France Football officially unveiled the 30-man shortlist for the 2026 Ballon d’Or on Tuesday, September 8, 2026, with Lionel Messi securing his 17th career nomination. The 70th edition of the prestigious awards ceremony will take place on Monday, October 26, 2026, in London, marking the first time the event will be held in the English capital. Messi’s inclusion on the 2026 shortlist continues his remarkable longevity at the highest level of football. The Inter Miami forward is now just one nomination behind the all-time record of 18, held by his long-time rival Cristiano Ronaldo, who was notably absent from this…
Author: Oki Bin Oki
The first road bridge linking Russia and North Korea has opened, allowing the two countries to more easily move cargo and passengers between their border across the Tumen river. Pyongyang state media said the bridge will be used for “personnel exchanges, tourism and trade”. But Ukrainian investigative organisation Truth Hounds said the bridge is intended “primarily to establish a covert military logistics corridor” to support Russia in the Ukraine war. It comes amid stronger ties between the countries since the start of the Ukraine war, with Russia’s Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un previously pledging that they would help…
Canada’s retaliatory tariffs on a range of US goods came into effect on Tuesday, with no sign of a trade deal on the horizon. The counter-tariffs will apply to nearly C$28bn ($20bn; £15bn) worth of American products, from steel to furniture to cotton T-shirts, and will be as high as 50%. Fresh fish and lobster were also on the list, but Canada later omitted them after pushback from its seafood industry – a sign of the tricky balance it has to strike as it retaliates against its largest trading partner. Both US and Canadian officials have said they would like…
A spokesperson for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex says they were surprised to see a letter sent on behalf of King Charles clarifying that Prince Harry and Meghan remained non-working royals. A spokesperson for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex says they were surprised to see a letter sent on behalf of King Charles clarifying that Prince Harry and Meghan remained non-working royals. The spokesperson said the couple, who have recently moved back to the UK, “were a little surprised not to have been told about this in advance”. But royal sources say Prince Harry and Meghan were made…
Singapore’s government says it will raise the annual salaries of its ministers and other office holders, including its prime minister who is the highest paid political leader in the world. Lawrence Wong will see an increase of 1.4 million Singapore dollars ($1.1m; £818,000) in his annual pay package. He has said he will donate this pay increase to charity over the next five years. Wong said that raising the pay of ministers was necessary to attract better talent. The government has previously argued that paying ministers high salaries deters corruption. But the move has attracted criticism in Singapore where there…
Kenya is mourning the loss of Maureen Nyadida-Lukoye, the beloved wife of renowned psychiatrist Prof. Lukoye W’Atwoli, who passed away on Tuesday, September 8, 2026, following a courageous battle with cancer. Prof. Atwoli, the son of COTU Secretary-General Francis Atwoli, announced the heartbreaking news in a brief but devastating Facebook post. “I will struggle to deal with this. So long, my dear. So long,” he wrote, in what became a final, aching farewell to his wife of 21 years. The post quickly drew hundreds of reactions and an outpouring of condolences from friends, colleagues, and members of the public who…
Hundreds of Burundians in Kenya are scrambling to process travel documents to leave the country ahead of the crackdown on unlicensed small businesses run by migrants. President William Ruto set Monday as the deadline for foreigners operating small-scale businesses to cease work, after the trade ministry said some exploited visa rules to work without the required permits. Long queues were seen outside Burundi’s embassy in the capital Nairobi after it said it would offer free emergency travel documents to citizens who want to go back home. Others are racing to buy bus tickets. Kenya hosts hundreds of thousands of migrants…
Wiper Party leader Kalonzo Musyoka has criticised the government’s crackdown on foreign traders, accusing the Kenya Kwanza administration of handling the exercise without a clear strategy and creating unnecessary tensions with neighbouring countries. Musyoka said the sight of hundreds of small-scale traders seeking emergency travel documents outside the Burundian Embassy in Nairobi ahead of a government deadline demonstrated what he termed the chaotic manner in which the crackdown was being implemented. He argued that the government could protect Kenyan businesses without resorting to measures that risk disrupting legitimate trade or creating tensions between Kenyan and foreign traders. “There are better,…
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex will not be working royals allowed to carry out official engagements now they have returned to the UK, a letter sent on behalf of King Charles spells out. The letter is intended to clarify the status of Prince Harry and Meghan, who moved back from California with children Archie and Lilibet last month. They will still not be able to use the “HRH” titles of His and Her Royal Highness, and remain “private citizens”, says the letter sent on behalf of the King by the Lord Chamberlain, a top Palace official. It has been…
Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) is to cut 4,000 jobs as the carmaker struggles with Chinese competition, US tariffs, and the transition to electric vehicles. The cuts will happen over the next two years and will mostly affect the head office, which is based in the UK. JLR’s long-term issues were made worse after a cyber-attack last year caused the firm, which employs 43,000 people globally, to shut down production for more than a month. Chief executive PB Balaji said the firm was “committed to supporting everyone with care, fairness and respect” through the redundancy process. “The automotive industry faces significant…
Thousands of people turned out in Serbia’s capital, Belgrade, to attend the funeral of the convicted war criminal Ratko Mladić. Widely known as the Butcher of Bosnia, Mladić died at the age of 84 while serving a life sentence in the UN prison in The Hague, the Netherlands. He was found guilty of genocide by a UN war crimes tribunal for his role in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, when around 8,000 Bosniak Muslim men and boys were killed. It was described as Europe’s worst atrocity since World War Two. A Serbian government minister had initially said that Mladić would be…
OpenAI’s chief scientist Jakub Pachocki has called for “extreme caution” over AI’s runaway progress and warned more intervention may be needed to ensure “humans remain in control of the future”. “I am concerned no one is prepared for the consequences of a continued rapid rise in machine intelligence,” he wrote in a blog post entitled “An Alien Mind”. The post comes only a few days after the ChatGPT-maker released its latest model GPT-6 Astra, which it called its most powerful product ever. OpenAI and other AI firms like Anthropic shared reports of their AI agents acting autonomously and carrying out…
An armed man has been arrested in the US after charging towards Amy Acton, the Democratic politician campaigning to be Ohio state governor, during an event on Sunday. The Ohio State Highway Patrol, who were working to protect Acton, told the BBC in a statement that its team had stopped the suspect before he reached Acton at Ohio’s annual Canfield Fair event. The suspect, identified as 38-year-old Patrick Havas, was carrying two pistols at the time of his arrest. Acton herself was not injured during the incident , though her campaign team said several others were hurt as the man…
Everton’s story spanned 13 years. The towering midfielder has completed his move away from Goodison Park this summer. Sheffield Wednesday believe he can provide them with goals from midfield. Tyler Onyango has signed for Sheffield Wednesday on a three-year deal after leaving Everton as a free agent. For a player who began his career with the Toffees, it’s a significant new chapter. Onyango could still add goals from midfield for Sheffield Wednesday. Onyango began life at Everton back in 2011 when he joined their academy at the age of eight. The 23-year-old left-back spent over a decade with the Merseyside…
A senior Kenya Prisons Service officer was found dead inside his car at an open field behind Spur Mall in Juja, Kiambu County. Eric Kiarie Wainaina, a 40-year-old Senior Superintendent of Prisons (SSP) attached to the Kenya Prisons Service Central Region Headquarters in Nyeri, was found unresponsive on Sunday morning. Police said a member of the public, reported the discovery by telephone at about 10.30am. Police rushed to the scene where they found Wainaina seated and leaning backwards against the open driver’s door of a silver Nissan Wingroad. Senior police officers as well as senior Kenya Prisons officers led by…