A 17-year-old schoolboy from Nigeria has been declared the official Guinness World Record holder of most skips on one foot in 30 seconds.

Philip Solomon from Oyemekun Grammar School in the city of Akure, in south-western Ondo State, achieved this feat earlier this year on 24 January.

He managed to skip 153 times - surpassing the last record, set by Rasel Islam from Bangladesh in 2021, by eight skips.

Guinness World Records confirmed to the BBC that it had updated its record for most skips in 30 seconds on one foot earlier this week.

“Philip was inspired by the previous holder of this record title Rasel Islamafter seeing a video of their record attempt. He has been training to achieve the record and was honoured to attend a skipping world championship,” it says, external.

YouTube channel Anchore TV has posted the clip of Philip Solomon in action:

Anbarasan Ethirajan
South Asia editor, BBC World Service

Image source, Reuters

Wildlife officials in central India say three cheetah cubs, born to a cat relocated from Namibia, have now died this week at the Kuno National Park.

The first died on Tuesday and the other two on Thursday. The authorities said the young animals, who were about eight weeks old, were struggling with extreme weather conditions and dehydration.

The mother, named Jwala, gave birth to a litter of four in March. Only one of them now remains alive.

Cheetahs became extinct in India seven decades ago.

But the government has released 20 of them - eight from Namibia and 12 South Africa - as part of an ambitious project to reintroduce the big cats.

Three adult cheetahs brought from Africa have also died in recent months.

More on this topic:

• India PM reintroduces extinct cheetahs on birthday

Fulgence Kayishema is accused over the killing of more than 2,000 people sheltering in a church.

A clampdown on student visas means many Nigerian students won't be allowed to come to the UK with their families.

Richard Hamilton
BBC World Service newsroom

Image source, Atlas E-Mobility Group

A young Moroccan entrepreneur is hoping to create the first African-designed and engineered electric car.

Twenty-four-year old Mohammed Yehya El Bakkali, who studied and lives in the UK, has founded the Atlas E-Mobility Group, along with his business partner and engineer Hicham Senhaji Hannoun.

Their company, officially launching on Thursday, wants to join forces with an established international car manufacturer to produce an electric SUV - but with a traditional and distinctive Moroccan design for the car's interior.

The idea is to construct the vehicles at a factory in Morocco.

The North African country has already transformed itself into a car-making hub, for multinationals such as Renault, and aims to produce one million vehicles a year.

Image source, Atlas E-Mobility Group

Mr El Bakkali also hopes they can be involved in developing Africa's electric infrastructure.

"For us the main three challenges that we find are: first - the range anxiety; second - the charging infrastructure availability and third - affordability," says Mr El Bakkali.

But he is confident the company can overcome these challenges and produce cars for the expanding middle class on the continent.

There have been announcements about similar projects by other companies in the past, but so far none of them have reached the production stage.

Production of the Atlas E-Mobility Group vehicles is planned to start in 2026.

Mayeni Jones
BBC News, Lagos

New figures show UK net migration reached 606,000 in 2022 - with Nigerians making up some of the largest number of new arrivals

The reason many opt to leave is that inflation in Nigeria is currently above 20% and food inflation is even higher. For many middle class young professionals, making ends meet feels increasingly difficult.

They are now looking to skill up to get better jobs - and thousands of them have turned to British universities. Recent data showed sharp increases in the number of Nigerians coming to the UK to study., external

The students hope a degree from a foreign university will make them more employable either at home or abroad.

This exodus is particularly acute in the medical field, where many professionals are attracted to the UK’s higher salaries and access to world-class hospitals.

This week’s news that some foreign students will not be able to bring relatives with them has been met with frustration from many Nigerians.

Given foreign students and their dependants don’t have access to public funds in the UK - and have to pay a surcharge to use the NHS - there is confusion as to why they are being targeted.

It is not yet clear what impact the move will have on the number of Nigerians who decide to study in the UK.

But anecdotally, some are saying they may consider choosing countries that are openly courting foreign students, including Canada and Germany.

Watch my interview with BBC News for more:

The Freetown landmark was a symbol of liberty for early settlers and appeared on banknotes.

Richard Hamilton
BBC World Service newsroom

Image source, AFP

The warring sides in Sudan have accused each other of being behind breaches of the latest ceasefire, now in its third day.

The one-week truce was violated minutes after it came into effect on Monday night, with residents of the capital, Khartoum, witnessing air strikes and artillery fire.

Sporadic clashes between the army and a paramilitary group, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), have spilled over into Thursday.

Image source, AFP

But the current ceasefire has allowed some residents to venture out of their homes for food, water and medical care.

The conflict has exacerbated an existing humanitarian crisis, forced more than 1.3 million people to flee and threatened to destabilise the region.

More on Sudan's crisis:

• Mediators over a barrel in mission to end fighting
• Why an accountant took up arms
• The Eritrean refugees caught between two crises
• The unsung heroes keeping Khartoum residents alive

Image source, BBC/UMARU FOFANA

The skyline of Freetown has changed forever now that its iconic cotton tree is no longer towering over the Sierra Leonean capital.

The tree, which stood for several hundred years, was brought down by a heavy storm, prompting Sierra Leone poet Oumar Farouk Sesay to pen a verse about its significance to the country.

The Cotton Tree is Gone

Image source, Getty Images

The cotton tree's trunk and roots remain in place, suggesting that new shoots could grow into a new tree.

Lucy Pawle
BBC HARDtalk

Image source, AFP

The leader of South Africa’s main opposition party has warned of a “doomsday” scenario at the next election if the governing Africa National Congress (ANC) party goes into coalition with the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) to secure a majority in parliament.

The EFF is currently South Africa’s third-largest political party and is led by the firebrand Julius Malema.

South Africa is due to have elections next year. Having governed since the end of apartheid almost 30 years ago, on current polling the ANC could struggle to win an outright majority.

“If the ANC and EFF do tie up... imagine how terrifying it’s going to be,” said John Steenhuisen, who leads the Democratic Alliance (DA), the country's the largest opposition party.

“I think that is doomsday” scenario, he said in an exclusive interview with BBC HARDtalk's Stephen Sackur in Cape Town.

Mr Steenhuisen warns an ANC-EFF coalition would mean “poverty is going to get deeper, hunger is going to increase, unemployment is going to jump dramatically”.

“That can only make the situation more febrile in South Africa than it has ever been before,” he said.

The DA leader denied that he was fear-mongering, saying his warnings are “absolutely being truthful to voters” and that he is “telling people the honest truth”.

When asked whether he would consider taking the DA into a coalition with the ANC, he said: “I don’t think we could work with the ANC, not in their current form."

Watch the full interview on Thursday 25 May 2023 on BBC News and on BBC iPlayer for UK audiences. It will be available to listen to on BBC World Service radio on Monday 29 May 2023.

Image source, International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals

Fulgence Kayishema, one of the most-wanted suspects accused of involvement in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, has been arrested in the South African town of Paarl after more than 20 years on the run.

He was detained on Wednesday afternoon in a joint operation between South African authorities and a UN team which tracks down remaining fugitives.

According to a UN body that handles outstanding war crimes cases for Rwanda and Yugoslavia, external, known as the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals' (IRMCT), Kayishema was one of the world’s most-wanted genocide fugitives.

Image source, AFP

He was indicted in 2001 by the UN's International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) and charged with genocide, complicity in genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide and crimes against humanity for killings and other crimes.

He is alleged to have orchestrated the killing of approximately 2,000 Tutsi people - women, men, children and elderly - at a church in Kivumu commune, where he was a police inspector.

He was accused of directly participating in the planning and execution of the massacre, including by procuring and distributing petrol to burn down the church with the those seeking refuge inside.

"When this failed, Kayishema and others used a bulldozer to collapse the church, burying and killing the refugees inside. Kayishema and others then supervised the transfer of corpses from the church grounds into mass graves over the next approximately two days," the IRMCT's statement said.

A reward of up to $5m had been offered, external by the US for his arrest.

The suspect, who has been on the run since his indictment, is due to be arraigned on Friday in a Cape Town court, reports say.

About 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed by ethnic Hutu extremists in 100 days in 1994.

• Rwanda genocide: 100 days of slaughter

Nichola Mandil
BBC News, Juba

Image source, AFP

The UN peacekeeping mission in South Sudan (Unmiss) has warned that the situation in the country could unravel if the war in neighbouring Sudan continues.

Nicholas Haysom, the head of Unmiss, told reporters in the capital, Juba, that South Sudan "will unravel as a result of what is happening in Sudan" noting that the war's negative effects would be felt beyond the country.

He said a disruption of South Sudan's oil pipeline to Sudan - through which the landlocked country exports all its crude oil - would have an immediate impact.

He said South Sudan and its citizens' capacity "to simply get by" would be affected "because 90% of the services and salaries all come from the oil money".

"So in that regard, we would certainly want to argue - loudly, strongly, repeatedly - that the war has to come to an end,” Mr Haysom added.

The fighting between the Sudan army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), now on its sixth week, has displaced nearly one million people, according to the UN.

The number of South Sudanese returnees who have fled the conflict and returned home has exceeded 70,000, according to Unmiss

BBC Monitoring
The world through its media

Image source, Dmytro Kuleba/Twitter

Ukraine Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba has urged African countries to end their neutral stance over Russia's invasion as he embarks on a second tour of the continent.

“By being neutral towards the Russian aggression against Ukraine, you project your neutrality to the violation of borders and mass crimes that may occur very close to you, if not happen to you," he said during a press conference in Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa, where the African Union (AU) is headquartered

However, Mr Kuleba did note that Ukraine's "relations with African countries did not receive proper attention in our foreign policy for years and we lost a lot".

He held talks on Wednesday with Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, African Union Commission chair Moussa Faki and Comoros President Azali Assoumani, who is the current AU chair.

Six African countries - led by South Africa - are leading a peace initiative between Moscow and Kyiv as the war negatively impacts grain and fertiliser supplies in the region.

While the majority of countries have consistently condemned Russia's invasion during deliberations at the UN, abstentions by various African countries have sparked Western criticism.

Mr Kuleba's African tour also includes visits to Morocco and Rwanda.

He made his first trip to the continent last October when he visited Senegal, Ivory Coast, Ghana and Kenya.

Abdi Dahir
BBC Monitoring

Image source, TPEC/Twitter

The first ever one-person-one-vote election is taking place in Somalia since 1969.

Voting for local councils is under way in 30 districts in the north-eastern semi-autonomous state of Puntland.

During the socialist rule of Siad Barre, who took power in a coup in 1969, political parties were banned. After he was overthrown in 1991 the country, faced with years of civil war and an Islamist militant insurgency, has used an indirect voting system via clan representatives.

The Transitional Puntland Electoral Commission (TPEC) said, external 319,507 had registered voters collected voter cards and were expected to participate.

However, there are security concerns because of a dispute between Puntland's President Sa’id Abdullahi Deni and his political opponents who accuse him of plans to extend his term in office.

Opposition-allied armed officers reportedly seized ballot boxes supposed to be moved from the regional capital Garowe to some polling stations.

The electoral commission consequently postponed the process in three districts, including the regional capital where deadly clashes occurred on 15 May. The other two districts are Dangorayo and Godobijiran.

Despite the political disputes, voters expressed their excitement to be participating in the what is so far a peaceful process.

Image source, Getty Images

Zimbabwe's main opposition coalition, the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC), has alleged that some of the more than 4,000 prisoners released on presidential amnesty last week include child rapists.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa pardoned the prisoners drawn from the country’s 47 prisons in an attempt to decongest overcrowded jails.

Prison authorities had said rape was among offences excluded from the amnesty, external.

However, viral videos showed what local media said were rapists celebrating their freedom with some who are said to have served less than a year of their term.

The CCC in a statement on Wednesday said it was "grossly irrational to release dangerous, unrehabilitated offenders back into society" before informing or preparing rape victims.

“Unleashing an unrehabilitated rapist who has not served his sentence back into his community unchecked and with no safeguards to protect victims endangers women and girls and can never be reasonably justifiable in a democratic society,” CCC spokesperson Fadzayi Mahere said.

Some Zimbabweans on social media have also demanded that the decision be reversed as it puts women in danger.

"In normal countries, amnesty is never granted to rapists or people who have committed violent crimes. Women are not safe with this regime," investigative journalist Hopewell Chin’ono and government critic tweeted, external.

The Zimbabwean authorities are yet to comment on the allegations.

The Newsroom
BBC World Service

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has approved a $3.5bn (£2.8bn) loan agreement with Ivory Coast, which it says is designed to tackle financial challenges and assist economic transformation.

The West African country will receive nearly $500m immediately.

Further funds will be dependent on Ivory Coast making structural changes to its economy.

The IMF says the loan will help the country tackle the triple shocks of the Covid pandemic, global monetary tightening and Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

In March 2021, one of the largest container ships in the world blocked the canal for six days.

Image source, BBC/Umaru Fofana

An iconic landmark in the Sierra Leonean capital, Freetown - a hundreds-year-old towering cotton tree - has been brought down by a heavy storm.

President Julius Maada Bio said the tree fell after a heavy downpour on Wednesday night. He described it, external as a “great loss to the nation”.

The president said the tree was regarded as a symbol of liberty and freedom by early settlers. Freetown was founded as a home for repatriated former slaves in 1787.

The iconic tree also appears on Sierra Leone banknotes - and is said to be the oldest of its kind in the country.

President Bio has said there will be something at the same spot to represent the “great cotton tree’s place” in the country's history.

Image source, BBC/Umaru Fofana

Here's the tree pictured in 2013:

Image source, Getty Images

Plymouth couple call on government to create refugee visa scheme for relatives fleeing Sudan.

Image source, Kenya presidency/Twitter

China's embassy in Kenya has denied a Reuters news agency report that Chinese hackers attacked key state agencies in the capital, Nairobi, including the presidency.

This was reportedly done to assess whether the East Africa nation would service billions of dollars owed to Beijing.

The years-long cyber-attacks started in 2019 when the Chinese started closing credit taps to Kenya as debt strains started showing, according to Reuters.

But the Chinese embassy said the report was "far-fetched and sheer nonsense", in a statement, external on Wednesday.

"Hacking is a common threat to all countries and China is also a victim of cyber-attack," it added.

The embassy says it is a highly sensitive political issue to blame a certain government for a cyber-attack without solid evidence.

It says the ties between Kenya and China are founded on mutual respect.

"China and Kenya are good friends, good partners and good brothers," the embassy spokesperson said.

Kenya has reportedly cut borrowing from China. As of March it owed the south-eastern Asian country $6.31bn (£5.8bn).