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How Melania stormed Ghana and what she would be doing in Africa

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Melania Trump arrived Ghana on Tuesday on her first solo trip to Africa.

The first lady looked very stylish in a custom Celine shirt dress and a pair of $625 Manolo Blahnik heels, and narrowly avoided a wardrobe disaster when the hem of her ensemble started blowing up in the breeze.

After stepping onto the tarmac, Melania was greeted warmly by Ghana’s first lady Rebecca Akufo-Addo, and then presented with a bouquet of flowers by an eight-year-old girl wearing traditional dress.

On Monday evening she had boarded the military plane in a $1,695 suede trench coat from Vince, and a pair of $935 Manolo Blahnik heels.

Read also: Ethiopia tops global list of highest internal displacement in 2018

Melania went straight from the airport to the Greater Accra Regional Hospital, where she watched on as babies were weighed for a local nutrition program, then cradled an adorable infant.

As well as Ghana, Melania’s itinerary includes stops in Malawi, Kenya and Egypt .

When she announced her trip, Mrs Trump said she was looking forward to working with Ghana’s First Lady Rebecca Akufo-Addo to promote quality healthcare for mothers and newborns and nutrition in young children.

She also said that she was looking forward to better understand how the US can continue working together with Malawi to support a USAid program that is focussed on children’s education.

Mrs Trump also highlighted the work the US was doing in Kenya to support early-childhood education, wildlife conservation, and HIV prevention.

“My final stop, which is Egypt, will focus on the country’s tourism and conservation projects, but I know that through USAid, we have worked with the people of Egypt to promote an environment in which all groups of society – including women and religious minorities – can lead productive and healthy lives,” she said.

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Coup: Regional bloc, ECOWAS might intervene in Sierra Leone ‘if need be’

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Amidst a wave of military coups in the West African sub-region, a delegation of the ECOWAS Commission has hinted at likely bloc intervention in Sierra Leone following a failed coup over the weekend.

A chief of the commission and officials of the Nigerian government were received by Sierra Leone’s President, Julius Maada Bio, after Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the head of the 15-member sub-regional bloc, sent a message to Bio through Omar Alieu Touray, the head of the Ecowas Commission.

Gunmen last week exchanged fire for several hours with security forces in what the government attributed to “renegade soldiers.” Meanwhile, the police promised a “reward” to anyone providing information leading to the capture of 34 suspected fugitives.

“ECOWAS is ready and committed to supporting the people of Sierra Leone, including to strengthen their national security and the deployment, if need be, of regional elements,” Touray said.

The visit by the envoys appears to be a show of support for the government of Sierra Leone in the wake of the fatal attack that rocked the country’s capital, Freetown, on Sunday.

ECOWAS commended Bio’s and his government’s leadership in putting an end to what he described as a “very unfortunate incident.”

Concern has been raised by the wave of coups that have swept through Africa in the last three years, particularly in the West African bloc. The bloc has seen military takeovers of democratically elected governments in 2023 in Niger and Gabon, where troops removed Mohamed Bazzoum and Ali Bongo, respectively.

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Another Tunisian opposition leader, Moussi begins hunger strike in prison

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Another Tunisian opposition leader, Abir Moussi has begun a hunger strike in prison to protest what her lawyers described as a violation of her rights to freedom and political activity.

Moussi, who is a prominent opponent of Tunisian President, Kais Saied, was last month sentenced after police arrested her at the presidential palace entrance on suspicion of assault intended to cause chaos, viewed as part of a crackdown on opposition politicians by some watchers.

In a statement, her party, the Free Constitutional Party (PDL), cautioned against “attempts to fabricate legal obstacles to remove her from participating in the presidential elections” that are anticipated to take place the following year.

In a statement, her attorneys said that Moussi would go on a 16-day hunger strike to draw attention to the issue of violence against women in Tunisia. She is an advocate of the late president Zine El Abidine ben Ali, whose overthrow in 2011 was brought about by widespread demonstrations; an uprising subsequently extended throughout the Middle East, dubbed “the Arab Spring”.

In a similar move in September, embattled Tunisian opposition leader, Rached Ghannouchi, who has been a political prisoner since April, also threatened to begin a hunger strike in captivity.

Moussi faces charges of plotting against state security alongside other opposition figures who are in jail. She had accused Saied of staging a coup in order to close the elected parliament and impose rule by decree.

President Saied has been accused of suppressing dissenting voices in the nation since taking office. This year, the police has detained over 20 political figures, including Ghannouchi, on suspicion of trying to compromise national security.

More than 20 prominent politicians have been detained by police this year; some are a accused of being involved in plots against state security. “Terrorists, traitors, and criminals” is how Saied has characterised the people under arrest.

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