As country prepares to host Africa Cup of Nations, families and rights groups tell of police brutality, with hundreds still held

The arbitrary detention of hundreds of gen Z protesters in Morocco and alleged “horrific” beatings have been condemned by human rights groups, as the country prepares to host the Africa Cup of Nations on Sunday.

A wave of youth-led demonstrations swept across Morocco in late September and early October – the biggest since the 2011 Arab spring – in protest at underfunded healthcare and education.

Since Trump’s second term began in January, global healthcare, especially for sexual and reproductive health, has been under constant attack

This time last year, women’s rights organisations were bracing themselves for a second Trump term. Few were prepared for the chaos that would be unleashed in January. The volume and speed of executive orders coming out of the White House were seen as a deliberate tactic to overwhelm and create panic. In many ways it worked – there was confusion, anger and exhaustion as organisations scrambled to fill the gap left by the USAID freeze. But that was just the beginning.

The US administration has been the key driver, supported by intense advocacy work by ultra-conservative groups using the moment to strengthen global ties with political allies.

Government says it received distress calls, as daughter of ex-president Jacob Zuma accused of luring men to frontline

South Africa’s government is in talks with Russia to bring home 17 South African men fighting for Russia in Ukraine, after the men were allegedly tricked on to the frontlines of the war by a daughter of former South African president Jacob Zuma.

Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla has been accused in multiple lawsuits of luring the 17 South African and two Botswanan men to Russia in July, by telling them they would be training as bodyguards for her father’s uMkhonto weSizwe political party or attending a personal development course.

It is hoped the institution can help foster new bonds in a fractured nation, but such optimism will be a stretch for some

It was a night at the museum like no other. As the staccato sound of firecrackers and explosions rang out across Martyr’s Square in the heart of Tripoli, for once it was not Libya’s militias battling it out for a larger stake in the country’s oil economy, but a huge firework display celebrating the reopening of one of the finest museums in the Mediterranean.

The National Museum of Libya – housing Africa’s greatest collection of classical antiquities in Tripoli’s historic Red Castle complex – had been closed for nearly 14 years due to the civil war that followed the former dictator Muammar Gaddafi’s downfall. Its ceremonial reopening came at the climax of a lavish show compressing Libya’s rich history and attended by diplomats and Arab celebrities, with a full-size Italian orchestra, acrobats, dancers, arches of fire and lights projected on to the fort. It did not lack for circus drama or cost, peaking with a billowing Ottoman sailing ship arriving high above the port on wires to be greeted by an angelic-appearing Libyan woman.

Group asks Keir Starmer for help to persuade Ghanaian government to pay backlog of tuition fees and living allowances

Students from Ghana at UK universities say they are in danger of being deported after being stranded by their own government without promised scholarships or tuition fee payments.

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

Lula acknowledges his decision to uphold 27-year sentence could be overridden by conservative lawmakers

Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has promised to veto a bill passed by congress to reduce the prison term of Jair Bolsonaro, the former president who was sentenced to more than 27 years in prison for masterminding an attempted coup to overturn the 2022 elections.

Lawmakers passed the bill late on Wednesday after it was approved last week by the lower house. On Thursday, Brazil’s leftist president – who, investigations showed, was the target of an assassination plan as part of the coup plot – acknowledged his veto could be overridden by the largely conservative congress.