AFP news

Two Namibian nationals had sought recourse from the courts after the ministry of home affairs and immigration refused to grant permits to same-sex foreign spouses whom they had married outside the country.

The announcement came after a high-level joint ministerial meeting in Nairobi on cooperation including on security, as well as trade and the movement of people.

Bayelsa state, home to some two million people, "is in the grip of a human and environmental catastrophe of devastating proportions," they warned in a much-awaited report.

Firming up ways to hold Russia legally responsible for the death and destruction it has wrought in Ukraine will dominate the summit in Reykjavik, only the fourth to be held in the CoE's seven-decade history.

The three-day summit of leading developed democracies will cover everything from energy to AI, but a key focus will be targeting those who have helped Moscow blunt the impact of Western-led sanctions.

The only visual evidence of what happened is aerial photographs showing piles of burnt-out motorbikes.

Zelensky spent 40 minutes with the 86-year-old pontiff at the Vatican, after earlier meeting Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who has strongly backed Kyiv in the wake of Russia's February 2022 invasion.

Delegates of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) voted in primaries on Saturday through Sunday to choose a candidate for both the presidential and parliamentary polls.

Heavy rainfall earlier in the week sent water gushing into homes in Beledweyne town in Hiran region, submerging roads and buildings as residents grabbed their belongings and waded through flooded streets in search of refuge.

Macron's office said France will supply Ukraine with armour -- without specifying the number of vehicles -- but demurred on sending much-coveted fighter jets.

The city of five million on the Nile River was long a place of relative stability and wealth, even under decades of sanctions against former strongman Omar al-Bashir.

Britain's decision will make it the first country to provide longer-range missiles to Kyiv, which has been training a new contingent of forces and stockpiling Western-supplied munitions and hardware.

The UN Human Rights Council's 47 members voted with 18 in favour, 15 opposed and 14 abstaining for a resolution calling for an end to the violence and strengthening the mandate of a UN expert on Sudan.

The announcement came seven months after Safaricom became the first private telecommunications operator in Ethiopia, ending a monopoly under state-owned Ethio Telecom.

"This includes allowing safe passage for civilians to leave areas of active hostilities on a voluntary basis, in the direction they choose," the declaration said.

While the astronomers offered what they think is the most likely explanation for the explosion, they emphasised that more research was needed to understand the puzzling phenomenon.

Twitter users in December voted to oust owner Musk as chief executive in an unscientific poll he organized and promised to honor, just weeks after he took charge of the social media giant.

Kuleba blasted the "neutrality" of several Latin American governments, saying that Russia's aggression is setting an example that other nations may follow.

Zambia has since sought help to restructure its debt through a G20 mechanism, which is co-chaired by Paris and Beijing, but implementation has been slow.

The Supreme Court said in a statement that its five judges "unanimously" rejected an appeal over the 2011 spill, upholding prior rulings that claims were not made before a legal deadline.

Heavily armed gangs known locally as bandits frequently carry out mass abductions for ransom in northwest and central Nigeria, holding their captives in camps hidden in forests that stretch across the region.

The children were on their way from Dundeji village in Sokoto State to collect firewood in the bush on Tuesday on the other side of Shagari river when the boat sank, Aliyu Abubakar, local administrator of Shagari district, said.

The three-day meeting of the Group of Seven developed nations comes with the global economy still unsteady after years of pandemic woes compounded by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

As he walked to the police checkpoint where his fate would be decided, he mused about his uncertain future.

His immediate prospects were limited to a seemingly interminable wait in a makeshift camp in northwestern Ethiopia, where everything was in short supply.

Ukraine is readying for a highly anticipated spring offensive against invading Russian troops, but the latest assistance will not immediately arrive on the battlefield as it must still be procured from the defense industry or partners.

Von der Leyen was in town to mark Europe Day, which promotes peace and unity on the continent and falls on the same day that Kyiv's foe Moscow celebrates the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in 1945.

More than 700,000 people are now internally displaced by battles since April 15, according to the International Organization for Migration.

Soldin, 32, was killed when a rocket struck close to where he was lying. The rest of the team was uninjured.