South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa has paid tribute to the new mayor of Johannesburg, following his death in a car crash aged 46. Jolidee Matongo had been campaigning with Mr Ramaphosa before the accident. His vehicle collided with a van while trying to avoid a pedestrian who had run on to the road, local media report. The pedestrian and the other vehicle’s driver also died, while Mr Matongo’s two bodyguards are being treated in hospital for their injuries. Mr Matongo only became mayor on 10 August following the death of his predecessor from Covid complications. Local media report he was the son of a Zimbabwean migrant, and had been a political activist in South Africa since the age of 13, campaigning against apartheid – a legalised system of racism that was in place at the time.(BBC)…[+]

Philippine boxing star Manny Pacquiao says he is to run for president in next year’s election. He was nominated as a candidate by a faction of the ruling party, PDP-Laban. On top of a glittering career as a fighter, Mr Pacquiao, 42, is a senator in the Philippines’ parliament. Incumbent Rodrigo Duterte is barred from another term but has been picked by a rival party faction to run for vice-president, a move critics say is an attempt to cling to power. He was selected to run alongside a close ally, Christopher “Bong” Go, but Mr Go says he does not want to succeed Mr Duterte. While his party says it wants Mr Go to reconsider his decision, his rejection of the nomination has led to suggestions that President Duterte’s daughter Sara Duterte-Carpio could join him on the ticket. As a boxer, Mr Pacquiao won world titles in an unprecedented eight different weight divisions. He lost his most recent bout against a Cuban opponent and said he was considering retiring. Accepting the nomination, he said: “I am a fighter, and I will always be a fighter inside and outside the ring.” Mr Pacquiao has pledged to campaign against poverty and corruption. He is a popular figure in his home country but faces an uphill battle, trailing in opinion polls consistently topped by Sara Duterte-Carpio. It is not clear which of the PDP-Laban factions will be recognised by the country’s electoral commission for the 2022 election.(BBC)…[+]

A Smart Voting app devised by jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has been removed from Apple and Google stores on the day Russians start voting in parliamentary elections. Russian authorities had threatened to fine the two companies if they refused to drop the app, which told users who could unseat ruling party candidates. Parliamentary and local elections began on Friday and will last three days. President Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party is expected to win. Although a total of 14 parties are taking part in the vote, many candidates seen as anti-Putin are barred from running, including anyone associated with Navalny’s opposition movement. Some prominent Kremlin opponents have been forced to leave Russia. Voters are electing 450 MPs for the Duma (parliament) in Moscow and a number of cities have introduced electronic voting. For the first time since 1993, election observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) will not be present due to “limitations” imposed by Russian authorities.(BBC)…[+]

French education officials have condemned an online bullying trend targeting children born in 2010. The #Anti2010 trend has gained momentum over the past month on the video sharing app TikTok. Posts on the site have gained millions of views, with users encouraged to form an “anti-2010 police”. Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer called the cyber-harassment campaign “completely stupid and against our values”. It has been causing particular alarm among parents because it is targeting 11-year-old children as they start secondary school. There have been reports of it moving offline and into the playground. Mr Blanquer warned that any pupil behind such bullying would be subject to punishment, and said families could report cases of harassment on an emergency hotline.(BBC)…[+]

The US and UK are facing growing international criticism over a new security pact signed with Australia. The deal – seen as an effort to counter China – will see the US and UK give Australia the technology to build nuclear-powered submarines. But the move angered France, which said it had been “stabbed in the back”, while China accused the three powers of having a “Cold War mentality”. And the pact has raised fears that it could provoke China into a war. The alliance, known as Aukus, was announced by US President Joe Biden, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his Australian counterpart Scott Morrison on Wednesday. While they did not mention China, Aukus is being widely viewed as an effort to counter Beijing’s influence in the contested South China Sea.(BBC)…[+]

The head of the Islamic State group in the Sahara has been killed by French troops, President Emmanuel Macron has said. Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahrawi formed Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS) in 2015. The group is blamed for most attacks in the region, including the targeted killing of French aid workers in 2020. Mr Macron called Sahrawi’s death “another major success in our fight against terrorist groups in the Sahel”.

The Sahel is a vast, three million sq km (1.16 million sq miles) area that stretches across Africa south of the Sahara desert, from Senegal in the west to Somalia in the east. Mr Macron did not disclose the location or any details of the operation. French Defence Minister Florence Parly tweeted that Sahrawi died after a strike by France’s Operation Barkhane force, which fights Islamist militants in the Sahel, mostly in Mali, Niger, Chad and Burkina Faso.(BBC)…[+]

Denmark’s government has introduced a bill that will ban prisoners serving life sentences from entering into new romantic relationships. Under the new law prisoners will be limited to contacting only those already close to them for the first 10 years of their incarceration. Ministers hope the ban will counter the rise of ‘groupies’ of criminals. The law follows the revelation that a 17-year-old girl had fallen in love with the killer Peter Madsen. Madsen was convicted of the brutal murder of journalist Kim Wall onboard his homemade submarine, UC3 Nautilus, after she boarded it to interview him on 10 August 2017. He later dismembered her body and dumped it at sea. He was handed a lifetime sentence in 2018.(BBC)…[+]

About 3,000 health workers in France have been suspended because they have not been vaccinated against Covid-19. A new rule, which came into force on Wednesday, made vaccination mandatory for the country’s 2.7 million health, care home and fire service staff. But French Health Minister Olivier Véran said on Thursday that “most of the suspensions are only temporary”. Many are now agreeing to get jabbed because “they see that the vaccination mandate is a reality”, he said. The rule applies to all doctors, nurses, office staff and volunteers. President Emmanuel Macron first gave workers notice of the rule change on 12 July, warning them that they needed to get at least one jab by 15 September or resign from their jobs. “I am aware of what I am asking of you, and I know that you are ready for this commitment, this is part, in a way, of your sense of duty,” he said at the time.(BBC)…[+]

A group of former models have called on French lawmakers to abolish the law which determines how long victims of sexual assault have to report to the authorities. The women, including former supermodel Carré Otis, claim to have been sexually assaulted or raped by their French model agents more than 20 years ago. French law says they have run out of time to start criminal proceedings. But the women have said “rape should not have an expiration date”. Some of them travelled to Paris to give testimony at the French senate, saying “the law needs to change”. In the meeting with Senator Nathalie Goulet, the women, including Lesa Amoore, Thysia Huisman and Laurie Marsden, called for the time given for sexual assault to be reported to authorities to be “expanded or thrown away entirely”. Otis told the senators that it had taken her “decades to come to terms with what happened to me and decades to speak publicly” about her alleged rapes by the former European head of Elite model agency, Gerald Marie. He strongly refutes all the allegations.(BBC)…[+]

North and South Korea have tested ballistic missiles hours apart from each other, highlighting an arms race on the peninsula as nuclear talks with the North remain stalled. The North fired two ballistic missiles across its east coast, its first test with such missiles in six months and a fresh breach of UN resolutions.

The tests came as South Korea and China discussed the North’s nuclear issue. Hours later, the South tested its first submarine-launched ballistic missile. The test of the missile known as SLBM was pre-planned and not in reaction to the North’s latest launches. It makes South Korea the seventh country in the world with such technology. President Moon Jae-in, who attended the test, said South Korea now had “sufficient deterrence to respond to North Korea’s provocations at any time”, urging the South to continue increasing its weapons programmes to “overwhelm North Korea’s asymmetric power”. The comments were criticised by Kim Yo Jong, sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who described them as illogical and regrettable, warning that they could lead to a breakdown in ties, state news agency KCNA reported.(BBC)…[+]