South African president bangs gavel after rejecting plan from US, which hosts next meeting, for him to hand over to junior official

South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, closed the G20 summit in Johannesburg by banging a gavel, having rejected a US proposal for him to hand over to a relatively junior embassy official for the next summit in Florida in a year’s time.

South Africa presented the two-day event as a triumph for multilateralism but it was marred by a boycott by the US, which has repeatedly accused South Africa of discriminating against white-minority Afrikaners, a claim that has been widely discredited.

Christian group revises up number of students and teachers missing after one of country’s largest mass abduction

Gunmen have kidnapped more than 300 students and teachers in one of the largest mass kidnappings in Nigeria, a Christian group said on Saturday, as security fears mounted in Africa’s most populous nation.

The early Friday raid on St Mary’s co-educational school in Niger state in western Nigeria came after gunmen on Monday stormed a secondary school in neighbouring Kebbi state, abducting 25 girls.

Women’s groups welcomed the announcement on the eve of the international leaders’ summit in Johannesburg

Hundreds of women gathered in cities across South Africa on Friday to protest against gender-based violence in the country before the G20 summit in Johannesburg this weekend.

Demonstrators turned out in 15 locations – including Johannesburg, Pretoria, Cape Town and Durban – wearing black as a sign of “mourning and resistance”.

Twelve teachers also kidnapped from Catholic school amid threats from Trump to intervene over ‘Christian genocide’

Unknown gunmen have abducted 215 schoolchildren and 12 teachers from a Catholic school in central Nigeria, the second mass abduction in the country in a week.

The latest kidnapping, in Papiri community in Niger state, came against the backdrop of Donald Trump’s threat to intervene militarily to end a “Christian genocide”, which the Nigerian government has denied is happening.

Trump press secretary accuses Cyril Ramaphosa of ‘running his mouth’ after US boycott of summit in Johannesburg

The dispute between South Africa and the US over the Trump administration’s decision to boycott the G20 in Johannesburg has continued, with South Africa objecting to a US plan for a junior embassy official to take part in the closing ceremony meant to mark the handover to the next summit, which will take place in Florida.

The two-day summit, which opens on Saturday, comes at a febrile moment in global politics. The US has proposed a deal to end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which it agreed with Moscow without the involvement of Ukraine or the EU.

Brazil’s former president says he took a soldering iron to electronic tag as he was hallucinating that it was bugged

Brazil’s far-right former president Jair Bolsonaro has claimed he took a soldering iron to his electronic ankle monitor after having a substance-induced “psychotic attack” that caused him to hallucinate that the device was bugged.

Bolsonaro made the claim during a custody hearing on Sunday, 24 hours after he was arrested at his home in the capital, Brasília, amid suspicions he was planning to abscond to a foreign embassy to avoid being sent to jail to serve a 27-year sentence for masterminding a failed coup.