Newscast - Africa

Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, struck a deal to buy Twitter for $44 billion, capping a saga complete with hostile takeover threats before delivering him personal control of one of the most influential social media platforms on the planet.
Musk says Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated.
He added that Twitter will be better than ever by enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots and authenticating all humans.

El Salvador has extended the state of emergency imposed last month to crack down on gang violence amid concerns of human rights violations.
The country’s legislature approved a 30-day extension of the decree, which restricts the right to gather, to be informed of rights upon detention, and access to a lawyer, as well as allows phone calls and emails to be intercepted without a court order.
The new decree says that security conditions persist and urgently demand the extension due to the continuation of the circumstances which motivated it.

Guinea’s ruling military government has signalled that it might break a deadline to set out its plans to return to civilian rule, opening up the prospect of more sanctions from West Africa’s political and economic bloc.
Leaders of the regional Economic Community of West African States bloc last month told the military governments in Guinea and Burkina Faso they had until April 25 to explain how and when they would hand back power to civilians or face immediate sanctions.
Guinea’s government spokesman says Guinea’s reality will prevail over all other imperatives.
Ousmane Gaoual Diallo says they are going to evolve, taking into account the context and the specific situation of the country, towards exiting the transition.

Togo's parliament has passed a resolution asking the government to make a formal bid for membership in the Commonwealth, a group of mainly former British colonies.
The country is already a member of the Economic Organisation of the West African States and the International Organisation of La Francophonie.
The speaker of parliament Yawa Tsegan says Togo is not leaving the Francophonie but will only strengthen the English teaching programmes and reactivate other partnerships.
The resolution, passed on Friday, asked the government to submit its application for Commonwealth membership at the bloc's next summit in Rwanda in June.

Operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency have arrested a suspected billionaire drug baron.
The Director, Media, and Advocacy of the NDLEA Femi Babafemi says he is behind the N3 billion Tramadol deal involving the embattled suspended Deputy Commissioner of Police, Abba Kyari-led Intelligence Response Team.
Babafemi says that the suspect came under watch last year after five cartons of Tramadol 225mg were seized from his staff on 4th May 2021 when he sent them to sell to undercover police officers from the then Kyari-led IRT of the Nigeria Police, Ikeja Lagos.

The President of the African Development Bank Group Akinwumi Adesina has called on African governments to prepare for a global food crisis.
Adesina says the African Development Bank is already active in mitigating the effects of a food crisis through the African Food Crisis Response and Emergency Facility a dedicated facility being considered by the Bank to provide African countries with the resources needed to raise local food production and procure fertilizer.
He explained that Russia and Ukraine supply 30% of global wheat exports, the price of which has surged by almost 50% globally, reaching identical levels as during the 2008 global food crisis.

The Presidency has criticized government opponents for influencing the perception of the United States government of Nigeria which is believed to have led to delays in the supply of fighter jets to the country to boost the fight against insecurity.
Presidential Spokesman Garba Shehu, says one of those opponents includes the Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, Matthew Hassan Kukah.
Shehu maintained that the clergyman provided quotes from a book written by former US Ambassador to Nigeria, John Campbell, which the Presidency observed do not suggest much improvement in the country.

The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, has sought the support of the United Kingdom’s Parliament in the area of insecurity, parliamentary diplomacy, as well as political and economic prosperity in Nigeria.
The speaker says the House had on different occasions intervened on the issue of xenophobia in South Africa, the dispute involving Nigerian traders in Ghana, and ensured the evacuation of Nigerian students from Ukraine recently.
Gbajabiamila noted that the issue of security was very important as Nigeria was grappling with insecurity challenges, adding that whatever happened to Nigeria has a ricochet effect on other countries.

Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu says Turkey has closed its airspace to Russian civilian and military planes flying to Syria.
Cavusoglu says they closed the airspace to Russia’s military planes and even civilian ones flying to Syria.
Cavusoglu says he conveyed the decision to his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov, who then relayed it to President Vladimir Putin.
Cavusoglu added that the ban would stay in place for three months.

Spain’s government has announced investigations into the country’s intelligence services after a rights group said spyware had been used to hack the telephones of Catalan separatist leaders.
Investigators at Canada’s Citizen Lab say that the mobile phones of at least 65 Catalan politicians including the Catalonia region’s current leader had been affected.
Citizen Lab, which focuses on high-tech human rights abuses, said it could not directly attribute the spying operations, but that circumstantial evidence pointed to Spanish authorities.
Spain’s presidency minister Felix Bolanos promised an internal investigation within the National Intelligence Centre, which would report to a parliamentary commission allowing legislators to access classified information.