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Keir Starmer Officially Assumes Duty As UK Prime Minister

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Britain’s Head of State, King Charles III, officially appointed Labour leader Keir Starmer as Prime Minister during an audience at Buckingham Palace on Friday.

A photograph released by the Buckingham Palace showed the monarch shaking hands with Starmer, whose party won a landslide election victory. The king earlier accepted the resignation of Conservative leader, Rishi Sunak.

“The King received in audience The Right Honourable Sir Keir Starmer MP today and requested him to form a new Administration,” a palace statement read.

“Sir Keir accepted His Majesty’s offer and kissed hands upon his appointment as Prime Minister and First Lord of the Treasury.”

Meanwhile, Rishi Sunak has apologised to the public after his Conservatives were trounced by Labour in the UK general election, and said he would step down as party leader.

The 44-year-old former financier gambled on going to the country six months before he had to, hoping that better economic data would swing public support back towards the Tories.

But Thursday’s vote indicated that Britons wanted to send a clear message to the party by kicking them out of power after 14 years of economic hardships, Brexit upheaval and Tory infighting.

“To the country, I would like to say first and foremost, I am sorry,” he said outside the Prime Minister’s residence at Downing Street, before heading to Buckingham Palace to tender his resignation as prime minister to King Charles III.

“I have given this job my all, but you have sent a clear signal that the government of the United Kingdom must change. And yours is the only judgment that matters.”

“I have heard your anger, your disappointment, and I take responsibility for this loss.”

The scale of the defeat made it inevitable that Sunak — the conservative party’s fifth leader since 2010 — would have to step down as Tory head as well.

But he said that he would stay on in the role until the arrangements are made for an internal leadership contest, which is expected to be a fight for the ideological soul of the party.

Sunak saw a record number of his top ministerial team lose their seats, including defence secretary Grant Shapps and House of Commons leader Penny Mordaunt.

His immediate predecessor as Prime Minister, Liz Truss, also lost her seat.

Sunak, an observant Hindu who is Britain’s first Prime Minister of colour — wished his successor Keir Starmer well, calling him “a decent, public-spirited man who I respect”.

“One of the most remarkable things about Britain is just how unremarkable it is that two generations after my grandparents came here with little, I could become prime minister,” he added.

“And that I could watch my two young daughters light Diwali candles on the steps in Downing Street. We must hold true to that idea of who we are,” he added.

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Africa

Mahama Recalls High Commissioner to Nigeria over Election Rigging Allegations

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President John Mahama of Ghana has ordered the immediate recall of Mohammed Ahmed, known as Baba Jamal, from his position as the country’s high commissioner to Nigeria over allegations of vote buying in Saturday’s parliamentary primaries.

Mahama’s decision was in response to claims that delegates were induced during the National Democratic Congress (NDC) primaries.

Jamal was a candidate in the polls, which he later won.

During the election, Jamal’s campaign team offered 32-inch televisions and boiled eggs to delegates who took part in the primaries.

Jamal confirmed that television sets had been distributed but rejected claims that the act amounted to vote buying.

“So if you give television sets to people, what is wrong with it when you give things to people?” he asked, according to local media JoyOnline.

“Is this the first time I am giving things to people?”

Explaining the reason behind Jamal’s recall, Felix Ofosu, Mahama’s spokesperson, said that while the allegations of vote buying were made against multiple candidates who contested the primaries, Jamal was the only serving public officer among them.

“The President has also noted the public statement by the General Secretary of the NDC indicating that the Party has commenced its own investigations into the allegations arising from the primaries,” the statement reads.

“Without prejudice to the ongoing internal party processes, and strictly in view of the standards of conduct expected of public officers, the President considers it necessary to act decisively to preserve the integrity of public office and to avoid any perception of impropriety or conflict with the Government’s Code of Conduct for Political Appointees.”

Ofosu said the high commissioner’s recall takes effect immediately, and that directives had been issued to the minister for foreign affairs to take the necessary administrative steps.

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Africa

Muammar Gaddafi’s Son Saif al-Islam Assassinated

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Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, son of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, has died at the age of 53, his political team announced on Tuesday.

The Head of the political team told Libyan News Agency that the young Gaddafi died near the country’s border with Algeria.

His sister confirmed the development, but did not specify the cause of death.

Born in 1972, the younger Gaddafi was once widely seen as his father’s heir apparent. The International Criminal Court had issued a warrant for his arrest, seeking to prosecute him for crimes against humanity related to his alleged role in crushing opposition demonstrations in 2011.

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USA

US Group Appeals to Trump to Help Halt Christian Genocide in Nigeria

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A strong and passionate appeal has been made to US President, Donald Trump, and the international community, to take immediate and conclusive actions, in collaboration with the Nigerian government, to halt the upsurge of genocidal killings and maiming, being carried out by extreme Islamist terrorists and other insurgents, in the country, particularly its northern region.

The ‘Save Our Souls’ (SOS) message was contained in a statement from the Save Nigeria Group (SNGUSA), a civil society body based in the USA, endorsed by Stephen Osemwegie and Victor O. Ben, its President/Founder and respectively.

The statement was against the backdrop of renewed killings and kidnapping by the armed militants in the northern Nigeria’s Middle Belt, including on Sunday, January 18, 2026, where innocent Christians were attacked in Kajulu, Kaduna State, resulting in the abduction of over 177 worshippers, during Sunday worships.

While expressing the group’s profound gratitude to President Trump, for his pivotal leadership and empowering the 2025 Christmas Day’s fatal airstrikes against the ISIS and Lakurawa camps in Sokoto, which it said was a powerful message to terrorists and that it brought hope to persecuted communities across Nigeria, the statement asserted that the recent brutal attacks in Kaduna and others indicated that the job was not finished.

(SNGUSA), the US-based not-for-profit, which collaborates in its activities with the Save Nigeria Initiated (SNI), a coalition based in Nigeria, also called on religious groups, traditional rulers and the civil society leaders to synergise, in order to halt the massacres and insecurity, and prevail on the United Nations’ Secretary General and others global bodies, to urgently intervene in Nigeria’s worsening insecurity and humanitarian crisis.

The massive kidnap of Christian worshippers in Kajulu, Kaduna, which was initially denied by the Nigerian police, but later confirmed by it, had been condemned across the world, hence the appeal by SNGUSA.

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