The delegation, led by the Association’s Chairman, met the Ambassador on Thursday, November 13, at the Embassy of Spain to discuss strengthening diplomatic ties and expanding areas of mutual collaboration.

Accompanying the Chairman were Members of Parliament Hon. Felicia Adjei and Hon. Alhassan Sulemana, along with the Association’s Secretary, Mr. Mustapha Ahmed. They were received by Deputy Commissioner Ms. Isabel Ibarra Serrano de Haro, whose presence added depth to the engagement.

During the meeting, the Chairman expressed gratitude for the Ambassador’s “continuous hospitality” and reaffirmed the Association’s determination to pursue deeper cooperation between the two countries. He highlighted priority sectors for collaboration, including trade, education, health, agriculture, tourism, and parliamentary exchange programmes.

He further emphasized that Ghana could benefit from Spain’s “strong institutional structures and development models,” which provide valuable lessons for national development.

In response, Ambassador Lossada expressed Spain’s readiness to work closely with the Association to advance shared interests and unlock new development opportunities.

The meeting concluded with both sides pledging to build a more dynamic partnership that promotes innovation and growth in Ghana, particularly in constituencies such as Abuakwa South.

This engagement adds fresh momentum to parliamentary diplomacy efforts and further strengthens the long-standing ties between Ghana and Spain.

The major shake-up to asylum policy comes as the government seeks to reduce small boat crossings and asylum claims.

Under the plans, people who are granted asylum will only be allowed to stay in the country temporarily, with their refugee status regularly reviewed and those whose home countries are then deemed safe told to return.

Currently refugee status lasts for five years, after which people can apply for indefinite leave to remain.

Now the home secretary wants to cut the initial period from five years to two-and-a-half years, after which refugee status will be regularly reviewed.

But she plans to significantly lengthen the time it will take to gain permanent residence in the UK from five years to 20.

Mahmood told the Sunday Times the reforms were “designed to essentially say to people: do not come to this country as an illegal migrant, do not get on a boat”.

She continued: “Illegal migration is tearing our country apart”, adding that it was the government’s job to “unite our country”.

“If we don’t sort this out, I think our country becomes much more divided,” she told the newspaper.

The policy has been copied from Denmark, where a government led by the centre-left Social Democrats has presided over one of the toughest asylum and immigration systems in Europe.

In Denmark, refugees are given temporary residence permits, typically of two years, and in effect have to re-apply for asylum when they expire.

And Mahmood’s new approach will certainly face opposition from some Labour MPs.

Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesperson Max Wilkinson said it was “right the government looks at new ways to fix the disorderly asylum system created by the Conservatives”.

He added that Labour “shouldn’t kid itself that these measures are an alternative to processing claims quickly so we can remove those with no right to be here”.

Enver Solomon, chief executive at the Refugee Council, described the government’s plans as “harsh and unnecessary”, and said they “won’t deter people who have been persecuted, tortured or seen family members killed in brutal wars”.

Speaking to reporters on board Air Force One on Friday evening, Trump said: “We’ll sue them for anywhere between $1bn and $5bn, probably sometime next week.”

On Thursday, the BBC said the edit of the 6 January 2021 speech had unintentionally given “the mistaken impression that President Trump had made a direct call for violent action” and said it would not be broadcast again.

The corporation apologised to the president but said it would not pay financial compensation.

The BBC released that statement after Trump’s lawyers threatened to sue the BBC for $1bn in damages unless the corporation issued a retraction, apology and paid him compensation.

Asked on Friday whether he still intended to go ahead with the legal action, Trump said: “I think I have to do it… They’ve even admitted that they cheated.”

The president said he had not raised the issue with Sir Keir Starmer but that the prime minister had asked to speak to him. Trump said he would call Starmer over the weekend.

A search of public court record databases confirmed that no lawsuit had been filed in federal or state court in Florida as of Friday evening.

In a separate interview on Saturday recorded before his comments on Air Force One, Trump said said he had an “obligation” to sue the BBC, adding: “If you don’t do it, you don’t stop it from happening again with other people.”

He called the edit “egregious” and “worse than the Kamala thing”, a reference to a dispute he had with US news outlet CBS over an interview on the 60 Minutes programme with his 2024 election opponent Kamala Harris.

In July this year, US media company Paramount Global agreed to pay $16m (£13.5m) to settle a legal dispute over that interview.

The controversy stems from the way in which Trump’s 6 January 2021 speech was edited by Panorama for a documentary which aired in October 2024. During his address, he told supporters: “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 the clip shows 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.”

Controversy around how Trump’s speech was edited has led to the resignations of BBC director general Tim Davie and head of news Deborah Turness.

In its Corrections and Clarifications section, published on Thursday evening, the BBC said the Panorama programme had been reviewed after criticism of how Trump’s speech had been edited.

“We accept that our edit unintentionally created the impression that we were showing a single continuous section of the speech, rather than excerpts from different points in the speech, and that this gave the mistaken impression that President Trump had made a direct call for violent action,” the statement said.

Lawyers for the BBC have written to Trump’s legal team, a BBC spokesperson said this week.

“BBC chair Samir Shah has separately sent a personal letter to the White House making clear to President Trump that he and the corporation are sorry for the edit of the president’s speech on 6 January 2021, which featured in the programme,” they said.

They added: “While the BBC sincerely regrets the manner in which the video clip was edited, we strongly disagree there is a basis for a defamation claim.”

In its letter to Trump’s legal team, the BBC set out five main arguments for why it did not think it had a case to answer.

First it said the BBC did not have the rights to, and did not, distribute the Panorama episode on its US channels.

When the documentary was available on BBC iPlayer, it was restricted to viewers in the UK.

Secondly, it said the documentary did not cause Trump harm, as he was re-elected shortly after.

Thirdly, it said the clip was not designed to mislead, but just to shorten a long speech, and that the edit was not done with malice.

Fourthly, it said the clip was never meant to be considered in isolation. Rather, it was 12 seconds within an hour-long programme, which also contained lots of voices in support of Trump.

Finally, an opinion on a matter of public concern and political speech is heavily protected under defamation laws in the US.

The BBC’s apology came hours after a second similarly edited clip, broadcast on Newsnight in 2022, was revealed by the Daily Telegraph.

The new military service plan will mandate all 18-year-old men to fill out a questionnaire on their suitability to serve and, from 2027, to undergo medical screening.

The decision comes as Berlin aims to create Europe’s strongest conventional army.

The boss of Germany’s biggest defence firm, Rheinmetall, has told the BBC he believes that target could be met in five years.

Lawmakers are expected to vote on the plan by the end of 2025.

Armin Papperger said Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s aim to boost the Bundeswehr was “realistic” and he told the BBC that “clear decisions” were coming from government.

Earlier this year German defence chief Gen Carsten Breuer warned that the Western Nato alliance had to prepare for a possible Russian attack within four years.

Mr Papperger said he had “no glass ball” about the future but agreed Germany had to be “ready in ’29”.

When they formed a coalition earlier this year, Merz’s conservative CDU/CSU and the centre-left Social Democrat SPD agreed to re-introduce military service which would be voluntary “to start with”.

The Bundeswehr currently has around 182,000 troops. The new military service model aims to increase that number by 20,000 over the next year, rising to between 255,000 and 260,000 over the next 10 years, supplemented by approximately 200,000 reservists.

From next year, all 18-year-old men and women will be sent a questionnaire to assess their interest and willingness to join the armed forces. It will be mandatory for men and voluntary for women.

From July 2027 all men aged 18 will also have to take a medical exam to assess their fitness for duty.

If the government’s targets are not met, a form of compulsory enlistment could be considered by parliament. If war were to break out, the military would be able to draw on the questionnaires and medical exams for potential recruits.

Some within Germany’s political left remain deeply opposed to mandatory service.

Many young Germans are wary, and a significant majority oppose it. A recent Forsa survey for Stern magazine suggestedthat while just over half of respondents favoured compulsory service, opposition rose to 63% among 18- to 29-year-olds.

“I don’t want to go to war because I don’t want to die or I don’t want to be shot at,” said Jimi, a 17-year-old student from Berlin, who attended an anti-conscription protest outside the Bundestag earlier this week. “I also don’t want to shoot people.”

An attack against Germany was an “unlikely and abstract scenario” that the government was using to legitimise “stealing millions of young people’s right to decide what they should be doing”, he said.

Meanwhile, 21-year-old Jason signed up as a new Bundeswehr recruit earlier this year because of the current “security situation”.

“I wanted to contribute to defend peace, to defend democracy if the worst happens,” he said. By joining up he felt he was “giving back to society” but also believed in the deterrent potential of the army, “so potential enemies don’t even think about attacking you”.

Defence Minister Boris Pistorius has sought to reassure Germans, saying that despite the new military service plan there was “no cause for concern… no reason for fear”.

“The more capable of deterrence and defence our armed forces are, through armament through training and through personnel, the less likely it is that we will become a party to a conflict at all,” Pistorius said.

Defence spending in Germany tumbled after the end of the Cold War, while conscription was suspended in 2011.

Given its past, Germany has long been shy of showing military might, but earlier this year Friedrich Merz announced that the rule for German defence “now has to be whatever it takes”, following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Nato countries across Europe have come under pressure from President Donald Trump’s White House to hike spending.

European moves to re-arm have meant significant revenue for Rheinmetall.

Its CEO, Armin Papperger, whose firm also supplies Ukraine, said: “We make a lot of money because there is a huge demand.”

“We have to grow strong on vehicles, on ammunition, we have to have our own satellite competencies. We do much more on the electronics and artificial intelligence… than ever before,” he said.

A US report last year suggested the Rheinmetall boss had been the target of a Russian assassination plot. There was no confirmation at the time, and Mr Papperger would not be drawn on the report, saying: “I feel good, I feel safe.”

Asked about whether he felt Europe was in a state of cold or hybrid war, he said: “Whatever you call it, it’s not a peaceful time.”

The Africa CDC said it had recorded about 300,000 cases of cholera and suspected cases of cholera, and over 7,000 deaths. The figures show a more than 30% increase in total cases recorded last year.

Angola and Burundi have seen cases surge in recent weeks, Africa CDC data shows, driven by poor access to safe water.

Cholera is a severe and potentially fatal diarrhoeal disease that spreads quickly when sewage and drinking water are not adequately treated.

The outbreak in Congo appeared to be under control with total cases declining, the Africa CDC said. The outlook in conflict-stricken areas remained concerning, as the disease spreads quickly in overcrowded camps with poor sanitation.

The situation has also improved in South Sudan and Somalia.

The Africa CDC said that Ethiopia had detected eight suspected cases of viral hemorrhagic fever and was waiting for results to determine the exact cause of the illness. Rapid response teams have been deployed to bring the suspected outbreak under control.

The Africa CDC said the Mpox outbreak is declining in some of the worst-hit places but remains a concern in places like Kenya, Guinea, Liberia and Ghana.

“What’s going on in the northern part of Nigeria has nothing to do with the kind of atrocities we see in Sudan or in some part of eastern DRC,” Mahmoud Ali Youssouf told reporters at the United Nations in New York, referring to the Democratic Republic of Congo.

“Think twice before… making such statements,” he said. “The first victims of Boko Haram are Muslims, not Christians.”

The extremist Islamist armed group Boko Haram has also terrorised northeast Nigeria, an insurgency that has killed tens of thousands of people over the past 15 years. Human rights experts have said most Boko Haram victims have been Muslims.

Trump earlier this month said he has asked the Defence Department to prepare for possible “fast” military action if Nigeria fails to crack down on the killing of Christians. He did not provide any specific evidence for his accusation.

He also threatened to “stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria, and may very well go into that now disgraced country, ‘guns-a-blazing,’ to completely wipe out the Islamic Terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities.”

Nigeria’s Foreign Ministry has said the country would keep fighting violent extremism and that it hoped Washington would remain a close ally, saying it “will continue to defend all citizens, irrespective of race, creed, or religion.”

Nigeria, which has 200 ethnic groups practising Christianity, Islam and traditional religions, has a long history of peaceful coexistence.

But it has also seen flare-ups of violence among groups, often exacerbated by ethnic divisions or conflict over scarce resources.

Education Minister Tunji Alausa said the programme, introduced just three years ago, had failed to deliver and was being scrapped with immediate effect.

Instead, English will be reinstated as the medium of instruction from pre-primary levels through to university.

The now-defunct programme was launched by former Education Minister Adamu Adamu, who had argued that children learnt more effectively in their mother tongue.

At the time, Adamu argued that pupils grasped concepts more readily when taught in “their own mother tongue” – a view supported by numerous UN studies on early childhood education.

Nigeria’s education system is facing serious problems, including poor-quality teaching, inadequate resources, low teacher pay, and numerous strikes.

Although 85% of children attend primary school, fewer than half complete secondary education.

Some 10 million children are out of school in Nigeria, more than in any other country, according to the UN.

Announcing the reversal of the language policy in the capital, Abuja, Dr Alausa pointed to poor academic results from those areas which had adopted mother-tongue teaching.

He cited data from the West African Examinations Council (WAEC), the National Examinations Council (NECO), and the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB).

“We have seen a mass failure rate in WAEC, NECO, and JAMB in certain geo-political zones of the country, and those are the ones that adopted this mother tongue in an over-subscribed manner,” the minister stated.

The abrupt cancellation of the policy has drawn a mixed response from education specialists, analysts and parents.

Some have hailed the government’s decision, agreeing that the implementation was problematic and contributed to falling standards.

Others, however, believe the policy was abandoned prematurely. They argue that such a significant shift requires substantial investment in teacher training, the development of textbooks and learning materials, and a longer timeframe before it can be fairly judged and begin to bear fruit.

Education expert Dr Aliyu Tilde praised the reversal, saying Nigeria isn’t ready for such a move.

“Does Nigeria have trained teachers to teach in the dozens of indigenous languages in the country? The answer is no. Also, the major exams like WAEC, JAMB are all in English and not in the mother tongue languages.

“I think what’s needed to improve the quality of our schools is bringing in qualified teachers,” he told the BBC.

A mother who has two children in early education schools, Hajara Musa, said she supported the reversal as it would help young children to learn English at an early age.

“English is a global language that is used everywhere, and I feel these kids should start using it from the start of their schooling instead of waiting for when they are older,” she told the BBC.

However, social affairs analyst Habu Dauda disagreed.

“I think it was scrapped prematurely instead of giving it more time. Three years is too little to judge a big shift such as this – the government ought to have added more investment,” he said.

The debate highlights the ongoing challenge in Nigeria of balancing the promotion of its rich linguistic heritage with the practical demands of a national curriculum and a globalised economy where English proficiency is dominant.

On Tuesday night, Sylvia Bongo and Noureddin Bongo were found guilty of embezzlement and corruption after a trial that began a day earlier. They were not present.

They were both fined 100m CFA francs ($177,000; £135,000), with Noureddin ordered to pay an extra 1.2tn CFA francs ($2.1; £1.6bn) for financial damages suffered by the Gabonese state.

They were accused of exploiting Ali Bongo’s condition after he suffered a stroke in 2018 to run Gabon for their own personal profit. They denied the charges ahead of their trial, describing it as “a legal farce.”

Ali Bongo was ousted in an August 2023 coup led by Brice Oligui Nguema, who has since shed his military uniform and was elected president earlier this year.

Following the military takeover, Bongo’s wife and son were detained in Gabon for 20 months before being released in May and permitted to leave the country for London on medical grounds.

The former president is not facing prosecution and was also released from house arrest where he had reportedly remained, although Gabonese authorities said he was free to move about as he wished.

Separately, a money laundering investigation is under way in Switzerland against Sylvia Bongo, the public prosecutor’s office in the country has told the BBC.

Gabonese state prosecutor Eddy Minang on Monday told the court that they were “surprised” not to see the former first lady and her son in court as the trial began.

Noureddin described the conviction as a “rubber-stamping exercise”, saying it had been “predetermined in [Oligui Nguema’s office] a long time ago”.

He said it was “disappointing that a finding of guilt has been made without any semblance of evidence”.

Their conviction comes as a surprise for the unusual swift handling of the case, which they have alleged to be politically motivated. The trial had been expected to last until Friday.

The trial of the other accused will continue. Nine co-accused, former allies of the Bongos, were present in court at the start of the trial, according to reports.

Sylvia Bongo was born in France and holds French nationality as does her son.

They have claimed they were tortured by the military during their detention in Gabon and filed a case in France last year. Gabonese authorities have denied the allegations.

Noureddin was ordered to pay the extra $2.1bn fine due to his role as the General Coordinator of Presidential Affairs, a position that he allegedly used to embezzle this amount of public money.

He was also accused of forgery as he reportedly had the president’s signature and seal, which were allegedly used to siphon funds from the state. He denies all the charges.

The Bongo family ruled Gabon for more than five decades. Ali Bongo was in power for 14 years before he was ousted. He had succeeded his father, Omar Bongo, who had ruled for 42 years.

Over the years, the family has been accused of amassing wealth for themselves at the expense of the country – allegations they deny.

Despite being an oil-rich nation, about a third of Gabon’s population lives below the poverty line, according to the UN.

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The soldier, identified as Lt AM Yerima, was part of a unit that prevented Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Minister Nyesom Wike from accessing a disputed plot of land in Abuja on Tuesday.

In the video, which has been viewed millions of times, the minister is seen becoming increasingly agitated as Lt Yerima, citing orders from his superiors, calmly refuses him entry.

Many social media users have hailed the soldier’s demeanour, describing him as “courageous” and “brave”, with some using his photo on their WhatsApp statuses.

The confrontation was particularly striking to many Nigerians because Wike, a former governor of the oil-rich Rivers State, is considered one of the most influential figures in President Bola Tinubu’s administration.

He has a fearsome reputation and is seen as someone who normally gets his way in a country where lower-ranking officials rarely stand up to those in authority.

“I commend the gallantry of this military officer, Lieutenant A.M. Yerima, for his unshakable boldness and composure despite the offensive utterances from FCT minister; Wike. He’s well trained and fearless, he refused to be bullied,” one user posted on X.

“Discipline, courage, and integrity. The true spirit of the Nigerian military. The young officer A.M Yerima stood his ground with professionalism and honor,” agreed another X user.

In the video, Wike is heard saying to the soldier: “You are a very big fool. At the time I graduated, you were still in primary school.”

While Wike was still speaking, the officer cuts in to say: “I am not a fool sir.”

However, it is not clear why the soldiers were there.

The BBC has asked the Nigerian military for comment.

Wike challenged the soldiers to provide proof of their legal right to occupy the land.

Wike later told journalists he had visited the site after officials from the Abuja Metropolitan Management Council reported being chased away by soldiers.

He said the land fell under the federal capital jurisdiction which he oversees and that his administration had a duty to investigate reports of illegal construction and land encroachment.

“This is what prevents us from progressing,” Wike said. “When the officials came, they said soldiers chased them away. I thought they did so illegally.”

He said the soldiers were unable to produce the documents he requested.

Trump has said that no US official would attend the gathering over widely discredited claims that white people are being persecuted in South Africa.

Speaking outside parliament, Ramaphosa said the US’s “absence is their loss” and that the boycott would not prevent the meeting from going ahead, according to the AFP news agency.

He added that the US was “giving up the very important role that they should be playing as the biggest economy in the world”.

The G20 summit is taking place between 22-23 November but in a post on social media, Trump said it was a “total disgrace” that South Africa was hosting it.

He had earlier said South Africa should not be in the G20 at all, and that he would send Vice-President JD Vance, instead of attending himself.

Then over the weekend, he doubled down on his claims that “Afrikaners [people who are descended from Dutch settlers, and also French and German immigrants] are being killed and slaughtered, and their land and farms are being illegally confiscated”.

“No US government official will attend as long as these human rights abuses continue,” he added.

Trump has previously said that while he is trying to restrict the number of refugees the US accepts, Afrikaners would be welcome.

Ramaphosa said “boycotting never achieves anything of great impact, because decisions will be taken that will move the various issues ahead”, AFP reports.

South Africa is the current chair of the G20 grouping of the world’s largest economies.

The forthcoming summit will mark the first time it takes place on African soil.

Every year, a different member state holds the G20 presidency and sets the agenda for the leaders’ summit, where they discuss the major economic issues of the day – with the US due to take over from South Africa.

Trump is not the only leader set to skip the G20. Hi close ally, Argentinian President Javier Milei, has also indicated he will not attend but will instead send his Foreign Minister Pablo Quirno, AFP reports.

South Africa’s government has said that claims of a white genocide are “widely discredited and unsupported by reliable evidence”.

It also says that no white farmers have seen their land confiscated without compensation.

He had spent almost a year trying to reach Europe. He said he was attacked by police and scammed for money as he crossed Mali, Algeria and Niger, at one point limping past corpses in the desert. After seeing fellow migrants die from hunger and exhaustion, he gave up.

He is among tens of thousands of Africans returning home with the help of the International Organisation for Migration, as Europe spends millions of dollars to deter migrants before they reach its shores. The European Union-funded IOM program pays for return flights and promises follow-up assistance.

But migrants tell The Associated Press that promises by the United Nations-affiliated organisation are not fulfilled, leaving them to face trauma, debt and family shame on their own. Desperation could fuel new migration attempts.

The AP spoke to three returnees in Gambia and four in Guinea, and was shown a WhatsApp group of over 50 members founded around returnees’ frustration with the IOM. They described months of reaching out to the IOM with no reply.

Diallo said he told the IOM he wanted to start a small business. But all he has received is a phone number for an IOM counsellor and a five-day orientation course on accountability, management and personal development. He said many returnees had trouble grasping it because of low education levels.

“Even yesterday, I called him,” Diallo said. “They said for the moment, we have to wait until they call us. Every time, if I call them, that’s what they tell me.” He said he asked for medical help with a foot injury on his migration attempt, but was told it was impossible.

As the oldest child of a single mother, the responsibility for supporting relatives weighs heavily.

“If there’s not so much money, you’re the head of the family too,” he said.

Millions spent, but little scrutiny

The IOM program is financed almost completely by the EU and was launched in 2016. Between 2022 and 2025, it repatriated over 100,000 sub-Saharan migrants from North Africa and Niger.

Of the $380 million budget for that period, 58% is allocated for post-return assistance, the IOM said.

Francois Xavier Ada, with the IOM regional office in West Africa, told the AP that over 90,000 returnees have started, and 60,000 completed, the reintegration process “tailored to individual needs.” Ada said that it can “support anything from housing, medical assistance or psychosocial services to business grants, vocational training and job placement.”

Migrants told the AP they had not received any of those.

Ada said the IOM was ”concerned” to learn of people kept waiting and “happy to look into these cases.” He added that delays can occur due to high caseloads or incomplete documentation, and medical assistance is not guaranteed.

Experts said there is little insight into how the EU money helps returnees. The European Court of Auditors, an EU body, audited the program’s first phase between 2016 and 2021 and said it failed to demonstrate sustainable reintegration results, monitoring was “insufficient to prove results” and the EU “could not prove value for money.”

“The EU policy is obsessed with returns,” said Josephine Liebl with the Brussels-based European Council on Refugees and Exiles. “The question of how this support actually helps people in very vulnerable situations receives very little public scrutiny, which is due to the fact that there is such a lack of transparency and accountability of how EU funding works outside the EU.”

The EU did not respond to questions on the details of the budget beyond repeating IOM statements.

Moustapha Darboe, a Gambian journalist who interviewed over 50 returnees for an investigation into the IOM program, said they had to wait a long time, often almost a year, and the support they eventually received did not match their skills and ambitions.

“The IOM is donor-based,” he told the AP. “Their primary focus is not to help these people; their primary focus is to tick their box.”

Haunted by shame and stigma

The IOM program has coincided with Europe’s other efforts to deter migration, including paying some African governments to intercept migrants, an approach denounced by human rights groups that accuse African authorities of being complicit in abuses.

Europe’s efforts appear to be working. In the first eight months of 2025, it recorded 112,000 “irregular” crossings, over 20% less than the same period last year, and a drop of over 50% from two years ago.

Experts say that while the IOM’s return program helps to extract people from inhumane treatment, the promised follow-up support is often impossible to deliver, as most migrants’ home countries have poorly functioning state services.

“The major missing piece is the support for the returnees to get reintegrated, have access to social protection and to labour markets,” said Camille Le Coz, director of the Brussels-based Migration Policy Institute.

Kabinet Kante, a 20-year-old from Guinea who dreamed of being a footballer in Germany, spent almost two years trying to reach Europe. He said he was intercepted at sea and dumped in the desert, and still wakes at night screaming.

He returned to Guinea in July with the IOM’s help. He said he wanted to learn how to drive a bulldozer but the IOM has ignored his calls, and when he went to their office, they told him to stop calling.

He set up the WhatsApp group for over 50 other returned and frustrated migrants. He also records TikTok videos warning against the treacherous route to Europe.

But he has no way to pay back his parents, who supported his journey by sending money to pay smugglers and bribe officials.

“Right now, I am doing nothing,” he said, head bowed with embarrassment.

‘Going on an adventure’

Like many sub-Saharan African countries, Guinea has rich natural resources, including the world’s largest iron ore deposits. But experts say bad governance and exploitation by foreign companies have left most of the population destitute.

Over half of Guinea’s population of 15 million is experiencing “unprecedented levels of poverty,” according to the World Food Program, and cannot read or write. The official monthly minimum wage is less than $65. Most people work in the informal economy and earn even less.

“Those with degrees work as taxi drivers here,” Diallo said. “If there were, like elsewhere, job opportunities in the country, everyone would stay here.”

Diallo and Kante said they are not planning on “going on an adventure” any time soon — a term used widely to describe the migration route to Europe.

But that’s mostly because they don’t have money. They dream of working in Europe legally, but the visa process can cost hundreds of dollars, and applicants from sub-Saharan countries have a high rejection rate.

Elhadj Mohamed Diallo, director of the Guinean Organisation for the Fight Against Irregular Migration, is a former migrant who reached Libya before turning back. He now works with the IOM on reintegration activities but indicated doubt about their ability to prevent returnees from migrating again.

He said he doesn’t blame them as life at home becomes more difficult.

“We aren’t helping them so that they can stay. We are helping them so they can take control of their lives again,” he said. “Migration is a natural thing. Blocking a person is like blocking the tide. When you block water, the water will find its way.”

The singer will appear alongside big names including Nicholas Hoult, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Colin Firth, Paul Bettany and Adolescence’s breakthrough star Owen Cooper in Cry to Heaven.

It will be adapted from Anne Rice’s 1982 novel, which is set in the 18th-century world of the “castrati” – male singing stars who were castrated to preserve their high voices.

Ford will direct, produce and write the film, but details of the roles to be played by Adele and the other cast members have not yet been revealed.

The book follows the story of two castrati who become successful opera singers in Venice and whose lives are intertwined.

The cast will also include Ciarán Hinds, George MacKay, Mark Strong, Hunter Schafer and Thandiwe Newton, according to US media including Deadline, which first reported the news. A spokesman for Ford has confirmed it to BBC News.

Adele, one of Britain’s most popular music stars, released her last album four years ago and has been largely out of the limelight since she ended a Las Vegas residency a year ago.

She said she was planning to take “a big break” after last year’s run of live shows, and wanted to “do other creative things just for a little while”.

Ford, meanwhile, has been one of the biggest names in fashion, but has also made two highly acclaimed and stylish films – A Single Man, starring Firth and Hoult, in 2009; and Nocturnal Animals, which earned him two Bafta nominations, in 2016.

He sold his self-titled fashion house to Estee Lauder for $2.8bn (£2.4bn) in 2022, before saying he would “say goodbye to fashion” and “spend the next 20 years of my life making films”.

“I loved making the two films that I made. That was the most fun I’ve ever had in my entire life,” he told GQ.

BBC journalists saw UN security staff running behind a line of Brazilian soldiers, shouting at delegates to immediately leave the venue.

The UN told BBC News that the incident caused minor injuries to two security staff and limited damage to the venue.

Social media videos showed protesters who appeared to be from indigenous groups and others waving flags with the logo of a left-wing Brazilian youth movement called Juntos.

Protesters, some wearing what appeared to be traditional indigenous dress, stormed the COP30 entrance, chanting and kicking down doors, before tussling with security personnel, videos posted online showed.

Demonstrators crossed the first security barriers of the venue and were then prevented from getting further in, the UN told the BBC.

A security guard said he was hit in the head by a drum thrown by a protester, according to the Reuters news agency.

It is highly unusual security breach at a conference that has strict protocols.

Brazilian and UN authorities are investigating the incident, according to the UN.

Delegates from almost 200 countries are attending COP30 talks, which takes place 10 years after the Paris climate agreement, in which countries pledged to try to restrict the rise in global temperatures to 1.5C.

The talks are being held in Belém on the edge of the Amazon rainforest, which is home to dozens of indigenous groups, many of which any are vocal critics of the environmental damage caused by climate change and deforestation.

An indigenous leader from the Tupinamba community told Reuters, “we can’t eat money,” and that they were upset about development in the rainforest.

“We want our lands free from agribusiness, oil exploration, illegal miners and illegal loggers,” he said.

The meetings this year have been dubbed “the Indigenous peoples COP”, with Brazilian organisers promising to put indigenous people at the centre of the talks.

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva told the opening of the summit that the world must “defeat” climate denialism and fight fake news.

He added that “COP30 will be the COP of truth” in an era of “misrepresentation” and “rejection of scientific evidence”.

At the opening ceremony, members of the Guajajara indigenous group, in traditional dress, performed a welcome song and dance for assembled diplomats.

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“We follow the laws of the countries where we operate. Based on an order from the Cyberspace Administration of China, we have removed these two apps from the China storefront only,” an Apple spokesperson said.

The move has raised concerns amongst the LGBT community in the country.

The BBC has contacted the Chinese embassy in Washington and the companies behind both apps for comment.

A “lite” version of the Blued app remains available on Chinese app stores, according to checks by the BBC. Some other gay and bisexual dating apps are also still available in the country, like Jicco and Jack’d.

Blued is one of the most widely-used gay dating apps in China, with tens of millions of downloads.

Apple runs a separate app store in China, in accordance with the country’s strict internet laws. Popular apps like Instagram and WhatsApp are not available in China.

Android device users there use locally adapted versions of the operating system as the Google Play Store is also blocked in China.

Members of the LGBT community expressed concerns about the removal of Blued and Finka, with one saying, “I hope those heterosexual policymakers can understand that love is rare – it’s not something shameful or unspeakable.”

In 2022, popular US-based gay dating app Grindr was removed from Apple’s App Store in China shortly after the Cyberspace Administration of China began a crackdown on content it viewed as illegal and inappropriate.

The following year, the Chinese government announced new rules requiring all apps serving domestic users to register for licenses, resulting in a slew of foreign apps being removed online.

The online regulator said the rules were designed to “promote the standardised and healthy development of the internet industry.”

Homosexuality was decriminalised in China in 1997, though same-sex marriages remain unrecognised.

Advocacy groups, including the Beijing LGBT Centre and the Shanghai Pride, have ceased operations in China in recent years.

The justices turned down an appeal from Kim Davis, who was ordered by a lower court to pay compensation to a same-sex couple after refusing to grant them a marriage licence.

Ms Davis argued that same-sex marriage conflicted with her beliefs as an Apostolic Christian.

The 2015 ruling in the case of Obergefell v Hodges was a historic victory for LGBT rights in the US, but some conservatives argue it dealt a blow to religious liberty.

Davis appealed in a civil rights lawsuit by David Ermold and David Moore, a couple who accused her of violating their constitutional right to marry.

“For me, this would be an act of disobedience to God,” she said at the time.

In 2022, federal Judge David Bunning rejected Davis’s argument that her constitutionally guaranteed religious beliefs protected her from liability in the case.

“Davis cannot use her own constitutional rights as a shield to violate the constitutional rights of others while performing her duties as an elected official,” Bunning wrote.

The Rowan County clerk was ultimately ordered to pay $360,000 (£274,000) in damages and served six days in jail for contempt of court.

The 6th US Circuit Court of Appeals based in Cincinnati, Ohio, also ruled against her.

In her appeal to the Supreme Court, Davis’s legal team argued the same-sex marriage right was grounded in a “legal fiction”.

On Monday, Davis’s lawyer, Mat Staver, of the conservative legal group Liberty Counsel, said his client “now faces crippling monetary damages based on nothing more than purported hurt feelings”, reports the Lexington Herald Leader newspaper.

The Trump administration had not commented on her case while it waited to see whether the nation’s top legal arbiter would take up the appeal.

Some conservatives had hoped the Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, would revisit the issue of same-sex marriage after the justices in 2023 overturned a longstanding right to abortion.

In Obergefell v Hodges, Anthony Kennedy, a since-retired conservative justice, sided with four liberal justices.

Kennedy wrote in the decision 10 years ago that gay people hoping to marry were “not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions”.

“They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right.”

Three of the four conservative justices who dissented in that case still serve on the court.

One of them, Chief Justice John Roberts, wrote in his dissent at the time: “Today, five lawyers have ordered every state to change their definition of marriage. Just who do we think we are?”

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Our US partner NBC News has obtained the letter sent from the US president’s lawyers to the BBC yesterday.

Trump’s lawyers set the BBC a deadline of 5 pm EST (10 pm in the UK) on Friday, 14 November to “comply”.

If not, the letter from Trump’s legal team says: “President Trump will be left with no alternative but to enforce his legal and equitable rights, all of which are expressly reserved and are not waived, including by filing legal action for no less than $1,000,000,000 (One Billion Dollars) in damages. The BBC is on notice.”

Trump’s lawyers are demanding a retraction.

A spokesperson for Trump’s legal team tells NBC: “The BBC defamed President Trump by intentionally and deceitfully editing its documentary in order to try and interfere in the Presidential Election. President Trump will continue to hold accountable those who traffic in lies, deception, and fake news.”

A BBC spokesperson tells NBC News: “We will review the letter and respond directly in due course.”

The White House referred a request for comment to the outside legal team.

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Four prisoners were killed and more than 30 were injured in clashes between rival gang members in El Oro prison in the city of Machala in the early hours of Sunday.

Hours later, security guards who had been alerted to a fresh outbreak of gang violence found the others who had been hanged on the building’s third floor, Ecuador’s prison service said.

The country’s overcrowded prisons have been the scene of a series of deadly riots and gang fights in which hundreds of inmates have been killed in recent years.

Ecuador’s prison service, known by its initials as Snai, said that the clashes had been triggered by plans to move some of the inmates to a newly-built prison.

El Oro prison was the site of another deadly incident in September when 13 inmates and a guard were killed in clashes between rival gangs.

Relatives of the prisoners have asked the authorities to step up security inside the prison, including keeping rival gangs separate, whilst residents of Machala have long demanded that the facility, which is located in the city centre, be relocated.

Earlier this year, the government of President Daniel Noboa announced the construction of a new maximum security jail in the province of Santa Elena.

The new prison, named El Encuentro, is expected to open in late November, and according to the interior minister, will boast all the latest security measures.

Prison gangs have for years played a key role in the rise of violent crime in Ecuador and two of them, Los Lobos and Los Choneros, were declared Foreign Terrorist Organisations by the US Department of State in September.

The Lebanese authorities seized Mr Gaddafi, now 49, in 2015, accusing him of concealing information about the fate of a Lebanese Shia cleric who disappeared in Libya in 1978, when he was just two.

Human rights groups had denounced the accusations.

His lawyer told the AFP news agency his $900,000 (£682,938) bail had been paid.

Laurent Bayon said: “It’s the end of a nightmare for him that lasted 10 years.”

In October, a judge set a $11m bail against Gaddafi’s release but this was reduced last week after an appeal by his defence team, according to AFP.

Mr Bayon said his client would leave Lebanon for a “confidential” destination.

“If Gaddafi was able to be arbitrarily detained in Lebanon for 10 years, it’s because the justice system was not independent,” Bayon said, according to AFP.

In 2015, Mr Gaddafi was briefly abducted by an armed group in Lebanon before being freed. He was later detained by Lebanese authorities.

After his father was overthrown by rebels and killed in 2011, he fled to Syria and then had lived under house arrest in Oman with his wife Aline Skaf.

Before the fall of his father’s regime Mr Gaddafi was known for his lavish lifestyle.

The disappearance of Shia cleric Musa al-Sadr in Libya in 1978 has been a source of tension between Libya and Lebanon for decades.

Hannibal Gaddafi was only two at the time and held no senior position in Libya as an adult.

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VERDICT:

False. The video is not from Ghana. It was filmed at the DSL Junction in Georgetown, Guyana.

FULL STORY:

A video circulating on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter) shows a motor rider attempting to cross an intersection while the traffic light was red. The rider is then struck by an oncoming car, leading to a dramatic crash.

The clip, shared by the X account CDR AFRICA, had a Twi-language voiceover suggesting that the incident occurred in Ghana. The post, captioned as a “National Road Safety Authority video,” quickly gained traction, generating over 60,000 views and 30 comments within hours of publication.

The video appeared credible at first glance due to the local language narration and the claim that it was released by Ghana’s National Road Safety Authority (NRSA). However, several inconsistencies prompted a closer look.

FULL STORY:

A video circulating on social media platform X (formerly Twitter) shows a motor rider attempting to cross an intersection while the traffic light was red.

The rider is then struck by an oncoming car, leading to a dramatic crash.

The clip, shared by the X account CDR AFRICA, had a Twi-language voiceover suggesting that the incident occurred in Ghana. The post, captioned as a “National Road Safety Authority video,” quickly gained traction, generating over 60,000 views and 30 comments within hours of publication.

The video appeared credible at first glance due to the local language narration and the claim that it was released by Ghana’s National Road Safety Authority (NRSA). However, several inconsistencies prompted a closer look.

VERIFICATION:

Myjoyonline conducted a Google Reverse Image Search on key frames from the viral video. The search results revealed that the footage does not originate from Ghana, but rather from DSL Junction in Georgetown, Guyana.

DSL Junction is a well-known intersection in Georgetown with multiple traffic lanes, signal lights, and a traffic island often occupied by street vendors. The footage also bears the label “Agri Parts/DSL Camera”, a known surveillance feed from that location.

Further checks show that the same camera feed has captured several traffic-related incidents in the past, confirming the scene’s identity and location as Guyana, not Ghana.

There is also no evidence that the National Road Safety Authority (NRSA) in Ghana released or circulated this video.

A search of the NRSA’s official social media accounts and website yielded no record of such footage.

Conclusion:

The claim that the viral video shows an Okada accident in Ghana is false.

The footage was filmed in Georgetown, Guyana, not in Ghana. The attribution to Ghana’s National Road Safety Authority is misleading.

The announcement follows a high-level bilateral meeting held in Abuja, Nigeria, on Friday, November 7, 2025.

The meeting was co-chaired by COP Lydia Yaako Donkor, Director-General of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service, and Deputy Inspector-General of the Nigeria Police Force, Sadiq I. Abubakar, mni, PhD. It brought together senior representatives from law enforcement, immigration, intelligence, and diplomatic institutions from both countries.

Key discussions focused on the growing link between human trafficking and cybercrime, the rising number of victims across the sub-region, and the need for stronger regional coordination.

DIG Abubakar commended COP Donkor for initiating the bilateral engagement during the INTERPOL Africa Regional Conference earlier this year in South Africa. In response, COP Donkor praised Nigeria’s cooperation and reaffirmed Ghana’s commitment to enhanced intelligence sharing and coordinated enforcement operations.

Both sides agreed to establish a Joint Task Force (JTF) to manage cross-border trafficking cases, designate focal officers for real-time information exchange, and develop standard operating procedures for victim repatriation and support. They also resolved to roll out joint public awareness campaigns targeting youth and border communities, and to convene a meeting of West African Police Chiefs to align regional strategies against trafficking.

The meeting concluded with the signing of a communiqué reaffirming Ghana and Nigeria’s joint resolve to dismantle trafficking networks, safeguard victims, and strengthen cooperation under ECOWAS and INTERPOL frameworks.

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After a weekend of negotiations in Washington, a minority of Democrats joined with Republicans and voted in favour of an agreement.

The vote is a procedural first step towards passing a compromise to fund the government since it ran out of money on 1 October.

It will need to clear several more hurdles – including a vote from the House of Representatives – before federal employees and services return, but it is the first serious sign of progress after 40 days of deadlock.

The current shutdown is the longest on record in the US, and until this weekend, it appeared that Republican and Democratic lawmakers were locked in a stalemate.

Many government services have been suspended since October, and around 1.4 million federal employees are on unpaid leave or working without pay.

The shutdown has also had wide-ranging impacts on a variety of services, including US air travel and food benefits for 41 million low-income Americans.

The agreement was negotiated between Senate Majority Leader John Thune and the White House, with Democratic senators Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, and Angus King of Maine, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats.

Republicans – who hold a 53-47 majority in the Senate – needed the measure to clear a 60-vote minimum threshold.

They were able to attract eight votes from the other side of the aisle, while losing just one in Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, who voted against after saying the bill would increase the national debt.

The deal includes an agreement for a vote in December on extending healthcare subsidies that are due to expire this year, a key issue Democrats had been holding out for concessions on.

Democratic Party leaders had said that they would not lend their support to new funding for government operations until Congress addressed the subsidies that help tens of millions of Americans pay for health insurance purchased through government-run exchanges.

“I’m thankful to be able to say we have senators, both Democrats and Republicans, who are eager to get to work to address that crisis in a bipartisan way,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said ahead of the vote.

“We also have a president who is willing to sit down and get to work on this issue. So I’m looking forward to seeing what solutions might be brought forward.”

Thune did not say exactly what that bill would contain, which frustrated many Democrats in the House and the Senate, who argued that the Democrats who negotiated the deal did so without getting enough in return.

“For months and months, Democrats have been fighting to get the Senate to address the healthcare crisis,” said Chuck Schumer, the party’s leader in the Senate.

“This bill does nothing to ensure that the crisis is addressed,” he said as he confirmed he would vote against the deal.

Some high-profile Democrats have been highly critical of colleagues who sided with Republicans to end the shutdown without concrete guarantees on healthcare, with California Governor Gavin Newsom calling the decision “pathetic”.

The measure also includes three appropriations bills to fund agencies like veterans affairs and agriculture, as well as a continuing resolution to finance the rest of the government until 30 January – meaning another government shutdown could be on the horizon early next year.

It also includes guarantees that all federal workers will be paid for time during the shutdown, and funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap) – an essential food safety net for one in eight Americans – until next September.

A vote on the deal would only be the first procedural step in the new funding agreement, and it would still need to be approved by the US House of Representatives, where it is likely to see its own challenges.

Davie, in the job for five years, had faced increasing pressure over a series of controversies and accusations of bias that have dogged the public broadcaster.

The Telegraph published details of a leaked internal BBC memo on Monday that suggested the Panorama programme edited two parts of the US president’s speech together so he appeared to explicitly encourage the Capitol Hill riot of January 2021.

UK political leaders expressed hope the resignations would lead to change, while Trump welcomed the decision.

It is unprecedented for both the director general and the head of BBC News to resign on the same day.

Announcing the move on Sunday evening, Davie said: “Like all public organisations, the BBC is not perfect, and we must always be open, transparent and accountable.

“While not being the only reason, the current debate around BBC News has understandably contributed to my decision.

“Overall the BBC is delivering well, but there have been some mistakes made and as director general I have to take ultimate responsibility.”

Turness said in a statement on Sunday night that the Panorama controversy had “reached a stage where it is causing damage to the BBC”, adding: “The buck stops with me.”

She said: “In public life leaders need to be fully accountable, and that is why I am stepping down. While mistakes have been made, I want to be absolutely clear recent allegations that BBC News is institutionally biased are wrong.”

Turness has been CEO of News and Current Affairs for the past three years.

The internal memo published by the Telegraph also raised concerns about a lack of action to address what it described as “systemic problems” of bias in BBC Arabic’s coverage of the Israel-Gaza war.

In Trump’s speech in Washington DC on 6 January 2021, he said: “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women.”

However, in the Panorama edit, he was shown 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 two sections that were stitched together were originally more than 50 minutes apart.

The publication of the internal memo sparked criticism of the BBC, including from the White House, which described the corporation as “100% fake news”.

Trump responded to the resignations on Sunday, saying top people in the BBC were quitting or being fired “because they were caught ‘doctoring’ my very good (PERFECT!) speech of January 6th”.

“These are very dishonest people who tried to step on the scales of a Presidential Election,” he wrote. “What a terrible thing for Democracy!”

The pair’s resignations come ahead of a statement expected on Monday by BBC chairman Samir Shah to a parliamentary committee in which he was anticipated to apologise for the way the speech was edited.

Commenting on the resignations on Sunday, Shah said it was a “sad day for the BBC” and that Davie “had the full support of me and the [BBC] board throughout” his tenure.

He continued: “However, I understand the continued pressure on him, personally and professionally, which has led him to take this decision today. The whole board respects the decision and the reasons for it.”

The leaked memo was written by Michael Prescott, a former independent external adviser to the broadcaster’s editorial standards committee, who left the role in June.

In the memo, he also expressed concerns about the BBC’s coverage of trans issues, suggesting its coverage was effectively “censored” by its specialist LGBT reporters who promoted a pro-trans agenda.

His leaked memo said he had felt “despair” at the lack of action by BBC management “when issues come to light”.

Separately on Thursday, the BBC upheld 20 impartiality complaints over the way presenter Martine Croxall altered a script she was reading live earlier this year on the BBC News Channel, which referred to “pregnant people”.

The corporation has also faced criticism in recent months over failing to disclose that the narrator of a documentary about Gaza was the son of a Hamas official.

The BBC’s broadcast of a Glastonbury set in which punk duo Bob Vylan led a chant of “death, death to the IDF [Israel Defence Forces]” also broke editorial guidelines in relation to harm and offence.

Dame Caroline Dineage, who chairs the culture, media and sport committee of MPs, said the broadcaster had been damaged by “what has become a seemingly constant stream of crises and missteps”.

Some media commentators were critical of the way the BBC had handled the latest controversy.

Roger Mosey, the former head of BBC TV News, said the broadcaster had been “slow to respond to the latest allegations”.

He told BBC News the Trump speech edit “doesn’t seem to be defensible”, while other concerns raised in the memo, such as language around trans issues, were part of how the BBC “has to reshape and reform its editorial from time to time”.

Dorothy Byrne, Channel 4’s former head of news, criticised the BBC for not only making a “basic error” in editing the speech but in taking “an inordinate length of time to apologise”.

Davie, who has worked for the corporation for 20 years, stressed that “our journalism and quality content continues to be admired as a gold standard” and that the organisation was “overwhelmingly kind, tolerant and curious”.

He said the timing of his departure – which will involve an “orderly transition” to a successor in the coming months – would allow the next director general to “positively shape” the next Royal Charter.

The Charter sets the funding and regulatory duties of the BBC and is negotiated with the government. A new one must be reached before the current one expires at the end of 2027.

Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy thanked Davie, saying he had “led the BBC through a period of significant change”.

She went on: “The BBC is one of our most important national institutions… Now more than ever, the need for trusted news and high quality programming is essential to our democratic and cultural life, and our place in the world.”

Nandy added that the government would ensure the Charter review “is the catalyst that helps the BBC to adapt to this new era”.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said it was “right” that Davie and Turness had stood down, but said there was “a catalogue of serious failures that runs far deeper” that “cannot be swept away with two resignations”.

Badenoch said the BBC “should not expect the public to keep funding it through a compulsory licence fee unless it can finally demonstrate true impartiality”.

Sir Ed Davey, leader of the Liberal Democrats, said the resignations “must be an opportunity for the BBC to turn a new leaf”, adding: “The BBC isn’t perfect, but it remains one of the few institutions standing between our British values and a populist, Trump-style takeover of our politics.”

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said the departures must mark “the start of wholesale change”, calling on the government to appoint a leader who had “a record of coming in and turning companies and their cultures around”.

The BBC board is responsible for appointing a director general under the terms of its Charter.

Prior to being made the BBC’s 17th director general, replacing Lord Hall in 2020, Davie was the chief of BBC Studios, and before that was a marketing executive at Pepsi and Proctor & Gamble.

Turness previously headed news organisations ITN and NBC News International.

The corporation has seen the resignation of previous directors general including George Entwistle, who resigned in 2012.

But whoever replaces Davie and Turness will have to step straight into dealing with a series of critical news reports.

Mosey said the BBC’s director general had to be “superhuman” and questioned whether the corporation needed to consider splitting the role into separate corporate and editorial jobs.

In a press statement, the leadership of the Ghanaian PhD Scholars Association in the UK said the crisis has worsened in recent months, with at least ten students already withdrawn or suspended by their universities.

“Roughly ten of our members have been excluded from their studies as a result of unpaid tuition and now await possible deportation notices from the UK Home Office,” the statement read.

According to the group, the prolonged delay in scholarship payments has severely affected their academic progress and living conditions.

They revealed that many students have been evicted from their homes, while others face legal action over unpaid rent. Some have reportedly gone for several months—and in extreme cases, nearly four years—without receiving their government stipends, which range between £1,023 and £1,200 per month.

“For some scholars, no payment has been made since the very beginning of their PhD programmes,” the group lamented.

Currently, about 110 Ghanaian PhD students in the UK are on scholarships funded by the Ghana Scholarships Secretariat (GSS).

Beyond the backlog in tuition fees, the students said 36 members urgently need renewal letters to continue their studies. Without these documents, universities cannot process their re-enrolments or allow them to resume research.

The statement further highlighted the academic and immigration complications arising from the delays.

“Some students have completed their programmes but are unable to graduate. Others attended graduation ceremonies but were denied their certificates because of outstanding fees,” the statement noted.

It added that several scholars who travelled to Ghana for data collection have been refused re-entry into the UK, as their tuition debts have triggered immigration issues with the Home Office.

Although the group acknowledged that the GSS has made some partial payments, they described these efforts as “grossly insufficient.” They estimated that about 30 students have received no contribution toward their 2024/2025 tuition, leaving many locked out of university systems and unable to access academic resources.

According to their calculations, a minimum of £400,000 is required to sustain the scholarship programme through the 2025/2026 academic year.

The scholars also criticised what they described as a lack of transparency and poor administrative management of the scholarship scheme, blaming the crisis on irregular practices by previous officials.

“We recognise the difficulties faced by the current management of the GSS, but students should not have to bear the consequences of past administrative failings,” the statement said.

While expressing frustration, the scholars acknowledged the government’s ongoing attempts to reform the scholarship programme to ensure greater accountability and fairness.

“Our membership includes individuals from diverse professional and political backgrounds,” the statement added. “We have no partisan agenda—our only concern is the survival of our academic pursuits.”

Appealing directly to both the UK High Commissioner and President John Dramani Mahama, the group urged immediate intervention to resolve the crisis.

“We are calling on President Mahama and the UK High Commissioner to urgently address this issue, as has been done in the case of other inherited liabilities,” they pleaded.

The statement concluded with cautious optimism:

“We remain hopeful that our concerns will receive prompt attention and that those in leadership will act swiftly to safeguard our education and future.”

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According to the WMO’s State of the Global Climate Update 2025, the average global temperature between January and August 2025 was 1.42°C above pre-industrial levels. The report paints a troubling picture of record-breaking heat, melting ice, rising sea levels, and more frequent extreme weather events — all accelerating the pace of climate disruption.

WMO scientists say concentrations of greenhouse gases, which trap heat in the atmosphere, reached record highs in 2024 and continued to rise in 2025. Ocean heat content — a key measure of how much heat the Earth system stores — also hit new records.

“This unprecedented streak of high temperatures, combined with last year’s record increase in greenhouse gas levels, makes it clear that it will be virtually impossible to limit global warming to 1.5°C in the next few years without temporarily overshooting this target,” said WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo.

“But the science is equally clear — it’s still possible and essential to bring temperatures back down to 1.5°C by the end of the century.”

UN Secretary-General António Guterres called for immediate, large-scale action to minimise damage.

“Each year above 1.5 degrees will hammer economies, deepen inequalities, and inflict irreversible damage,” he said. “We must act now, at great speed and scale, to make the overshoot as small, as short, and as safe as possible.”

From deadly floods in Africa and Asia to wildfires in North America and Europe, the report says that 2025 has been marked by disasters that have upended lives, displaced millions, and hurt food systems and economies.

Rising global temperatures have caused glaciers to melt, sea levels to climb, and storms to intensify. The impacts are cascading across sectors — from agriculture and energy to health and migration.

The report warns that ocean heat is driving irreversible changes to marine ecosystems, killing coral reefs, reducing biodiversity, and weakening the ocean’s ability to absorb carbon dioxide.

Levels of carbon dioxide (CO₂), methane (CH₄), and nitrous oxide (N₂O) — the main greenhouse gases — continue to surge.

In 2024, atmospheric CO₂ reached 423.9 parts per million (ppm) — 53% higher than pre-industrial levels. The increase from 2023 to 2024 was the largest ever recorded at 3.5 ppm.

Methane and nitrous oxide, both powerful heat-trapping gases, also reached record highs, further driving global warming.

Over 90% of excess heat trapped by greenhouse gases is absorbed by the oceans. The ocean heat content surpassed all previous records, showing the world’s waters are accumulating energy faster than ever before.

This heating, scientists warn, is causing: stronger tropical storms and cyclones, faster melting of sea ice, rising sea levels, and long-term changes that are irreversible for centuries or even millennia.

The record-breaking global heat of 2024 pushed global energy demand 4% higher than the 1991–2020 average.

In Central and Southern Africa, demand rose nearly 30%, showing how rising temperatures are straining energy systems, especially in developing regions. The WMO says integrating climate data into renewable energy planning — from solar and wind to hydropower — is now critical to building resilient and flexible energy systems.

The report highlights major progress in early warning systems since 2015. The number of countries with Multi-Hazard Early Warning Systems (MHEWS) has more than doubled, from 56 in 2015 to 119 in 2024.

However, 40% of countries still lack such systems. The UN’s “Early Warnings for All” initiative aims for global coverage by 2027, but experts say faster action is needed — especially in Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and Small Island States (SIDS).

National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHSs) now play a growing role in national climate policies. Nearly two-thirds of these agencies provide climate services, up from 35% just five years ago.

These include seasonal forecasts, agriculture and water advisories, and heat-health alerts, helping governments and citizens adapt to extreme weather.

The WMO’s State of the Global Climate Update 2025 — released ahead of COP30 in Belém, Brazil — serves as a scientific anchor for climate negotiations.

It reminds world leaders that without immediate action, the Earth is heading toward irreversible climate tipping points. Yet, it also offers a message of hope — that science, data, and coordinated global action can still steer the planet toward recovery.

In one of the greatest breakthroughs of the 20th Century, he identified the double-helix structure of DNA in 1953 alongside British scientist Francis Crick, setting the stage for rapid advances in molecular biology.

But Watson’s reputation and standing were badly hurt by his comments on race and sex. In a TV programme, he made claims about genes causing a difference in average IQ between black and white people.

His death was confirmed by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where he worked and researched for decades, before having to resign as its chancellor over the comments.

Watson shared the Nobel in 1962 with Maurice Wilkins and Francis Crick for the DNA’s double helix structure discovery.

“We have discovered the secret of life,” they said at the time.

By the early 2000s, he had been largely ostracised by the scientific community over his comments on race and gender.

In 2007, the scientist told the Times newspaper that he was “inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa”, because “all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours – whereas all the testing says not really”.

He apologised “unreservedly”, but nevertheless, the comments led to him losing his job as chancellor at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York.

Additional comments he made in 2019 – when he once again suggested a link between race and intelligence – led to the lab stripping his honorary titles of chancellor emeritus, Oliver R Grace professor emeritus and honorary trustee.

“Dr Watson’s statements are reprehensible, unsupported by science,” the laboratory said in a statement at the time.

DNA was discovered in 1869 but it took until 1943 for scientists to discover that it made up the genetic material in cells. Still, the structure of DNA remained a mystery.

Working with images obtained by King’s College researcher Rosalind Franklin, without her knowledge, Crick and Watson were able to construct a physical model of the molecule.

Maurice Wilkins, who shared the Nobel with Crick and Watson, had worked with Franklin to determine the DNA molecule’s structure. Franklin, who died in 1958, is today recognised for the integral role she played in the scientific breakthrough of DNA research, despite her work largely being written out of the story at the time.

Former colleagues have commented that Watson nurtured the careers of female scientists at Harvard in the 1950s and 60s, at a time when that was not the norm. However he also made disparaging comments about women in science, and wrote sexist remarks about Franklin, including commenting on her appearance, in his 1968 best-selling book, The Double Helix.

Watson became the first living Nobel laureate to sell his gold medal, fetching $4.8m (£3.6m) at an auction in 2014, saying he was letting go of it because he felt ostracised by the scientific community after his controversial remarks.

A Russian billionaire bought it for $4.8m and promptly gave it back to him.

James Watson was born in Chicago in April 1928 to Jean and James, descendants of English, Scottish and Irish settlers.

He won a scholarship to study at the University of Chicago at the age of 15.

There, he became interested in the new technique of diffraction, in which X-rays were bounced off atoms to reveal their inner structures.

To pursue his research into DNA structures, he went to Cambridge University in England, where he met Crick, with whom he began constructing large-scale models of possible structures.

Later, after his scientific discovery, Watson and his wife, Elizabeth, moved to Harvard, where he became professor of biology. The couple had two sons – one of whom was diagnosed with schizophrenia as a teenager, further motivating Watson’s research to learn more about DNA in the hope of possibly helping him.

In 1968, he took over the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York State – an old institution which he was credited with turning into one of the world’s foremost scientific research institutes.

Fifty-four people were admitted to hospital, city police chief Asep Edi Suheri told a televised news conference, with the injuries ranging from minor to serious and including burns.

The suspect is a 17-year-old currently in surgery, the nation’s deputy house speaker Sufmi Dasco Ahmad told reporters.

The Jakarta Metropolitan Police continues to investigate the motive behind the incident, which occurred at around 12:15 local time (05:15 GMT) in Kelapa Gading, a district in North Jakarta.

A bomb disposal team has been deployed to the state-run high school complex to collect evidence and ensure there are no other explosive devices.

Authorities said three people had suffered serious injuries and 17 others came away with minor injuries. Others have been treated and discharged, local media reports.

A pupil at the school alleged to Indonesia’s government-owned news agency Antara that a homemade bomb had been brought in by a student who had often been bullied by other students.

Other pupils told Indonesian news outlets that the suspect was a “loner” who often made drawings depicting violence, and who had been found lying on the ground following the explosion. Mr Ahmad declined to comment on whether the suspect was a student.

A high-ranking Jakarta Metropolitan Police officer confirmed the presence of two objects resembling firearms at the scene.

Images from Antara suggest one of the objects appeared to be a submachine gun and another looked like a pistol.

The submachine gun-type object appears to be inscribed on its barrel with: “14 words. For Agartha.”

On its body, it says: “Brenton Tarrant. Welcome to Hell.”

Brenton Tarrant is the perpetrator of a 2019 mass shooting at a mosque and Islamic centre in Christchurch, New Zealand, that killed 51 and injured dozens of others.

A minister who visited the scene later on Friday sought to dispel suggestions that weapons were present at the site, telling CNN Indonesia what had been pictured “turned out to be a toy gun, not a real gun”.

Lodewijk Freidrich Paulus also called on the public not to presume the explosion was a “terrorist act” as investigators were still combing over the scene.

Another object found at the site was a dark green belt for storing gun cartridges.

Indonesia has the world’s largest Muslim population.

Control towers at airports have been grappling with absences of air traffic controllers who are calling out sick or taking side jobs as they work without pay during the federal government shutdown.

Altogether, hundreds of thousands of federal workers are not being paid because lawmakers have not been able to pass a budget. On Wednesday, the funding impasse became the longest shutdown in US history.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on Thursday formally announced the list of airports where flights will be cancelled. The cuts won’t apply to international flights, but specific airlines may choose to also axe some of those flights, too, the FAA said.

Several of the largest US airlines have said customers will be allowed to adjust their flights or cancel them preemptively for free.

Here is what we know as the US prepares for the cuts, which will start officially on Friday.

Affected airports include the busiest in the world

Flights will be cut at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, in Georgia. Frequently ranked as the busiest airport in the world, it saw more than 108 million passengers get on and off flights there in 2024.

Along with the Atlanta airport, Dallas Fort Worth International, Denver International, Chicago O’Hare, and Los Angeles International are the five busiest airports in the US. All of them are expected to see flights reduced.

The FAA said the cancellations will be gradual and start on Friday with a 4% reduction in flights. It will rise to 6% by 11 November and 8% by 13 November, before hitting a full 10% by 14 November.

1. Anchorage International (ANC)
2. Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International (ATL)
3. Boston Logan International (BOS)
4. Baltimore/Washington International (BWI)
5. Charlotte Douglas International (CLT)
6. Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International (CVG)
7. Dallas Love Field (DAL)
8. Ronald Reagan Washington National (DCA)
9. Denver International in Colorado (DEN)
10. Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW)
11. Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County (DTW)
12. Newark Liberty International (EWR)
13. Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood International (FLL)
14. Honolulu International (HNL)
15. Houston Hobby (HOU)
16. Washington Dulles International (IAD)
17. George Bush Houston Intercontinental (IAH)
18. Indianapolis International (IND)
19. New York John F Kennedy International (JFK)
20. Las Vegas Harry Reid International (LAS)
21. Los Angeles International (LAX)
22. New York LaGuardia (LGA)
23. Orlando International (MCO)
24. Chicago Midway (MDW)
25. Memphis International (MEM)
26. Miami International (MIA)
27. Minneapolis/St Paul International (MSP)
28. Oakland International (OAK)
29. Ontario International in California (ONT)
30. Chicago O’Hare International (ORD)
31. Portland International (PDX)
32. Philadelphia International (PHL)
33. Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX)
34. San Diego International (SAN)
35. Louisville International (SDF)
36. Seattle/Tacoma International (SEA)
37. San Francisco International (SFO)
38. Salt Lake City International (SLC)
39. Teterboro in New Jersey (TEB)
40. Tampa International (TPA)

Airlines offering refunds to customers

Major airlines have raced to assure customers that they will not be caught for the costs of cancelled flights.

In a memo to staff that was shared with the BBC, United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby said any customer can get a refund on a flight, even if it isn’t being cancelled, including customers with non-refundable tickets and basic economy tickets. United, the largest airline in the country, says that, in addition to waiving fees, it will also waive any fare differences on a rebooked flight.

Delta Airlines has implemented a similar policy. allowing customer change, cancel or receive refunds for their flights, including those flying basic economy, without penalty. If the rebooked flight occurs on or before 16 November, any difference in fare will be waived, the company said in a statement.

American Airlines will allow customers to change a flight or request a refund, without penalty, whether or not their specific flights have been cancelled. It does not mention if customers will have to pay a difference in fare on rebooked flights.

Southwest Airlines says that if customers’ flights are cancelled, they can rebook or request a refund. For flights between 7 November and 12 November that have not been cancelled, customers can still rebook with no fee and without having to pay a fare difference, or they can request a refund.

Frontier Airlines will let customers change or cancel their flights without a fee, but they will be required to pay any difference in fare on a rebooked flight.

The BBC has also reached out to Alaska Airlines and JetBlue.

Source: BBC

The decision, which will impact domestic flights only, was made because air traffic controllers had been reporting fatigue, the head of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said.

Some 1.4 million federal workers, from air traffic controllers to park wardens, are working without pay – or are on forced leave – because the US Congress has not agreed to a funding budget.

Major airports in Atlanta, New York and Washington DC will be affected by the reduction in service.

“Our number one job is safety. This isn’t about politics – it’s about assessing the data and alleviating building risk in the system as controllers continue to work without pay,” Duffy said in a statement.

Unions say many employees are becoming ill with stress or are being forced into taking second jobs.

On Wednesday, the federal government funding impasse became the longest shutdown in US history.

“It is unusual,” said FAA chief Bryan Bedford of the planned flight reductions, “just as the shutdown is unusual, just as the fact that our controllers haven’t been paid for a month is unusual.”

The flight reductions will be gradual, starting at 4% of domestic flights on Friday. It will rise to 6% by 11 November and 8% by 13 November, before hitting a full 10% by 14 November.

Duffy made the announcement Thursday evening, along with providing an official list of the 40 airports impacted.

The airports are all in high-traffic cities, including Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International, New York John F Kennedy International, Chicago O’Hare International, Ronald Reagan Washington National, and Los Angeles International airports.

The cancellations could affect between 3,500 and 4,000 flights per day. US media also reported that international flights would not be affected.

Low budget carrier Frontier Airlines warned customers to buy tickets at other airlines as a contingency plan.

The reduction in service is needed to ensure the US airspace remained safe for passengers, the FAA said.

In a statement, American Airlines, the second-largest carrier in North America, said it was waiting for more information from the FAA so it could determine which flights will be scrapped, but that “we expect the vast majority of our customers’ travel will be unaffected”.

Delta Air Lines told the BBC most of its flights would continue as scheduled, adding that all customers could change, cancel or refund their flights without penalty.

Once government funds ran out on 1 October, most federal workers were sent home and told they would be paid once the government reopened. Those deemed essential, like controllers, though, had to keep doing their jobs without pay.

Almost immediately after the shutdown started, airports began feeling the effects. Some had to ground flights for hours after air traffic controllers called out sick, while others relied on controllers from other airports.

Duffy warned earlier this week that flight cancellations could be coming, as half the country’s 30 major airports experienced staff shortages.

Nick Daniels, the president of the labour union representing more than 20,000 aviation workers, put the situation into stark terms on Wednesday.

“Air traffic controllers are texting, ‘I don’t even have enough money to put gas in my car to come to work,'” he told CNN. “We base what we do day in and day out on predictability,” he said. “Right now there is no predictability.”

Writing recently for MSNBC, another controller, a single father, said he was working for food delivery service DoorDash after his daily air traffic shift ended, and was “sleeping only two hours most nights”.

“Like many families, we didn’t plan for a shutdown,” he wrote. “Yet the bills don’t stop.”

Duffy previously said there was a risk that came with air traffic controllers taking on additional jobs during the shutdown, and had threatened to fire controllers who did not come to work.

The unprecedented deal was approved by 75% of votes and drew huge applause from the audience at the firm’s annual general meeting on Thursday.

Musk, who is already the world’s richest man, must drastically raise the electric car firm’s market value over 10 years. If he does this and meets various targets, he will be rewarded with hundreds of millions of new shares.

The scale of the potential payout has drawn criticism, but the Tesla board argued that Musk might leave the company if it was not approved – and that it could not afford to lose him.

Following the announcement, Musk took to the stage in Austin, Texas and danced to chants of his name.

“What we’re about to embark upon is not merely a new chapter of the future of Tesla, but a whole new book,” he said.

“Other shareholder meetings are snoozefests, but ours are bangers. Look at this. This is sick,” he added.

The milestones Musk must achieve over the next decade to maximise his payout include raising Tesla’s market value to $8.5tn from $1.4tn at the time of writing.

He would also need to get a million self-driving Robotaxi vehicles into commercial operation.

But his early remarks on Thursday placed the spotlight on the Optimus robot, dashing the hopes of some long-time analysts and Tesla watchers who want Musk to focus on reviving the company’s electric vehicle business.

“Let it sink in where Musk’s head is at,” wrote analyst Gene Munster, the managing partner at Deepwater Asset Management, on X.

“His vision of the ‘new book’ starts with Optimus. No mention of cars, FDS and robotaxi yet.”

Later, Musk did refer to FSD, shorthand for full self-driving, saying the company was “almost comfortable” allowing drivers to “text and drive essentially.”

US regulators are investigating Tesla’s self-driving feature after multiple incidents, in which the cars drove through red lights or on the wrong side of the road, some resulting in crashes and injuries.

Tesla shares were slightly higher in after-hours trading but have risen more than 62% over the last six months.

Sales have slid in the year since Musk aligned himself with US President Donald Trump – a relationship that disintegrated this past spring.

Tesla shareholder Ross Gerber told BBC News that Musk’s pay deal marks “another notch in the unbelievable things that you see in business.”

Musk has made clear his goals for Tesla but the company faces a slew of challenges, including its struggling financial performance, said Mr Gerber, who is the chief executive of investment firm Gerber Kawasaki.

It is still not clear if there will be a big demand for humanoid robots, said Mr Gerber. Tesla also faces stiff competition in the robotaxi industry from rivals like Waymo, he added.

Mr Gerber said that his company recently lowered its stake in Tesla due to concerns over “the polarisation of [Musk’s] persona” which has “demolished the value of the brand”.

“Elon seems to be divorced from the reality that his opinion among the public is so low,” he said.

Wedbush Securities’ Dan Ives, a tech analyst who has been a long-time advocate of Musk’s leadership of Tesla, called him “Tesla’s biggest asset” in a note published after the vote.

“We continue to believe that the AI valuation is getting unlocked, and we believe the march to an AI-driven valuation for TSLA over the next 6-9 months has now begun,” Mr Ives added.

Musk already held 13% of Tesla shares. Shareholders had twice ratified a pay package worth tens of billions of dollars if he achieved a tenfold increase in the company’s market value, which he did.

But a Delaware judge rejected that pay deal on gthe rounds that Tesla board members were too close to Musk.

Tesla reincorporated from Delaware to Texas, and the Delaware Supreme Court is currently reviewing the lower court judge’s decision.

The new pay package was rejected by several major institutional investors, including Norway’s sovereign wealth fund – the world’s largest national wealth fund – and the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) – the biggest public pension fund in the United States.

That left Musk more reliant on Tesla’s unusually large volume of retail investors.

Musk and his brother Kimbal, who also serves on the Tesla board, were both allowed to vote going into Thursday’s meeting.

In recent weeks, members of Tesla’s board of directors have helped lobby for Musk’s new pay package with a marketing blitz that riled some corporate governance experts.

A video posted to votetesla.com showed board chair Robyn Denholm and director Kathleen Wilson-Thompson praising Musk.

In a video released on Truth Social he pledged to “do things to Nigeria that Nigeria is not going to be happy about” and “go into that now-disgraced country guns-a-blazing”. But the White House’s interest in this subject did not come out of the blue.

For months, campaigners and politicians in Washington have been alleging that Islamist militants were systematically targeting Christians in Nigeria.

But the BBC has found that some of the data being relied on to come to this conclusion is difficult to verify.

In September, popular television host and comedian Bill Maher upped the ante, describing what was happening as a “genocide”.

Referring to the Boko Haram group, he said, “They have killed over 100,000 since 2009, they’ve burned 18,000 churches”.

Similar figures have also been gaining traction on social media.

The government in Abuja has pushed back on these claims, describing them as “a gross misrepresentation of reality”.

It did not deny that there was deadly violence in the country. But officials said that “terrorists attack all who reject their murderous ideology – Muslims, Christians and those of no faith alike”.

Other groups monitoring political violence in Nigeria say the number of Christians who have been killed is far lower, and say most victims of the jihadist groups are Muslims.

Nigerian security analyst Christian Ani said that while Christians had been attacked as part of a broader strategy of creating terror, it was not possible to justify claims that Christians were deliberately being targeted.

And Nigeria is facing various security crises across the country, not just violence by jihadist groups, and these have different causes, so they should not be confused.

The country’s 220 million people are roughly evenly split between followers of the two religions, with Muslims in the majority in the north, where most attacks take place.

What are US politicians saying?

Prominent Texas Senator Ted Cruz has been campaigning on the issue for some time and, highlighting similar figures to Maher on 7 October, he wrote on X that “since 2009, over 50,000 Christians in Nigeria have been massacred, and over 18,000 churches and 2,000 Christian schools have been destroyed”.

In an email to the BBC, his office made clear that, unlike Maher, the senator was not calling this a “genocide” but describing “persecution”.

But Cruz accused Nigerian officials of “ignoring and even facilitating the mass murder of Christians by Islamist jihadists”. Trump, echoing these words, has described Nigeria as a “disgraced country”, saying the government “continues to allow the killing of Christians”.

The Nigerian government has denied this, saying it is doing its best to tackle the jihadists. Some officials have also welcomed the prospect of the US helping fight the insurgents, as long as it is not done unilaterally.

The authorities have certainly struggled to contain the violent jihadist groups and criminal networks – most weeks seem to come with stories of fresh attacks or abductions.

Boko Haram – infamous for kidnapping the Chibok girls just over a decade ago – has been active since 2009, but its activities have been concentrated in the north-east, which has a majority Muslim population. Other jihadist groups have also emerged, including the Islamic State West Africa Province but they also operate in the north-east.

The figures for Christian deaths cited by some in the US are alarming, but assessing their accuracy is hard.

Where do their numbers come from?

When it comes to the source of the data, on a podcast in September, Cruz directly referred to a 2023 report by the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (InterSociety) – a non-governmental organisation that monitors and tracks human rights abuses across Nigeria. His office also sent the BBC a number of links to online articles on the issue – most of which pointed back to InterSociety.

Maher did not respond to a BBC request for the source of his figures, but given certain similarities to those used by Cruz, it seems likely that he was drawing on InterSociety’s work.

For data that could be shaping US policy towards Nigeria, InterSociety’s work is opaque.

In its report published in August, which was an amalgamation of previous research and updated numbers for 2025, it said jihadist groups in Nigeria had killed over 100,000 Christians in the 16 years since 2009.

It also notes that 60,000 “moderate Muslims” also died during this period.

InterSociety did not share an itemised list of sources, making it hard to verify the total number of deaths it reports.

In response to this criticism, the organisation has said that “it is almost impossible to reproduce all our reports and their references dating back to 2010. Our easy method is to pick their summary statistics and add them to our fresh discoveries or findings to make up our new reports.” But the data sources quoted by InterSociety in its reports do not reflect the figures published.

What about those killed in 2025?

Looking at deaths this year alone, InterSociety concluded that between January and August, just over 7,000 Christians were killed. This is another figure that has been widely shared on social media, including by Republican Congressman Riley M Moore, who has been a leading voice on this issue in the House of Representatives.

InterSociety includes a list of 70 media reports as some of the sources to its findings on the attacks against Christians in 2025. But in about half of these cases, the original news stories did not mention the religious identity of the victims.

For example, InterSociety quoted an Al Jazeera report of an attack in north-eastern Nigeria, saying that according to the news organisation “not less than 40 farmers mainly Christians were abducted by Boko Haram in Damboa part of Borno State”.

But Al Jazeera’s report didn’t mention that the victims were “mainly Christians”, as quoted by InterSociety.

InterSociety told the BBC that it does further analysis to identify their background, without explaining how exactly in this case, but did mention their knowledge of local populations and use of “Christian media reports”.

Adding the number of death referenced in these reports cited by InterSociety does not result in the stated total of 7,000.

The BBC added up the number of deaths from the 70 reports and found that the total was around 3,000 deaths. Some of the attacks also appear to be reported more than once.

To explain the shortfall, InterSociety says it also estimates the number of people it believes have died in captivity and includes eyewitness testimonies it cannot make public.

Who is behind the killings?

Included in its list of perpetrators are Islamist militant groups like Boko Haram but also Fulani herders. The Fulanis are a mainly Muslim ethnic group who live across West Africa and have traditionally earned their living by raising cattle and sheep.

The inclusion of the Fulani herders, who InterSociety describes as “jihadists” in all its reports, however, is the source of some controversy in Nigeria over how these killings should be categorised.

While the herders tend to be Muslim, many researchers in this field reject the description of this as a religious conflict, saying it is often about access to land and water.

Fulani herders have come into conflict with both Muslim and Christian communities across Nigeria.

Security analyst Mr Ani argues that “to say that they are jihadists – it’s a far stretch. It has nothing to do with that. It has a lot more to do with rogue and criminal elements.”

Confidence McHarry, a senior security analyst at Africa-focussed consultancy SBM Intelligence, says the clashes are often due to ethnic tensions and competition over resources.

“It might be ethnic in nature – they’re seeking to grab lands, they’re seeking to expand territory, but the more they displace communities and the more they attack worship centres, the more these things tend to get looked at in that light.”

InterSociety also mention what are known in Nigeria as bandits, saying they are mostly ethnic Fulanis in the north-west of the country, who are involved in kidnapping and have a track record of killing both Christians and Muslims.

Who has been campaigning on this?

Concerns about threats facing Nigerian Christians has been discussed by politicians in the United States and by international Christian groups for a long time.

In previous years, it has been raised in the US by the Indigenous People of Biafra (Ipob) – a group proscribed in Nigeria which is fighting for a breakaway state in the mainly Christian south-east.

Intersociety has been accused by the Nigerian military of being linked to Ipob but the NGO has denied any connection.

Another Biafran separatist group has also claimed to have played a key role in promoting the “Christian genocide” narrative in the US Congress.

The Biafra Republic Government in Exile, BRGIE, described it as a “highly orchestrated effort”, saying it had hired lobbying firms and met US officials, including Cruz.

The senator declined to comment.

What do other research groups say?

InterSociety’s figures are far higher than other sources of data on the number of Christians killed in Nigeria.

Acled, which closely monitors violence in West Africa, has produced very different numbers. The sources for its published findings can be easily traced and checked.

Its senior analyst, Ladd Serwat, did not directly address the InterSociety reports but told the BBC that the figure of 100,000 deaths, touted on social media, would include all acts of political violence in Nigeria, and so it would not be true to say this is the number of Christians who have been killed since 2009.

Acled has found that just under 53,000 civilians – Muslims and Christians – have been reported killed in targeted political violence since 2009.

Looking at just the period from 2020 to September 2025, Acled says that about 21,000 civilians were killed in abductions, attacks, sexual violence and the use of explosives.

It identified 384 incidents where Christians were specifically targeted from 2020 to September 2025, in which 317 people died, meaning they account for just a small proportion of those killed.

For its sources, Acled relies on traditional media, social media where the reports can be verified, rights groups as well as local partners.

What about Trump’s figures?

In a Truth Social post last Friday, Trump cited a figure of 3,100 Christians killed. He was referring to a report by Open Doors for deaths for the 12 months from October 2023, a White House official said.

Open Doors is a charity which researches the persecution of Christians worldwide.

In its reporting it says that while 3,100 Christians died, 2,320 Muslims were also killed in that 12-month period.

Open Doors also includes what it calls “Fulani Terror Groups” in its list of perpetrators and says they were responsible for almost a third of Christians killed during those 12 months.

Frans Veerman, senior research fellow at Open Doors, said “what we see now is that Christians are still targeted, but increasingly some Muslims are targeted by Fulani militants”.

Analysts say there are many violent attacks on mosques and Muslim communities in the north-west of the country.

“One could say that this is part of the broader insecurity,” said Mr McHarry. “The reason why it is not assumed to have a religious dimension is down to the fact that the identities of the people who are carrying out these attacks against Muslims are themselves Muslims.”

In a video message on Thursday, Pelosi said she will not be seeking re-election to Congress at the end of her term in January 2027.

It marks the end of a storied political career: Pelosi, 85, served as the first female Speaker of the House and led her party in the lower chamber of Congress from 2003 until 2023.

“As we go forward, my message to the city I love is this: San Francisco, know your power,” Pelosi said.

“We have made history, we have made progress. We have always led the way, and now we must continue to do so by remaining full participants in our democracy, and fighting for the American ideals we hold dear.”

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Biya won a controversial eighth term in a fiercely disputed election last month.

He has been in power for 43 years, and addressed only one campaign rally before the election.

The nonagenarian, the world’s oldest head of state, won 54% of the vote, compared to the 35% of Issa Tchiroma Bakary, according to the official results. Tchiroma Bakary maintains he was the rightful winner of the poll and has accused the authorities of fraud, which they have denied.

The announcement of the result led to major protests across the country.

Reuters reported that 48 people lost their lives during protests across Cameroon, citing data shared by two United Nations sources.

Judges on the Constitutional Council had dismissed eight petitions, citing insufficient evidence of irregularities or a lack of jurisdiction to annul results.

Opposition candidate Issa Tchiroma Bakary whose wherabouts are unknown declared himself the winner – a claim rejected by the Cameroonian ruling party.

Earlier this week, Bakary’s call for a stay at home protest was heeded by some people across Cameroon as streets were also deserted especially in his strongholds of Garoua and Douala.

The opposition leader was a former government spokesman who broke ranks with Biya to challenge him for power.

He refused to file complaints with the Constitutional Council, whose judges have been appointed by Biya.

Mobile phone footage of the incident on Tuesday shows Sheinbaum speaking to a group of supporters on a street near the National Palace in Mexico City.

In the video, a man approaches her from behind and attempts to kiss her on the neck and place his hands on her body.

Sheinbaum moved away quickly and a member of her team stepped in, but she was visibly shaken. The offender has been arrested.

“My view is, if I don’t file a complaint, what will happen to other Mexican women? If they do this to the president, what will happen to all women in our country?” Sheinbaum said at a news conference on Wednesday.

“I decided to press charges because this is something that I experienced as a woman, but that we as women experience in our country,” she said. “I have experienced it before, when I wasn’t president, when I was a student.”

She added that she had decided to press ahead with bringing charges against the suspect as he had allegedly harassed other women in the crowd.

“A line must be drawn,” she said.

Women’s rights groups and feminist commentators have said the incident shows the extent of ingrained machismo in Mexican society, where a man believes he has the right to accost even the president if she is a woman.

Femicide is also a huge problem in Mexico, with a staggering 98% of gender-based murders estimated to go unpunished.

Sheinbaum promised to tackle the issue as a candidate, but so far in her administration there has been no discernible improvement in that area of violent crime.

The incident also comes amid discussions about presidential security and the wider safety of politicians.

As president, Sheinbaum has broadly followed the approach of her predecessor, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, in having close and regular contact with her supporters on the streets or in campaign events.

On occasion, that has presented security concerns for her team. However, she confirmed in her new conference she had no intention of changing her policy of interacting with her supporters.

The incident also happened just days after the murder of Carlos Manzo, the mayor of Uruapan, a municipality in the violent state of Michoacan, at the local Day of the Dead celebrations.

Manzo had called on Sheinbaum for greater federal support in Uruapan in the fight against drug cartels. Around 35 candidates were killed in the lead up to the general election last year in what was considered the bloodiest campaign in modern Mexico.

Since taking office, Sheinbaum has made in-roads in improving the country’s dire security situation, particularly clamping down on fentanyl-trafficking – a key issue for her US counterpart, President Trump.

Boeing did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crashed five months after Lion Air Flight 610 – another 737 MAX – crashed into the Java Sea.

An automated flight control system contributed to both crashes, which killed a total of 346 people.

The U.S. planemaker has settled more than 90% of the dozens of civil lawsuits related to the two accidents, paying out billions of dollars in compensation through lawsuits, a deferred prosecution agreement and other payments, the company previously told Reuters.

The victims in the cases – Mercy Ngami Ndivo, Abdul Jalil Qaid Ghazi Hussein and Nasrudin Mohammed – all had ties to Kenya.

Their families were represented by Chicago attorney Robert Clifford, who was appointed lead counsel in 2019 to represent the majority of plaintiffs suing Boeing for the Ethiopian Airlines crash.

The two accidents led to a 20-month grounding of the company’s best-selling jet and cost Boeing more than $20 billion.

The men are between the ages of 20 and 39 years and are trapped in Ukraine’s war-torn Donbas region.

“President Cyril Ramaphosa has ordered an investigation into the circumstances that led to the recruitment of these young men into these seemingly mercenary activities,” South Africa’s government said in a statement.

Source: Reuters  

The 34-year-old announced his transition team and said he would tackle the “twin crises” of “an authoritarian administration and an affordability crisis”.

Trump has referred to the mayor-elect as a communist – a label that Mamdani rejects, and has implied the administration would withhold federal funding from New York City if he won.

The president hinted at a new political rivalry on Election Night, posting “AND SO IT BEGINS!” on his Truth Social account shortly after Mamdani won.

In an interview with Fox News on Wednesday, Trump said that Mamdani had a “pretty open shot” in the race due to lacklustre opponents. The president said he is “torn” about the win and blasted Mamdani’s victory speech, characterising the mayor-elect as “very angry” toward him and saying he is “off to a bad start”.

“He has to be a little bit respectful of Washington, because if he’s not, he doesn’t have a chance of succeeding,” Trump said. “And I want to make him succeed. I want to make the city succeed. I don’t want to make him succeed. I want to make the city succeed.”

Trump has referred to Mamdani as “extreme,” and Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson has said his party will tie Democrats to Mamdani’s policies in next years’ midterm elections.

Mamdani is a self-ascribed democratic socialist. It has no clear definition but essentially means giving a voice to workers, not corporations. Mamdani has promised to tax millionaires to pay for expanded social programmes.

“I hope it works out for New York,” Trump said of Mamdani on Wednesday. “We’ll help him a little bit, maybe.”

In his election night speech, Mamdani addressed Trump directly, telling him to “turn the volume up” on his television to hear the enthusiasm of his supporters.

He again spoke of the president in his remarks on Wednesday, saying he would not “mince my words” when it comes to Trump. But he also acknowledged he would always leave a “door open” to have conversations with the Trump administration to discuss his priorities, such as bringing down the cost of living.

In both his victory speech and his first press conference, Mamdani spoke at length of his plans to deliver on signature campaign promises like free buses and freezing the cost of rent-stabilised apartments.

Mamdani named several members of his transition team: Lina Khan, the former Federal Trade Commission chair; Elana Leopold, who worked for former New York City mayor Bill de Blasio; and Maria Torres-Springer, a former deputy mayor in the outgoing Eric Adams administration.

They will be tasked with helping Mamdani assemble his administration ahead of his 1 January 2026 inauguration.

Mamdani also confirmed that he would keep Jessica Tisch as New York City Police Department commissioner, after facing questions about his public safety agenda throughout the campaign.

“It will be my job to stand up for the city and also to ensure that we do not look at Washington DC as if it is the reason for all of the problems right here in New York City,” Mamdani said.

The dynamic with Trump will likely hover over Mamdani’s transition and the early months of his administration. He will be sworn in as mayor on 1 January. Mamdani will also likely have to navigate Trump’s ongoing immigration enforcement operations in the city.

“I think his threats are inevitable,” Mamdani said in an interview with ABC News on Wednesday.

“I’m looking forward to showing the power of an example here in New York City, an example of what it means to not just diagnose the despair in working people’s lives as the cost of living crisis, but to deliver on it,” Mamdani said. “And that’s the contrast between myself and President Trump.”

President Donald Trump last week put Nigeria back on a list of countries that the U.S. says have violated religious freedom, and said on Saturday he had asked the Defence Department to prepare for possible “fast” military action if Nigeria does not crack down on the killing of Christians.

Washington’s decision to designate Nigeria as a violator of religious freedoms has strained diplomatic ties between the two countries.

THREATS OF MILITARY ACTION UNWARRANTED, MINISTER SAYS

Defending Nigeria’s record, Information Minister Mohammed Idris told a press briefing that Trump’s threats of military action were unwarranted and misrepresented Nigeria’s complex security challenges.

“…any narrative suggesting that the Nigerian State is failing to take action against religious attacks is based on misinformation or faulty data,” Idris said.

Nigerian Chief of Defence Staff General Olufemi Oluyede said on Monday the country faced terrorism, not persecution of Christians, and the Nigerian presidency has said it would welcome U.S. help in fighting Islamist insurgents as long as the country’s territorial integrity is respected.

Idris said President Bola Tinubu’s government had made significant progress in tackling terrorism since taking office in May 2023.

“The Government of Nigeria remains open and willing to work closely with the Government of the United States, other friendly nations and partners, to achieve our shared goal, the complete elimination of terrorism on Nigerian soil,” Idris said.

More than 13,500 militants have been killed, 17,000 suspects arrested, and over 11,200 hostages — including women and children — rescued, he said.

Idris said terrorism affected both Christians and Muslims, and that the government is committed to ending extremist violence through military action, regional cooperation and dialogue with international partners.

Nigeria, home to more than 200 ethnic groups practicing Christianity, Islam and traditional faiths, has a history of coexistence but has also seen sporadic violence, often driven by ethnic tensions and competition over scarce resources.

The decision was made because air traffic controllers have been reporting issues with fatigue, the head of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said at a briefing with Duffy on Wednesday.

“It is unusual, just as the shutdown is unusual, just as the fact that our controllers haven’t been paid for a month is unusual,” said FAA chief Bryan Bedford

During the shutdown, now the longest in US history, controllers have had to keep working without pay, prompting some to call out sick or take side jobs.

The flight reductions will be gradual, starting at 4% of domestic flights on Friday, then rising to 5% on Saturday and 6% on Sunday, before hitting the full 10% next week, Reuters reported after the announcement, citing four unnamed sources.

The names of the affected airports – all high-traffic locations – will be released on Thursday, the officials said.

The cancellations could affect between 3,500 and 4,000 flights per day.

“We are seeing pressures build in a way that we don’t feel – if we allow it to go unchecked – will allow us to continue to tell the public that we operate the safest airline system in the world,” Bedford said.

Duffy said air travel is still safe, and the decision to cancel the flights was being made to maintain safety and efficiency.

If the shutdown continues and adds more pressure to the system, additional restrictive measures may be required, Bedford said.

In a statement, American Airlines, the second-largest carrier in North America, said it was awaiting additional information from the FAA so it could determine which flights will be scrapped, but that “we expect the vast majority of our customers’ travel will be unaffected”.

A spokesperson for Southwest Airlines, the fourth largest, said in a statement that the company is still evaluating how the flight restrictions will affect its services, and will let customers know as soon as possible.

“We continue to urge Congress to immediately resolve its impasse and restore the National Airspace System to its full capacity,” the spokesperson added.

Delta Airlines declined to comment. The BBC has also reached out to other major US airlines.

Once government funds ran out on 1 October, most federal workers were sent home and told they would be paid once the government reopened. Those deemed essential, like controllers, though, had to keep doing their jobs without pay.

Almost immediately after the shutdown started, airports began feeling the effects. Some had to ground flights for hours after air traffic controllers called out sick, while others relied on controllers from other airports.

Nick Daniels, the president of the labor union representing more than 20,000 aviation workers, put the situation into stark terms on Wednesday.

“Air traffic controllers are texting ‘I don’t even have enough money to put gas in my car to come to work,'” he told CNN.

“We base what we do day in and day out on predictability,” he said. “Right now there is no predictability.”

Duffy warned earlier this week that the flight cancellations may be coming, as half of the country’s 30 major airports experience staff shortages.

He previously said there’s a risk that comes with air traffic controllers taking on additional jobs during the shutdown, and had threatened to fire controllers who do not come to work.

“They have to make a decision, do I go to work and not get a paycheque and not put food on the table? Or do I drive for Uber or DoorDash or wait tables?” Duffy said on ABC on Sunday.

At a pre-pageant ceremony, Miss Universe Thailand director Nawat Itsaragrisil took off Fatima Bosch in front of dozens of contestants for failing to post promotional content.

When she objected, Mr Nawat called security and threatened to disqualify those supporting her. Ms Bosch then left the room, and others joined her in solidarity.

Video of the incident, which was live-streamed, has been shared online. The Miss Universe Organisation (MUO) has condemned Mr Nawat’s “malicious” behaviour, for which he has since apologised.

The Miss Universe contestants, who are the winners of national pageants in their home countries, attended Tuesday’s event in their sashes and gowns.

Some can be heard shouting back at Mr Nawat in the video, after he raises his voice to reprimand Ms Bosch and repeatedly tells her to stop talking.

As many of them stand to show support, Mr Nawat says: “If anyone wants to continue the contest, sit down. If you step out, the rest of the girls continue.”

Despite this, the majority of the women in the video appear standing, with several heading towards the door.

After leaving the event on Tuesday, Ms Bosch told the press the 60-year-old executive was “not respectful” and said he had called her “dumb”.

Mr Nawat has disputed this, claiming his words had been misunderstood.

He is widely reported to have called the 25-year-old a “dumbhead”. But at a press conference he later claimed he was saying she had caused “damage”.

His conduct prompted a stern rebuke from the MUO, which has sent a delegation of international executives to take over running the competition.

In a video statement, MUO President Raul Rocha said Mr Nawat had “forgotten the true meaning of what it means to be a genuine host”.

He said the Thai official had “humiliated, insulted and showed a lack of respect” to Ms Bosch, and committed the “serious abuse of having called security to intimidate a defenceless woman”.

Mr Nawat’s participation in the pageant would be limited “as much as possible” or eliminated entirely, he said, adding the MUO would be taking “legal actions” against him.

“I wish to reiterate that Miss Universe is an empowerment platform for women so that their voices can be heard in the world,” Mr Rocha said.

Among those to walk out on Tuesday was reigning Miss Universe Victoria Kjaer Theilvig of Denmark.

“This is about women’s rights,” she said as she left the event. “This is not how things should be handled. To trash another girl is beyond disrespectful… That’s why I’m taking my coat and I’m walking out.”

Ms Bosch later said in an interview: “I just want to let my country know, I’m not afraid to make my voice heard. It’s here stronger than ever. I have a purpose. I have things to say.

“We’re in the 21st century. I’m not a doll to be made up, styled and have my clothes changed,” she added.

“I came here to be a voice for all the women and all the girls who fight for causes and to tell my country that I’m completely committed to that.”

Video of Mr Nawat has outraged fans of the pageant, with many heavily criticising his actions and praising Ms Bosch’s response.

In a social media video statement, Mr Nawat said: “If anyone feels bad, uncomfortable, or affected, I apologise to everyone. I especially apologised to the girls who were present, around 75 of them.”

The Miss Universe competition has pressed on despite this controversy, with contestants taking part in a welcome event in Bangkok on Wednesday.

The winner will be crowned the new Miss Universe on 21 November.

Suzanne Rees, 80, had been hiking on Lizard Island with fellow passengers from the Coral Adventurer, but broke off from the group for a rest. The ship left without her, only returning several hours later when the crew realised Ms Rees was missing.

Officials from the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (Amsa) boarded the vessel on Wednesday morning local time.

Amsa, which is probing the incident alongside Queensland Police and the state coroner, told the BBC it could not comment on the investigation.

The 60-day cruise around Australia, which had cost guests tens of thousands of dollars, was cancelled due to Ms Rees’ death as well as mechanical issues.

The Coral Adventurer had been expected to dock at Cairns – where its operator Coral Expeditions is based.

But a lack of available berths meant it instead dropped anchor a few kilometres north early on Tuesday evening, off the coast of Yorkey’s Knob, where it remained on Wednesday morning.

The BBC understands only a skeleton crew were on board.

Ship tracking data showed one of the vessel’s smaller boats, known as a tender, moving between the ship and the shore on Tuesday night.

All passengers disembarked at Horn Island in the far north of Queensland over the weekend and were transferred to the mainland on a charter plane.

The Coral Adventurer caters for up to 120 guests with 46 crew, according to the company’s website. It was purpose-built to access remote areas of Australia’s coast.

Tracking data shows the vessel initially left Cairns at around 07:30 local time on 24 October – after a delay of around a week because of mechanical issues.

The next day it reached Lizard Island – also known as Jiigurru or Dyiigurra – in the northern area of the Great Barrier Reef for the first stop on the journey.

Passengers aboard were transported by tenders to the secluded island – home to a luxury resort and a research station – for a day trip with the option of hiking or snorkelling.

Suzanne Rees’ daughter, Katherine Rees, said last week that her family was “shocked and saddened that the Coral Adventurer left Lizard Island after an organised excursion without my mum”.

She described her mother, who was from Sydney, as an “active 80-year-old” who was a member of a bushwalking group.

“From the little we have been told, it seems that there was a failure of care and common sense.”

Ms Rees added that she hoped the coroner’s inquiry would be able to pinpoint what “the company should have done that might have saved mum’s life”.

“We understand from the police that it was a very hot day, and mum fell ill on the hill climb,” she said.

“She was asked to head down, unescorted. Then the ship left, apparently without doing a passenger count.

“At some stage in that sequence, or shortly after, mum died, alone.”

A search and rescue effort late on Saturday 25 October – the day she went missing – did not find any sign of Ms Rees. Her body was discovered the following day.

Last week Mark Fifield, the chief executive of the cruise operator Coral Expeditions, confirmed the firm was “working closely with Queensland Police and other authorities to support their investigation”.

Mr Fifield said that the company was “deeply sorry that this has occurred” and had offered its full support to the Rees family.

Source: BBC

Typhoon Kalmaegi has flooded entire towns on the most populated central island of Cebu, where at least 49 of the fatalities were located. There are 75 others missing and 17 injured, officials said on Wednesday.

Videos show people sheltering on rooftops, while cars and shipping containers have been swept through the streets.

The official death toll, which is likely to rise, includessix crew members of a military helicopter that crashed on Mindanao island, south of Cebu, after it wasdeployed to assist in relief efforts.

The aircraft went down on Tuesday near Agusan del Sur and was one of four sent to help.

“Communication with the helicopter was lost, which immediately prompted the launch of a search and rescue operation,” the Philippine Air Force said. Later, a spokeswoman said six bodies had been recovered, believed to be of the pilot and crew.

The typhoon, locally named Tino, has weakened since making landfall early on Tuesday, but has continued to bring winds of more than 80mph (130km/h).

It is forecast to move across the Visayas islands region and out over the South China Sea by Wednesday.

But residents across Cebu province are still reeling from the deadly floods. More than 400,000 people have been displaced by the disaster, according to a report on Wednesday by the national disaster agency.

Jel-an Moira Servas, a business owner who lives in Mandaue city, told the BBC that she found herself waist-deep in water within minutes when her house became flooded. She quickly evacuated with her family, bringing only light items like food and electronics.

“Right now, the rain has completely stopped and the sun is out, but our houses are still filled with mud, and everything inside is in shambles,” she said. “We don’t even know where to start cleaning. I can’t even look at it without crying.”

Rafaelito Alejandro, the deputy administrator at the Office of Civil Defence told local radio station DZMM that the current challenge for rescuers was clearing “debris and cars on the road”.

Carlos Jose Lañas, a volunteer rescuer, told the BBC that despite preparing for the worst case, they were caught off-guard by the extent of the flooding.

“This is the worst flood I’ve ever experienced,” the 19-year-old said. “Almost all the rivers here in Cebu overflowed. Even emergency responders did not expect this kind of scenario.”

“The rescue operation was too overwhelming for the emergency responders around Cebu, because there were a lot of people asking for help.”

In a Facebook post, Cebu governor Pamela Baricuatro described the disaster as “unprecedented”.

“We were expecting the winds to be the dangerous part, but… the water is what’s truly putting our people at risk,” she said. “The floodwaters are just devastating.”

Baricuatro declared a state of calamity in Cebu on Tuesday evening to facilitate disaster relief efforts.

Most of the deaths were due to drowning, reports said. The storm has been sending torrents of muddy water down hillsides and into towns and cities.

Damage to residential areas on Cebu was extensive, with many small buildings swept away and a thick carpet of mud left by the retreating floodwaters. Rescue teams took to boats to free people who were trapped inside their houses.

Don del Rosario, 28, was among those in Cebu City who sought refuge on an upper floor as the storm raged.

“I’ve been here for 28 years, and this is by far the worst we’ve experienced,” he told the AFP news agency.

The Philippines is hit by an average of 20 storms and typhoons each year.

The latest comes barely a month after back-to-back typhoons killed over a dozen people and wrought damage to infrastructure and crops.

Super Typhoon Ragasa, known locally as Nando, struck in late September, followed swiftly by Typhoon Bualoi, known locally as Opong.

In the months before, an extraordinarily wet monsoon season caused widespread flooding, sparking anger and protests over unfinished and sub-standard flood control systems that have been blamed on corruption.

On 30 September, dozens were killed and injured after a powerful 6.9 magnitude earthquake struck the central Philippines, with Cebu bearing the brunt of the damage.

Typhoon Kalmaegi is forecast to move on to Vietnam, which is already seeing record-breaking rainfall.

Source: BBC

Earlier, Andy Beshear said the plane’s three crew members were likely to be among the dead after the freight plane exploded as it departed Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport at around 17:15 local time (22:15 GMT).

At least 11 other people were injured when the plane crashed, sending thick plumes of black smoke into the sky.

Officials warned that people suffered “very significant” injuries in the incident and the death toll could rise.

Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg said on Wednesday that the airport had reopened its runway so that flights were able to resume.

At least 16 different families have reported loved ones unaccounted for, according to Beshear.

Two workers at the auto business that was struck were still unaccounted for as of Tuesday evening, and it is not known how many customers were on the premises when the crash happened.

In a statement, UPS said three crew members were on board, adding “we have not confirmed any injuries/casualties.”

A preliminary investigation is under way but officials have said it is too early to say what caused the crash.

Officials did note, though, that the massive blaze was due to the amount of fuel onboard the aircraft, which was beginning a journey of around 4,300 miles (6,920km) to Hawaii.

The aircraft was carrying 38,000 gallons (144,000 litres) of fuel when it crashed.

It has not been confirmed what cargo was on board, though officials have said the plane was not carrying anything that would create a heightened risk of contamination.

The explosion engulfed at least two nearby businesses, including a petroleum recycling company. A shelter-in-place order was initially issued for within five miles of the airport due to concerns of further explosions and air pollution, but was later reduced to just one mile.

All departing flights for Tuesday evening were cancelled, the airport said in a statement on X.

Louisville Fire Department chief Brian O’Neal said the amount of fuel spilled at the crash site made it a “very dangerous situation”.

An order warning people to shelter in place was reduced from a five-mile radius from the airport to a one-mile radius as crews worked to contain the blaze on Tuesday night.

At a press conference, Beshear warned people not to go to the crash site.

“Anyone who has seen the images and the video knows how violent this crash is,” he said.

“There are still dangerous things that are flammable, that are potentially explosive.”

Beshear said he would not “speculate” as to what caused the incident, adding that the National Transportation Safety Bureau (NTSB) would be leading the investigation.

The NTSB’s investigative team was due to arrive in Kentucky on Wednesday.

Louisville Metro Police Dept Chief Paul Humphrey said that the crash site will be “an ongoing active scene for the next several days”.

He added: “We don’t know how long it’s going to take to render that scene safe for the investigation to take place.”

The model of aircraft involved was a MD-11F triple-engine plane, which first entered service 34 years ago with Thai Airways as a passenger jet, but was transferred to UPS in 2006.

The aircraft was originally manufactured by McDonnell Douglas, which merged with Boeing in 1997.

In 2023, FedEx and UPS both announced plans to begin retiring their fleets of MD-11s over the next decade as part of plans to modernise their fleets.

In a statement, Boeing said it is “ready to support our customer” and that “our concern is for the safety and well-being of all those affected.”

It added that it will offer technical assistance to the NTSB.

Louisville is home to UPS Worldport, a global hub for the delivery firm’s air cargo operations and its largest package handling facility in the world.

During the press conference, Louisville Metro Council member Betsy Ruhe said that the city is a “UPS town”, and that every resident would know somebody who works for company.

“They’re all texting their friends, their family, trying to make sure everyone is safe,” she said.

In a statement, UPS said it was “terribly saddened” by the incident and would be halting package sorting operations at Worldport on Tuesday night.

It added: “UPS is committed to the safety of our employees, and customers and the communities we serve. This is particularly true in Louisville, home to our airline and thousands of UPSers.”

Source: BBC

Typhoon Kalmaegi has flooded large areas, including entire towns on the most populated central island of Cebu, where most fatalities occurred. Thirteen others are missing.

Videos show people sheltering on rooftops, while cars and shipping containers have been swept through the streets.

The official death toll excludes the six crew members of a military helicopter that crashed on Mindanao island, south of Cebu, after it was deployed to assist in relief efforts.

The aircraft went down on Tuesday near Agusan del Sur and was one of four sent to help.

“Communication with the helicopter was lost, which immediately prompted the launch of a search and rescue operation,” the Philippine Air Force said. Later, a spokeswoman said six bodies had been recovered, believed to be of the pilot and crew.

The typhoon, locally named Tino, has weakened since making landfall early on Tuesday, but has continued to bring winds of more than 80mph (130km/h).

It is forecast to move across the Visayas islands region and out over the South China Sea by Wednesday.

“The situation in Cebu is really unprecedented,” provincial governor Pamela Baricuatro said in a Facebook post.

“We were expecting the winds to be the dangerous part, but… the water is what’s truly putting our people at risk,” she said. “The floodwaters are just devastating.”

Baricuatro declared a state of calamity in Cebu on Tuesday evening to facilitate disaster relief efforts.

Most of the deaths were due to drowning, reports said. The storm has been sending torrents of muddy water down hillsides and into towns and cities.

Damage to residential areas on Cebu was extensive, with many small buildings swept away and a thick carpet of mud left by the retreating floodwaters. Rescue teams took to boats to free people who were trapped inside their houses.

Don del Rosario, 28, was among those in Cebu City who sought refuge on an upper floor as the storm raged.

“I’ve been here for 28 years, and this is by far the worst we’ve experienced,” he told the AFP news agency.

In total, almost 400,000 people were moved from the typhoon’s path, Rafaelito Alejandro, deputy administrator at the Office of Civil Defence, told a news conference.

The Philippines is hit by an average of 20 storms and typhoons each year.

The latest comes barely a month after back-to-back typhoons killed over a dozen people and wrought damage to infrastructure and crops.

Super Typhoon Ragasa, known locally as Nando, struck in late September, followed swiftly by Typhoon Bualoi, known locally as Opong.

In the months before, an extraordinarily wet monsoon season caused widespread flooding, sparking anger and protests over unfinished and sub-standard flood control systems that have been blamed on corruption.

On 30 September, dozens were killed and injured after a powerful 6.9 magnitude earthquake struck the central Philippines, with Cebu bearing the brunt of the damage.

Typhoon Kalmaegi is forecast to move on to Vietnam, which is already seeing record-breaking rainfall.

Source: BBC  

The boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was taken to Ghana in March 2024 after being told he was visiting a sick relative.

In fact, his parents wanted him to move there after concerns about his behaviour in London, including absences from school, having unexplained money and carrying a knife, court papers said. The boy denies being part of a gang or carrying a weapon.

A judge ruled on Monday that the boy should remain in Ghana and prepare to return after completing the equivalent of GCSEs.

After saying he was unhappy and homesick in Ghana, the boy found publicly funded lawyers and brought a case against his parents to the High Court in London in February.

He lost his first bid to return when a High Court judge ruled he was at risk of suffering greater harm in returning to the UK.

Then, in June, he won a Court of Appeal bid to have the case reheard after the most senior judge in the Family Division, Sir Andrew McFarlane, said there had been confusion in the previous decision.

On Tuesday, the High Court handed down its judgement, which ruled against the boy’s wishes, citing ongoing disruption, including to his schoolwork and to his family life.

Judge Mrs Justice Theis said: “I am acutely aware that the conclusion I have reached does not accord with [his] wishes and how that will feel for him…

“[He] has the talent, ability and intelligence to make this work together with his family. It will be difficult but they all have the common aim for [him] to return to live with his family.”

The boy, who is nearly 15 and has British and Ghanian citizenship, remains in school in Ghana and is studying for his GCSEs.

He previously told the court that he was “living in hell” and was “desperate” to return to the UK.

He described feeling “like an alien” in Ghana and being “abandoned” by his family. He does not speak Twi and said he has struggled to make friends and feels socially anxious.

The boy “welcomes” the judge’s decision to set out a clear roadmap for his return to the UK, said his solicitor, James Netto, of the International Family Law Group.

Mr Netto described the case as “extremely difficult… on every level”.

He said the boy never wanted to be in a position where he was “obliged” to bring court proceedings against his own parents, but their actions “left him with no meaningful alternative”.

“His position remains unchanged: he wants to return home,” Mr Netto added.

The boy’s mother said she would not be able to care for him if he returned to the UK before his GCSEs were over.

She said: “It is really hard to be away from him… I feared and continue to fear if he were to come back now, that he could end up dead. I know he does not see it like that…”

Handing down her judgement, Mrs Justice Theis explained that the boy should “remain living in Ghana with the aim of setting out a road map and taking the necessary steps for [him] to return here after completing his GCSEs”.

She added: “Whether that would take place will need to be reviewed nearer the time.”

The “road map” includes taking part in family therapy funded by their local authority.

The revelation came during a candid conversation on The Honest Bunch Podcast, where Waje retraced how a young church singer from the east of Nigeria found herself on one of West Africa’s most played tracks.

Waje said the opportunity came early in her career after she was signed to a small label as a teenager.

She described being a young mother, singing in church and learning on the job rather than navigating the business side of music.

When the song exploded, she said she did not fully grasp its reach, and because she trusted the label and lacked knowledge about royalties and contracts, any money that might have been generated did not reach her.

She succinctly summarised her experience by saying, “I didn’t make any money.”

The track in question appears on defunct music group P-Square’s 2007 album Game Over and is now commonly credited as featuring Waje on various streaming and catalog listings, a detail that confirms her vocal role on the record.

Yet Waje’s account highlights a recurring industry problem of young vocalists contributing to major hits without being equipped to claim credit or earnings at the time.

Beyond the financial issue, Waje used the interview to sketch the very human side of her rise. She recalled freestyling and finishing her own breakout song, “I Wish”, in P-Square’s home studio; the scramble to get a passport that stopped her from appearing in the ‘Do Me’ video shot abroad; and the way early success arrived before she had the infrastructure to turn it into sustained career momentum.

She also reflected on lasting relationships with artists who helped launch her, including moments of mentorship and protection that shaped her path.

Waje declined to fan public flames about longstanding disputes surrounding P-Square, saying she prefers not to weigh in on family fallouts that are complex and private.

Her wider message in the interview is clear: talent can open doors, but without basic business knowledge and proper management, artists can easily be left out of the rewards that follow a hit.

Source: Amelley Djosu

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“His beloved wife of 61 years, Lynne, his daughters, Liz and Mary, and other family members were with him as he passed,” the family said, adding that he died due to complications of pneumonia and cardiac and vascular disease.

“Dick Cheney was a great and good man who taught his children and grandchildren to love our country, and to live lives of courage, honor, love, kindness, and fly fishing,” the family added.

“We are grateful beyond measure for all Dick Cheney did for our country. And we are blessed beyond measure to have loved and been loved by this noble giant of a man.”

The 46th vice president, who served alongside Republican President George W. Bush for two terms between 2001 and 2009, was for decades a towering and polarizing Washington power player. In his final years, however, Cheney, still a hardline conservative, nevertheless became largely ostracized from his party over his intense criticism of President Donald Trump whom he branded a “coward” and the greatest-ever threat to the republic.

Cheney sits next to President George W. Bush as he meets with his cabinet and advisers, including Secretary of State Colin Powell, on September 15, 2001, at Camp David in Maryland. J. Scott Applewhite/AP

In an ironic coda to a storied political career, he cast his final vote in a presidential election in 2024 for a liberal Democrat, and fellow member of the vice president’s club, Kamala Harris, in a reflection of how the populist GOP had turned against his traditional conservatism.

Cheney was plagued by cardiovascular disease for most of his adult life, surviving a series of heart attacks, to lead a full, vigorous life and lived many years in retirement after a heart transplant in 2012 that he hailed in a 2014 interview as “the gift of life itself.”

Cheney, a sardonic former Wyoming representative, White House chief of staff and defense secretary, was enjoying a lucrative career in the corporate world when he was charged by George W. Bush with vetting potential vice-presidential nominees. The quest ended with Cheney himself taking the oath of office as a worldly number two to a callow new president who arrived in the Oval Office after a disputed election.

While caricatures of Cheney as the real president do not accurately capture the true dynamics of Bush’s inner circle, he relished the enormous influence that he wielded from behind the scenes.

Cheney was in the White House, with the president out of town on the crisp, clear morning of September 11, 2001. In the split second of horror when a second hijacked plane hit the World Trade Center in New York, he said he became a changed man, determined to avenge the al Qaeda-orchestrated attacks and to enforce US power throughout the Middle East with a neo-conservative doctrine of regime change and pre-emptive war.

“At that moment, you knew this was a deliberate act. This was a terrorist act,” he recalled of that day in an interview with CNN’s John King in 2002.

Cheney reflected in later years on how the attacks left him with overwhelming sense of responsibility to ensure such an assault on the homeland never happened again. Perceptions however that he was the sole driving force behind the war on terror and US ventures into Iraq and Afghanistan are misleading.

Contemporary and historic accounts of the administration show that Bush was his own self-styled “The Decider.”

A changed man

From a bunker deep below the White House, Cheney went into crisis mode, directing the response of a grief-stricken nation suddenly at war. He gave the extraordinary order to authorize the shooting down of any more hijacked airliners in the event they were headed to the White House or the US Capitol building. For many, his frequent departures to “undisclosed” locations outside Washington to preserve the presidential chain of succession reinforced his image as an omnipotent figure waging covert war from the shadows. His hawkishness and alarmist view of a nation facing grave threats was not an outlier at the time – especially during a traumatic period that included anthrax mailings and sniper shootings around Washington, DC, that exacerbated a sense of public fear even though they were unrelated to 9/11.

Cheney watches news coverage of the terror attacks on September 11, 2001. US National Archives

The September 11 attacks unleashed the US war in Afghanistan to overthrow the Taliban, which was harboring al Qaeda, though the terror group’s leader Osama bin Laden escaped. Soon, Cheney was agitating for widening the US assault to Iraq and its leader, Saddam Hussein, whose forces he had helped to eject from Kuwait in the first Gulf War as President George H.W. Bush’s Pentagon chief.

The vice president’s aggressive warnings about Iraq’s supposed weapons of mass destruction programs, alleged links to al Qaeda and intent to furnish terrorists with deadly weapons to attack the United States played a huge role in laying the groundwork for the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. Congressional reports and other post-war inquiries later showed that Cheney and other administration officials exaggerated, misrepresented or did not properly portray faulty intelligence about weapons of mass destruction programs that Iraq turned out not to possess. One of Cheney’s most infamous claims, that the chief 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta, met Iraqi intelligence officials in Prague, was never substantiated, including by the independent commission into the September 11 attacks.

But Cheney insisted in 2005 that he and other top officials were acting on “the best available intelligence,” at the time.
While admitting that the flaws in the intelligence were plain in hindsight, he insisted that any claim that the data was “distorted, hyped, or fabricated” was “utterly false.”

Cheney watches F-18 attack planes headed for Afghanistan catapult from the USS John C. Stennis in the Arabian Sea on March 15, 2002. J. Scott Applewhite/AP

The conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan also led the US down a dark legal and moral path including “enhanced interrogations” of terror suspects that critics blasted as torture. But Cheney – who was at the center of every facet of the global war on terrorism – insisted methods like waterboarding were perfectly acceptable. Cheney was also an outspoken advocate for holding terror suspects without trial at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba – a practice that critics at home and abroad branded an affront to core American values.

No regrets

Cheney became a symbol of the excesses of the anti-terror campaigns and the fatally false premises and poor planning that turned the initially successful invasion of Iraq into a bloody quagmire. He left office reviled by Democrats and with an approval rating of 31%, according to the Pew Research Center.

To the end of his life, Cheney expressed no regrets, certain he had merely done what was necessary to respond to an unprecedented attack on the US mainland that killed nearly 2,800 people and led to nearly two decades of foreign wars that divided the nation and transformed its politics.

“I would do it again in a minute,” Cheney said, when confronted by a Senate Intelligence Committee report in 2014 that concluded enhanced interrogation methods as brutal and ineffective and responsible for damaging US standing in the eyes of the world.

Of the Iraq war, he told CNN in 2015: “It was the right thing to do then. I believed it then and I believe it now.”

‘He’s a coward’

Cheney’s aggressive anti-terror policies fit into a personal doctrine that justified extraordinary presidential powers with limited congressional oversight. That was in line with his belief that the authority of the executive branch had been mistakenly eroded in the aftermath of the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal that led to the resignation of his first presidential boss, President Richard Nixon.

Cheney walks with his daughter Rep. Liz Cheney through the Capitol on January 6, 2022, the one year anniversary of the Capitol insurrection. Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Yet in his final years, Cheney emerged as a fierce critic of a man who had an even more expansive view of the powers of the presidency than he did – Trump. Cheney had supported Trump in 2016 despite his criticism of Bush-Cheney foreign policies and his transformation of the party of Reagan into a populist, nationalist GOP. But the ending of the president’s first term, when his refusal to accept his 2020 election defeat led to the January 6 insurrection, caused Cheney to speak out, in a rare, public manner.

The former vice president’s daughter, then-Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, meanwhile, sacrificed a promising career in the GOP to oppose Trump after his attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election and the US Capitol insurrection on January 6, 2021. In an ad for his daughter’s unsuccessful campaign to fight off a pro-Trump candidate’s primary challenge in 2022, Dick Cheney – who was, by then, rarely seen in public – looked directly into the camera from under a wide brimmed cowboy hat and delivered an extraordinary direct message.

“In our nation’s 246-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump,” Cheney said.

“He is a coward. A real man wouldn’t lie to his supporters. He lost his election, and he lost big. I know it. He knows it, and deep down, I think most Republicans know.”

Early days out West

Richard Bruce Cheney was born January 30, 1941, in Lincoln, Nebraska. While living in the small mountain town of Casper, Wyoming, he met his high school sweetheart and future wife Lynne Vincent. Cheney was accepted to Yale University on a scholarship, but he struggled to fit in and maintain his grades. By his own admission, he was kicked out.

He returned West to work on power lines and was twice arrested for driving under the influence. In a turning point for Cheney, he was given an ultimatum from Lynne, who had “made it clear she wasn’t interested in marrying a lineman for the county,” he told The New Yorker. “I buckled down and applied myself. Decided it was time to make something of myself,” he told the magazine.

Cheney went back to school and earned a bachelor’s and master’s in political science from University of Wyoming. The couple was married in 1964.

Cheney is survived by Lynne, his daughters Liz and Mary Cheney and seven grandchildren.

A veteran Washington power broker

Cheney began honing his inside power game – at which he became a master – as an aide to Nixon.

He was later picked by Donald Rumsfeld as his deputy White House chief of staff under President Gerald Ford and then succeeded his mentor and close friend in the job in 1975 when Rumsfeld departed to become defense secretary. Cheney was instrumental in reviving their partnership in 2001 when he recalled Rumsfeld from the political wilderness to return to the Pentagon.
The pair formed an extraordinary backroom alliance in the Bush administration throughout the war on terror and the Iraq war – much to the frustration of more moderate members of the administration including then-Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice – who took over from Powell in the second term.

White House Chief of Staff Cheney chats with President Gerald Ford outside the White House as they walk to a helicopter in Washington, DC, on November 7, 1975. Bob Daugherty/AP

While Democratic President Jimmy Carter was in the White House, Cheney decided to run for Congress and was elected to Wyoming’s sole US House seat in 1978. Cheney served six terms, rising to become House minority whip, and racked up a very conservative voting record.

In 1989, President George H. W. Bush, who had served with Cheney in the Ford administration, tapped him to serve as his defense secretary, calling him a “trusted friend, adviser.” He was confirmed by the Senate in a 92-0 vote.

The 45-year-old, who plays divorce attorney Allura Grant in the Disney+ upcoming legal drama All’s Fair, tells the BBC she’s “more into criminal justice and reform work” and adds, “I don’t think I can ever really do family law”.

Kardashian has been studying to become a lawyer for the last six years, undertaking an apprenticeship that negates the need for a university degree.

“It was the wildest idea that I was going to law school – but to me it all makes sense and I hope that I’m forever curious and always want to try new things,” she says.

Kardashian, who has four children with ex-husband Kanye West, also runs fashion and shapewear brand SKIMS and appears in the reality series The Kardashians with her family.

Her interest in criminal justice has been documented on her reality TV shows, where she has advocated for prison reform in the US and sentence reduction for first-time offenders.

Not content with her already packed-out schedule, her recent pivot to acting has raised eyebrows – but it hasn’t dented Kardashian’s ambition.

“I guess I just don’t live in those expectation boxes,” she says.

She says she “loves taking on constructive criticism” but doesn’t understand why people think she “can’t do something that you want to do or are curious or want to learn about”.

Her first real introduction to acting was her 2023 casting in the 12th season of American Horror Story, in which she appeared as a publicist.

Kardashian received mostly positive critical reviews for her portrayal, which encouraged her to take on more acting roles.

All’s Fair reunites the star with American Horror Story showrunner Ryan Murphy, who is also behind hit series such as Glee and Pose.

His latest project, All’s Fair, is a legal drama set in the US, which sees Kardashian play a divorce lawyer alongside Sarah Paulson, Naomi Watts, Glenn Close, Niecy Nash and Teyana Taylor.

Kardashian says her priority was to “come in prepared” to set, adding she would spend every day “watching and learning from these women”, who she called “the best acting coaches in the world”.

She adds that there was a lot of pressure on her because those behind the show were “taking a chance on working with me”.

“The last thing I would want to do is be unprofessional, be late or not know my lines,” she says.

‘I’ve experienced it with my family’

All’s Fair, which Disney+ says holds the records for their most-watched trailer of all time, is a spectacular dramatisation of the lives of lawyers tasked with navigating divorce for rich and famous female clients.

Kardashian says divorce is “such a relatable topic” after experiencing it “with my family and parents growing up”.

Kardashian herself has been divorced three times – most recently from Kanye West in 2022 after eight years of marriage.

Whilst she says the stories of the women in the show “are not based on anything I’ve been through”, she was “definitely inspired” by practising to be a lawyer.

Kardashian’s co-star Watts also recognises that, whilst the show might be sensationalised, the story of “women who feel like they’re finished, [their lives] are all over, broken and in pieces” at the end of a relationship is one that is familiar to many.

Nash, who stars as a legal investigator in the show, says that divorce is something many “have in common with other women and celebrities” and thinks the show is so appealing due to its relatability, even if it’s a more dramatic way than real life.

Paulson adds that although the central theme of the show may be divorce, “conflict and resolution is a beautiful part of the show”, which also “tackles big, important and emotional relationships”.

‘Ryan Murphy’s magic’

Much of the talk around the show has been about the strength of the all-female cast, which is filled with some of Hollywood’s biggest names.

The cast all echo that it was Ryan Murphy – who has won six Emmy awards, a Tony award and two Grammy awards in his 25-year career in television, film and theatre – that convinced them to sign up.

“He [Murphy] calls and I don’t tend to say no to him,” Paulson jokes.

Paulson is perhaps one of Murphy’s greatest collaborators, having appeared in nine series of American Horror Story between 2011 and 2021.

Kardashian says the cast all went into the project “blindly”, but it was great to see Murphy’s “magic come to life”.

“Ryan was really intentional in that way; he really loves to uplift women and make these female-led casts, which is super empowering. He wrote it that way; he saw it no other way,” she adds.

Watts also agrees, noting that the writer and producer “manages to identify spaces that haven’t necessarily been visited before”.

“He’s wonderful at creating stories for women of a certain age, and for me, that’s where I am in my life.

“These women all get to do these incredible things together – we’re such a different group – different ages and everything, and we’re supporting each other through the story,” Watts adds.

Murphy received a five-year developmental deal with Netflix in 2018, which was reportedly worth $300m (£228m).

During that time, he made two true crime series for the streaming service – Dahmer- Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story and Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, plus drama series The Politician.

Murphy now has a new deal with Disney+, which includes All’s Fair.

He serves as executive producer on the show alongside Kardashian, Close, Paulson, Watts and Nash.

Kris Jenner, Kardashian’s mother and manager, also receives a director credit.

Source: BBC  

Viswashkumar Ramesh walked away from the wreckage of the London-bound flight in Ahmedabad in extraordinary scenes that amazed the world.

He said it was a “miracle” he escaped but told how he has lost everything, as his younger brother Ajay was a few seats away on the flight and died in the crash in June.

Since returning to his home in Leicester, Mr Ramesh has struggled with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), his advisers said, and has been unable to speak to his wife and four-year-old son.

Flames engulfed the Boeing 787 flight when it went down shortly after take-off in western India.

Shocking video shared at the time showed Mr Ramesh walking away from the aftermath with seemingly superficial injuries, as smoke billowed in the background.

Speaking to BBC News, an emotional Mr Ramesh, whose first language is Gujarati, said: “I’m only one survivor. Still, I’m not believing. It’s a miracle.

“I lost my brother as well. My brother is my backbone. Last few years, he was always supporting me.”

He described the devastating impact the ordeal has had on his family life.

“Now I’m alone. I just sit in my room alone, not talking with my wife, my son. I just like to be alone in my house,” Mr Ramesh said.

He spoke from his hospital bed in India at the time, describing how he had managed to unbuckle himself and crawl out of the wreckage, and met Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi while receiving treatment for his injuries.

Of the passengers and crew killed, 169 were Indian nationals and 52 were Britons, while 19 others were killed on the ground.

A preliminary report into the crash, published by India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau in July, said fuel supply to the engines was cut off just seconds after take-off. Meanwhile, an investigation is ongoing and the airline said care for Mr Ramesh, and all families affected by the tragedy, “remains our absolute priority”.

This is the first time the 39-year-old has spoken to the media since he has been back in the UK. Several news organisations were invited for an interview and a documentary crew was also filming in the room.

The BBC had detailed discussions with his advisers around his duty of care before the interview.

When asked about his memories of the day of the crash, he said: “I can’t say anything about that now.”

‘I’m suffering’

Flanked by local community leader Sanjiv Patel and spokesman Radd Seiger, Mr Ramesh said it was too painful to recall the events of the disaster, and broke down during parts of an interview at the home of Mr Patel in Leicester.

Mr Ramesh described the anguish he and his family are now living through.

“For me, after this accident… very difficult.

“Physically, mentally, also my family as well, mentally… my mum last four months, she is sitting every day outside the door, not talking, nothing.

“I’m not talking to anyone else. I do not like to talk with anyone else.

“I can’t talk about much. I’m thinking all night, I’m suffering mentally.

“Every day is painful for the whole family.”

Mr Ramesh also spoke about the physical injuries he suffered in the crash, which saw him escape his seat – 11A – through an opening in the fuselage.

He says he suffers pain in his leg, shoulder, knee and back, and has not been able to work or drive since the tragedy.

“When I walk, not walk properly, slowly, slowly, my wife help,” he added.

Mr Ramesh was diagnosed with PTSD while he was being treated in hospital in India but has not received any medical treatment since being back home, his advisers said.

They described him as being lost and broken, with a long journey of recovery ahead, and are demanding a meeting with Air India’s executives, claiming he has been treated poorly by the airline since the crash.

“They’re in crisis, mentally, physically, financially,” Mr Patel said.

“It’s devastated his family.

“Whoever’s responsible at the highest level should be on the ground meeting the victims of this tragic event, and understanding their needs and to be heard.”

‘Put things right’

Air India has offered an interim compensation payment to Mr Ramesh of £21,500, which has been accepted, but his advisers say this is not enough to meet his immediate needs.

The family fishing business in Diu in India, which Mr Ramesh ran with his brother before the crash, has since collasped, his advisers said.

Spokesman for the family Mr Seiger said they had invited Air India for a meeting on three occasions, and all three were either “ignored or turned down”.

The media interviews were the team’s way of reissuing that appeal for the fourth time, he said.

Mr Seiger added: “It’s appalling that we are having to sit here today and putting him [Viswashkumar] through this.

“The people who should be sitting here today are the executives of Air India, the people responsible for trying to put things right.

“Please come and sit down with us so that we can work through this together to try and alleviate some of this suffering.”

In a statement, the airline, which is owned by Tata Group, said senior leaders from the parent company continue to visit families to express their deepest condolences.

“An offer has been made to Mr Ramesh’s representatives to arrange such a meeting, we will continue to reach out and we very much hope to receive a positive response,” it said.

The airline told the BBC that this offer was made before the media interviews with Mr Ramesh.

He made the remarks while welcoming the President of Germany, His Excellency Frank-Walter Steinmeier, to Ghana on behalf of President John Dramani Mahama.

In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Mr. Ablakwa wrote: “Ghana is absolutely elated to host the German President on a three-day State Visit. The inseparable bond between Ghana and Germany is about to get even stronger and more beneficial to the citizens of our two countries. God bless Ghana and Germany.”

President Steinmeier, accompanied by a high-level delegation, will hold key bilateral meetings with President Mahama on Monday, November 3, 2025, at the Presidency in Accra.

The official program includes an inspection of a full military Guard of Honour at the Forecourt of the Presidency, followed by a closed-door meeting between the two Heads of State. They will later join their respective delegations for bilateral discussions in the Credentials Room.

Talks are expected to focus on deepening cooperation in trade, investment, technology, and development initiatives. A State Luncheon will also be held in honor of President Steinmeier and his delegation at the Presidential Banquet Hall.

As part of the visit, President Steinmeier will travel to Kumasi on Tuesday, November 4, to meet the Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, and participate in other scheduled engagements before departing later that evening.

An honour to welcome the President of Germany, His Excellency Frank-Walter Steinmeier to Ghana on behalf of His Excellency John Dramani Mahama.

Ghana is absolutely elated to host the German President on a three day State Visit.

The inseparable bond between Ghana and Germany… pic.twitter.com/ooWt6XUk97

— Sam Okudzeto Ablakwa (@S_OkudzetoAblak) November 2, 2025

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In his remarks, President Mahama congratulated President El-Sisi and the people of Egypt on the opening of what is described as the world’s largest archaeological museum.

The GEM, situated on the outskirts of Cairo and overlooking the Giza Pyramids, houses around 100,000 artefacts spanning some seven millennia of Egyptian history, from pre-dynastic times to the Greek and Roman eras.

The $1 billion project, over two decades in the making, includes thousands of treasures, notably 4,500 artefacts from King Tutankhamun’s tomb.

President El-Sisi described the museum as a “symbol of Egypt’s leadership in global culture,” highlighting its role in celebrating over 5,000 years of Egyptian civilisation.

Source: GNA

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