President Bola Tinubu on Tuesday returned to Abuja after concluding his annual working vacation in Europe.
Tinubu arrived at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport and was received by Senate President Godswill Akpabio and Nasarawa State Governor Abdullahi Sule.
Also at the airport were his Chief of Staff, Femi Gbajabiamila, and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun.
The Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, confirmed the President’s return in a statement issued on Monday.
He said Tinubu concluded his work vacation ahead of schedule and would resume official duties on Tuesday.
The President departed Nigeria on September 4 for France, intending to split his annual holiday between France and the United Kingdom.
During his stay in Paris, Tinubu held a private luncheon with French President Emmanuel Macron at the Élysée Palace.
Both leaders discussed bilateral cooperation and pledged to strengthen partnerships for mutual prosperity and global stability. (Channels)
The United States and the United Kingdom on Monday commended the Federal Government and its security agencies for the successful arrest of two senior leaders of the terrorist group Jama’atu Ansarul Muslimina fi-Biladis Sudan, also known as Ansaru.
The arrests were confirmed by the National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu, who described the development as the result of a “high-risk, intelligence-led, counter-terrorism operation” carried out between May and July 2025.
The individuals apprehended include Mahmud Usman, identified as the self-styled Emir of Ansaru.
According to the NSA, Usman served as the coordinator of numerous terrorist sleeper cells across the country and was behind several high-profile kidnappings and armed robberies used to fund the group’s activities.
His deputy, Mahmud al-Nigeri, led the group’s “Mahmudawa” cell, which was said to be active around the Kainji National Park area, spanning Niger and Kwara states and extending into neighboring Benin Republic.
Following the arrests, the US Embassy in Nigeria issued a statement via its official X handle, describing the operation as a major step in Nigeria’s ongoing efforts to combat terrorism and extremism.
The embassy praised the Nigerian security forces and described the arrests as a significant achievement.
The post read, “We commend the Nigerian government and security forces on the successful arrest of wanted #Ansaru leaders, Mahmud Muhammad Usman (aka Abu Bara’a) and Mahmud al-Nigeri (aka Mallam Mamuda).
“This is a significant forward in Nigeria’s fight against terrorism and extremism.”
Similarly, the British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Richard Montgomery, also took to X to describe the operation as an extraordinary and very significant success, commending the security agencies and their leadership under the NSA.
“An extraordinary & very significant success. A major step forward in the fight against terrorism. Congratulations to the security agencies & officers involved under the leadership of NSA Ribadu,” Montgomery noted.
According to the Federal Government, the arrested terrorist leaders, who were internationally wanted, are now in custody.
Ansaru, formed in January 2012 as a splinter group from Boko Haram, presented itself as a more “humane” alternative but quickly turned to violent attacks on civilians, security forces, and infrastructure. The group aligned ideologically with global jihadist movements, particularly Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, and established a presence in urban cells and forest enclaves, especially around Kainji National Park.
Two key figures from Ansaru, long on Nigeria’s most-wanted list, led several major attacks, including the 2022 Kuje prison break, a uranium facility attack, and high-profile kidnappings such as that of French engineer Francis Collomp and traditional leader Alhaji Musa Uba. They also had strong ties with terrorist groups across the Maghreb. (Punch)
A British backpacker has pleaded guilty to killing a man in Australia after hitting him while riding an e-scooter with an alcohol level more than three times the legal limit.
Alicia Kemp, 25, from Redditch, Worcestershire, had been drinking with a friend on a Saturday afternoon in May when she was kicked out of a bar because the two of them were drunk, the court heard earlier.
The pair hired an e-scooter in the evening, and Kemp was driving at speeds of 20 to 25km/h (12 to 15mph) when she hit 51-year-old Thanh Phan from behind on a pavement in Perth’s city centre.
The father-of-two hit his head on the pavement and died in hospital from a brain bleed two days later.
Kemp’s passenger was also hurt in the crash – sustaining a fractured skull and broken nose – but her injuries were not life-threatening.
In Perth’s Magistrates Court on Monday, Kemp – appearing via video link – pleaded guilty to dangerous driving causing death while intoxicated. The charge carries a maximum 20-year prison term.
Prosecutors dropped a second charge of dangerous driving causing bodily harm to her passenger.
Earlier, the court heard that Kemp’s blood alcohol content level was 0.158 after the crash, more than three times the legal limit of 0.05 in Australia.
Prosecutors said CCTV footage showed Kemp’s “inexplicably dangerous” riding before she struck Mr Phan, who was waiting to cross the road.
In a statement from Mr Phan’s family earlier this year, the structural engineer was described as a beloved husband, father, brother and dear friend.
Kemp’s lawyer Michael Tudori said she was relieved after pleading guilty and hoped to be sentenced before Christmas, according to local media.
“You could see she was ready to say those words, you know, she’s obviously done something stupid,” Mr Tudori told the ABC.
Kemp, who was in Western Australia on a working holiday visa, will remain in custody until her sentencing. (BBC)
The Bank of England on Thursday cut its key interest rate by a quarter point to four percent, the lowest level in 2.5 years, as it bids to boost a UK economy threatened by US tariffs.
Alongside the expected decision, the BoE forecast British economic growth to hit 1.25 percent this year, slightly better than the central bank’s previous estimate of one percent.
“The direct impact of US tariffs is milder than feared, but more general tariff-related uncertainty still weighs on sentiment,” the BoE said in a statement after studying data gathered by UK businesses.
London and Washington reached an agreement in May to cut levies of more than 10 percent imposed by US President Donald Trump on certain UK-made items imported by the United States, notably vehicles.
The quarter-point cut on Thursday was the BoE’s fifth such reduction since starting a trimming cycle in August 2024.
“Interest rates are still on a downward path, but any future rate cuts will need to be made gradually and carefully,” its governor, Andrew Bailey, said following Thursday’s decision.
The BoE voted 5-4 for the reduction, but not before an unprecedented second vote owing to a three-way split among its nine policymakers that prevented a necessary majority result.
Initially, four members voted for the reduction and four for no change. One member called for a larger cut of 0.50 percent, before switching in favour of a quarter-point drop, as voted for by Bailey.
It was the first time since the BoE became independent of the UK government in 1997 that a second vote had to be held.
“Looking ahead, interest rates are expected to be 3.5 percent in a year, which is slightly higher than before the (latest) meeting,” noted Kathleen Brooks, research director at XTB trading group.
Expectations that the rate will remain at four percent for longer boosted the British pound.
The BoE’s main task is to keep Britain’s annual inflation rate at 2.0 percent, but the latest official data showed it had jumped unexpectedly to an 18-month high in June.
The Consumer Prices Index increased to 3.6 percent as motor fuel and food prices stayed high.
The BoE on Thursday predicted that the annual inflation rate would peak at four percent next month.
Latest official figures show that Britain’s economy unexpectedly contracted for a second month running in May, and UK unemployment is at a near four-year high of 4.7 percent.
This is largely down to Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour government increasing a UK business tax from April, the same month that the country became subject to Trump’s 10-percent baseline tariff on most goods.
Finance minister Rachel Reeves welcomed the latest rate cut, saying in a statement that it helps to “bring down the cost of mortgages and loans for families and businesses”.
The US Federal Reserve last week kept interest rates unchanged, defying strong political pressure from Trump to slash borrowing costs in a bid to boost the world’s biggest economy.
Asked about US tariffs following the decision, Fed Chair Jerome Powell told a press conference: “We’re still a ways away from seeing where things settle down.”
The European Central Bank is meanwhile widely expected to keep rates unchanged at its next meeting, with eurozone inflation around the ECB’s two-percent target.
But that could change, according to some economists, based on how Trump’s tariffs affect the single-currency bloc. (Punch)
People with a record of violence or domestic abuse will be prevented from owning firearms under new rules in the United Kingdom following a series of killings in recent years.
The new guidance, issued on Tuesday, came in response to concerns raised by coroners and campaigners after shootings in England’s Woodmancote and Keyham.
Police officers will be instructed to interview partners or other household members of people applying for a firearms licence to identify signs of domestic abuse.
Other factors that could make someone unsuitable to own a weapon.
They must carry out additional checks to ensure people with a record of violence are not permitted to hold a firearms licence.
The move came two years after an inquest found that “catastrophic failures” in the licensing system had meant Keyham gunman Jake Davison had been allowed to own a shotgun despite his history of violence.
Davison, then 22, killed his mother and four others, including a three-year-old girl, in an eight-minute shooting spree before taking his own life in August 2021.
Evidence of dishonesty will also be considered against an application, including the withholding of relevant medical history.
Robert Needham killed his partner, Kelly Fitzgibbons, and their daughters, Ava and Lex, with a legally owned shotgun at their home in Woodmancote in 2020.
He was given a licence even after admitting that he had failed to disclose a history of depression and work-related stress.
Emma Ambler, Fitzgibbons’ sister, welcomed the changes but said there was “still some way to go.”
She said: “I still believe that holding a gun licence is a privilege and not a right.
“The priority has to be the safety of society, and it’s so important to stop these extremely dangerous weapons falling into the wrong hands, which these changes will go some way to doing.”
Tuesday’s changes will also mean applicants for shotgun licences now require two referees rather than one, bringing the process into line with the rules for other firearms.
Policing minister Dame Diana Johnson said: “Only those who meet the highest standards of safety and responsibility should be permitted to use shotguns or firearms.
“It is crucial that police have full information about the suitability of all applicants for these lethal weapons.
“The events in Woodmancote in 2020, Plymouth in 2021, and other cases provide a tragic reminder of what can happen when these weapons are in the hands of the wrong people.
“We must do everything we can to protect the public.”
Controls on shotgun ownership could be further toughened after another consultation, due to be launched later this year, that will also seek views on improving the rules on private firearms sales.
The new consultation follows the case of Nicholas Prosper, who killed his mother, Juliana Falcon, and siblings Giselle and Kyle Prosper in Luton in 2024.
Prosper, 19, had been able to purchase a shotgun and 100 cartridges from a legitimate firearms dealer after forging a licence.
He was jailed for life with a minimum term of 49 years after pleading guilty to the murders earlier this year. (Guardian)
Canada plans to recognise a Palestinian state at the UN General Assembly in September, Prime Minister Mark Carney said Wednesday, a major policy shift that drew an angry response from US President Donald Trump and was rejected by Israel.
Carney said the move was necessary to preserve hopes of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a long-standing Canadian goal that was “being eroded before our eyes.”
“Canada intends to recognise the State of Palestine at the 80th Session of the United Nations General Assembly in September 2025,” the prime minister said.
This makes Canada — a G7 nation — the third country, following recent announcements by France and the United Kingdom, to signal plans to recognise a Palestinian state in September.
Carney said the worsening suffering of civilians in Gaza left “no room for delay in coordinated international action to support peace.”
Israel blasted Canada’s announcement as part of a “distorted campaign of international pressure,” while Trump warned that trade negotiations with Ottawa may not proceed smoothly.
“Wow! Canada has just announced that it is backing statehood for Palestine,” the US president wrote on his Truth Social platform.
“That will make it very hard for us to make a Trade Deal with them.”
Asked by reporters if there was a scenario where Canada could change its position before the UN meeting, Carney said: “There’s a scenario (but) possibly one that I can’t imagine.”
Canada’s intention “is predicated on the Palestinian Authority’s commitment to much-needed reforms,” Carney said, referring to the body led by President Mahmoud Abbas, which has civil authority in parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Carney said his plans were further predicated on Abbas’s pledge to “hold general elections in 2026 in which Hamas can play no part, and to demilitarise the Palestinian state.”
With Wednesday’s announcement, Carney positioned Canada alongside France, after President Emmanuel Macron said his country would formally recognise a Palestinian state during the UN meeting, the most powerful European nation to announce such a move.
The Israeli embassy in Ottawa said, “Recognising a Palestinian state in the absence of accountable government, functioning institutions, or benevolent leadership, rewards and legitimises the monstrous barbarity of Hamas on October 7, 2023.”
The PA’s Abbas welcomed the announcement as a “historic” decision, while France said the countries would work together “to revive the prospect of peace in the region.”
Canada’s plan goes a step further than this week’s announcement by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
Starmer said the UK will formally recognise the State of Palestine in September unless Israel takes various “substantive steps,” including agreeing to a ceasefire in Gaza.
Carney stressed that Canada has been an unwavering member of the group of nations that hoped a two-state solution “would be achieved as part of a peace process built around a negotiated settlement between the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority.”
“Regrettably, this approach is no longer tenable,” he said, citing “Hamas terrorism” and the group’s “longstanding violent rejection of Israel’s right to exist.”
The peace process has also been eroded by the expansion of Israeli settlements across the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem, Carney said.
The prime minister said a two-state solution was growing increasingly remote, with a vote in Israel’s parliament “calling for the annexation of the West Bank,” as well as Israel’s “ongoing failure” to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.
He framed his decision as one aimed at safeguarding Israel’s future.
“Any path to lasting peace for Israel also requires a viable and stable Palestinian state, and one that recognises Israel’s inalienable right to security and peace,” Carney said. (Punch)
Human rights lawyer, Femi Falana, SAN, has faulted United Kingdom Conservative Party leader, Kemi Badenoch, over her claim that she cannot pass Nigerian citizenship to her children because of her gender.
During an interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria on Sunday, Badenoch asserted that she cannot pass on her Nigerian citizenship to her children because of her gender. She suggested that it is easier for Nigerians to acquire British citizenship than for foreigners to become Nigerians.
She said, “It’s virtually impossible, for example, to get Nigerian citizenship. I have that citizenship by virtue of my parents. I can’t give it to my children because I’m a woman.
“Yet loads of Nigerians come to the UK and stay for a relatively free period of time, acquire British citizenship. We need to stop being naive.”
Reacting in a statement issued on Monday, Falana described Badenoch’s statement as “a display of utter ignorance” and accused her of misinforming the British public to score political points.
Falana said, “In her desperate attempt to impress the British electorate, Kemi Badenoch keeps running down Nigeria.
“Contrary to her misleading claim, her children are Nigerians because she is a Nigerian. Her assertion that she cannot give Nigerian citizenship to her children because she is a woman is not in consonance with Section 25(b) and (c) of the Nigerian Constitution which provides that every person born in Nigeria after independence, either of whose parents or grandparents is a citizen of Nigeria, or any person born outside Nigeria to a Nigerian parent, is a citizen.
“Furthermore, by virtue of Section 42(2) of the Constitution, no citizen shall be subjected to any disability or deprivation merely by reason of circumstances of birth, gender, or class. Therefore, her two children are Nigerian citizens. The fact that she may not want them to claim it is irrelevant. For now, they are dual citizens of Britain and Nigeria.”
Falana also faulted her assertion that Nigerian citizenship is impossible for foreigners to obtain, noting that “Sections 26 and 27 of the Constitution clearly state that foreigners can acquire Nigerian citizenship through naturalisation or registration once they meet the legal conditions.”
He, however, acknowledged gaps in the law, saying that “A woman married to a Nigerian man can be registered as a citizen, but the same privilege is not extended to a man married to a Nigerian woman, which reflects the patriarchal nature of the law. This should be urgently amended.” (Punch)
US TV star Ellen DeGeneres has made her first public appearance since moving to the UK, saying she decided to settle in England the day after Donald Trump was re-elected US president.
The comedian and host told a crowd in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, that life “is just better” in the UK.
Ellen said she and wife Portia de Rossi were considering getting married again in England after some moves in the US to reverse the right to gay marriage, and that America can still be “scary for people to be who they are”.
She also addressed allegations of a toxic workplace that led to the end of her long-running chat show in 2022, admitting she could be “very blunt”, but dismissed the stories as “clickbait”.
Ellen was one of the biggest names on US TV for 30 years, thanks to her daytime chat show, as well as for her self-titled 1990s sitcom, for hosting the Oscars, Grammys and Emmys, and for voicing Dory in Finding Nemo.
After her talk show was cancelled, she went on a “final stand-up tour” in the US in 2024 then bought a house in the Cotswolds, a historic and picturesque area mainly spanning parts of Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire.
On Sunday at the Everyman theatre in nearby Cheltenham, she was in conversation with broadcaster Richard Bacon, who asked whether reports that she moved because of Donald Trump were correct. “Yes,” she replied.
The 67-year-old said she and De Rossi had initially planned to spend three or four months a year in the UK and bought what they thought would be “a part-time house”.
“We got here the day before the election and woke up to lots of texts from our friends with crying emojis, and I was like, ‘He got in’,” she said. “And we’re like, ‘We’re staying here’.”
Ellen has been giving glimpses of her new rural life on social media, in videos showing her farm animals including sheep – although they have now been sold after they kept escaping.
“It’s absolutely beautiful,” she said. “We’re just not used to seeing this kind of beauty. The villages and the towns and the architecture – everything you see is charming and it’s just a simpler way of life.
“It’s clean. Everything here is just better – the way animals are treated, people are polite. I just love it here.
“We moved here in November, which was not the ideal time, but I saw snow for the first time in my life. We love it here. Portia flew her horses here, and I have chickens, and we had sheep for about two weeks.”
On her last tour, she joked that she had been “kicked out of show business twice” – the first time being when she came out as gay in 1997.
That effectively led to the end of her sitcom after advertisers pulled out and the network stopped promoting it, she told the Cheltenham crowd on Sunday.
Bacon asked whether her visibility had encouraged other people to come out. “I would say no,” she replied. “I imagined a lot of people coming out like meerkats poking out of a hole and going back in again. ‘How’s she doing? OK, no, no.'”
But it is “a really hard decision” that doesn’t suit everyone, she continued, and said things are better today “in some ways” but not others.
“If it was [better], all these other people that are actors and actresses that I know they’re gay, they’d be out, but they’re not, because it’s still a problem. People are still scared.”
Ellen also referenced a recent move by the Southern Baptist Convention to endorse the reversal of a Supreme Court case allowing same-sex marriage. At least nine state legislatures have introduced bills to do the same.
“The Baptist Church in America is trying to reverse gay marriage,” she said. “They’re trying to literally stop it from happening in the future and possibly reverse it. Portia and I are already looking into it, and if they do that, we’re going to get married here.”
Later, in response to an audience question, she added: “I wish we were at a place where it was not scary for people to be who they are. I wish that we lived in a society where everybody could accept other people and their differences.
“So until we’re there, I think there’s a hard place to say we have huge progress.”
However, the younger generation are “more comfortable with it” and are “just kind of fluid”, she added. “So I think the younger generation is going to show us the way.”
After some former workers on her talk show made allegations of a toxic workplace culture, the star – who ended every episode by telling viewers to “be kind to one another” – was dubbed as “mean” in the media.
Following the scandal three producers were sacked amid allegations of misconduct and sexual harassment, and the final season of the show opened with Ellen giving an on-air apology.
She addressed that in her 2024 tour and the accompanying Netflix stand-up special.
“No matter what, any article that came up, it was like, ‘She’s mean’, and it’s like, how do I deal with this without sounding like a victim or ‘poor me’ or complaining? But I wanted to address it.
“It’s as simple as, I’m a direct person, and I’m very blunt, and I guess sometimes that means that… I’m mean?” (BBC)
The identities of more than 100 British officials, including members of the special forces and MI6, were compromised in a data breach that also put thousands of Afghans at risk of reprisal, it can be reported.
The latest fallout from the breach was kept secret by an injunction until Thursday, when the order was lifted in part by a High Court judge.
That allowed media organisations to reveal that detailed case notes in the database contained secret personal data of special forces and spies.
The government had already admitted on Tuesday the data of nearly 19,000 Afghans who had worked with the British during the 20-year war in Afghanistan and had applied to resettle in the UK had been inadvertently leaked.
Many were judged to be at risk of serious harm or even death as the Taliban sought retribution against those who had worked with the British government during the conflict.
This was part of the reason the information was protected by a so-called “super-injunction” – a kind of gagging order that prevents the reporting of even the existence of the injunction.
The data breach occurred in February 2022 but was not discovered by the government until August 2023, when someone in Afghanistan who had obtained the data posted part of it on Facebook and indicated he could release the rest.
The BBC revealed on Wednesday that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) had offered to expedite a review of the individual’s application and brought him to the country after he posted the data – a sequence of events that government sources said was “essentially blackmail”.
The MoD declined to comment on the actions of the individual but said that “anyone who comes to the UK under any Afghan relocation schemes” must go through “robust security checks in order to gain entry”.
The discovery of the breach in 2023 forced the government to covertly set up the Afghanistan Response Route (ARR) – a resettlement scheme for those affected, who were not told about the breach despite the risk to their security.
The scheme has already allowed 4,500 Afghans and family members to move to the UK and a further 2,400 people are expected, at an estimated cost of £850m.
The accidental leak was the result of someone working at UK Special Forces headquarters in London inadvertently emailing more than 30,000 resettlement applications to an individual outside of government, thinking that he was sending data on just 150 people.
After the lifting of the super-injunction on Tuesday, a secondary injunction had prevented the revelations about special forces and security services personal being compromised.
But that was also lifted on Thursday that barristers representing both the MoD and a group of media organisations reached a compromise that meant journalists could report the additional facts.
Defence Secretary John Healey told Parliament on Tuesday that the breach was a “serious departmental error” and acknowledged that it was “just one of many data losses” relating to the Afghan relocation schemes.
The shadow defence secretary, James Cartlidge, apologised on behalf of the former Conservative government, which was in power when the leak was discovered.
The MoD has refused to say how many people in Afghanistan may have been harmed as a result of the data breach. The Taliban government said on Thursday that it had not arrested or monitored Afghans affected by the leak.
But relatives of Afghans named in the leak told the BBC that they fear for their family still in the country, with one saying efforts by the Taliban to find their named relative intensified following the leak.
An MoD spokesperson said: “It’s longstanding policy of successive governments to not comment on special forces.
“We take the security of our personnel very seriously, particularly of those in sensitive positions, and always have appropriate measures in place to protect their security.” (BBC)
President Bola Tinubu has announced the passing of former President Muhammadu Buhari, describing the development as a national loss.
This was contained in a statement issued on Sunday by the Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga.
“President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has announced the passing of his predecessor, President Muhammadu Buhari.
“President Buhari died today in London at about 4.30 pm, following a prolonged illness”, the statement partly read.
Onanuga added that Tinubu has since reached out to the bereaved family.
“President Tinubu has spoken with Mrs Aishat Buhari, the former President’s widow and offered his deep condolences”, he stated.
To facilitate preparations and arrangements for the return of the late president’s remains, Onanuga revealed that the President has directed Vice President Kashim Shettima to travel immediately.
“President Tinubu has also ordered Vice President Kashim Shettima to proceed to the United Kingdom to accompany President Muhammadu Buhari’s body back to Nigeria,” he added.
The statement concluded that as part of the nation’s mourning, Tinubu ordered a symbolic tribute, stating, “President Tinubu has ordered flags at half-staff as a mark of respect for the departed leader.” (Punch)
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