried out by laboratories in two countries showed that her husband had been “murdered”.

She did not provide details on the poison allegedly used, on the samples or on the analysis – but challenged the two laboratories to publish their results.

Reacting to the announcement, Navalnaya said: “I was certain from the first day that my husband had been poisoned, but now there is proof.

“I am grateful to the European states for the meticulous work they carried out over two years and for uncovering the truth,” she added.

According to the state-run news agency Tass, Kremlin spokesperson Maria Zakharova said: “All the talks and statements are an information campaign aimed at distracting attention from the West’s pressing problems.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin, who studiously avoided naming Navalny while he was alive, briefly referred to him a month after his death by stating that a person passing was “always a sad event”.

At the time of his death, Navalny had been in jail for three years on trumped-up charges and had recently been transferred to the penal colony.

According to Russian accounts, the 47-year-old took a short walk at his Siberian penal colony, said he felt unwell, then collapsed and never regained consciousness.

The offensive video included a clip depicting Obama and his wife Michelle as apes, which drew widespread criticism from Democrats and Republicans.

The White House initially defended the video, calling backlash “fake outrage”. The post was later blamed on a staff member and deleted.

Obama spoke to liberal podcaster Brian Tyler Cohen, who asked the first black US president about the tone of political discourse. Cohen cited Trump’s post among several recent controversies.

The clip – set to the song The Lion Sleeps Tonight – was included at the end of a video Trump’s Truth Social account shared containing unfounded claims about voter fraud in the 2020 election.

The post led to outrage from politicians, including from senior members of Trump’s Republican party.

Senator Tim Scott – the only black Republican senator – described it as “the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House”.

The clip recalls racist caricatures comparing black people to monkeys, and appears to have been taken from an X post shared by conservative meme creator Xerias in October.

Trump has told reporters that he “didn’t see” the part of the video that showed the Obamas.

“I didn’t make a mistake,” he told reporters when asked whether he planned to apologise.

The 47-minute podcast featuring Obama was released on Saturday. The episode begins with the host asking him to comment on US “discourse”, which he says “has devolved to a level of cruelty that we haven’t seen before”.

Cohen notes claims by the White House that the “victims” of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are “domestic terrorists”, and adds “just days ago, Donald Trump put a picture of you, your face, on an ape’s body”.

Obama responds by saying: “It’s important to recognise that the majority of the American people find this behaviour deeply troubling.

“It is true that it gets attention. It’s true that it’s a distraction.”

But Obama said that while travelling around the US, he found himself meeting people who “still believe in decency, courtesy, kindness”.

“There’s this sort of clown show that’s happening in social media and on television,” he continued.

“And what is true is that there doesn’t seem to be any shame about this among people who used to feel like you had to have some sort of decorum and a sense of propriety and respect for the office, right?

“That’s been lost.”

He did not mention Trump by name in his response.

During the interview, Obama spoke about a range of issues. He praised protesters who have peacefully organised against immigration operations, discussed electoral redistricting and talked about his presidential library, which is due to open in Chicago next year.

On Valentine’s Day, people are dressed in red, the colour of love and romance, or are carrying red roses.

Traders are quick to cash in, selling fresh blooms from local farms, as Kenya is one of the world’s top producers of cut flowers.

Recently, though, instead of the soft red petals, some people have been opting for the brown, blue or purple of crisp banknotes, folded, rolled or fastened together into floral-like bouquets.

The trend has spread to other African countries and has become so pervasive that it has drawn the concern of central banks in Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Botswana and Namibia.

They have all issued public warnings against damaging or defacing banknotes when making these bouquets of cash.

The Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) says that in many instances, banknotes are “glued, taped, stapled, pinned or otherwise affixed”.

Damaged notes can then be rejected by automated teller machines (ATMs) and cash‑sorting equipment, meaning they have to be withdrawn from circulation, at a cost to the taxpayer.

In its notice, the CBK said it was not opposed to the use of cash gifts – only to practices that damaged notes – an offence that could lead to creators of money bouquets being jailed for up to seven years.

Cash bouquets have been popularised by celebrities and online influencers, who often share videos of themselves presenting such gifts.

The celebrations are not limited to Valentine’s Day – they extend to birthdays and other special occasions, meaning money bouquets are in demand throughout the year.

The bouquets come in various designs, with creators arranging the banknotes to suit the taste and budget of each customer.

The wads of cash used in such bouquets vary widely – they can amount to as little as 1,000 shillings ($8; £6) or as much as a million shillings, says Angela Muthoni, a florist at the Gift and Flowers shop in central Nairobi.

While many are created in floral designs, or a mix of flowers and money with elegant wrappings, they can also be part of cake designs or be given in gift boxes.

Muthoni says money bouquets have become popular in the last two years. In the run-up to Valentine’s Day, she has been receiving orders of between 15 and 20 bouquets every day, despite the CBK’s warning.

“Everyone loves money,” she tells the BBC, adding that gifting people cash takes away the stress of choosing a present.

Some Kenyans, however, argue that it just shows that people are becoming more materialistic, seeking to buy love with money, rather than romance.

“It’s some form of peer pressure,” 24-year-old Haskell Austin tells the BBC.

He prefers giving flowers, describing the idea of gifting money as “materialistic”.

But if cash must be given, he prefers a straightforward transfer instead of folding or decorating it into bouquets.

A woman who identifies herself only as Lynn is disappointed by the timing of the CBK’s caution against making cash bouquets, coming just ahead of Valentine’s Day, as she was looking forward to receiving one.

“People are still excited about the trend,” she tells the BBC at Koinange Street, a popular spot for buying flowers in Nairobi.

“I would prefer cash,” Nicole Rono tells the BBC. “Who doesn’t love money? Flowers are OK, yes, but now with what the CBK has said, you can still give cash without damaging it,” she says.

For university student Benjamin Nambwaya, the fact that women are usually the recipients is based on social expectations.

He tells the BBC that the culture of giving money bouquets is a “bad thing” and can end up “destroying relationships”, especially when it creates an expectation even when one cannot afford to give money.

He would prefer to give flowers.

“I think flowers are cool, because this is a small celebration or something just to show how how much you really adore this person,” he says.

Economic expert Odhiambo Ramogi says it is all about “our capitalistic approach to life”.

“Capitalistic societies are driven by advertising, by marketing and special days like Valentine’s are a very good opportunity.”

For Muthoni, the florist, it comes down to how someone wants to express their love.

“Love people the way they want to be loved,” she says, although she concedes that ultimately money is at the heart of it.

“You can buy a lot of things with money. You might not know what someone likes, but money is the solution.”

Discussions about money bouquets have been widespread on social media since the CBK’s warning, drawing both praise and derision.

It has sparked some humour as well, such as memes of bouquets made from rolled chapati bread.

Speaking about the trend on TikTok, Kenyan Scott Ian Obaro said it may also have encouraged a culture of “showing off”.

Ramogi argues that the idea of giving flowers is largely a foreign concept in Africa, which he says helps explain why the culture of gifting money is more readily embraced.

“The African hardly gave flowers,” he says, adding that the practice is a Western tradition and that many Kenyans would prefer money “to take care of a need” rather than a flower given purely for sentimental reasons.

“But now it’s combined with the fact that we are more materialistic. The natural flower has been replaced with the currency flower,” he says.

The intervention by Kenya’s regulator, along with those in other countries, may slow the culture of giving money bouquets.

Muthoni fears the move could lead to a loss of income for people who have built livelihoods around the bouquets, though she believes there is room for innovation.

She says she has designed bouquets with transparent pocketsthat can hold money without it getting damaged and is considering other ideas such as digital bouquets.

Some have switched to using US dollars, which would not be affected by the warning from Kenya’s central bank.

So the money bouquet culture is unlikely to be nipped in the bud any time soon.

The elections were held during the 39th Ordinary Session of the AU Assembly of Heads of State and Government in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where President Ndayishimiye succeeded Angola’s President João Lourenço as Chair of the Union.

The newly constituted Bureau of the Assembly for 2026 reflects representation from Africa’s five regions. Burundi takes the Chair position for Central Africa, while Ghana’s President Mahama serves as First Vice representing West Africa.

Tanzania occupies the role of Second Vice for East Africa, and Angola serves as Rapporteur for Southern Africa. The Third Vice position representing North Africa remains yet to be confirmed.

Addressing the Assembly, AU Commission Chairperson Mahmoud Ali Youssouf highlighted the summit’s focus on water and sanitation, describing access to clean water as a shared public good essential for development, peace, and regional stability.

The two-day summit is being held under the theme “Assuring Sustainable Water Availability and Safe Sanitation Systems to Achieve the Goals of Agenda 2063.”

H.E. Mahmoud Ali Youssouf observed that the meeting comes at a period of geopolitical uncertainty, marked by persistent conflicts, institutional fragility, and a resurgence of unconstitutional changes of government in some parts of the continent.

He urged member states to strengthen political and economic integration in line with Agenda 2063, while calling for greater African solidarity, financial independence, and a stronger collective voice on global issues.

President Mahama’s election as First Vice Chair positions him to work closely with the AU Chair in coordinating continental activities and advancing strategic priorities throughout 2026.

Ghana has historically played notable roles within the African Union, including former President John Kufuor’s tenure as AU Chair in 2007.

Kim Ju Ae – who is believed to be 13 – has in recent months been pictured beside her father in high-profile events like a visit to Beijing in September, her first known trip abroad.

The National Intelligence Service (NIS) said it took a “range of circumstances” into account including her increasingly prominent public presence at official events” in making this assessment.

The NIS also said it would keep close tabs on whether she will attend the North’s party congress later this month – its largest political event that is held once every five years.

The party Congress is where Pyongyang is expected to give more details about priorities like foreign policy, war planning and nuclear ambitions for the next five years.

On Thursday lawmaker Lee Seong-kwen told reporters that Ju Ae, who was previously described by the NIS as being “trained” to be a successor, was now at the stage of “successor designation”.

“As Kim Ju Ae has shown her presence at various events, including the founding anniversary of the Korean People’s Army and her visit to the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun, and signs have been detected of her voicing her opinion on certain state policies, the NIS believes she has now entered the stage of being designated as successor,” Lee said.

Ju Ae is the only known child of Kim Jong Un and his wife, Ri Sol Ju. The NIS believes Kim Jong Un has an older son, but this son has never been acknowledged nor shown on North Korean media.

News of Ju Ae’s existence first emerged through an unlikely source: the American basketball player Dennis Rodman, who revealed to The Guardian newspaper back in 2013 that he “held baby Ju Ae” during a trip to the secretive state.

Ju Ae made her first appearance on state television in 2022. She was shown inspecting North Korea’s latest intercontinental ballistic missile while holding her father’s hand.

What do we know about Kim Jong Un’s daughter – and potential successor?

She has since made frequent appearances on state media, softening her father’s image of a ruthless dictator. She accompanied him to Beijing for China’s largest-ever military parade, where she was seen stepping off his armoured train at Beijing Railway Station.

She is often seen wearing her hair long, which is forbidden for her peers, and wearing designer clothes, which are out of reach for most in her country.

Another lawmaker, Park Sun-won said the role Ju Ae had taken on during public events indicated that she has started to provide policy input and is being treated as the de facto second-highest leader.

The North Korean power had passed down the three generations of the Kim family, and it is widely believed that Kim Jong Un will pass on the throne to Ju Ae.

In recent months, she was shown standing taller than her father, walking beside him, rather than following him.

In North Korea, where photos published by the state media are believed to carry a great symbolic weight, it is rare for individuals other than Kim Jong Un to be positioned equally prominently in the frame.

Although the South Korean spy agency now believes Ju Ae is the designated heir, it still raises questions.

It is puzzling why Ju Ae, a daughter, would be selected as the heir above an older son in North Korea’s deeply patriarchal society.

Many defectors and analysts had previously dismissed the idea of a woman leading North Korea as an unlikely scenario, referring to the country’s entrenched traditional gender roles. But Kim Jong Un’s sister – Kim Yo Jong – does offer a precedent for female authority in the regime.

Kim Yo Jong currently holds a senior position in the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea, and is reported to have influence over her brother.

However, it is also a mystery why Kim Jong Un, who is still young and appears relatively healthy, is already designating a 13-year-old child as his heir now.

It is unclear what changes Ju Ae’s succession may bring to North Korea.

Many North Koreans hoped that Kim Jong Un, a Western-educated young man, would open their country up to the outside when he succeeded his father.

Yet such hope was unfulfilled. Whatever plans this teenager may have for her country, she would likely have the singular power to shape it however she likes.

The news comes days after it emerged that Russian authorities were restricting access to Telegram, another instant messaging app that is used by millions of people in Russia, including the military, top-level public officials, state media services and government bodies, such as the Kremlin and Roskomnadzor, the communications regulator.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told journalists Thursday that the decision to block WhatsApp was made due to what he called violations of the law by the app’s parent company, without elaborating.

“Max is an affordable alternative on the market for citizens, a developing national messenger. Regarding the blocking of WhatsApp, our authorities did indeed state that the decision was made and implemented due to the corporation’s unwillingness to comply with the law,” Peskov said.

WhatsApp is owned by Meta (META), which also owns Facebook and Instagram.

Earlier on Thursday, WhatsApp put out a statement saying the Russian government had “attempted to fully block WhatsApp.” WhatsApp described it as an effort to “drive people to a state-owned surveillance app.”

The statement added: “Trying to isolate over 100 million users from private and secure communication is a backwards step and can only lead to less safety for people in Russia. We continue to do everything we can to keep users connected.”

CNN has contacted Meta to ask whether WhatsApp is now indeed fully blocked in Russia.

Some users in Russia reported Thursday being able to access WhatsApp using a VPN. But the Kremlin has increasingly cracked down on VPNs across the country, including restricting access to 439 VPN services in order to prevent the bypassing of state restrictions. In September, a law came into force banning the advertising of VPNs and other means of bypassing blocks on social media.

This is not the first time Russia has gone after the app. In August 2025, Roskomnadzor – a federal agency responsible for monitoring and controlling the country’s mass media – announced restrictions on video and voice calls via WhatsApp and Telegram “in order to counter criminals.” WhatsApp, in its turn, accused Russia of attempting to block access to the app for its Russian users.

Russia has already banned Facebook, Instagram and X.

Max is a homegrown messenger that Russia is pre-installing on all new devices as part of a broader push to replace foreign platforms.

Similarly to China’s WeChat, it is designed as an all-in-one super-app combining messaging, calls, payments and other services, allowing users to authenticate their identity for government platforms that provide public services. Critics have raised safety and privacy concerns about Max, warning that the app has excessive tracking capabilities and lacks strong encryption.

On Tuesday, the Russian government said it was restricting access to Telegram for the “protection of Russian citizens,” accusing the app of refusing to block content authorities consider “criminal and terrorist.”

The app’s Russian-born founder Pavel Durov said in a statement that day that Russia’s attempts to restrict Telegram would fail, writing that “Telegram stands for freedom of speech and privacy, no matter the pressure.”

When you line all the planets in our solar system up, the four closest to the sun are rocky and the four furthest are giant gassy balls.

This pattern – rock then gas – isn’t unique to us and has been seen countless times in other star systems.

Yet an international team of scientists has discovered that 116.27 light-years away from us is an interstellar system that is the other way around.

LHS 1903 is a star orbited by three planets, the closest being a rocky one with two gas worlds close by.

The researchers, led by Thomas Wilson from the University of Warwick, found a fourth planet circling LHS 1903, but it was rocky rather than gassy.

Wilson tells Metro: ‘This system really opens up what a star system should look like.

‘Before our study, we thought that smaller planets were only in the inner system and larger planets were further away.

‘But now LHS 1903 breaks this thinking and unveils that a whole wide range of systems could be out there for us to discover.’

Why is this star system inside-out?

Stars are constantly hurling out solar radiation, which can easily strip away a planet’s atmosphere, leaving it barren. Take Mercury, for example.

Further out, however, the atmosphere can safely wrap around a planet and form gas giants, like Saturn or Uranus.

Despite being a red dwarf, so named because these small stars emit reddish light, LHS 1903 still spews enough radiation to shear its planets.

So, how did the outermost planet in the system get so rocky? Why isn’t it gassy?

Wilson and his team’s observations, published in Science, suggest that the fourth planet may have had its atmosphere torn off, or it never formed one.

‘What we think happened was that the planet closest to the star was born first, and then the second furthest was formed, and then the third and fourth,’ explains Wilson, a process called inside-out planet formation.

‘This means that these alien worlds would have been born at different times and in different environments.

‘This is a big deal because it would mean that planets in the same star system look different because of where and when they were formed.’

To demonstrate how, well, strange this is, Wilson says to picture how different Earth would be if our solar system were inside out.

Jupiter and Saturn would gravitationally throw around the other planets, either out of the system, into each other, or into the sun,’ he says.

‘If Earth survived this, it’ll likely be very far from the Sun and so very cold.’

How did scientists discover this?

The team spotted this out-of-place planetary system using the European Space Agency’s CHaracterising ExOPlanet Satellite (Cheops).

Thousands of exoplanets – planets orbiting other stars – have been discovered over the years. It’s Cheops’ job not to find new ones, but help us understand the ones we already know about.

The space agency’s project scientist, Max Guenther, says that figuring out if a planet is rocky or gassy is harder than it sounds for astronomers.

The picture right at the top of the story certainly isn’t what they see when they peek through their telescopes.

‘You can compare it to the body mass index, or BMI,’ Guehtner says.

‘You measure a human in terms of size and mass but once you start to draw and describe the person, they become a person.

‘What you see in the images is an interpretation of the actual measurements.’

These measures come from a method of observation called transmission spectroscopy, also called the blink method.

‘Cheops is no different from a smartphone camera – just way more expensive and stable,’ Guehtner says.

‘If you take a photo on a cloud-free night, you’ll see white dots on a black background. That’s the same pictures that we’re taking.’

By taking a few photos of the same patch of sky every 30 seconds or so, scientists can see if these tiny, smeared pixels flicker at all.

If they do, there’s a good chance a planet just drifted by, called a transit blip. ‘Sometimes it’ll be a change of just 1% of light,’ Guehtner says.

When light from LHS 1903 shines through a planet’s atmosphere, some gases filter the starlight. For a brief moment, astronomers can see clues about the planet’s chemical makeup.

Experts can also guess the mass of a planet by observing the gravitational tug – or wobble – that it exerts on its star as it orbits.

With all this BMI-grade data, astronomers can calculate whether planets are rocky, like Earth, or fluffy, like clouds.

One day, we think every interstellar system has rocky planets in the front, gas giants in the back. The next day, they can be anything but.

But when it comes to science, being proven wrong is one of the ‘best outcomes’ scientists can hope for.

‘It doesn’t mean that everything is wrong,’ Guehtner adds, ‘it just means it was too simplistic because we had limited data so far.’

Based in Somalia, the group has masterminded a series of deadly assaults in Kenya, including one on a shopping centre in the capital, Nairobi, killing 67 people in 2013 and one at a university in Garissa two years later, killing 148.

The plan was announced in 2023, but subsequent attacks delayed the implementation.

Ruto said the intention to reopen two crossings follows years of security assessments, adding that there will be a heavy deployment of security forces to ensure the move does not compromise safety.

Kenya has also been concerned about illicit weapons and other contraband goods being smuggled across the border.

The president announced the plan on a visit to the border town of Mandera, in Kenya’s far north-east, which has a large population of ethnic Somalis.

“It is unacceptable that fellow Kenyans in Mandera remain cut off from their kin and neighbours in Somalia due to the prolonged closure of the Mandera Border Post,” Ruto posted on X.

He hoped that the re-opening would boost “cross-border trade for the mutual prosperity of our people”.

In a speech, he asked all residents of Mandera, which has been targeted several times, to “join in the battle against al-Shabab. These al-Shabab are useless, I want to assure that Kenya will work together with you, just help us combat these criminals and terrorists.”

In addition to the attack on the Westgate mall and Garissa University, other major al-Shabab attacks in Kenya include the killing of 28 bus passengers in Mandera county in 2014 and an assault on a hotel in Nairobi five years later, which left at least 21 people dead.

In 2015, Kenya had embarked on building a perimeter barrier along the country’s 680km (423-mile) common border because of the militant threat, but the project was suspended after nearly three years when only 10km (6 miles) of a wire fence had been built at a cost of $35m (£26m).

Presidents would be chosen by MPs rather than in a direct vote and could serve a maximum of two seven-year terms, rather than the current five-year terms, under the proposals.

Justice Minister Ziyambi Ziyambi said public consultations would be held before the bill heads to parliament for debate, where both chambers are dominated by the ruling Zanu-PF party.

Legal challenges are likely as constitutional experts argue a referendum is needed if term limits are changed – and also point out that such amendments cannot benefit a sitting president.

Mnangagwa, who first came to power in 2017 after a military coup ousted long-time leader Robert Mugabe, won a presidential election the next year and a second term in 2023 – though the results were disputed.

Known as “the crocodile” because of his political cunning, his final five-year term is due to expire in 2028.

In a referendum held 13 years ago, Zimbabweans overwhelmingly voted for a new constitution that introduced presidential term limits when Mugabe’s grip on power seemed entrenched – he had ruled the country since independence in 1980.

Hints that Mnangagwa, who was once Mugabe’s deputy until they fell out over the growing political ambitions of the then-first lady, wanted to stay in power beyond 2028 started two years ago.

The slogan “2030 he will still be the leader” began to be chanted at Zanu-PF rallies with his supporters saying he needed to remain in office to complete his “Agenda 2030” development programme – though President Mnangagwa publicly rejected the idea.

He has faced some fierce detractors within Zanu-PF, but his main critic – Blessed Geza, also known as “Bombshell” – died last week.

This time last year Geza, a respected veteran of the 1970s war of independence and then member of Zanu-PF’s powerful central committee, had launched a scathing attack on Mnangagwa’s ambition to stay in power.

He apologised for helping him come into office and accused the president of nepotism in his bid to stay in office beyond 2028.

Zanu-PF expelled Geza from the party for disloyalty and he was forced into hiding.

Yet he continued to attract a large following on social media, where he regularly posted videos calling for protests.

Hours before his death a message posted on his social media pages urged Zimbabweans to carry forward the “noble war” to remove President Mnangagwa and “end the plunder of our country”.

He was in South Africa when his family announced his death on Friday.

“At a time when silence would have been easier, he chose to speak out against corruption and nepotism that continue to undermine the promise of independence,” Andrease Ethan Mathibela, national chairman of the influential Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association, said.

The government is now forging forward with its 2030 plans for Mnangagwa and says the intention behind the draft law is to strengthen governance and bring political stability.

In a 219-211 vote, six Republican lawmakers joined Democrats to back a resolution seeking to end the tariffs Trump imposed on Canada last year.

The vote is largely symbolic as it will still need to be approved by the US Senate and then approved by Trump, who is very unlikely to sign it into law.

Since his re-election, Donald Trump has imposed a series of tariffs on Canada and has recently threatened a 100% import tax in response to Canada’s proposed trade deal with China.

As the vote was taking place on the House floor, Trump posted on Truth Social: “Any Republican, in the House or the Senate, that votes against TARIFFS will seriously suffer the consequences come Election time.”

“TARIFFS have given us Economic and National Security, and no Republican should be responsible for destroying this privilege,” he added.

The vote came after US House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Trump ally in Congress, unsuccessfully tried to block discussion of Trump’s tariffs on the chamber floor.

With Republicans holding a thin majority in the US House, the six Republican defections, along with a near-united front from Democrats, were enough to secure the votes.

The measure had been introduced by Democrat Gregory Meeks, who said that Trump had “weaponised tariffs” against allies and destabilised the global economy.

“Not only have these tariffs done immense harm to our relationship with Canada, pushing them closer to China, but they have also driven up prices here at home,” he said before the vote.

Representative Don Bacon from Nebraska was one of the six Republicans who crossed the aisle to join Democrats in approving the measure. Before the vote, he said, “tariffs have been a ‘net negative’ for the economy and are a significant tax that American consumers, manufacturers, and farmers are paying.”

The bill now heads to the US Senate, where Republicans also hold the majority. Even if it cleared that hurdle, it is unlikely to be signed into law.

Separately, Trump’s tariffs are facing legal scrutiny, with the US Supreme Court set to rule soon on a case challenging the president’s authority to impose the levies.

Meeks, the top Democrat on the US House Foreign Affairs committee, said the measure on Canada is the first of several bills he plans to introduce that aim to roll back Trump’s signature trade action.

“Our fight doesn’t stop here,” he said in a video posted online before the vote. “I have resolutions also to end Trump’s tariffs on Mexico, on Brazil, and on his Liberation Day global tariffs.”

Starsky Aviation said the pilot’s quick thinking was crucial in saving the 50 passengers and five crew.

The crew of the Fokker 50 aircraft reported a problem shortly after takeoff from Mogadishu on Tuesday morning and requested that the plane return, Somalia’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said.

It then touched down but failed to stop on the runway, overshooting the tarmac before coming to rest in shallow water, the CAA’s director, Ahmed Macalin Hassan, said.

It is not clear yet exactly what the issue was.

Footage posted on X appeared to show passengers leaving the aircraft and walking away from the wreckage on the shore of the Indian Ocean. No serious injuries have been reported.

The African Union’s mission in Somalia said UN and AU troops were “swiftly deployed” to help with rescue efforts. Somalia’s transport minister was also at the scene, its post on X added.

“We are relieved to confirm that all passengers and crew are safe. Investigations are underway to establish what caused the technical issue that led to the emergency landing,” Starsky spokesman Hassan Mohamed Aden said.

“The pilot’s swift and calm decision-making played a decisive role in ensuring the safety of everyone on board, and we commend him for how he handled the situation,” he added.

The document is a written record of a 2019 FBI interview with the former Palm Beach police chief, who alleges Trump called him after the department launched an investigation into Epstein and said: “Thank goodness you’re stopping him, everyone has known he’s been doing this.”

The officer’s name is redacted, but the document identifies the interview subject as the Palm Beach police chief at the time of its Epstein investigation. That was Michael Reiter, who told the Miami Herald that he received the call from Trump.

The president has consistently denied any wrongdoing in relation to Epstein and has said he did not know about his crimes. The alleged call, however, is likely to raise further questions about what Trump knew and when.

Asked by reporters in 2019 – when Epstein was arrested by federal agents for sex trafficking – if he had “any suspicions” about the disgraced financier, Trump said: “No, I had no idea. I had no idea. I haven’t spoken to him in many, many years.”

According to the FBI summary of the interview, which was released in the latest tranche of Epstein files, Reiter said Trump told him in a July 2006 call that he had thrown Epstein out of his Mar-a-Lago club and “people in New York knew he was disgusting”.

Reiter also claims Trump told him Ghislaine Maxwell was Epstein’s “operative”, and “she is evil and to focus on her”.

Maxwell was convicted in 2021 for her role in luring underage girls for Epstein.

Reiter also told the FBI that Trump said he was around Epstein when he was with teenagers and that he “got the hell out of there”.

According to the document, he said Trump was one of the “very first people to call” Florida police when he heard they were investigating Epstein.

In 2006, Palm Beach police were investigating the disgraced financier for the alleged sexual exploitation of underage girls. The case was later turned over to federal prosecutors, who in 2008 made a controversial plea deal with Epstein that included a non-prosecution agreement that protected him from more serious charges.

In a statement to the BBC, a justice department official said: “We are not aware of any corroborating evidence that the president contacted law enforcement 20 years ago.”

At a briefing on Tuesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked about the reported call and said it “may or may not have happened in 2006. I don’t know the answer.”

“What President Trump has always said is that he kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of his Mar-a-Lago club because Jeffrey Epstein was a creep,” she said. “And that remains true in this call. If it did happen it corroborates exactly what President Trump has said from the beginning.”

The BBC has also contacted Reiter for comment.

Trump and Epstein socialised and appeared in photographs together in the 1990s, but the president and the White House have repeatedly said he was in the dark about Epstein’s crimes before he broke off contact with him in around 2004 – years before he was first arrested.

Trump has said their falling out came after he learned Epstein had been trying to “steal” his employees from Mar-a-Lago.

“When I heard about it, I told him, we don’t want you taking our people,” Trump said in July. “He was fine and then not too long after that he did it again and I said ‘outta here’.”

Reports of the alleged call came after Maxwell – who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for recruiting teenage girls to be sexually abused by Epstein – testified virtually before the US House Oversight Committee on Monday.

During the closed-door deposition, Maxwell refused to answer questions and pleaded the Fifth Amendment, invoking her right to remain silent, Oversight Committee chairman James Comer said.

Maxwell’s lawyer claimed she was “prepared to speak fully and honestly if granted clemency by President Trump”.

Trump has said he has not considered granting a pardon to Maxwell.

Speaking at the closing ceremony of the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology (IYQ2025) in Accra, the Minister said the gathering of leading figures in science, policy and education reflects a shared global understanding that science and innovation remain central to human progress.

According to him, UNESCO’s proclamation of 2025 as the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology signals the growing importance of quantum science in the modern world, while also placing responsibility on nations to ensure scientific development benefits society.

“Over the past year, attention has focused not only on discoveries, but also on the responsibility that accompanies scientific development,” he noted.

Mr Iddrisu pointed out that significant gaps remain globally, revealing that about 145 countries are yet to develop national quantum strategies, a situation he said must be addressed to ensure inclusive participation in frontier science.

He highlighted the practical impact of quantum technologies, noting their application in agriculture, food systems, climate forecasting, soil and water monitoring, and national security.

“For countries like Ghana, where agriculture sustains livelihoods, quantum science is not optional, it is significant and paramount,” he stressed.

The Education Minister said hosting the closing ceremony under the Global Scientific Dialogue platform affirms Africa’s place in the future of frontier science, adding that African talent, perspectives and intellectual contributions must be fully recognised.

He further emphasised that education remains the most powerful driver of scientific progress, noting that sustained investment in teachers, researchers and young people will determine how effectively quantum science and its applications serve Africa and the wider world.

Construction on the “Monte Galala Towers and Marina” project would start in the second half of the year and run for seven years, Ahmed Shalaby, managing director of the main developer, Tatweer Misr, said.

The 10-tower development – a partnership with the housing ministry and other state bodies, including the armed forces’ engineering authority – would cost about 50 billion Egyptian pounds ($1.07 billion), he added.

The project, also announced by the cabinet, will cover 470,000 square metres on the Gulf of Suez, about 35 km south of Ain Sokhna, Shalaby said.

Egypt aims to boost total tourist arrivals to around 30 million by 2030, from around 19 million recorded by the tourism ministry in 2025.

Francisca Yawson, 38, stole from charity donations between September 2018 and August 2019.

The mother of four had been employed as a “Gift Aid and Operations Technician” at the Roman Catholic diocese, which included Westminster Cathedral, since 2013, according to her LinkedIn profile.

She bought her family presents from John Lewis and transferred £8,500 to Jamaica to help pay medical bills for her grandmother.

Yawson, of Stonebridge Park, north-west London, admitted nine counts of theft totalling £96,331 at Southwark Crown Court.

‘Deeply saddened by betrayal’

In an impact statement, Nicholas Seed, the Diocese’s chief financial officer, said: “The gift aid money stolen is not an abstract number of a spreadsheet. Her actions reverberated beyond this courtroom into every corner of our community.

“We are deeply saddened by Ms Yawson’s betrayal and the harm it has caused to our charitable mission.”

Sentencing Yawson, Judge Mark Weekes referred to a 2021 conviction for defrauding her partner’s mother of £16,000.

“It might be thought that once bitten twice shy, but it would appear not,” the judge said. “It seems that temptation overwhelmed you again for reasons that are not entirely clear.”

Yawson claimed that she stole the money to support her grandmother in Jamaica who suffers from leukaemia but the judge said the money she had sent there was “dwarfed” by the amount “you spent on yourself”.

‘Small children went hungry’

In October, Judge Weekes was forced to postpone sentence as Yawson was about to give birth to her fourth child.

The judge said that people in need missed out on money from charitable donations because of Yawson, adding: “Small children, like the ones you look after, went hungry or more hungry while you helped yourself to a high lifestyle.”

Ryan Evans, defending, said Yawson felt remorse and knew she had done wrong. He added that removing Yawson from her three-month-old baby would have a “detrimental impact on both parties”.

Judge Weekes said Yawson did not “present a high risk of reoffending or harm” despite her previous conviction.

Referring to “shocking delays” in the case, which was brought in 2019, he sentenced her to two years in prison suspended for two years.

Yawson will also have to complete 15 days of a rehabilitation activity requirement, 150 hours of unpaid work, and pay £1,000 in compensation to the diocese within 12 months.

She will also have to abide by a five-month electronically tagged curfew between 7pm and 6am.

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The former Ghanaian leader is heading a high-level delegation mandated to observe the electoral process, with a focus on pre-election preparations, stakeholder engagement and the overall readiness of the country ahead of polling day.

Confirming his arrival in Dhaka in a post on X (formerly Twitter) on February 8, Akufo-Addo said the Observer Group had begun preliminary engagements with key stakeholders.

According to him, the team has started a series of consultations to gain a broad understanding of Bangladesh’s political and electoral environment ahead of the polls.

“Arrived in Dhaka, Bangladesh, as Chair of the Commonwealth Observer Group to observe pre-poll arrangements ahead of the country’s Parliamentary Election and Referendum on February 12.

“The group has met with representatives of the media, civil society, youth and women’s groups, political parties and other stakeholders,” he stated.

These engagements form a key part of the Commonwealth’s election observation process, allowing the team to hear directly from a wide range of actors and assess the credibility, transparency and inclusiveness of the electoral process.

Akufo-Addo’s appointment highlights his continued involvement in international diplomacy and democratic governance following the end of his presidency.

As President of Ghana, he played an active role in regional and global affairs, particularly in promoting democracy, constitutional rule and multilateral cooperation through platforms such as the African Union, ECOWAS and the Commonwealth.

The Commonwealth Observer Group is expected to remain in Bangladesh through election day and the immediate post-election period to observe voting, counting and the collation of results.

Akufo-Addo officially handed over power on January 7, 2025, after completing two terms in office. This assignment marks one of his major international engagements since leaving office.

The Nobel Peace Prize winner said on Sunday that Guanipa, leader of the Justice First party, was taken in the Los Chorros neighbourhood of the capital Caracas.

“Heavily armed men dressed in civilian clothes arrived in four vehicles and took him away by force,” she wrote on social media early on Monday.

A former vice-president of the National Assembly, Guanipa spent eight months in prison and was among several political prisoners released since the US seized Venezuela’s then-President Nicolas Maduro in January.

His centre-right party said Guanipa had been kidnapped by the “repressive forces of the dictatorship” while he was moving between locations.

They added that those accompanying him said weapons were pointed at the group before Guanipa was loaded into a car.

“We hold Delcy Rodríguez, Jorge Rodríguez, and Diosdado Cabello responsible for any harm to Juan Pablo’s life,” Justice First wrote on social media, referring to Venezuela’s interim president, the National Assembly speaker, and the interior minister respectively.

The party also called on the international community to demand the “immediate release” of Guanipa and an end to the Venezuelan government’s “persecution of the opposition”.

Just hours earlier, Guanipa’s son Ramón was celebrating his father’s release on social media: “Our entire family will be able to hug again soon.”

Guanipa was among at least 30 people who had been freed on Sunday, according to Foro Penal, which provides assistance to political prisoners in Venezuela.

The leader of the Justice First party, he was elected governor of the Zulia region in 2017 but barred from taking office after he refused to swear an oath before Maduro’s National Constituent Assembly.

Guanipa went into hiding after being accused of terrorism and treason for challenging the 2024 election result.

He was tracked down by Venezuela’s security forces and detained in May 2025.

Opposition and human rights groups say the government under Maduro had for years used detentions of political prisoners to stamp out dissent and silence critics.

The 33-year-old brothers are among five defendants on trial near Paris, accused of a double murder and several subsequent attempted killings in 2020, according to reputable French newspaper Le Parisien.

It reports that both are suspected of conspiring to plot the double murder, but that DNA on an assault rifle used in one of the later gun battles could only be from one twin.

A police officer told the court that forensic experts were unable to tell which of the brothers had been conclusively implicated.

“Only their mother can tell them apart,” one investigator is quoted as telling the court in Bobigny, north of the French capital.

There is reportedly a tense atmosphere in the court where the trial is taking place. On Tuesday, both twins were said to have been expelled from the courtroom for refusing to stand up.

Police believe they have taken advantage of their resemblance to cover their tracks. A senior officer quoted by Le Parisien said the pair frequently exchanged clothes, phones and identification documents.

Identical twins develop from a single fertilised egg that splits during pregnancy. Because they originate from the same egg and sperm, they share exactly the same DNA, making forensic identification extremely difficult.

With genetic data unable to distinguish between them, investigators relied on phone records, surveillance footage, wiretaps and efforts to corroborate their whereabouts and movements, according to Le Parisien.

But the crucial question of who fired the recovered weapon remains an open one.

The trial continues, with court due to reach a decision in late February.

Saturday’s assault in Kauru district highlights persistent insecurity in the region, and came days after security services rescued all 166 worshippers abducted in attacks by gunmen on two churches elsewhere in Kaduna.

Such attacks have drawn the attention of U.S. President Donald Trump, who has accused Nigeria’s government of failing to protect Christians, a charge Abuja denies. U.S. forces struck what they described as terrorist targets in northwestern Nigeria on December 25.

The Catholic Diocese of Kafanchan named the kidnapped clergyman as Nathaniel Asuwaye, parish priest of Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Karku, and said 10 other people were abducted.

Three residents were killed during the attack, which began at about 3:20 a.m. (0220 GMT), the diocese said in a statement.

A Kaduna police spokesperson confirmed the incident, but said five people had been abducted in total and that the three people killed were members of the security forces.

“Security agents exchanged gunfire with the bandits, killed some of them, and unfortunately two soldiers and a police officer lost their lives,” he said.

Rights group Amnesty International said in a statement on Sunday that Nigeria’s security crisis was “increasingly getting out of hand”. It accused the government of “gross incompetence” and failure to protect civilians as gunmen kill, abduct and terrorise rural communities across several northern states.

A presidency spokesperson could not immediately be reached for comment.

Pope Leo, during his weekly address to the faithful in St. Peter’s Square, expressed solidarity with the victims of recent attacks in Nigeria.

“I hope that the competent authorities will continue to act with determination to ensure the security and protection of every citizen’s life,” Leo said.

Ramaphosa has told U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres about the decision, which was influenced by the need to “realign” the resources of South Africa’s armed forces, the statement said.

South Africa has supported U.N. peacekeeping efforts in Congo for 27 years and has more than 700 soldiers deployed there.

The U.N. mission had a total of nearly 11,000 troops and police deployed when its mandate was extended in December.

The U.N. mission’s mandate is to counter the many rebel groups active in Congo’s restive east, where conflict has raged for decades and where there has been a recent escalation in fighting.

“South Africa will work jointly with the U.N. to finalise the timelines and other modalities of the withdrawal, which will be completed before the end of 2026,” the statement added.

South Africa will continue to maintain close bilateral ties with Congo’s government and support other multilateral efforts to bring lasting peace to Congo, Ramaphosa’s office said.

President Mahama concluded a three-day state visit to Zambia on Friday, February 6, 2026, during which his wardrobe sparked conversation as much as his diplomacy.

In a gesture blending cultural pride and economic diplomacy, President Mahama and his delegation showcased the Ghanaian fugu, also known locally as batakari or smock, as their primary attire during official events.

The garments, rich in heritage and symbolism, ignited a social media storm and inspired commentary ranging from admiration to playful mockery.

Among those swept up in the buzz was Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema, who publicly expressed his admiration for the smock. “I asked my team to post on various platforms that were associated with that. The President of Zambia will be ordering more of that stuff for himself,” President Hichilema stated, in a nod to both fashion and African unity.

However, as the garment grew in popularity, questions over the tax implications of importing fugu from Ghana took centre stage.

The ZRA stepped in to clarify the legalities—especially under the evolving regulatory environment shaped by the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).

In an official statement released via its verified social media channels, the ZRA confirmed that a single fugu imported for personal wear is exempt from import duties and taxes.

However, the situation changes significantly when import quantities suggest commercial intent.

“A Fugu imported from Ghana for personal use doesn’t attract duties and taxes, but 20 of those imported for reselling will have duty charged. If made in Zambia, applicable domestic taxes such as Turnover Tax are paid,” the ZRA noted in its post.

More Than a Garment: The Story Behind the Fugu

The sudden popularity of the fugu in Zambia isn’t merely a reaction to wardrobe aesthetics—it illuminates the deeper cultural power of clothing in African politics.

In Ghana, the fugu is steeped in historical gravitas. It has long been worn at festive, religious, and political events.

In March 1957, Ghana’s first president, Dr Kwame Nkrumah, and his entire team wore fugu as a symbol of deep roots to the motherland during the declaration of independence and a clarion call towards the liberation of the entire African continent.

In northern Ghana, where fugu originates, the handwoven garment serves as a powerful symbol of leadership, spiritual protection, and regional identity. Historically, it was used as warrior attire and chiefly regalia, but today it is recognised as a national icon of Ghanaian heritage.

Notably, in pre-colonial Ghana, the fugu was worn as an armour of war.

One of the most symbolic examples of this comes from 1715, when Yaa-Naa Gariba, the ruler of Dagbon in northern Ghana, gifted a sacred fugu to Asantehene Osei Tutu I of the Ashanti Kingdom during peace negotiations.

This fugu, later known as the Batakari Kɛseɛ—literally “Supreme Batakari”—became a symbol of royal invincibility.

In historical lore, the Batakari Kɛseɛ was believed to imbue its wearer with mystical protection: no blade or bullet could penetrate the fabric when worn by a true king.

It has become a royal relic passed down through generations of Ashanti rulers to the present day.

Ghana’s pantheon of freedom leaders, including Yaa Asantewaa—the famed warrior queen who led battles against British annexation—was known to have worn a fugu into conflict.

Today, the fugu continues to transcend function, symbolising political resistance, unity, indigeneity, and Afrocentric pride across Ghana and the diaspora.

From Accra to Lusaka: Cultural Diplomacy in Action

President Mahama’s style was not incidental.

As part of his “Accra Reset” campaign—an initiative to renew bilateral relations and promote West African industry—his sartorial choices became a statement of intent.

Foreign Affairs Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa also dressed regally in smock garb; the pair used imagery and symbolism to amplify their message of African self-reliance and internal trade growth.

Their fashion diplomacy appears to be working.

Several prominent Zambian designers and tailors have already begun fielding enquiries about adapting or replicating the smocks using local materials.

Ghana’s textile companies may soon find themselves in trade talks with Zambian retailers and fashion industry players to meet the new demand.

What started as viral banter—sparked by social media users jestingly calling the fugu a “blouse”—has matured into a serious conversation about tax policy, cultural heritage, and Pan-African economic development.

For now, Zambia’s customs regulations remain clear: one can walk through Kenneth Kaunda International Airport with a fugu and pay nothing—just don’t pack twenty.

The order does not specify the rate that could be imposed, but uses 25% as an example, and says it will apply to goods imported into the US from any nation that “directly or indirectly purchases, imports, or otherwise acquires any goods or services from Iran”.

Trump has not directly commented on the order, but reiterated “no nuclear weapons” for Iran when speaking from Air Force One on Friday night.

It comes amid ongoing talks between senior US and Iranian officials in Oman, following several weeks of threats from both sides.

Trump threatened a 25% tariff of countries doing business with Iran earlier this year, in a post to Truth Social.

On 12 January, he wrote: “Effective immediately, any country doing business with the Islamic Republic of Iran will pay a tariff of 25% on any and all business being done with the United States of America.”

At the time, no further detail was provided on how the tariffs would work in practice.

The White House said that this latest executive order reaffirmed the “ongoing national emergency with respect to Iran”, and noted that the president may modify it of circumstances change.

It read: “The President is holding Iran accountable for its pursuit of nuclear capabilities, support for terrorism, ballistic missile development, and regional destabilization that endanger American security, allies, and interests.”

There has been no immediate comment from Iran.

Starting in Oman on Friday, the ongoing talks are the first involving US and Iranian officials since last June, when the US bombed Iran’s three main nuclear facilities.

The Iranian delegation was led by Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, while the US was represented by special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

Speaking to reporters onboard Air Force One, Trump said Friday’s talks were “very good”, and that Iran “looks like it wants to make a deal very badly”.

“If they don’t make a deal, the consequences are very steep,” the president said, adding that there will be another meeting early next week.

Oman’s Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi, who mediated the discussions, said they had been “useful to clarify both Iranian and American thinking and identify areas for possible progress”.

In a statement to X, Araghchi described the talks to date as “a good start” and said that a “positive atmosphere prevailed”. He said negotiators had now returned to their respective capitals for consultation.

Rising tensions between the US and Iran have raised fears of a conflict between the countries, with Trump declaring that Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei should be “very worried” as recently as Wednesday.

The president has said he would be prepared to strike the Middle Eastern nation if it refused to reach a deal on its nuclear programme.

Iran insists its nuclear programme is entirely peaceful and has repeatedly denied accusations by the US and its allies that it is seeking to develop nuclear weapons.

The US has also built up a significant military presence in the region, including what Trump describes as a “massive armada” in response to Iran’s violent repression of nationwide anti-government protests last month.

Human rights groups have said that many thousands of people were killed in the crackdown, but the full scale of the bloodshed remains unclear due to internet restrictions imposed by the government since 8 January.

For instance, Liberia, Africa’s oldest republic, was founded by freed black American slaves in 1822. After Ghana became independent in 1957, a wave of black intellectuals and artists moved there from the US. Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali subsequently paid high-profile visits to Ghana, while Guinea became home to Black Panther leader Stokely Carmichael.

This transatlantic connection has ebbed and flowed over time – but in recent years, there has been a real resurgence, helped by the use of DNA tests.

A number of black American celebrities have sought the nationality of African countries – singer Ciara has become a citizen of Benin, rapper Ludacris and film star Samuel L Jackson are officially Gabonese, actors Meagan Good and Jonathan Majors are citizens of Guinea and musical icon Stevie Wonder has Ghanaian papers.

Just last week, wildly popular content creator IShowSpeed was approved for a Ghanaian passport after stopping in the country on a whirlwind African tour.

The celebs have, in most cases, flown out for elaborate citizenship ceremonies and tours of local beauty spots, all of which have been captured for glossy social media content.

Posting photos of her citizenship ceremony in Guinea, Meagan Good told her 7.8m Instagram followers last month: “This is history in motion”.

Good, who has featured in films like Think Like A Man and Saw V, and her husband Majors, known for Creed and Marvel flick Ant-Man and the Wasp, became citizens after DNA testing traced their ancestry to Guinea.

“This recognition goes beyond titles, it is a homecoming and a reconnection to our Afrodescendant roots,” said Good.

Messaging from the various African governments has echoed this sentiment.

“In conferring Ghanaian citizenship upon Stevie Wonder,” former president Nana Akufo-Addo said at Wonder’s 2024 ceremony, “we not only extend our warmest embrace to a beloved son of Africa but also reaffirm our belief in the enduring spirit of pan-Africanism and the global African family”.

Ghana has long promoted its pan-African credentials – for a decade anyone whose ancestors came from Africa have been entitled to Ghanaian nationality, a policy that arguably inspired Benin to launch a similar scheme.

Ghana also launched the “year of return” in 2019, a buzzy initiative encouraging Africans in the diaspora to relocate there.

More than 1,000 African-Americans have done so in the past decade, according to Dr Erieka Bennet, ambassador for the Diaspora African Forum, which helps people relocate to Ghana.

“It is not only about romanticism,” Marie-Roger Biloa, a Cameroonian journalist with a focus on West Africa, tells the BBC.

“It’s all very much about how can we tap into the potential they have, the Americans.”

Tourism is an obvious motivator. Governments hope that social media posts from the stars will encourage other black Americans, a large group with a growing economic power, to visit and inject money into their countries.

Biloa notes that Benin’s president, a former business tycoon, is keenly aware that his country’s former role as a key departure point for slaves makes it a poignant destination for black Americans.

“President [Patrice] Talon has really started investing in cultural heritage, in a way to engage the African-Americans worldwide. He understood it could be an engine for a new form of tourism and a new branch of economy,” she says, mentioning The Marina Project, a memorial and tourist complex being built in Ouidah, once one of Benin’s main slave ports.

Positive publicity from stars like Ciara may also encourage diasporans to invest or buy property in Benin, as they have been doing in Ghana since the year of return.

Soft power is also an important factor – by promoting their culture and building a robust network around the world, countries like Benin, Guinea, Gabon and Ghana stand to gain global influence.

In this mission, celebrity citizens act as ambassadors, Francis Kpatindé, a Beninois lecturer at France’s Sciences Po University, tells the BBC.

“Benin has no diamonds like the Democratic Republic of Congo, no petrol, nothing. We just have cotton, the ports and culture,” he says.

The celebrity ambassadors are “a way for us to be on the record, to be on-screen. Now it’s working. You can go to the social networks. You see Benin everywhere,” Kpatindé says.

Many peoplefrom the countries involved recognise the economic and political benefits of giving citizenship to black American celebrities, but others are more critical.

There is an underlying feeling that the stars are bypassing what can be, for those born in the countries, a cumbersome and costly process to get passports.

Taufic Suleman, a painter and decorator from Ghana, felt “irritated” when the foreign minister announced that IShowSpeed, who grew up in the US but has a Ghanaian mother, had been approved for a passport.

“It is really, really, really a bad precedent… why do people, your citizens, have to go through vetting? Sometimes others end up being denied,” Suleman, aged 32, tells the BBC.

“You just can’t hand out a passport to anyone just because the person is a celebrity.”

Following the foreign minister’s announcement, Patrick Boamah, a member of the Ghanaian parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, told local broadcaster Channel One that the content creator must follow the required legal procedures to get a passport, although the authorities “may waive certain steps for him”.

Sindé Chekete, the head of Benin’s tourism authority, told the BBC that “citizenship processing is not influenced by celebrity status” and that Ciara “followed the same standard procedure as any other applicant”.

Another criticism of the celebrity citizenship trend is that it will be superficial and fleeting – the stars will collect their certificates, publish a few social media posts, then go quiet.

It is not clear whether, in all cases, the celebrities are required to publicise or maintain lasting links to their second homes, but Chekete stressed that Beninois citizenship “is not a transaction and it does not come with contractual obligations, whether promotional, financial, or otherwise”.

Six months after getting her citizenship, Ciara returned to Benin in January to play at the Vodun Days festival.

Meagan Good and Jonathan Majors have stressed that their connection with Guinea would be “long-term and evolving”.

“We could absolutely see ourselves having a home here and spending meaningful time in Guinea,” they told the BBC over email.

Yaw Nyame, one of the numerous Ghanaians who welcomed IShowSpeed’s naturalisation, says he hopes the content creator uses his passport to set up a base in the country.

“Even if he’s not going to come to Ghana all the time, at least him having his presence in Ghana or doing a project in Ghana,” Nyame says.

The doctor says giving IShowSpeed, real name Darren Watkins Jr, a passport is a “brilliant, strategic move” as the creator currently has “all eyes on him”. He has more than 50 million YouTube subscribers, with a recent 20-country tour of Africa contributing to the growth of his platform.

It will take time for Ghana, Gabon, Guinea and Benin to gauge whether their strategies have paid off – maybe one or two decades, Kpatindé says.

Earlier this week, Benin’s government said it would open a government agency specifically dedicated to nationalising “Afro-descendants”.

However, Ghana reached a roadblock in its plans to reconnect with the diaspora, announcing it was pausing its citizenship applications as it needed to make the system more accessible and user-friendly.

Regardless, Kpatindé believes that by welcoming home some of the diaspora’s brightest stars, the African countries are on the right trajectory.

People on the continent have long hailed pan-Africanism, “but now we need action,” he says. “We need concrete acts, not to just speak”.

In a video that has gone viral on social media, officials and guests were captured moving forward to the stage for a group photograph.

As participants climbed onto the stage from the front, one female attendee appeared to misjudge her footing and suddenly lost balance.

Before anyone else could react, President Mahama, who was standing close by, noticed the movement and stretched out his hand. In one swift motion, he grabbed her arm and steadied her before she could tumble off the platform.

With calm assurance, the President helped her regain balance and guided her safely onto the stage, drawing quiet relief from those nearby.

Although the incident lasted only seconds, Mr. Mahama has earned the admiration of many for turning a potentially embarrassing and painful accident into a moment of care and composure at a high-level diplomatic event.

Watch a video shared by Daily Graphic below:

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The Ghana Gold Board is the sole authority mandated to buy, sell, weigh, grade, assay, value and export gold and other precious minerals in Ghana.

President Mahama, accompanied by the First Lady, Lordina Mahama, is on a three-day State Visit to Zambia at the invitation of President Hakainde Hichilema.

Addressing Parliament, President Mahama said Africa must move beyond rhetoric and boldly leverage its natural resource endowments to drive economic transformation.

He stressed the need for African countries to exercise greater sovereignty over their resources to deliver sustainable prosperity for their people.

“The era of parceling out large-scale concessions to speculators who then flip them for huge profits must end,” he said.

“We have the know-how; the technology and capital are available. Indigenous companies must be encouraged to participate in the extractive sector.

“We must support our indigenous private sector to capture the commanding heights of our economies.”

President Mahama noted that mining and the extractive sector play a critical role in Ghana’s economy, adding that, like Zambia and many African countries, Ghana is richly endowed with minerals such as gold, bauxite and manganese, but had historically added little local value.

“My country is changing that narrative. Ghana established the Gold Board in April last year to take control of and regulate gold exports,” he stated.

He reiterated that the Board has sole authority to export gold from Ghana and said its impact had been significant.

According to the President, gold exports from the artisanal and small-scale mining sector increased from 63 tonnes to 104 tonnes within 10 months of the Board’s establishment.

He said the increase had generated more than 10 billion dollars in foreign exchange earnings over the same period.

“We are taking steps to domesticate the value addition of our minerals,” President Mahama said.

He disclosed that the Board had recently signed an agreement with a local refinery to process about one tonne of gold per week, rather than exporting raw doré gold.

The President added that Ghana also plans to commence local processing of manganese and bauxite instead of exporting raw ore.

He further announced that government has replaced the flat-rate mineral royalty regime with a sliding scale of between five per cent and 12 per cent, depending on prevailing international market prices.

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• Ghana, Zambia sign Air Services deal to enable direct flights

Reflecting on his address to the Zambian Parliament on Thursday, February 6, President Mahama said Africa can no longer depend on declining humanitarian assistance and must urgently adopt a self-sustaining development path.

“Humanitarian assistance has gone down. Africa cannot continue going cup in hand begging for that kind of support. We need to pull ourselves together,” he said in an interview with Joy News .

The President explained that his address was intentionally designed to provoke a shift in thinking among African leaders and to promote the ideals of the Accra Reset, which emphasises unity, regional cooperation and collective action.

“I chose to give a speech that rallies Africa together based on the objectives of the Accra Reset so that we can come together and make collective decisions,” he stated.

He noted that Africa’s long-term prosperity depends on stronger collaboration, particularly in trade, natural resource management and coordinated economic planning. According to him, working together will help African nations stabilise their economies, enhance their global bargaining power and reduce reliance on external support.

President Mahama stressed that only through unity and self-reliance can Africa free itself from aid dependency and fully take control of its place in the global system.

President John Dramani Mahama announced the agreement at the Ghana–Zambia Business Dialogue in Lusaka on Friday, February 6, 2026, describing it as a major step toward improving connectivity and reducing the cost of travel and trade between the two nations.

“Partnership in execution will determine our success. I am encouraged by the agreements we have signed during this state visit, including the visa waiver that will allow citizens of both countries to travel visa-free, and the bilateral air services agreement that will enable direct flights between Ghana and Zambia,” President Mahama said.

He added that the agreements would enhance mobility and facilitate the movement of goods, capital, and people, strengthening economic and diplomatic ties between the two countries.

The air services deal is expected to create new opportunities for businesses, investors, and tourism operators by making travel faster and more affordable.

The agreement forms part of President Mahama’s three-day state visit to Zambia, aimed at deepening trade, investment, and private sector cooperation between Ghana and Zambia.

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The Zambian leader made the light-hearted remark at the Ghana–Zambia Business Forum on Friday, February 6, 2026, as President Mahama continues a three-day visit aimed at strengthening bilateral relations.

While the visit has featured high-level diplomatic and economic engagements, public attention quickly shifted to President Mahama’s choice of outfit. The Ghanaian leader has been seen wearing the fugu — a traditional smock associated with northern Ghanaian culture and heritage.

The attire, which symbolizes identity, pride, and cultural expression, generated mixed reactions online. Many Ghanaians applauded the president for promoting local culture on an international stage, while some Zambian social media users referred to it as a “blouse,” sparking playful exchanges between the countries’ netizens.

Addressing the matter with humor, President Hichilema embraced the cultural moment.

“I am very happy that the foreign minister is wearing that,” he said, referring to Ghana’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa. “I have asked my team to post on various platforms that the president of Zambia will be ordering more of that for himself.”

Responding to the remarks, Mr. Ablakwa said the conversation had grown beyond fashion, sparking a wider reflection on African identity and culture.

“This is my president’s favourite attire, the fugu,” he said. “We are excited about the buzz it has generated. It has triggered a renaissance in what Kwame Nkrumah described as the African personality.”

He added that the discussion highlights deeper issues of identity and self-worth on the continent.

“That is about reclaiming African identity, dignity, and culture. When we talk about restitution and reparation, it is not only about compensation for the transatlantic slave trade; it is also about reconnecting with our roots and identity,” the Foreign Minister explained.

What began as online banter has now evolved into a light-hearted cultural exchange, allowing both countries to celebrate Africa’s rich diversity and shared heritage.

Delivering a keynote address at the Africa Prosperity Dialogues on the theme, “Africa Without Borders: Youth, Creativity, and Power in an Integrated Africa,” Mr. Ayariga stressed that Africa’s integration agenda must prioritise young people, creativity, and services.

While AfCFTA has created a single market of over 1.4 billion people with a combined economic output exceeding US$3 trillion, Mr. Ayariga said markets are ultimately built by people, not goods alone.

“If AfCFTA is implemented as a goods-only agreement, it will structurally fail Africa’s youth,” he warned.

He noted that the fastest-growing segments of the global economy—services, digital production, and the creative industries—are driven by skills, mobility, and innovation. Yet, Africa currently captures less than one per cent of the global creative economy, a gap he attributed to policy failures rather than a lack of talent.

Citing Nigeria’s film industry as an example, Mr. Ayariga said global streaming platforms invested about US$40 million into Nollywood between 2016 and 2022, helping African stories reach international audiences. He emphasised that culture has evolved beyond soft power to become a tool of economic and diplomatic influence.

He urged African governments to invest deliberately in cultural diplomacy or risk being defined by others. The NYA CEO also called for urgent political action, including mutual recognition of skills across borders, labour-sensitive mobility frameworks, and a managed free-movement regime that allows Africans to live, work, and create across the continent with dignity.

“Africa’s youth are already borderless in imagination and ambition. Policy is lagging behind reality,” he concluded.

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