In a court filing for an expedited appeal, the rap mogul’s attorney argued that he was improperly sentenced, and that the conduct that resulted in his conviction was not criminal in nature.

Attorney Alexandra Shapiro called Combs’ 50-month prison sentence “unlawful, unconstitutional, and a perversion of justice”.

She asked an appeals court to order that Combs be resentenced, should the panel choose not to throw out his conviction in its entirety.

The request is the latest attempt by his team to reduce his sentence or throw out his conviction.

The Southern District of New York, which prosecuted Combs, declined to comment on the request to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.

Combs’ lawyers had previously said they would appeal his sentence and conviction.

Federal prosecutors in New York accused Combs of using his money, power, and the threat of violence to coerce women into unwanted sexual encounters.

During a high-profile trial this spring, the jury heard from two of Combs’ ex-girlfriends, Cassie Ventura and a woman who testified as “Jane Doe”. They said Combs abused them and forced them to participate in so-called “freak-offs” with male escorts.

The jury found Combs not guilty of the two most serious charges: racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking. They convicted him of two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution.

In September, after his conviction, Combs asked Judge Arun Subramanian to consider an acquittal or new trial, citing objections over the way an anti-prostitution statute known as the Mann Act was used to prosecute Combs. That bid was not successful.

Ahead of his sentencing, Combs’ attorneys argued he should receive a brief sentence that would essentially amount to time served, a request that would have paved the way for a swift release. Prosecutors, however, asked the judge to send Combs to prison for at least 11 years.

US District Judge Arun Subramanian ultimately sentenced Combs to more than four years in prison. He said he considered Combs’ contributions to society and testimonials from family and friends, but “a history of good works can’t wash away your record”.

Combs’ appeal argues that Judge Subramanian did not properly follow sentencing guidelines when sending him to 50-months in prison.

It argues the judge “flouted” new guidelines and improperly considered conduct for which Combs had been acquitted when formulating his punishment. The filing argues the judge “acted as a thirteenth juror” in the case and calls the sentence “draconian”.

Before Judge Subramanian issued his sentence, Combs apologized to Ms Ventura and “Jane.”

“My actions were disgusting, shameful, and sick,” Combs said. “I got lost in excess, I got lost in my ego.”

Combs is also facing dozens of pending civil lawsuits, which accuse him of sexual assault, rape and sexual exploitation.

Many of the lawsuits allege that the rapper used his fame and power to silence accusers through threats. Some detail allegations that the rapper – or those who worked for him – drugged people at parties before alleged assaults.

Representatives for Mr Combs have repeatedly said he “never sexually assaulted or trafficked anyone – man or woman, adult or minor”.

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He called for an end to conflicts around the world during his Urbi et Orbi address, which the pontiff traditionally delivers on Christmas Day to worshippers gathered in Vatican City.

Speaking about Ukraine, the Pope said: “May the clamour of weapons cease, and may the parties involved, with the support and commitment of the international community, find the courage to engage in sincere, direct and respectful dialogue.”

His plea comes as US-led negotiations on a deal to end the fighting continue.

The US has sought to put together an agreement acceptable to both sides, but direct talks between Russia and Ukraine have not taken place during this latest round of diplomatic efforts.

Pope Leo also decried turmoil and conflict plaguing other parts of the world, including Thailand and Cambodia, where deadly border clashes have flared up despite a ceasefire in July.

He asked that the South East Asian nations’ “ancient friendship” be restored and “to work towards reconciliation and peace”.

During an earlier Christmas Day sermon in St Peter’s Basilica, Pope Leo lamented the conditions of homeless people worldwide and the damage caused by conflicts.

“Fragile is the flesh of defenceless populations, tried by so many wars, ongoing or concluded, leaving behind rubble and open wounds,” he said.

He said the story of Jesus’ birth showed that God had “pitched his fragile tent” among the people of the world. “How, then,” he asked, turning his attention to the conditions of Palestinians, “can we not think of the tents in Gaza, exposed for weeks to rain, wind and cold?”

Gaza has been devastated by Israeli bombardment in a two-year war, triggered by Hamas’s attack on Israel on 7 October 2023.

Winter storms have compounded the plight of the territory’s 2.1m population, nearly all of whom have been displaced and whose homes have been damaged or destroyed.

Aid agencies have called for Israel to allow more tents and urgently needed supplies into Gaza.

COGAT, the Israeli military body which controls Gaza’s border crossings, has dismissed claims of deliberate aid restrictions, saying almost 310,000 tents and tarpaulins had been delivered since the start of the ceasefire in October.

“Tonight, at my direction as Commander in Chief, the United States launched a powerful and deadly strike against ISIS Terrorist Scum in Northwest Nigeria, who have been targeting and viciously killing, primarily, innocent Christians, at levels not seen for many years, and even Centuries!” the president wrote on Truth Social.

“I have previously warned these Terrorists that if they did not stop the slaughtering of Christians, there would be hell to pay, and tonight, there was,” he went on. “The Department of War executed numerous perfect strikes, as only the United States is capable of doing.”

“Under my leadership, our Country will not allow Radical Islamic Terrorism to prosper. May God Bless our Military, and MERRY CHRISTMAS to all, including the dead Terrorists, of which there will be many more if their slaughter of Christians continues,” the president concluded.

CNN said it has reached out to the White House for additional comment.

Trump has focused for the last several months on the plight of Christians in Nigeria, including calling in November on his secretary of defence to “prepare for possible action” and warning the US would enter Nigeria “guns-a-blazing” to protect the Christian population of Africa’s most populous country.

In October 2025, the European Union began rolling out its Entry/Exit System (EES). This new digital border-management tool records biometric data and the entry and exit dates of non-EU nationals travelling in and out of the Schengen area.

Once fully implemented in April 2026, the system will replace manual passport stamping with digital screening, making the process more efficient and secure – and marking a significant shift in how some travellers cross European borders.

The change is part of a broader global trend. Countries like Australia, Japan and Canada already use biometric data at border crossings, while the United States has announced plans to expand similar systems.

As digital processing becomes the norm, it could quietly spell the end to a time-honoured travel ritual: collecting passport stamps.

“Versions of passport stamps go all the way back to the Middle Ages or Renaissance,” said Patrick Bixby, a professor at Arizona State University and author of License to Travel: A Cultural History of the Passport. “[A wax seal] would be put on letters of conduct by sovereigns in Europe. That’s kind of the beginning, at least as far as I’m concerned.”

While travel documents – and stamps of some kind – have existed for centuries, it wasn’t until the early 20th Century that modern passports began to take shape.

After World War One, the League of Nations helped formalise passport standards as borders became more tightly regulated.

By the 1950s, the more modern tradition of receiving passport stamps had become markers of mobility and status as the world entered the “golden age” of travel, when flights became more accessible to the general public.

“[It was] really only after World War Two and the resumption of international travel [that] the stamps begin to take on the kind of sentimental value that they have now,” said Bixby.

With the possibility of stamps disappearing, reactions among travellers are mixed.

“I’ll genuinely miss passport stamps,” says Hristina Nabosnyi, who lives in London. “For me, they’ve always been more than just proof of entry – they’re little memory markers of places visited and countries I travelled to.”

New York-based writer Elle Bulado agrees. “Losing passport stamps feels bittersweet. Although I recognise the need for quicker and more effective processes, receiving a stamp has always felt like a little acknowledgement,” she said. “It’s evidence that you crossed a border and arrived somewhere you could only dream of. I will miss that custom if stamps vanish.”

Others are more pragmatic. Jorge Salas-Guevara, president and founder the tour company New Paths Expeditions, is excited about how much time the new digitised process could save. “I spend about 250 to 300 days a year on the road, crossing borders constantly, so for people like me this change is a relief.”

Though some travellers will miss the nostalgia of collecting passport stamps, many have plans to mark their travels in other ways instead, such as collecting fridge magnets or other souvenirs.

Still, for Bixby, there will always be something special about having a tangible record of your travels. “This is [really] a bigger question about analogue versus digital,” he said. “There’s something about having [a document] that was with you when you were there. [It creates] a kind of aura around the physical object that dissipates when everything becomes digitised.”

Speaking on Friday via his X handle, Moore said the strikes, conducted in coordination with the Nigerian government, marked “just the first step to ending the slaughter of Christians and the security crisis affecting all Nigerians.”

“President Trump has been clear that the killing of Christians in Nigeria must end.

“As I stated at the outset: Do not test President Trump‘s resolve in this matter,” the congressman added.

The comments came after reports that US forces, under President Donald Trump’s direction, carried out airstrikes against ISIS-linked terrorist elements in North West Nigeria. In a separate post, US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said Washington acted with Nigeria’s cooperation.

“The President was clear last month: the killing of innocent Christians in Nigeria (and elsewhere) must end. The Department of War is always ready…Grateful for Nigerian government support & cooperation,” Hegseth wrote.

The Nigerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed that the strikes were part of structured security cooperation with international partners to combat terrorism and violent extremism.

Moore recently concluded a fact-finding mission in Nigeria to investigate alleged attacks on Christian communities, describing the experience as deeply disturbing.

Leading a five-member congressional delegation, he visited IDPs, survivors of terrorist attacks, Christian leaders, and traditional rulers in Benue State.

The team also met with the National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu, and the Attorney General, Lateef Fagbemi.

Speaking on Fox News, Moore recounted harrowing cases, including a woman who lost five children while pregnant, and another who lost her husband, two daughters, and her unborn child, describing the violence as deliberate targeting of Christians.

“This is one of the most dangerous states in Nigeria. They are trying to erase Christians in Benue and across Nigeria from their ancestral homeland,” Moore said.

He confirmed that President Trump tasked him and House Appropriations Chairman Tom Cole to submit a report with recommendations by the end of the month, following Nigeria’s designation as a “Country of Particular Concern” over alleged Christian killings.

Police launched a manhunt for the 12 unidentified gunmen who had opened fire at patrons at around 01:00 local time (23:00 GMT Saturday) in the Bekkersdal establishment, near Johannesburg.

On Wednesday, provincial deputy commissioner of police, Major General Fred Kekana, said nine of the arrested suspects are Lesotho nationals, while one is from Mozambique.

Another suspect, believed to be a South African mineworker, was also detained.

Murders in South Africa – which has one of the highest rates in the world – are often the result of arguments, robberies and gang violence.

While the attack appeared “unprovoked” at the time, preliminary investigations now appear to suggest a motive linked to illegal mining turf wars.

During the attack, gunmen continued to shoot as people fled the tavern, killing two as well as a taxi driver who had dropped off a passenger nearby.

Upon making the arrests, several unlicensed firearms including an AK-47 rifle, were found in the suspects’ possession.

There are about 3m legally held firearms in South Africa and at least the same number of unlicensed weapons, according to statistics cited by Gideon Joubert from the South African Gunowners’ Association,

Although 2025 has seen a decline in reported mass shootings, there has been a significant increase in incidents where four or more people are either killed or injured since 2020, Claire Taylor, a researcher at campaign group Gun Free South Africa, told the BBC.

Among the most common locations for these attacks are licensed taverns or illegal drinking spots, known locally as shebeens.

Sunday’s shooting occurred just two weeks after another attack at the Saulsville Hostel in the capital Pretoria, where eleven people including a three-year-old child were killed.

Nahum Daso told local media that another 35 people were injured in the blast in the Gamboru market of Maiduguri, the state capital, during evening prayers.

Unverified footage on social media appears to show the aftermath of the explosion, with people standing in a market area with dust particles in the air.

No group has admitted carrying out the attack, but militants have previously targeted mosques and crowded places in the area with suicide attacks and improvised explosive devices (IED).

Maiduguri has been central to an insurgency by the militant Islamist group Boko Haram and its offshoot, Islamic State West Africa Province.

Military operations by Boko Haram to create an Islamic caliphate in Borno state began in 2009.

Security measures against the group have failed to prevent sporadic attacks against civilians in north-east Nigeria.

Spot gold rose 0.1% to $4,492.51 per ounce by 0359 GMT, after touching a record high of $4,525.19 earlier in the session. U.S. gold futures for February delivery climbed 0.3% to a record high of $4,520.60.

Silver gained 1.2% to $72.27 an ounce, after hitting an all-time peak of $72.70 earlier, while platinum jumped 3.3% to $2,351.05 after rising to a historic high of $2,377.50.

Palladium climbed almost 2% to $1,897.11, its highest level in three years.

“Precious metals have become more of a speculative narrative around the idea that, with de-globalisation, you need an asset that can act as a neutral go-between, without sovereign risk, particularly as tensions between the U.S. and China persist,” said Ilya Spivak, head of global macro at Tastylive.

Thin year-end liquidity exaggerated recent price moves, but the broader theme was likely to endure, with gold targeting $5,000 over the next six to twelve months and silver potentially pushing toward $80 as markets respond to key psychological levels, Spivak added.

Gold has surged more than 70% this year, its biggest annual gain since 1979, driven by safe-haven demand, expectations of U.S. rate cuts, robust central-bank buying, de-dollarisation trends and ETF inflows, with traders pricing in two rate cuts next year.

Silver has jumped more than 150% over the same period, outpacing gold on strong investment demand, its inclusion on the U.S. critical minerals list and momentum buying.

Gold and silver have “been hitting the accelerator pedal this week” with fresh record highs, reflecting their appeal as stores of value amid expectations of lower U.S. rates and lingering global debt, said Tim Waterer, chief market analyst at KCM Trade.

Platinum and palladium, primarily used in automotive catalytic converters to reduce emissions, have surged this year on tight mine supply, tariff uncertainty, and a rotation from gold investment demand, with platinum up about 160% and palladium gaining more than 100% year to date.

“What we’re seeing in platinum and palladium is largely catch-up,” Spivak said, adding that the thin nature of those markets leaves them vulnerable to sharp swings, even as they broadly track gold, once liquidity returns.

Two traffic police officers saw a “suspicious individual” near a police car on the city’s Yeletskaya Street, and when they approached the suspect to detain him, an explosive device was detonated, Russia’s Investigative Committee has said.

The two police officers died from their injuries, along with another individual who was standing nearby.

The blast took place close to the location where a senior Russian general was killed in a car bombing in the capital on Monday.

Lt Gen Fanil Sarvarov died after an explosive device – which had been planted under a car – was detonated.

“These radical activists and weaponised NGOs have advanced censorship crackdowns by foreign states – in each case targeting American speakers and American companies,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement.

Thierry Breton, the former top tech regulator at the European Commission, suggested that a “witch hunt” was taking place.

The State Department described Breton as the “mastermind” of the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA), which imposes content moderation on social media firms.

However, it has angered some US conservatives who see it as seeking to censor right-wing opinions. Brussels denies this.

Breton has clashed with Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and owner of X, over obligations to follow EU rules.

The European Commission recently fined X €120m (£105m) over its blue tick badges – the first fine under the DSA. It said the platform’s blue tick system was “deceptive” because the firm was not “meaningfully verifying users”.

In response, Musk’s site blocked the Commission from making adverts on its platform.

Reacting to the visa ban, Breton posted on X: “To our American friends: Censorship isn’t where you think it is.”

Clare Melford, who leads the UK-based Global Disinformation Index (GDI), was also listed.

US Undersecretary of State Sarah B Rogers accused the GDI of using US taxpayer money “to exhort censorship and blacklisting of American speech and press”.

A GDI spokesperson told the BBC that “the visa sanctions announced today are an authoritarian attack on free speech and an egregious act of government censorship”.

“The Trump Administration is, once again, using the full weight of the federal government to intimidate, censor, and silence voices they disagree with. Their actions today are immoral, unlawful, and un-American.”

Imran Ahmed of the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), a nonprofit that fights online hate and misinformation, was also handed a ban.

Rogers called Mr Ahmed a “key collaborator with the Biden Administration’s effort to weaponize the government against US citizens”.

The BBC has reached out to the CCDH for comment.

Also subject to bans were Anna-Lena von Hodenberg and Josephine Ballon of HateAid, a German organisation that the State Department said helped enforce the DSA.

In a statement to the BBC, the two CEOs called it an “act of repression by a government that is increasingly disregarding the rule of law and trying to silence its critics by any means necessary”.

“We will not be intimidated by a government that uses accusations of censorship to silence those who stand up for human rights and freedom of expression,” they added.

Rubio said that steps had been taken to impose visa restrictions on “agents of the global censorship-industrial complex who, as a result, will be generally barred from entering the United States”.

“President Trump has been clear that his America First foreign policy rejects violations of American sovereignty. Extraterritorial overreach by foreign censors targeting American speech is no exception,” he added.

Sophie Hunt, 34, from Northampton, had multi-organ failure and died after she went into cardiac arrest three times on 9 March 2022, two days after having a Brazilian butt-lift (BBL) and a tummy tuck.

Her family told the inquest into her death at Northampton Coroner’s Court that they were concerned she had not been fit for the surgery, which took place at the private Nisantasi Hospital in Istanbul.

“If she hadn’t had the surgery, she would be alive still,” her sister Aimee Hunt told the BBC.

“They still haven’t stated what the complications were. It’s not really an answer. No one can really tell,” she added.

She added that the family “want more answers” over Ms Hunt’s death.

The inquest was told Ms Hunt was taken by ambulance to the Avrupa Safak Hospital in Istanbul, which has a specialist cardiac intensive care unit, where she later died.

In a statement read to the court, Sandra Hunt, Ms Hunt’s mother, said her daughter lost consciousness after the surgery and had swelling in her hands.

Sandra said paperwork from the hospital showed “some of her ECG (electrocardiogram) readings indicate an abnormal heartbeat”, which she has been told was not healthy.

She added: “We believe she was not fit for the surgery.”

She also expressed concerns there may have been a complication from the BBL procedure if too much fat was injected or removed from Ms Hunt’s body.

The coroner, Sophie Lomas, told the inquest that because Ms Hunt died in another country, she “does not have the jurisdiction to fully investigate what happened in that hospital”.

Ms Lomas added: “I have to reach the findings on the information I do have.”

“Sophie Hunt died due to complications of a surgical procedure carried out whilst abroad,” she concluded.

Lost consciousness

A report provided by Turkey’s Council of Forensic Medicine said: “The individual had no known medical illnesses.”

It added she had an abdominoplasty, also known as a tummy tuck, and liposuction on 7 March 2022, before she experienced “sudden loss of consciousness”.

The Turkish investigation found Ms Hunt died “as a result of abdominoplasty and liposuction procedures and the complications that developed thereafter”.

A post-mortem examination was carried out by Professor Kevin West when Ms Hunt’s body was repatriated to the UK.

The coroner said Prof West concluded she died due to complications of the surgery, but he said the “exact cause of cardiopulmonary arrest is unclear”.

Aimee Hunt said she had been worried about her sister travelling abroad due to the risks, as “it seemed like a big surgery to have”.

“Sophie was outgoing, funny, fun to be around, caring, kind and a brilliant mum,” she added.

Gen Mohammed Ali Ahmed al-Haddad and four others were on board a Falcon 50 aircraft flying out of the Turkish capital, Ankara, on Tuesday evening.

In a post on X, Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said the signal with the business jet was lost at 20:52 local time (17:52 GMT) – about 42 minutes after it took off from Ankara’s airport.

The Tripoli-bound jet had issued an emergency landing request before contact was lost. The aircraft’s wreckage was later found south-west of Ankara, and an investigation is now underway into what caused the crash.

In a later post on X, Yerlikaya wrote that police had spotted the debris near the village of Kesikkavak, in the Haymana district.

He said the “public will be informed of further developments”.

In Libya, Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh, the prime minister of the country’s internationally recognised Government of National Unity (GNU), said he had received news of the deaths of Gen Haddad and other senior Libyan military officials on board the jet.

The prime minister called it a “great loss” for the nation, saying Libya had “lost men who served their country with sincerity and dedication”.

Gen Haddad and his team had been in Turkey for talks aimed at further strengthening military and security co-operation between the two countries.

Turkey has played an increasingly dominant role in Libya after intervening in 2019 to prevent an army from the east of the country from driving out the internationally-recognised government in Tripoli, and has built close political, military and economic ties.

According to flight tracking website Flight Radar, the plane was last recorded at 15:01 local time (21:01 GMT) over Galveston Bay, near Scholes International Airport.

The aircraft was taking part in a medical mission on behalf of the Michou y Mau Foundation, which provides care to Mexican children with severe burns.

Mexico’s Secretariat of the Navy said one person remains missing and two others were rescued alive.

Video footage shared with AP news agency showed the wreckage of the plane in the water, with witnesses and police officers seen entering the water to search the debris.

Sky Decker, a local yacht captain, said he took two police officers to the site of the nearly submerged plane, before jumping in and finding a badly injured woman trapped.

He said: “I couldn’t believe. She had maybe three inches of air gap to breathe in.

“And there was jet fuel in there mixed with the water, fumes real bad. She was really fighting for her life.”

Earlier the Mexican Navy Secretariat said search and rescue operations were under way in co-ordination with the US Coast Guard.

Video taken near Scholes International Airport in Galveston showed rescuers including a dive team working in dense fog.

In a statement shared on X, the Michou y Mau Foundation sent “our deepest condolences to the families of the victims of this tragedy”.

U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell in Washington, D.C., rejected arguments by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that the fee conflicts with federal immigration law and will lead many companies, hospitals and other employers to cut jobs and the services they provide to the public.

“The parties’ vigorous debate over the ultimate wisdom of this political judgment is not within the province of the courts,” Howell wrote, opens new tab.

“So long as the actions dictated by the policy decision and articulated in the Proclamation fit within the confines of the law, the Proclamation must be upheld.”

Howell is an appointee of Democratic former President Barack Obama.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Chamber’s executive vice president and chief counsel, Daryl Joseffer, said many small and medium-sized businesses will be unable to afford the fee.

“We are disappointed in the court’s decision and are considering further legal options to ensure that the H-1B visa program can operate as Congress intended,” Joseffer said in a statement.

The H-1B program allows U.S. employers to hire foreign workers with training in speciality fields. Technology companies in particular rely heavily on workers who receive H-1B visas. The program offers 65,000 visas annually, with another 20,000 visas for workers with advanced degrees, approved for three to six years.

Trump’s order would sharply raise the cost of obtaining H-1B visas, which typically carried fees of about $2,000 to $5,000 depending on various factors.

The Chamber, in its lawsuit, says the new fee would force businesses that rely on the H-1B program to choose between dramatically increasing their labour costs or hiring fewer highly-skilled foreign workers.

A group of Democratic-led U.S. states and a coalition of employers, nonprofits and religious organisations have also filed lawsuits challenging the fee.

Trump, in an order imposing the fee, invoked his power under federal immigration law to restrict the entry of certain foreign nationals that would be detrimental to U.S. interests.

Howell on Tuesday said Trump had adequately backed up his claim that the H-1B program was displacing U.S. workers, including by citing examples of companies that laid off thousands of Americans while simultaneously petitioning for H-1B visas.

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Jane Ansah’s visit will be in a private capacity, but the reported size of both her entourage and the overall cost of the trip has ignited fierce criticism. The details have been disputed by her office.

The row began after the circulation of an alleged leaked letter to the Malawi High Commission in London, signed by Secretary for Foreign Affairs Chauncy Simwaka, listing 15 individuals set to accompany Ansah.

In power since October, the vice-president’s government has pledged to manage the economy competently and has already announced a raft of austerity measures.

Malawian media have published further alleged details about the visit, reportedly from leaked documents saying it would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

While the vice-president’s office has confirmed the trip, it has disputed the information in circulation about how much the state is spending.

“These documents did not originate from any government institution and do not reflect official records or approved government expenditures,” the vice-president’s press secretary Richard Mveriwa said in a statement.

“The Office of the Vice President remains committed to transparency, accountability, and the responsible use of public resources, and strongly condemns the deliberate spread of false information intended to mislead the public.”

The spokesperson did not, however, say anything about the number of people making the trip, said to include two accountants, four security personnel, three assistants to the vice-president, and other officials.

A Malawian human rights organisation, the Human Rights Defenders Coalition (HRDC) said it finds the reported size of the delegation “deeply troubling, particularly given that the trip is explicitly described as private yet appears to be financed using public resources”.

Ansah was the running mate to President Peter Mutharika, who soundly beat incumbent Lazarus Chakwera in September’s election.

They promised a “return to proven leadership” that would manage the economy better than the Chakwera administration.

Among the announced cutbacks in government spending are a reduction of both domestic and international travel by senior government officials.

When he was sworn in, Mutharika promised to be prudent. He said his government would not be a “feast” for members of the administration and supporters.

The HRDC said the vice president’s UK trip, due to start on 26 December, directly contradicted the government’s own rhetoric on austerity and called it a “double standard”.

“While Malawians are continuously urged to tighten their belts, endure hardship and accept reduced public services in the name of fiscal discipline, senior political leaders appear to exempt themselves from these very principles,” the organisation said.

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The sentence was handed down by U.S. District Judge Lawrence J. Vilardo in Buffalo, New York, following an announcement by the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of New York, Michael DiGiacomo. Cole has since been turned over to the Department of Homeland Security.

According to court records outlined by Assistant U.S. Attorney Aaron J. Mango, who handled the prosecution, the offence dates back to October 30, 2022.

Cole was said to have improperly accessed a Snapchat account belonging to an individual identified as the Victim and obtained nude photographs stored on the account.

Investigators said Cole subsequently contacted the Victim using a Google Voice telephone number and demanded a payment of $200. Prosecutors said he threatened that if the money was not paid, he would damage the Victim’s reputation by releasing the nude photographs to the Victim’s family and friends.

An initial payment of $200 was made via CashApp as instructed, but the Victim later cancelled the transaction. Despite this, the Victim later discovered that some of his Snapchat contacts had already received the nude photographs.

The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation under the direction of the Special Agent in Charge, Philip Tejera.

U.S. authorities have not disclosed further details about immigration proceedings, but confirmed that Cole has been handed over to the Department of Homeland Security following the completion of his custodial sentence.

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The State Department declined to provide a list of the diplomats being recalled. A senior department official said on Monday the move was “a standard process in any administration”, but critics said that was not so.

“An ambassador is a personal representative of the president, and it is the president’s right to ensure that he has individuals in these countries who advance the America First agenda,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Nearly 30 senior diplomats were among those ordered back to Washington, people familiar with the matter said.

They were posted to smaller countries where the top U.S. representative has traditionally been from the Foreign Service, which is made up of career officials not aligned with a political party, the people said.

The recalled diplomats were encouraged to find new roles in the State Department, a second U.S. official said.

The American Foreign Service Association representing foreign service officers said it was working to confirm which members were recalled after some reported being notified by phone with no explanation – a process its spokesperson called “highly irregular.”

“Abrupt, unexplained recalls reflect the same pattern of institutional sabotage and politicization our survey data shows is already harming morale, effectiveness, and U.S. credibility abroad,” spokesperson Nikki Gamer said in an email.

The State Department declined to respond to Gamer’s comments.

Trump has sought to place loyalists in senior roles since starting his second term after encountering resistance during his first term advancing his foreign policy priorities within the U.S. national security establishment.

Jeanne Shaheen, ranking Democrat on the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, assailed the Republican administration’s removal of the diplomats while about 80 ambassadorial posts remain vacant.

“President Trump is giving away U.S. leadership to China and Russia by removing qualified career Ambassadors who serve faithfully no matter who’s in power,” Shaheen posted on X. “This makes America less safe, less strong and less prosperous.”

“On a personal level, I don’t want the word ‘detty’ to be associated with anything Ghana… that’s something I’m not very comfortable with,” Kofi Okyere-Darko said.

“Detty”, West African Pidgin for “dirty”, is used to express unrestricted fun when it comes to seeing the year out.

The celebrations are thought to be a huge boost to Ghana’s economy. Last December, more than 125,000 international visitors, many of whom were diasporans, flocked to Ghana.

It was a notable increase over the number of people arriving in any other month, and the same held true for the three years before that.

Government branding avoids the term “Detty December” and instead pushes a tourism initiative named “December in Ghana,” Mr Okyere-Darko, who oversees his country’s relationship with its sizeable diaspora, told the BBC at the Ghana Diaspora Summit in the capital, Accra.

“The young people somehow prefer ‘Detty December’, but officially, that’s not the name,” he said.

“I don’t think December is what attracts people to Ghana. People started coming to Ghana a long time ago. I remember December in Ghana at the turn of the millennium, with initiatives like Akwaaba UK.

Mr Okyere-Darko responded positively to suggestions that the season could be rebranded in a way that still appeals to younger audiences, saying that December in Ghana could be shortened to the initials “D.I.G.. Let’s dig it!”

The phrase Detty December gained popularity roughly eight years ago, after Nigerian musician Mr Eazi launched his Detty Rave festival in Accra.

This December, festivals, parties and concerts have Accra teeming with diasporans and other tourists. They are mostly from the US and Europe, with ages ranging from early 20s and mid-40s, and are out socialising seven days a week.

US hip-hop legend Busta Rhymes performed in Accra as part of the Rhythm and Brunch concert on Saturday, while popular UK rapper Giggs is playing at the Afro Paradise festival on 31 December.

Local stars such as Samini – considered to be the “godfather” of Ghanaian dancehall – and Reggie Rockstone will also play at major events later this month.

Ghana in recent years has been promoting itself as a destination for people from the continent and the African diaspora to visit. In 2019, the government launched the Year of Return – an initiative encouraging those with African roots to invest in the country.

The influx of foreign visitors in December is seen as a positive by many, but some locals complain of price gouging, overcrowding and intense traffic during this period.

This year has proven that December in Ghana no longer revolves around non-stop partying.

Alongside the expected concerts and festivals, there is a growing calendar of investment seminars, networking sessions and cultural showcases, offering the diaspora routes into property, minerals, fashion and textiles.

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Nigeria’s federal government described the latest release as a “moment of triumph and relief”, after one of the country’s worst mass kidnappings.

More than 250 children and staff were abducted from St Mary’s Catholic school in Papiri on 21 November. Earlier this month about 100 of the children were released.

The authorities confirmed “the rescue of the remaining 130 children and staff” in a statement, saying “not a single pupil is left in captivity”.

Niger state police chief Adamu Abdullahi Elleman told the BBC that they were being “examined by security forces and will be taken to their school tomorrow [Monday] to reunite with their families”.

Bishop Bulus Dauwa Yohanna, who is in charge of the school as the Catholic cleric who heads the region, also confirmed the development.

He said the local governor had informed him of the release of the remaining schoolchildren and teachers, and “asked me to come and receive them”.

Parents are in high spirits over the news of the release, Abdullahi Rofia, a local emergency worker in Papiri where the school is located, told the BBC. The parents are expected to gather at the school later in the day.

On Sunday, presidential spokesperson Bayo Onanuga said the total of freed students was now 230.

Since the kidnapping, the exact number of people taken and how many have remained in captivity has been unclear.

On 8 December, authorities secured the release of 99 children and one teacher, reportedly leaving at least 165 others with the kidnappers.

However, the Niger state police chief told the BBC that the 130 who have now been released account for all the remaining abductees, faulting the initial figures released by the school management.

It has not been formally made public how the government secured the latest release – or whether any ransom was paid.

The announcement by Onanuga included pictures of children smiling and waving. The students are expected to arrive in the Niger state capital, Minna, on Monday.

When the earlier release happened the governor of neighbouring Nasarawa state, Abdullahi Sule, told local media that the federal government had played a key role, adding that the behind-the-scenes efforts could not be disclosed for security reasons.

The Christian Association of Nigeria reported that 50 students managed to escape at the time of the kidnapping.

November’s abduction was the latest incident in a number of targeted attacks on schools and places of worship in north and central Nigeria.

The attack on St Mary’s was preceded by mass kidnappings just days earlier.

On 18 November, two people were killed and 38 abducted in an attack on the Christ Apostolic Church in Kwara state, and a day before that, two were killed and 25 Muslim students abducted from Government Girls’ Secondary School in Kebbi state.

All those taken in the Kwara and Kebbi attacks have since been freed.

It is not clear who is behind these kidnappings – most analysts believe they are carried out by criminal gangs seeking ransom payments.

On 9 December Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu said his government would continue to work with Niger and other states “to secure our schools and make the learning environment safer and more conducive for our younger ones”.

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Russia’s Investigative Committee said Lt Gen Fanil Sarvarov died on Monday morning after an explosive device planted under a car detonated.

Sarvarov, 56, was the head of the armed forces’ operational training department, the committee added.

It said one theory being investigated was that the bomb was planted with the involvement of Ukrainian intelligence services. Ukraine has not commented.

Investigators have been sent to the scene, in a car park near an apartment block in the south of Russia’s capital.

Images from the area show a badly damaged white car with the doors blown out, surrounded by other vehicles in a parking lot.

Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, a number of military officials have been targeted in the Russian capital.

Gen Yaroslav Moskalik was killed in a car bomb attack in Moscow in April, while Gen Igor Kirillov died in December 2024 when a device hidden in a scooter was detonated remotely.

A Ukrainian source later told the BBC that Kirillov was killed by Ukraine’s security service, though this was never confirmed on the record. As a matter of policy, Ukraine never officially admits or claims responsibility for targeted attacks.

Musk’s 2018 pay package, once worth $56 billion, was restored by the Delaware Supreme Court on Friday, two years after a lower court struck down the compensation deal as “unfathomable.”

The Supreme Court said that a 2024 ruling that rescinded Musk’s pay package was improper and inequitable.

Earlier this week, Musk became the first person ever to surpass $600 billion in net worth on the heels of reports that his aerospace startup SpaceX was likely to go public.

In November, Tesla shareholders separately approved a $1 trillion pay plan for Musk, the largest corporate pay package in history, as investors endorsed his vision of morphing the EV maker into an AI and robotics juggernaut.

Musk’s fortune now exceeds that of Google co-founder Larry Page, the world’s second-richest person, by nearly $500 billion, according to Forbes’ billionaires list.

Musk’s second most valuable asset, his estimated 42% stake in SpaceX, is now worth $2 billion less than his Tesla holdings (at an estimated $336 billion), based on a private tender offer launched this month that valued Musk’s rocket maker at $800 billion, up from $400 billion in August.

Still, it could be SpaceX rather than Tesla that makes Musk the world’s first trillionaire, with the rocket maker said to be targeting an IPO in 2026 that could value the company at around $1.5 trillion.

Nigeria’s federal government described the latest release as a “moment of triumph and relief”, after one of the country’s worst mass kidnappings.

More than 250 children and staff were abducted from St Mary’s Catholic school in Papiri on 21 November. Earlier this month, about 100 of the children were released.

The authorities confirmed “the rescue of the remaining 130 children and staff” in a statement, saying “not a single pupil is left in captivity”.

Presidential spokesperson Bayo Onanuga said on Sunday the total of freed students was now 230.

Since the kidnapping, the exact number of people taken and how many have remained in captivity has been unclear.

It has not been formally made public how the government secured the latest release – or whether any ransom was paid.

The announcement by Onanuga included pictures of children smiling and waving. The students are expected to arrive in the Niger state capital, Minna, on Monday.

When the earlier release happened the governor of neighbouring Nasarawa state, Abdullahi Sule, told local media that the federal government had played a key role, adding that the behind-the-scenes efforts could not be disclosed for security reasons.

The Christian Association of Nigeria reported that 50 students managed to escape at the time of the kidnapping.

November’s abduction was the latest incident in a growing number of targeted attacks on schools and places of worship in north and central Nigeria.

The attack on St Mary’s in November was preceded by mass kidnappings just days earlier.

On 18 November, two people were killed and 38 abducted in an attack on the Christ Apostolic Church in Kwara state, and a day before that, two were killed, and 25 Muslim students were abducted from Government Girls’ Secondary School in Kebbi state.

All those taken in the Kwara and Kebbi attacks have since been freed.

It is not clear who is behind these kidnappings – most analysts believe they are carried out by criminal gangs seeking ransom payments.

On 9 December, Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu said his government would continue to work with Niger and other states “to secure our schools and make the learning environment safer and more conducive for our younger ones.

The US Central Command (Centcom) said fighter jets, attack helicopters and artillery “struck more than 70 targets at multiple locations across central Syria”. Aircraft from Jordan were also involved.

It said the operation “employed more than 100 precision munitions” targeting known IS infrastructure and weapons sites.

President Donald Trump said “we are striking very strongly” against IS strongholds, following the 13 December IS ambush in the city of Palmyra in which two US soldiers and a US civilian interpreter were killed.

In a statement on X, Centcom, which directs American military operations in Europe, Africa and the Indo-Pacific, said Operation Hawkeye Strike was launched at 16:00 Eastern Time (21:00 GMT) on Friday.

Centcom commander Admiral Brad Cooper said that the US “will continue to relentlessly pursue terrorists who seek to harm Americans and our partners across the region”.

US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said the operation “is not the beginning of a war – it is a declaration of vengeance.

“If you target Americans – anywhere in the world – you will spend the rest of your brief, anxious life knowing the United States will hunt you, find you, and ruthlessly kill you.

“Today, we hunted and we killed our enemies. Lots of them. And we will continue,” the US defence secretary added.

Posting on Truth Social, President Trump said the US “is inflicting very serious retaliation, just as I promised, on the murderous terrorists responsible”.

He said the Syrian government was “fully in support”.

Meanwhile, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OBHR) said IS positions near the cities of Raqqa and Deir ez Zor were targeted.

It said that a prominent IS leader and a number of fighters were killed.

IS has not publicly commented. The BBC was unable to verify the targets immediately.

Centcom earlier said that the deadly attack in Palmyra was carried out by an IS gunman, who was “engaged and killed”.

Another three US soldiers were injured in the ambush, with a Pentagon official saying that it happened “in an area where the Syrian president does not have control.”

At the same time, the SOHR said the attacker was a member of the Syrian security forces.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, and the identity of the gunman has not been released.

In 2019, a US-backed alliance of Syrian fighters announced IS had lost the last pocket of territory in Syria it controlled, but since then the jihadist group has carried out some attacks.

The United Nations says the group still has between 5,000 and 7,000 fighters in Syria and Iraq.

US troops have maintained a presence in Syria since 2015 to help train other forces as part of a campaign against IS.

Syria has recently joined an international coalition to combat IS and has pledged to co-operate with the US.

In November, Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa – a former jihadist leader whose coalition forces toppled Bashar al-Assad’s regime in 2024 – met Trump at the White House, describing his visit as part of a “new era” for the two countries.

The suspect, a Portuguese man who was found dead on Thursday, entered the country through the diversity lottery immigrant visa programme (DV1) in 2017 and was granted a green card.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said she has paused the visa scheme under Trump’s direction to “ensure no more Americans are harmed by this disastrous programme”.

US officials said they believe the suspect, 48-year-old Claudio Neves Valente, also killed Portuguese Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Nuno Loureiro earlier this week.

The programme makes up to 50,000 visas available each year through a random selection process among entries from countries with low rates of immigration to the US.

Writing on social media, Noem said Trump had previously “fought to end” the scheme in 2017 after eight people were killed in a truck-ramming attack in New York City.

Uzbekistan national Sayfullo Saipov, an Islamic State supporter who is serving multiple life sentences for the attack, entered the US through the DV1 scheme, according to Noem.

Her comments come just hours after Neves Valente was found dead in a storage facility in Salem, New Hampshire, from what police believe is a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Police said video evidence and tips from the public led investigators to a car rental location where they found the suspect’s name and matched him to their person of interest, following a six-day multi-state manhunt.

He was found dead with a satchel and two firearms. Evidence in a car nearby matched to the scene of the shooting at Brown University in Providence, according to Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha.

Brown University President Christina Paxson said Neves Valente was enrolled at the Ivy League school from the autumn of 2000 to the following spring, and was studying for a PhD in physics.

He had “no current active affiliation” to Brown, she said.

Officials said they believe Neves Valente shot and killed MIT professor Nuno F Gomes Loureiro, 47, on Monday at his home in Brookline, which is about 50 miles (80km) from Providence.

Both men had studied at the same university in Portugal in the late 1990s, police said.

Officials said the cases were linked when the suspect’s vehicle was identified via CCTV footage and a witness at Brown University.

The same car was spotted near the scene of the professor’s shooting, which happened just two days later.

Authorities have not provided any suspected motive for either of the attacks.

Two students were killed and nine others were injured as a gunman burst into Brown University’s engineering building on 13 December and opened fire during final exams.

They have been identified as Ella Cook, 19, a second-year student from Alabama, and Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov, 18, an Uzbek-American who had just started at the university.

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Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a post on the social platform X that at Trump’s direction, she is ordering the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services to pause the program.

“This heinous individual should never have been allowed in our country,” she said of the suspect, Portuguese national Claudio Neves Valente.

Neves Valente, 48, is suspected in the shootings at Brown University that killed two students and wounded nine others, and the killing of an MIT professor.

He was found dead Thursday evening from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, officials said.

Neves Valente obtained legal permanent residence status in 2017, U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts Leah B. Foley said.

The diversity visa program makes up to 50,000 green cards available each year by lottery to people from countries that are underrepresented in the United States, many of them in Africa.

Congress created the lottery, and the move is almost sure to invite legal challenges.

Nearly 20 million people applied for the 2025 visa lottery, with more than 131,000 selected, including spouses, as the winners.

After winning, they must undergo vetting to win admission to the United States. Portuguese citizens won only 38 slots.

Lottery winners are invited to apply for a green card. They are interviewed at consulates and subject to the same requirements and vetting as other green-card applicants.

Trump has long opposed the diversity visa lottery. Noem’s announcement is the latest example of using tragedy to advance immigration policy goals.

After an Afghan man was identified as the gunman in a fatal attack on National Guard members in November, Trump’s administration imposed sweeping rules against immigration from Afghanistan and other countries.

While pursuing mass deportation, Trump has sought to limit or eliminate avenues to legal immigration. He has not been deterred by the fact that they are enshrined in law, such as the diversity visa lottery, or in the Constitution, as with a right to citizenship for anyone born on U.S. soil. The Supreme Court recently agreed to hear his challenge to birthright citizenship.

In a post on X, the Minister described the incident as “heart-wrenching” and assured the public that the matter is being pursued through diplomatic channels.

“My attention has been drawn to a heart-wrenching video reporting the killing of a Ghanaian student by the name Nana Adjei in Latvia,” he wrote.

“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has commenced immediate investigations through relevant diplomatic channels. We shall provide the public with regular updates.”

Mr. Ablakwa also warned that Ghana would not tolerate harm against its citizens abroad, stressing that “nobody harms a Ghanaian in any part of the world and gets away with it.”

My attention has been drawn to a heart-wrenching video reporting the killing of a Ghanaian student by name Nana Adjei in Latvia.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has commenced immediate investigations through relevant diplomatic channels.

We shall provide the public with…

— Sam Okudzeto Ablakwa (@S_OkudzetoAblak) December 18, 2025

The renewed government action follows the death of 21-year-old Nana Agyei, a first-year Electrical Engineering (Adaptronic) student at Riga Technical University, who reportedly fell from the sixth floor of his apartment building on Baznicas Street on June 4, 2025. He had enrolled at the university in July 2024.

While Latvian authorities described the incident as a fall, the family has rejected that account, insisting that the circumstances surrounding his death raise serious questions.

According to the family, the student sent a disturbing voice note three days before his death, claiming he had been poisoned, suggesting he may have been harmed.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has assured the public that updates will be provided as investigations continue.

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Avian flu – a type of influenza – is entrenched across South and South-East Asia and has occasionally infected humans since emerging in China in the late 1990s. From 2003 to August 2025, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has reported 990 human H5N1 cases across 25 countries, including 475 deaths – a 48% fatality rate.

In the US alone, the virus has struck more than 180 million birds, spread to over 1,000 dairy herds in 18 states, and infected at least 70 people – mostly farmworkers – causing several hospitalisations and one death. In January, three tigers and a leopard died at a wildlife rescue centre in India’s Nagpur city from the virus that typically infects birds.

Symptoms in humans mimic a severe flu: high fever, cough, sore throat, muscle aches and, at times, conjunctivitis. Some people have no symptoms at all. The risk to humans remains low, but authorities are watching H5N1 closely for any shift that could make it spread more easily.

That concern is what prompted new peer-reviewed modelling by Indian researchers Philip Cherian and Gautam Menon of Ashoka University, which simulates how an H5N1 outbreak might unfold in humans and what early interventions could stop it before it spreads.

In other words, the model published in the BMC Public Health journal uses real world data and computer simulations to play out how an outbreak might spread in real life.

“The threat of an H5N1 pandemic in humans is a genuine one, but we can hope to forestall it through better surveillance and a more nimble public-health response,” Prof Menon told the BBC.

A bird flu pandemic, researchers say, would begin quietly: a single infected bird passing the virus to a human – most likely a farmer, market worker or someone handling poultry. From there, the danger lies not in that first infection but in what happens next: sustained human-to-human transmission.

Because real outbreaks start with limited, messy data, the researchers turned to BharatSim, an open-source simulation platform originally built for Covid 19 modelling, but versatile enough to study other diseases.

The key takeaway for policymakers is how narrow the window for action can be before an outbreak spirals out of control, the researchers say.

The paper estimates that once cases rise beyond roughly two to 10, the disease is likely to spread beyond primary and secondary contacts.

Primary contacts are people who have had direct, close contact with an infected person, such as household members, caregivers or close colleagues. Secondary contacts are those who have not met the infected person but have been in close contact with a primary contact.

If households of primary contacts are quarantined when just two cases are detected, the outbreak can almost certainly be contained, the research found.

But by the time 10 cases are identified, it is overwhelmingly likely that the infection has already spread into the wider population, making its trajectory virtually indistinguishable from a scenario with no early intervention.

To keep the study grounded in real-world conditions, the researchers chose a model of a single village in Namakkal district, Tamil Nadu – the heart of India’s poultry belt.

Namakkal is home to more than 1,600 poultry farms and some 70 million chickens; it produces over 60 million eggs a day.

A village of 9,667 residents was generated using a synthetic community – households, workplaces, market spaces – and seeded with infected birds to mimic real-life exposure. (A synthetic community is an artificial, computer-generated population that mimics the characteristics and behaviours of a real population.)

In the simulation, the virus starts at one workplace – a mid-sized farm or wet market – spreads first to people there (primary contacts), and then moves outward to others (seconday contacts) they interact with through homes, schools and other workplaces. Homes, schools and workplaces formed a fixed network.

By tracking primary and secondary infections, the researchers estimated key transmission metrics, including the basic reproductive number, R0 – which measures how many people, on average, one infected person passes the virus on to. In the absence of a real-world pandemic, the researchers instead modelled a range of plausible transmission speeds.

Then they tested what happens when different interventions – culling birds, quarantining close contacts and targeted vaccination – kicked in.

The results were blunt.

Culling of birds works – but only if done before the virus infects a human.

If a spillover does occur, timing becomes everything, the researchers found.

Isolating infected people and quarantining households can stop the virus at the secondary stage. But once tertiary infections appear – friends of friends, or contacts of contacts – the outbreak slips out of control unless authorities impose much tougher measures, including lockdowns.

Targeted vaccination helps by raising the threshold at which the virus can sustain itself, though it does little to change the immediate risk within households.

The simulations also highlighted an awkward trade-off.

Quarantine, introduced too early, keeps families together for long stretches – and increases the chance that infected individuals will pass the virus to those they live with. Introduced too late, it does little to slow the outbreak at all.

The researchers say this approach comes with caveats.

The model relies on one synthetic village, with fixed household sizes, workplaces and daily movement patterns. It does not include simultaneous outbreaks seeded by migratory birds or by poultry networks. Nor does it account for behavioural shifts – mask-wearing, for instance – once people know birds are dying.

Seema Lakdawala, a virologist at Atlanta-based Emory University, adds another caveat: this simulation model “assumes a very efficient transmission of influenza viruses”.

“Transmission is complex and not every strain will have the same efficiency as another,” she says, adding that scientists are also now starting to understand that not all people infected with seasonal flu spread the virus equally.

She says emerging research shows that only a “subset of flu-positive individuals actually shed infectious influenza virus into the air”.

This mirrors the super-spreader phenomenon seen with Covid-19, though it is far less well characterised for flu – a gap that could strongly influence how the virus spreads through human populations.

What happens if H5N1 becomes successful in the human population?

Dr Lakdawala believes that it “will cause a large disruption, likely more similar to the 2009 [swine flu] pandemic rather than Covid-19″.

“This is because we are more prepared for an influenza pandemic. We have known licensed antivirals that are effective against the H5N1 strains as an early defence and stockpiled candidate H5 vaccines that could be deployed in the short term.”

But complacency would be a mistake. Dr Lakdawala says if H5N1 becomes established in humans, it could re-assort – or intermingle – with existing strains, amplifying its public-health impact. Such mixing could reshape seasonal influenza, triggering “chaotic and unpredictable seasonal epidemics”.

The Indian modellers say the simulations can be run in real time and updated as data comes in.

With refinements – better reporting delays, asymptomatic cases – they could give public-health officials something priceless in the early hours of an outbreak: a sense of which actions matter most, before the window for containment snaps shut.

Held at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development headquarters, the high-level conference highlighted Ghana and the UK’s shared commitment to sustainable development, inclusive growth, and economic resilience across the continent. Ghana’s role as co-host signals renewed international confidence in the country’s economic turnaround and reform efforts.

Senior global financial leaders attended the event, including Ludovic Ngatsé, Chairperson of the Boards of Governors of the African Development Bank, and the Presidents of the Islamic Development Bank Group, the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa, and the OPEC Fund for International Development.

Speaking at the conference, Ghana’s Deputy Minister of Finance, Hon. Thomas Nyarko Ampem MP, emphasized the country’s dedication to Africa’s development agenda:
“Ghana is proud to have co-hosted this important conference and to champion Africa’s voice in shaping development priorities. Earlier this year, Ghana joined four other countries in pledging US$16 million to the ADF—the first time all five countries in our constituency contributed. This demonstrates our commitment to reforms and partnerships that deliver tangible results for our people.”

UK Minister for Development, Jenny Chapman, expressed the UK’s pleasure in co-hosting the event alongside Ghana, underscoring the long-standing partnership with the African Development Bank and the shared goal of sustainable, inclusive growth. She noted that the UK’s evolving role in Africa—shifting from donor to investor—supports countries pursuing reforms to grow their economies and reduce dependence on aid.

In May 2025, Ghana pledged US$5 million to the African Development Fund alongside The Gambia, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Sudan, marking a historic increase in African participation. The countries’ commitments reflect fiscal and governance reforms aligned with the Bank’s emphasis on performance and co-financing.

ADF-supported projects in Ghana have targeted women-led micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises and expanded access to energy through mini-grid solutions, reinforcing inclusive growth and energy security.

The ADF-17 replenishment is expected to deepen African ownership of the continent’s development agenda. Ghana’s co-hosting also aligns with President John Dramani Mahama’s Reset Agenda, positioning Accra as a hub for global development dialogue and advocating for fairer, country-led development models and global financial reforms.

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The troops were formally sent off at a parade addressed by President John Mahama, who described the mission as a humanitarian duty rooted in solidarity and shared history between Ghana and the Caribbean.

Addressing the soldiers, President Mahama said the deployment reflected Ghana’s long-standing commitment to helping countries in need.

“We’re gathered here today for a solemn and proud national duty to see off officers and men of the Ghana Armed Forces who have been selected to represent Ghana on a humanitarian reconstruction mission to Jamaica following the devastation caused by Hurricane Melissa.”

“This deployment reflects Ghana’s solidarity with the people of Jamaica and our shared history, values, and bonds within the African-Caribbean family,” the President said.

He recalled that Ghana had already sent humanitarian relief to countries affected by crises, including Jamaica, Cuba and Sudan.

“After the destruction of the hurricane, Ghana dispatched humanitarian assistance to the friendly people of Jamaica and Cuba and also to the displaced people of Sudan,” President Mahama said.

“This humanitarian assistance included food aid, locally produced Ghanaian rice, blankets, mattresses, plastic buckets, medicines, and other such accoutrements.”

According to the President, Ghana’s response is driven by its own experience with disasters and recovery.

“Our nation understands the pain of natural disasters and the long road to recovery. Today’s mission reinforces Ghana’s commitment to humanitarian response, disaster recovery and reconstruction, and South-South cooperation, Pan-African and Afro-Caribbean solidarity,” he said.

President Mahama praised the Ghana Armed Forces for their readiness to serve beyond the country’s borders and said that the assignment was strictly humanitarian.

“I commend the Ghana Armed Forces for their professionalism, for their discipline, and their readiness to serve not only at home but anywhere in the world, duty calls. This mission is not a combat mission. It is a mission of compassion, skill, and service.”

He disclosed that the decision to send engineering troops followed direct discussions with Jamaica’s Prime Minister after the initial relief supplies were delivered.

“After we dispatched the first batch of humanitarian assistance, I made a phone call to the Prime Minister of Jamaica, the Honourable Andrew Hornace, to express Ghana’s solidarity with the people of Jamaica,” the President said.

“He thanked me for the assistance we had dispatched and in our discussion he said what they need currently is assistance with rebuilding and providing shelter for the people who have been displaced.”

President Mahama said Ghana then offered further practical support.

“And so I offered to send a regiment of our engineering corps to help with the assistance and also send them some tents to provide temporary shelter.”

“We’re dispatching those tents by sea so that we can provide temporary shelter, but in the meantime, our troops are going to help with reconstruction, with building, and also providing support for the people of Jamaica,” he explained.

He told the soldiers they would be engaged in engineering works, technical and logistical support, and community-focused assistance.

“Your conduct will reflect the values, discipline, and humanity of the Ghanaian soldier. You’re ambassadors of the Republic of Ghana. Your actions will shape how Ghana is perceived abroad.”

The President urged the troops to uphold discipline, professionalism and respect for local authorities, while looking out for one another.

“We expect you to uphold professional excellence, respect for local authorities and communities you work in, to exercise discipline, integrity and teamwork, and protect one another and return home safely,” he said.

President Mahama expressed confidence that the contingent would maintain Ghana’s strong reputation in international missions.

“Ghana has already carved out a good reputation for service abroad, and I know that those of you who are dispatching today will hold the flag of Ghana high and you will not let us down,” he said.

The President assured Jamaica of Ghana’s continued support.

“Through you, Ghana is going to convey a clear message to the people and government of Jamaica that they are not alone and that Ghana stands in solidarity with them,” President Mahama said.

“Ghana stands with them in this moment of rebuilding and recovery. This mission symbolises a bridge of solidarity across the Atlantic, grounded in shared history and mutual respect.”

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Dinisia Reis Embalo, the wife of Umaro Sissoco Embalo, arrived in Lisbon on the same flight from Guinea-Bissau as another passenger who was arrested by Portuguese authorities on Sunday following an anonymous tip-off.

The latter passenger, who was transporting nearly five million euros ($5.9 million) in cash, was suspected of smuggling and money laundering, police said in a statement.

Dinisia Reis Embalo’s charge was “linked” to that investigation, a judicial police spokesperson told AFP without giving further details.

Classified as ‘military flight’

The flight carrying both individuals had originally been classified as military and had been due to continue to the southern Portuguese city of Beja.

However, “subsequently it was verified that the nature of the flight and its destination were different”, police previously said.

Portuguese media have reported that the first suspect was a man close to Guinea-Bissau’s overthrown President Embalo, who fled after the military ousted him in a November 26 coup.

Public broadcaster RTP identified him as businessman Tito Gomes Fernandes.

Portuguese Foreign Minister Paulo Rangel said on Tuesday he was in touch with the authorities in Guinea-Bissau in an attempt to forge a “return to constitutional order.”

Aliko Dangote, Nigeria’s richest man, has escalated his fight with the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA), accusing it of allowing in cut-price fuel imports that squeeze local refineries, including his 650,000-barrel-per-day Lagos plant, Africa’s largest.

Dangote has urged a formal probe of NMDPRA chief Farouk Ahmed, citing governance concerns and claims of personal spending beyond declared income.

Lawmakers warned the row could trigger a fuel supply crunch over the holidays and said regulatory uncertainty threatens energy security and investor confidence.

The motion put by House member Francis Waive mandates the House’s petroleum committees to resolve the dispute and report back within four weeks.

Members say Dangote refinery is a “strategic national investment” that could end Nigeria’s reliance on fuel imports, earn much-needed foreign exchange, and moderate prices.

They said disputes between the regulator and the country’s largest domestic refiner risked disrupting supply, price volatility, and policy inconsistency.

Lawmakers did not immediately disclose hearing dates.

A radio and TV presenter and podcaster was gunned down as he was leaving Zambesi House near Carlton Centre on Tuesday.

The video footage shows the suspect approaching Stock and opening fire shortly after noon. 

According to Gauteng Acting Provincial Commissioner Major-General Fred Kekana, the suspects also left cartridges at the scene. He confirmed that Stock had his firearm on him and nothing was taken.

Warrick Stock, 40, who was popularly known as DJ Warras was killed on Tuesday.

Kekana said video footage shows the suspect sitting near Warras’ car and one other suspect, dressed in something that appears to be a security uniform. Police are actively tracing the suspects and the weapon.

He highlighted challenges posed by the building near the scene where the majority of occupants are unauthorised. He said that Warras was allegedly a co-owner of the Zambesi House, and investigations into the ownership and its occupants are ongoing.

Authorities are appealing to eyewitnesses and members of the community who may have seen the suspects to come forward. “We know they walked a long distance after the shooting, and officers have been tracking them to determine their whereabouts,” Kekana said.

The motive for Warras’ killing remains under investigation. While there are suggestions it could relate to hijacked buildings, police say they are keeping an open mind and following all leads.

The White House said the restrictions were intended “to protect the security of the United States” and will come into force on 1 January.

Full-entry restrictions will be imposed on people from Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, South Sudan and Syria as well as Palestinian Authority passport holders.

The administration also moved Laos and Sierra Leone, which were previously subject to partial restrictions, to the full ban list and put partial restrictions on 15 other countries, including Nigeria, Tanzania and Zimbabwe.

Trump, who has tightened immigration controls since returning to the White House in January, said the expanded travel ban was necessary because of what his administration described as failures in screening and vetting systems overseas.

Officials cited high visa overstay rates, unreliable civil records, corruption, terrorist activity and a lack of cooperation in accepting deported nationals.

The announcement followed the arrest of an Afghan national suspected of shooting two National Guard troops over the Thanksgiving weekend, an incident the White House pointed to in highlighting its security concerns.

This is the third time Trump has imposed a travel ban.

During his first term, he introduced a similar order in 2017, which sparked protests and legal challenges at home and abroad. The policy was later upheld by the US Supreme Court.

The White House said the restrictions would remain in place until affected countries show “credible improvements” in identity management, information-sharing and cooperation with US immigration authorities.

A number of exceptions apply and the ban will not affect lawful permanent residents, many existing visa holders, diplomats, or athletes travelling for major sporting events. Officials said case-by-case waivers would also be available where travel is deemed to be in the national interest.

Countries with full restrictions:

• Afghanistan
• Burkina Faso
• Burma
• Chad
• Equatorial Guinea
• Eritrea
• Haiti
• Iran
• Laos
• Libya
• Mali
• Niger
• Republic of the Congo
• Sierra Leone
• Somalia
• South Sudan
• Sudan
• Syria
• Yemen
• Individuals travelling on Palestinian Authority issued or endorsed travel documents are also subject to a full suspension of entry

Partial restrictions:

• Angola
• Antigua and Barbuda
• Benin
• Burundi
• Côte d’Ivoire
• Cuba
• Dominica
• Gabon
• The Gambia
• Malawi
• Mauritania
• Nigeria
• Senegal
• Tanzania
• Togo
• Tonga
• Venezuela
• Zambia
• Zimbabwe

Special case:

• Turkmenistan (restrictions remain for immigrants but have been lifted for non-immigrant visas)

Nigeria is Africa’s biggest oil producer, but relies heavily on imports, and Dangote’s refinery was meant to change that.

Dangote said if imports continue unchecked, they will threaten jobs, investment and energy security.

Speaking at his 650,000-barrel-per-day oil refinery in Lagos, Dangote said imports were being used “to checkmate domestic potential”, creating jobs abroad while Nigeria struggles to industrialise.

“You don’t use imports to checkmate domestic potential,” he told reporters.

Dangote called for an official inquiry into Farouk Ahmed, head of the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority, citing concerns over his management of the sector and allegations of private expenditures exceeding legitimate earnings.

Ahmed did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but he has previously said Dangote refinery wants a monopoly on petroleum products sales, but the refinery’s output can not meet local demand.

Last month, the regulator urged the president to drop plans to ban imports of refined petroleum products because local output cannot meet the national demand of 55 million litres daily.

Dangote disputes this, saying the regulator was distorting the refinery’s actual capacity by reporting offtake statistics instead of the true production data.

The refinery, designed to end Nigeria’s reliance on imported fuel and save billions in foreign exchange, says it has been unable to secure all the required crude it needs because the regulator has failed to implement a rule that guarantees crude supply to local refiners before exports

Dangote said the refinery imports 100 million barrels of crude oil annually — a figure expected to double after expansion of the refinery and limited domestic supply.

Despite these hurdles, Dangote vowed to continue with expansion plans for the facility and safeguard his investment, which he said is “too big to fail”.

He also reiterated plans to list the company on the local stock market and pay dividends in U.S. dollars so “every Nigerian can own a piece of the economy.”

Nigeria, Africa’s top oil producer, has long depended on imports due to mothballed state refineries.

Trump accused the broadcaster of defamation and of violating a trade practices law, according to court documents filed in Florida. He asked for $5bn (£3.7bn) in damages on each of the claims.

The BBC has apologised to Trump, but rejected his demands for compensation and disagreed that there was any “basis for a defamation claim”.

Trump’s legal team accused the BBC of defaming him by “intentionally, maliciously, and deceptively doctoring his speech”. The BBC has not yet responded to the lawsuit.

Trump said last month that he planned to sue the BBCfor the documentary, which aired in the UK ahead of the 2024 US election.

“I think I have to do it,” Trump told reporters of his plans. “They cheated. They changed the words coming out of my mouth.”

In his speech on 6 January 2021, before a riot at the US Capitol, Trump told a crowd: “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women.”

More than 50 minutes later in the speech, he said: “And we fight. We fight like hell.”

In the Panorama programme, a clip showed him as saying: “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol… and I’ll be there with you. And we fight. We fight like hell.”

The BBC acknowledged that the edit had given “the mistaken impression” he had “made a direct call for violent action”, but disagreed that there was a basis for a defamation claim.

In November, a leaked internal BBC memo criticised the editing of the speech and led to the BBC’s director general, Tim Davie, and its head of news, Deborah Turness, to resign.

Before Trump filed the lawsuit, lawyers for the BBC had responded in length to the president’s claims.

They said there was no malice in the edit and that the programme did not harm Trump, as he was re-elected shortly after it aired.

They also said the BBC did not have the rights to, and did not, distribute the Panorama programme on its US channels. While the documentary was available on BBC iPlayer, it was restricted to viewers in the UK.

In his lawsuit, Trump cites agreements the BBC had with other distributors to show content, specifically one with a third-party media corporation that allegedly held licensing rights to the documentary outside the UK.

The BBC has not responded to these claims, nor has the corporation commented on the alleged distribution agreement.

The suit also claims that people in Florida may have accessed the programme via a VPN or the streaming service BritBox.

“The Panorama Documentary’s publicity, coupled with significant increases in VPN usage in Florida since its debut, establishes the immense likelihood that citizens of Florida accessed the Documentary before the BBC had it removed,” the lawsuit said.

The attackers stormed into Evangelical Church Winning All in the mainly rural farming district of Aaaaz-Kiri during Sunday morning service, opening fire and then abducting some of the congregants.

Five of the gunmen were killed, according to Kogi state’s information commissioner, Kingley Fanwo, but he said others managed to escape despite being wounded.

Officials describe the assailants as “bandits” – a term used locally for criminal gangs who typically kidnap people for ransom.

Only two weeks ago, gunmen raided a church in the nearby town of Ejiba, kidnapping a pastor, his wife and several church members.

They are still being held, despite efforts by security agencies to secure their release, local residents say.

“The security onslaught in neighbouring Niger and Kwara states is pushing the bandits more towards Kogi state,” Fanwo told the BBC.

These latest incidents underline Nigeria’s persistent insecurity, particularly in parts of the north-western and central regions, where armed criminal gangs have carried out a wave of mass abductions, attacks on villages and assaults on places of worship in recent weeks.

The biggest of these saw more than 250 children and 12 members of staff reportedly kidnapped from St Mary’s Catholic School in in Papiri, Niger state, at the end of November.

The Nigerian government had claimed that jihadist groups Boko Haram and Islamic State in West Africa Province (Iswap) were to blame in most cases, but this has been disputed by analysts who tell the BBC they were committed by criminal gangs.

In recent weeks, President Bola Tinubu has ordered security chiefs tostep up intelligence-led operations to curb kidnappings, and approved the deployment of extra troops and police to known hotspots.

Authorities also say joint military and police task forces have recorded successes in dismantling some armed groups. Yet the attacks continue largely unabated, especially in rural communities where security presence is thin and response times are slow.

“On Dec. 15, at the direction of @SecWar Pete Hegseth, Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted lethal kinetic strikes on three vessels operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations in international waters,” SOUTHCOM wrote on X. “Intelligence confirmed that the vessels were transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and were engaged in narco-trafficking.”

At least 95 people have now been killed in strikes on suspected drug boats as part of a campaign, dubbed Operation Southern Spear, that the Trump administration has said is aimed at curtailing narcotics trafficking. The US military most recently struck a suspected drug boat on December 4 in the Eastern Pacific, killing four people on board, according to another social media post from US Southern Command.

The latest strikes come as questions about the Trump administration’s offensive on the alleged drug boats continue to mount.

The Trump administration has told Congress that the US is in an “armed conflict” against drug cartels that began with its first attack on September 2. The US military carried out a follow-up strike on the suspected drug vessel operating in the Caribbean that day, after an initial attack did not kill everyone on board, CNN previously reported, which some Democratic lawmakers and legal experts said could amount to a war crime.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, said Monday there will be an all-senators briefing Tuesday on the strikes, featuring Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

“The American people deserve oversight. We intend to deliver it,” he said in a post on X.

Rubio and Hegseth are also expected to provide a classified briefing for House lawmakers Tuesday, according to two sources familiar with the plans.

The administration has labeled those killed “unlawful combatants” and claimed the ability to engage in lethal strikes without judicial review due to a classified Justice Department finding.

The strikes are part of a monthslong pressure campaign on Venezuela that has included moving thousands of troops and a carrier strike group into the Caribbean and repeated threats against President Nicolas Maduro.

Last week, the US announced new sanctions on shipping companies and boats it says help move Venezuelan oil, a day after it seized a sanctioned tanker off the country’s coast.

The replica of the Statue of Liberty was placed outside Havan’s megastore in Guaíba, Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil. Guaíba Mayor Marcelo Maranata confirmed that the ‘Statue of Liberty’ collapsed as winds reached 80-90 km/h but no one was hurt thanks to immediate isolation by Havan staff.

The viral video showed the statue slowly leaning forward before crashing into the empty parking lot as winds hit over 90 km/h.

The clip shows the statue tilting and then toppling to the ground, while vehicles continue moving on a busy road nearby. The replica was installed near a fast-food outlet.

The 11-meter base held firm, and quick action by onlookers to move vehicles prevented any damage or injuries.

“On Monday afternoon (15th), our city was hit by strong wind gusts that reached 80 mph. Since the first moment, we’ve been on the streets following the situation closely. The Civil Defense and the Secretary of Infrastructure are fully mobilized, attending to events and ensuring the safety of the population. In case of an emergency, contact the Civil Defense at 199,” he said in an Instagram video.

The replica of Statue of Liberty was located in the car park of a Havan retail store and the incident happened on December 15, Monday. The structure collapsed in the city of Guaíba, near Porto Alegre, within the metropolitan area of Rio Grande do Sul and fortunately, no injuries were reported at the site.

Reports claim that the statue belonged to the Havan retail chain. “The area was immediately isolated by the company, following all safety protocols,” Havan said in a statement, adding that debris removal started hours later with no interruption to store operations. The retailer emphasized the statue met technical standards across its nationwide replicas and launched an internal probe, as per Times Now.

Strong wind warning in Rio Grande do Sul

Earlier in the day, the local civil defence had issued a red alert warning due to severe winds. Residents were urged to remain indoors, disconnect electrical devices, and secure doors and windows as a safety measure.

Defesa Civil issued cell broadcast alerts that interrupted mobile phones, including those on silent mode, warning of severe storms, strong winds exceeding 90 km/h, and potential hazards such as falling structures. Residents were advised to avoid open areas and remain alert to trees, poles and signboards.

The low-pressure system reached the metropolitan region of Rio Grande do Sul by mid-afternoon, triggering dense cloud formation and isolated gales as extreme heat collided with a cold front. Meteorological agencies reported wind gusts consistent with earlier forecasts, confir ..

Former deputy Louis Hamlet was once a bailiff inside the Shelby County Civil and Chancery Courthouse on Adams Street.

On Thursday, Hamlet asked the Tennessee Post Commission to consider delaying a vote on his certification while he waits for his civil service hearing to play out.

“I just got two questions,” one of the commissioners asked. “Did you engage in oral sex inside of the courtroom?”

“I didn’t engage in oral sex, she engaged in oral sex. I received, yes,” Hamlet admitted.

“Okay, were there citizens in the building at the time?” the commissioner asked.

“I can’t say, my court was down,” Hamlet replied.

FOX13 Investigates obtained Hamlet’s disciplinary file from the initial investigation. In it, he admits to sexual activity in a courtroom with a woman, which came to light after the woman reported Hamlet to Sheriff’s Special Victims Unit and Bureau of Professional Standards.

“The complaint alleges that Deputy Hamlet forced her to engage in sexual acts several times,” said Detective Durrell Taylor.

The woman said Hamlet threatened her with his gun. But records show investigators found her accusations to be false, and charges were never filed.

In his hearing in Nashville, Hamlet maintained what happened was consensual.

“As you heard the detective give you the information on the false allegations of sexual misconduct did not happen,” he said. “And, as he said, I told the truth behind it.”

Still, the Sheriff fired Hamlet in August for violating the department’s policies of personal conduct and prohibited activity while on duty. Hamlet has multiple federal lawsuits and complaints filed against the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office.

And while this might sound like a modern way of taking care of our beloved pets after they’ve passed away, this grave site on the outskirts of Berenike (aka Berenice Troglodytica) in Egypt suggests that humans have been practising burial rites for their beloved animals for thousands of years.

Back in 2011, Archaeozoologist Marta Osypinska and her coworkers at the Polish Academy of Sciences discovered the graveyard just outside the city walls of the ruined ancient seaport on the Egyptian Red Sea Coast. 

After nearly 10 years of decoding their findings, they revealed that the cemetery is thought to date from the 1st or 2nd century CE, and contains the remains of 585 animals: including 536 cats, 32 dogs, and a number of other animals such as monkeys, birds, and even a fox. 

Yet besides the skeletal remains of the animals being located all in one place, the archaeologists found strong evidence that the creatures were not just scavengers or ritual sacrifices – rather, they were buried with special care and attention, and the evidence suggests that they were domesticated, making Berenike arguably the oldest pet cemetery in the world. 

“In our opinion, the described features suggest that the Berenike finds could be defined as a cemetery of house-kept pets,” wrote Marta. “Instead of as a parallel to the known Egyptian deposits related to sacral or at least magical rites.”

While excavating, the team found no contemporaneous human burials on the site – inferring that the area, located near an ancient trash heap, was dedicated to animal burials only.

Furthermore, none of the remains were mummified – as religious sacrifice would dictate – nor did any of the bones show signs of deliberate killing. 

Instead, the scientists found skeletal evidence of long-term injuries or illnesses that would have made them useless as working animals, which meant that their owners would’ve had to feed and take care of the pets in a region where most resources were expensive and imported.

Additionally, many of the dogs found were smaller in size – including one that could have served as an Ancient Egyptian lap dog.

Yet perhaps the most compelling evidence for Berenike being a pet cemetery was exactly how the animals were laid to rest. Each was carefully buried within the sediment, and several of the cats and monkeys had decorative collars or were found with mementos from their life, like a dried cow’s tail that would’ve been used as a toy.

Image credit: Couleur / Pixabay

Nevertheless, Berenike is not the only ancient cemetery dedicated to pets. Hunter-gatherer cultures in Russia’s Lake Baikal region buried a dog in their human cemetery, while three dogs were intentionally buried by Native Americans in Illinois nearly 10,000 years ago – and archaeologists have even found older specimens across Europe, including a 27,000-year-old canid buried with a mammoth bone in its mouth, dating back to before dogs were even domesticated.

And some scientists urge caution when saying that a buried animal was a “pet”, saying that humans have used animals for protection and to clear vermin for thousands of years, and that just because they were well taken care of, doesn’t mean that there was a strong connection between them. We might be using our current love for our pets to cloud our view of the past.

Despite these valid critiques, Marta remains steadfast in her belief that Berenike was a dedicated pet cemetery. She points out that cats were highly valued in Ancient Egyptian society, and that the mass amount of animals buried with care in one area suggests an exception to the criticism. 

“Too often, this sphere of social life is considered as modern behaviour exclusively,” she said in her paper. “The finds at Berenike seem to break with this stereotype.”

And regardless where you stand on the issue, it is sweet to think that for thousands of years we’ve appreciated animals for their companionship instead of their practical use. 

The conferment recognises President Mahama’s contributions to African unity, cultural diplomacy, and engagement with traditional leadership across the continent.

This honour adds to President Mahama’s growing list of traditional titles within the Yoruba cultural sphere, reflecting his rising stature among traditional authorities in the region.

The Ooni of Ife, one of the most revered custodians of Yoruba heritage, continues to play a pivotal role in preserving cultural traditions, promoting interfaith harmony, and supporting socio-economic development across Nigeria and the wider African diaspora.

Find more photos below:

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Speaking in Ife State in Nigeria on Monday, Mr Mahama said he remained optimistic that prosperity in Nigeria would invariably translate into shared progress for Ghana, given the deep cultural, economic and social ties between the two countries.

He noted that Ghana and Nigeria share common values, intertwined histories and complementary ambitions, positioning both nations as natural partners in regional development and continental leadership.

“I know that there is a historic bond between the people of Ghana and the people of Nigeria. When Nigeria prospers, Ghana prospers. When Ghana prospers, Nigeria prospers. God brought two of us together, we are like twins of the same mother,” he said.

The ceremony was at a traditional event at which President Mahama was installed as Aare Atayeto Oodua of the Source by the overlord of the Ife Kingdom.

He described the honour as a symbol of unity, shared heritage and a renewed commitment to strengthening people-to-people relations between the two West African neighbours.

The highly respected Yoruba title, interpreted as “a President who reorders the global space for the good of humanity,” was bestowed in recognition of President Mahama’s leadership record and his consistent advocacy for global cooperation, fairness, and sustainable development.

The honour places him among a select group of leaders recognised for their broader impact beyond national borders.

The installation ceremony followed several days of traditional preparations at the Ooni’s palace, marked by customary rites and cultural observances.

The palace precincts were transformed with rich traditional décor as chiefs, dignitaries, and members of the Yoruba community assembled to witness what was described as a historic and symbolic event.

This latest recognition adds to President Mahama’s growing list of traditional honours within the Yoruba cultural sphere.

In October 2015, he was conferred with the title Aare Atolase of Offa by the Offa Kingdom in Kwara State, in acknowledgement of his contributions to leadership, peace, and diplomacy on the African continent.

Observers say the honour is expected to deepen cultural and diplomatic relations between Ghana and Nigeria, highlighting the enduring historical ties between the two countries.

The Ooni of Ife, one of the most revered traditional authorities among the Yoruba people, continues to play a prominent role in advancing cultural heritage, interfaith unity, and socio-economic development across Nigeria and the African diaspora.

My future lies with Bawumia, not Kennedy Agyapong – Adwoa Safo

Former MMDCEs appeal to Mahama for payment of end-of-service benefits

Just a few days after soldiers took power in Guinea-Bissau while a presidential election vote count was still under way, leaders of the West African grouping Ecowas rapidly concluded that Sunday’s attempted overthrow of Benin’s President Patrice Talon was one destabilising step too far.

In support of his government, Nigerian warplanes bombarded mutinous soldiers at the national TV and radio station and a military base near the airport in Cotonou, the largest city.

Ecowas also announced the deployment of ground troops from Ghana, Nigeria, Ivory Coast and Sierra Leone to reinforce the defence of constitutional order.

This is a region that has been shaken by repeated coups since 2020, and which little more than 10 months ago saw the putschist regimes in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger completely withdraw their countries from Ecowas – the Economic Community of West African States – of which they had all been founding participants 50 years ago.

So, faced with the prospect that yet another civilian government might be overturned by discontented soldiers, the presidents of the remaining Ecowas member states rapidly reached the conclusion that the attempted coup in Cotonou could not be allowed to succeed.

Learning from past mistakes

Having fought off early morning putschist attacks on Talon’s home and the presidency offices, loyalist forces had already reaffirmed government control across the city, locking down the main central administrative district.

But it was proving hard to break down the last-ditch resistance of rebel troops who had shown they were ready to use lethal force without regard for civilians.

In response, Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu, Benin’s eastern neighbour and much the largest military power in the region, authorised air strikes, while Ecowas leaders decided to despatch ground troops the same day.

Among those sending forces is Ghana’s President John Mahama, who leads a resilient democracy but has made friendly diplomatic overtures to the Sahelian military regimes.

In acting so quickly, Ecowas has perhaps learned a lesson from its misjudged response to the 2023 coup in Niger.

On that occasion it was not practically organised to intervene militarily in the hours after the elected head of state, Mohamed Bazoum, had been detained by coup leaders – the only moment, perhaps, when a rapid commando raid to rescue him and secure key buildings might have had any chance of success.

By the time the bloc had threatened intervention and begun to plan it, the chance had gone: the new junta had consolidated control over the Nigérien army and mobilised popular opinion in its support.

Faced with the prospect of intervention becoming full-scale war, and under strong domestic popular pressure to avoid any such bloodbath, Ecowas leaders backed off – opting to rely on sanctions. And when those also proved counter-productive, they settled for the diplomatic path alone.

This time around, in Benin, the situation was quite different: Talon was still in full control, even if some would-be putschists were still resisting. So he, as the internationally recognised president, could legitimately request support from fellow member countries in the regional bloc.

And this seems to have had popular support in Cotonou.

Many Béninois citizens do have grievances against the current government, notably over the exclusion of Les Démocrates, the main opposition party, from the forthcoming presidential election.

But there is a strong culture in Benin of trying to achieve change through political and civil society action, rather than force.

Béninois are rightly proud of their country’s role as the pioneering instigator of the wave of peaceful mass protest and democratisation that swept across francophone Africa in the early 1990s.

While the complaints against Talon aired by the would-be putschists during their brief appearance on national television are widely shared, there has been absolutely no sign of any popular support for their attempt to get rid of the government by force.

So Benin represented a particularly favourable context for a forceful Ecowas intervention in defence of constitutional civilian rule.

Indeed, if anything, the coup plotters are likely to become the target of growing public anger as news of casualties circulates. At least one civilian – the wife of Talon’s key military adviser – was killed.

In recent days two top military officials abducted during Sunday’s failed coup attempt have been rescued, but security forces are still searching for the coup leader Lt Col Pascal Tigri and other plotters.

Simmering grievances

This was just the latest in a string of coup attempts across the region, though most of the others have succeeded.

They have all occurred in a context of fragility and pressure in West Africa at a time of Islamist violence across the Sahel, now spreading into the northern regions of many coastal countries.

There is disenchantment with traditional political elites. Even where economies are growing, there is a desperate shortage of jobs and viable livelihoods for the region’s rapidly growing young population.

However, while the regional context is widely shared, the driving factors for the coups are often local – specific to each country.

The lack of popular support for the Cotonou putschists stands in stark contrast to the mood on the streets of Conakry, the capital of Guinea, in September 2021, when the special forces commander, Col Mamady Doumbouya led the overthrow of then-President Alpha Condé.

Like Talon, Condé had first been democratically elected but later secured re-election in questionable conditions, and presided over a significant erosion of political freedoms. Yet in Guinea, Condé had presided over violent abuse on a far greater scale than in Benin.

In addition, Condé had then strong-armed his way to a third term aged 83. In contrast the 67-year-old Talon has promised to step down next April, albeit having adjusted the electoral rules to almost guarantee an easy victory for his chosen successor, Finance Minister Romuald Wadagni.

Another key difference is Condé’s deeply disappointing economic track record, whereas Talon has presided over strong growth and improving services.

Further north, the wave of coups in the Sahelian countries in recent years were also driven by local conditions.

In Mali and Burkina Faso, military commanders had grown frustrated with the weak leadership elected presidents were providing in the campaign against Islamist insurgents. In both countries, troops had repeatedly suffered brutal losses while their civilian governments appeared incapable of mobilising the extra weapons or sometimes even food that the troops needed.

There was also deep resentment at France’s inability to bring the jihadists to heel, despite the high-tech weaponry at the disposal of its forces then deployed across the Sahel.

Also in Mali, some nationalist sections of political and military opinion were frustrated with the functioning of a 2015 peace agreement with former Tuareg separatists in the far north, overseen by UN troops. Hardliners even accused French forces of actively preventing Bamako from deploying national army units to the north.

In Niger, the circumstances surrounding the 2023 putsch were equally distinctive.

President Bazoum’s political support had been eroded by his very publicly close partnership with France, and particularly his request that Paris provide troops to defend the north-western border from incursions by Mali-based jihadists.

However, his vocal support for judges probing a corruption scandal in defence procurement also risked alienating powerful elements of the military.

The coup that followed soon afterwards in Gabon, in August 2023, was similarly the product of local frustrations. In this case, the opaque management of election results saw an implausible victory awarded to President Ali Bongo, in frail health after a slow recovery from a stroke.

So, circumstances vary widely. And recent events confirm the trend.

The region certainly does face a real crisis of security and, in many countries, politics or development too.

But national conditions are often the major driver for each upheaval or coup attempt.

Many suspect the military takeover in Guinea-Bissau aimed to forestall a possible opposition election victory.

Whereas the Benin rebels seem to have been motivated by a mix of army grievances and broader political and economic complaints.

But they strikingly misjudged the popular appetite in Cotonou for any violent or radical system change.

The endorsement follows a unanimous recommendation by the ECOWAS Council of Ministers, which nominated President Mahama as the sole candidate from the sub-region.

The recommendation was adopted during the Council’s 95th Ordinary Session held in Abuja and subsequently forwarded for formal endorsement on Sunday, December 14, 2025.

ECOWAS expressed appreciation to member states for their support of Ghana’s candidacy, citing the country’s contributions to regional integration and its strong standing in international diplomacy.

In a statement, the Council reaffirmed ECOWAS’ commitment to supporting candidates from member states for leadership positions in international organisations, including the African Union, to ensure that the region’s interests are effectively represented and protected.

The Council noted that the endorsement reflects ECOWAS’ resolve to strengthen West Africa’s influence within continental and global institutions, particularly the African Union.

The recommendation now calls on the Authority of Heads of State and Government to formally adopt the declaration endorsing Ghana’s bid for the AU Chairmanship in 2027.

The group representing more than 100 doctoral students has petitioned Downing Street and Keir Starmer asking for help to persuade the Ghanaian government to pay the backlog of tuition fees and living allowances running into millions of pounds.

Prince Komla Bansah, the president of the group of students, said some have already been deported by the Home Office after their universities withdraw their registrations for non-payment; while others have been evicted from their accommodation or forced to borrow money to survive.

Bansah said: “For most of these students, I don’t know how they survive. Some of them may be working part-time but it’s very hard to do that while studying for a PhD. From what I can gather from our meetings with the students, a lot of them are in debt and getting loans from back home.”

The petition sent to Downing Street says the funding crisis “is so severe that some colleagues are now facing court cases over unpaid rent. To survive, some have had to depend on food banks because they have no money to feed themselves.”

The students affected are at institutions spread across Britain, including University College London, Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen and the universities of Nottingham, Bradford, Warwick, Lincoln and Liverpool.

Ghanaian authorities said that after President John Mahama’s new administration was sworn in last January, it found inherited debts to about 110 institutions in the UK worth an estimated £32m.

Alex Kwaku Asafo-Agyei, the registrar of the Ghana scholarship secretariat in Accra, said an audit of all scholarships given out by the last administration was continuing while a pause had been placed on new scholarships to the UK.

After his appointment in April, Asafo-Agyei said he went on a “fact-finding mission” to the UK and drew up instalment plans with some of the institutions. But he said some of the universities had since rescinded the agreements.

Asafo-Agyei said Ghana had made “significant payments to our partner institutions in the UK and we have agreed to amicably resolve these issues so that our students are not at a loss”. He added that he was “not at liberty to make such disclosures without express approval from above”.

Asafo-Agyei declined to answer how much of the debt has been paid so far.

About 30 of the Ghanian PhD students said the scholarship secretariat had failed to pay their tuition fees since 2024, with some barred from officially graduating, submitting work or accessing their university’s facilities.

Others have missed support payments for more than three years, while Bansah said the government had also failed to renew its letters of support for scholarship holders already studying in the UK.

Bansah said: “We all agree that the new government only came into power in January but the reality is that the government was already aware of the situation and it still hasn’t made the payments.

“Meanwhile, there is evidence that they have still awarded foreign scholarships, so why are they still awarding scholarships when they know there is still a major problem with the UK?”

Earlier this year, more than 180 Ghanaian students at the University of Memphis in the US complained about missing payments from the secretariat.

Students from other countries have also struggled with the same problems. In 2020, Nigerian students protested outside their high commission in London after some students lost course places. More recently, hundreds of South African students in Russia faced eviction from campus after delays in receiving government scholarships.

Brumelda Zuma became one of South Africa’s newest MPs on Wednesday, representing uMkhonto weSizwe (MK), the opposition party led by her father.

Her half-sister, Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla, resigned from parliament following allegations that she had tricked 17 men into fighting for Russia as mercenaries in Ukraine. Zuma-Sambudla has denied these accusations.

Brumelda Zuma’s appointment suggests the former president intends to ensure his family is represented in parliament.

She was sworn in alongside three other MK members, who, the party said, “bring a wealth of experience and dedication” to parliament.

She said she would focus mostly on ensuring that South Africans had “good public services” because “that is what I studied”.

MK said Brumelda Zuma had a degree in public administration.

Brumelda Zuma has not previously had a national profile, unlike her half-sister who had represented South Africa in the Pan-African Parliament.

MK previously said it was Zuma-Sambudla’s decision to resign as she wanted to focus her efforts on ensuring the return of those trapped in Ukraine’s war-torn Donbas region.

She was implicated in the Russia recruitment scheme after South Africa’s government revealed it had received distress calls from more than a dozen citizens who had joined mercenary forces.

The men are aged between 20 and 39 and are trapped in Donbas.

One of Zuma-Sambudla’s most prominent accusers is another half-sister, Nkosazana Zuma-Mncube.

Zuma-Mncube filed a criminal complaint against Zuma-Sambudla and two other people, accusing them of luring the men to Russia “under false pretences” and then handing them to a Russian mercenary group “without their knowledge or consent”.

She said that eight of them were her relatives.

Police have confirmed they are carrying out an investigation.

Working as a mercenary or fighting for another army is illegal under South African law, unless the government authorises it.

Zuma-Sambudla has said in an affidavit that she thought the men were going to Russia for “lawful” training.

She is currently also on trial on terrorism-related charges over social media messages she posted during deadly protests in 2021. She has denied the charges.

Jacob Zuma formed MK in 2023 after a massive fall-out with current President Cyril Ramaphosa.

The MK party came in third place in South Africa’s general election last year, and became the main opposition party in parliament after the second-biggest party joined a coalition government led by Ramaphosa.

In a recorded video message, broadcast on Channel 4 for the Stand Up To Cancer campaign, the King said his treatment was being reduced and he urged people to take up offers of cancer screening, saying “early diagnosis quite simply saves lives.”

The type of cancer he is being treated for has not been revealed and the King, 77, will continue to receive treatment and monitoring.

Clare Garnsey, associate medical director of Greater Manchester Cancer Alliance, said his message was “very powerful”.

The King, who revealed his diagnosis in February last year, is not described as being in remission or “cured” but the regularity of his treatment will be significantly reduced in the new year.

In his video message, recorded in Clarence House two weeks ago, he said that he was “troubled” to learn that nine million people around the UK are not up to date with the cancer screening available to them.

“That is at least nine million opportunities for early diagnosis being missed,” he said.

He added: “Too often, I am told, people avoid screening because they imagine it may be frightening, embarrassing or uncomfortable.

“If and when they do finally take up their invitation, they are glad they took part.

“A few moments of minor inconvenience are a small price to pay for the reassurance that comes for most people when they are either told either they don’t need further tests or, for some, are given the chance to enable early detection, with the life-saving intervention that can follow.”

Speaking to BBC Breakfast, Miss Garnsey said she, “like the majority of health professionals who work in the cancer field” was “really thankful” for what the King said.

“I think the message was very powerful about the importance of early diagnosis and how important it is that we all attend for our screening,” she added.

She said it is “really helpful” to healthcare professionals when people in “positions of influence” – such as the King – speak publicly about their experiences with cancer.

These messages highlight that it “can happen to anybody”, she said, and raise awareness of the potential symptoms someone may experience.

Royal biographer and friend of King Charles, Jonathan Dimbleby, said the King’s message demonstrated the “unique role of the sovereign”.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, he said the King’s decision to speak openly about his treatment in such “warm, gentle, thoughtful, kind terms” was “quite extraordinary and it has great impact”.

He said the King’s message will give people “great reassurance” to hear of someone who “has a cancer and lives with that cancer”.

“It makes you recognise […] that it’s not a death sentence,” he added.

Dimbleby’s father, broadcaster Richard Dimbleby, died at age 52 in 1965.

“When he died, he had been frightened to say, in advance to himself even, that he had cancer,” he said, adding that the word cancer was “hardly usable then”.

He said it took “guts” for the King to share such a personal message publicly, but that “the fact that he came out and did that will save lives, and people will be less frightened of saying ‘we must go and get a test’.”

Dimbleby said that when it was announced that the King was having treatment for an enlarged prostate in 2024, there was a considerable surge in searches to the NHS website.

“No one else could have done this,” he added.

What can be general symptoms of cancer?

Different types of cancer all have their own symptoms – but the NHS says general symptoms can include:

• A new lump or swelling
• Sweating a lot or a high temperature
• Feeling more tired than usual
• Unusual bruising or bleeding
• Unusual pain anywhere in the body
• Unexpected weight loss or loss of appetite
• Needing to pee more often or more urgently, or pain when you pee

Until now the King has said little publicly about his illness.

In his video message, King Charles said he knew how “overwhelming” a diagnosis can feel, but stressed that early detection is “key” to give patients the “precious gift of hope”.

The NHS has three cancer screening programmes – for bowel, breast and cervical cancer – available to certain age groups.

These tests can detect a problem even before someone experiences symptoms.

In his message, the King also urged people to use the screening checker online tool.

She revealed the initiative during an engagement with Ghanaian businesses and partners, highlighting the government’s commitment to strengthening trade ties with the United Kingdom.

According to the High Commissioner, the Ghana Trade House will serve as a dedicated outlet for showcasing and distributing Ghanaian goods, including processed foods, textiles, crafts, and other export-ready products. The facility is intended to enhance visibility for local producers and provide a structured entry point into the competitive UK market.

“I have a plan for a Ghana Trade House, and that is underway. It will give our exporters in Ghana an opportunity for their products to be on the market here in the UK,” she stated.

The initiative is part of Ghana’s broader effort to deepen economic cooperation with the UK and support small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in accessing global markets. Trade experts note that such an outlet could significantly boost exports by offering a reliable distribution channel, reducing marketing costs, and improving brand recognition for Ghanaian products abroad.

H.E. Benson emphasized that the Trade House is not only a commercial venture but also a strategic move to strengthen investor confidence. She noted that the High Commission is working closely with stakeholders, including trade agencies and private sector partners, to ensure smooth implementation.

The facility will also promote cultural exchange and showcase Ghana’s rich heritage to international consumers. The High Commissioner encouraged Ghanaian exporters to prepare to take advantage of the opportunity once the Trade House becomes operational, reaffirming the mission’s commitment to supporting Ghanaian businesses internationally.

“This is a major step toward expanding our footprint in the UK market, and we are committed to supporting our producers every step of the way,” she said.

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One building was unoccupied, while the second was hosting an Aqiqah, a traditional Muslim celebration marking the birth of a child, the Fez prosecutor stated in a press release.

The prosecutor said the death toll was preliminary and that an investigation has been opened.

Eight families lived in the building where the celebration was taking place, they said.

BUILDINGS HAD SHOWN CRACKS

A survivor, who lost his wife and three children, told local Medi1 TV early that rescuers had been able to retrieve one body, but he was still waiting for the others.

State-owned broadcaster SNRT News footage showed rescue workers and residents digging through the rubble.

“My son, who lives upstairs, told me the building is coming down. When we went out, we saw the building collapsing,” an old woman wrapped in a blanket told SNRT News, without giving her name.

SNRT News reported that witnesses at the scene stated the buildings in the Al-Mustaqbal neighbourhood, a densely populated area in the west of the city, had exhibited signs of cracking for some time.

Besides the judicial probe, a technical and administrative investigation has also been launched to determine what caused the four-storey buildings to collapse, local authorities said in a statement.

The buildings were erected in 2006 as part of a government scheme under which residents of shantytowns in the city build their own homes on allocated plots.

WORST BUILDING COLLAPSE IN 15 YEARS

Fez, a former capital dating back to the eighth century and the country’s third-most-populous city, was among cities caught up in a wave of anti-government protests two months ago over deteriorating living conditions and poor public services.

Adib Ben Ibrahim, housing secretary of state, said in January that approximately 38,800 buildings across the country had been classified as being at risk of collapse.

Wednesday’s collapse is one of the worst in Morocco since the fall of a minaret in the historic northern city of Meknes, which killed 41 people in 2010.

YOUTHS ANGRY AT LACK OF SERVICES, POVERTY

Most of Morocco’s population, financial and industrial hubs and vital infrastructure are concentrated in the northwest, with the rest of the country reliant on farming, fisheries and tourism.

In October, youth-led unrest revealed deep-seated anger over poverty and public services as the government pushes on with ambitious infrastructure projects and the opening of modern stadiums ahead of the 2030 FIFA World Cup.

Fez, one of the cities to host the World Cup and this month’s African Cup of Nations soccer tournament, has some of the country’s poorest neighbourhoods.