Many Nigerians are commending President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for the role he played during the burial of his predecessor, former President Muhammadu Buhari, who was laid to rest on Tuesday. #Nigeria

#Kenya’s president says ‘enough is enough’ and vows to end anti-government protests.

President William Ruto said “enough is enough” and that he would not allow “anarchy” in the country disguised as peaceful demonstrations.

“Anyone going to burn people’s property should be shot in the leg, be hospitalized and later taken to court upon recovery. Do not kill them but break their leg,” he said while touring a site in Nairobi for one of his administration’s affordable housing projects.

Weeks of protests have rocked Kenya after a blogger died in police custody last month, angering many Kenyans. Tensions heightened after a policeman shot a civilian at close range during one of the demonstrations against police brutality. Thousands turned out for protests on June 25, which coincided with the one-year anniversary of huge anti-tax protests.

On Monday, police erected roadblocks on all roads leading to the city center in the capital, Nairobi, blocking motorists and pedestrians deemed not to be in essential work. Police clashed with protesters on the outskirts of the city and in 17 of 47 counties across the country, leaving 31 people dead and more than 100 injured. More than 500 others were arrested.

A total of 50 people have died in the past two weeks during two separate waves of demonstrations. The UN high commissioner for human rights, Volker Türk, on Tuesday urged that the grievances leading to the protests are addressed.

Ruto on Wednesday claimed the discontent was politically motivated and said that he would not allow destruction of property.

“You can call me whatever names you want to call me, but I will make sure there is peace and stability in Kenya by all means,” Ruto said.

The president read a riot act to his political rivals who he said wanted to overthrow his government through violence, adding that “anyone who attacks a police station, that is a declaration of war.”

“This is a democratic country, and the citizens are the ones who determine its leadership through an election. We cannot decide leadership through violence,” Ruto said.

Mong’are Okong’o, a lawyer and politician, condemned Ruto’s comments as “a reckless tragedy in waiting.”

“Has he considered the biological trauma of bullet wounds, shattered bones, severed arteries, permanent disability?” he said. “Such commands undermine due process and escalate brutality. A president should uphold life and law, not casually prescribe violence with irreversible consequences. Leadership demands wisdom, not war talk.”

Civil society groups have repeatedly called for restraint by police during demonstrations. Five police officers were recently charged in court over the death of a blogger in custody and the close-range shooting of a civilian. The deputy police inspector general Eliud Langat, who had filed a complaint about the blogger’s social media posts accusing him of corruption, has since stepped aside as investigations continue.

At least 40 Afrikaners who have been granted refugee status by the United States have arrived at the OR Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg and are currently being checked in for their private charter flight to the States later this evening.

The mystery of an 18th-century Austrian mummy might finally be solved, according to a new study unravelling the “little-known” methods that have preserved his remains for more than 200 years.

Published at the beginning of May in the journal Frontiers in Medicine, the joint project by scientists in Austria, Germany and Poland took on the case of the “Air-Dried Chaplain,” a mummified cadaver that has attracted tourists and researchers alike to a small village in the country’s north for many decades.

Shrouded in ancient rumours of “healing miracles,” the state of the body has long drawn speculation. Everything from acids seeping into the body from its coffin, to radiation, to simple good luck and favourable conditions have been pitched to explain its status, described by one scientist as “unusually well-preserved.”

The 2025 study launched the most detailed analysis of the chaplain yet, including an autopsy, CT scan and myriad other forensic experiments. Its results, researchers say, provide “certainty” of the chaplain’s identity and produce a number of clues about how he lived, died and remained in one piece for so many years.

A body of evidence

Based on the exhaustive review of his remains, scientists have concluded the chaplain was most likely Franz Xaver Sidler von Rosenegg, an aristocrat and vicar believed to have died in 1746, who was interred in the years since at the church crypt of St. Thomas am Blasenstein, west of Vienna.

Born in 1709, Sidler joined the clergy at a young age, and was later assigned to St. Thomas to serve as a parish vicar. Researchers say this basic biography is consistent with the chaplain’s remains, which displayed a high-quality diet and no signs of hard manual labour.

Records of correspondence with another monastery places his death at 37 years old, and while this matches the chaplain’s estimated age at death of between 35 and 45, the documents fail to explain how Sidler died so young, leaving further mysteries to solve.

While an X-ray of the body in the year 2000 showed a small capsule inside his body that some theorized could be poisonous, further examination of the mummy’s remains revealed a likely culprit in one of history’s most prolific killers: tuberculosis.

Sidler’s lungs appear to have been inflamed and calcified in places, both signs of the disease, the study says, and marks seemingly left by a belt around his waist suggest he may have lost a significant amount of weight late in life, which could be expected in the case of a disease like chronic tuberculosis.

Based in part on small particles of coal found in his airway, as well as how his teeth retracted in one area of his bite, it’s also likely he smoked a pipe, scientists say.

“In total, we have good evidence that he died of acute severe pulmonary hemorrhage due to destruction of lung vessels by an ongoing infection,” the study reads.

Posthumous popularity

While researchers say little more is known about Sidler’s life, his story took on new significance after he died, in large part because of how well his body has survived the centuries.

Rumours have it that he was initially buried in a local cemetery, but that he was exhumed and transferred to the church crypt years later, where talk spread of “several healing miracles” associated with his burial.

By the mid-1800s, he had become a local attraction, prominent enough to feature in a guidebook for tourists to the region, and while experts in mummification later visited Sidler to photograph and examine his remains, no clear scientific explanation emerged.

It wasn’t until the 2025 study that scientists were surprised to discover Sidler’s abdomen was “filled with considerable amounts of a mixed foreign material” that did not appear in prior X-rays, including “wood chips, fragmented twigs, large amounts of fabric of various types including elaborate embroidered linen, and even pieces of silk,” as well as high concentrations of zinc.

The researchers say zinc chloride has antimicrobial and disinfecting properties, and could have helped Sidler’s body rapidly dry from the inside out. The mass of objects in his abdomen could also have prevented his torso from collapsing over time, and the fabrics and wood may have absorbed fluids as he decomposed.

“The evidence suggests that the preservation was performed to avoid the spread of infection by miasma,” the study reads. “Possible later opening of the coffin or relocation of the human remains would have found a remarkably intact corpse and could easily result in miraculous beliefs by the local population.”

Scientists say this specific form of embalming, which appears to have involved inserting the packing rectally instead of by cutting open the body, does not appear elsewhere in the historical record, to their knowledge.

“Needless-to-say,” it concludes, “future investigations of crypt burials should take note of this unusual type of embalming when undertaking planned analyses of human remains.”

#Ugandan opposition member held by president's son shows signs of torture

Sudan's military on Sunday said the eastern, coastal city of Port #Sudan, the government's temporary seat of power since the war broke out in 2023, had been attacked by paramilitaries in a drone strike.

President Ruto grants clemency to 57 people, declares General Amnesty for petty offenders

https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/2025/04/public-schedule-april-25-2025/

More than 1,800 migrants expelled from Algeria into Niger, rights group says.

ALGIERS, ALGERIA — Algerian authorities rounded up more than 1,800 migrants and left them at the Nigerien border in a record expulsion earlier this month, a Niger-based migrant rights group said Thursday.

Alarmphone Sahara, which monitors migration across the region, said the migrants were bused to a remote desert area known as “Point Zero” after being apprehended in Algerian cities.

Abdou Aziz Chehou, the group’s national coordinator, told The Associated Press on Thursday that 1,845 migrants without legal status in Algeria had been counted, arriving in Niger’s border town of Assamaka after the April 19 mass expulsion.

That pushed the total number of expelled migrants arriving in Assamaka this month beyond 4,000, he said.

The figure does not include those who may attempt to return north into Algeria, Chehou added.

The mass deportations come amid rising tensions between Algeria and its southern neighbors, all now led by military juntas that ousted elected governments previously aligned with Algiers. Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger withdrew their ambassadors from Algeria earlier this month over border security disputes.

For migrants fleeing poverty, conflict or climate change, Algeria serves as a transit point en route to Europe. Many cross vast stretches of the Sahara en route before attempting dangerous journeys across the Mediterranean. But reinforced maritime patrols have stranded increasing numbers in transit countries with checkered human rights records and limited humanitarian aid.

In 2024, Alarmphone Sahara recorded more than 30,000 migrants expelled from Algeria. Similar pushbacks have also been reported in neighboring Morocco, Tunisia and Libya.

Neither Algerian nor Nigerien officials have commented on the latest expulsions, which are rarely reported in Algerian press. In the past, Nigerien authorities have said such actions appear to violate a 2014 agreement that allows only Nigerien nationals to be deported across the border.