Martin Hibbert, who was 5 metres from the deadly explosion, is now tackling Africa’s highest mountain

It was a month after the Manchester Arena attack when Martin Hibbert learned the catastrophic toll of his injuries. He and his 14-year-old daughter, Eve, on a “daddy daughter day” to an Ariana Grande concert, were 5 metres from the explosion that killed 22 people and injured hundreds more in May 2017.

Hibbert, 45, from Chorley in Lancashire, was told he would never walk again. Eve would probably never see, hear, speak or move – if she made it out of hospital. They were the closest to the bomb to survive.

NGOs call for aid exemption to EU-backed sanctions imposed after election postponement and arrival of Russian paramilitary

More than a dozen aid organisations have called for humanitarian exemptions to heavy sanctions imposed on Mali after the military leadership postponed planned February elections.

The EU has announced support for the sanctions imposed earlier this month by the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas), which include closing borders and a trade embargo.

Mia Mottley is just one of a raft of strong women across the Caribbean and South America tackling society’s most pressing issues. The world could learn a lot from them

There is a common misconception that the developing world is full of archaic values and that women struggle to have their voices heard. The more countries I visit and the more female leaders I speak to, the more I am convinced the contrary is true.

In fact, those in positions of power worldwide could learn important lessons from these strong women when it comes to tackling some of society’s most pressing issues, including pandemics, the climate crisis, education and infrastructure.

Scientists say Australia’s hardest-hit states are ‘probably through the worst’ as cases are ‘levelling off’; Covid cases have sharply declined in Africa for the first time since discovery of Omicron, WHO says

• Austria creates Covid lottery with €500 prizes to woo vaccine hesitant
• NHS England Covid absences fall amid signs staffing crisis is easing
• ‘Dangerous’ to lift self-isolation rules for England’s care home staff
• Unvaccinated Chelsea players could be barred from match at Lille
• Australia’s Omicron wave has likely peaked in NSW and Victoria – experts

Hello it’s Samantha Lock back with you on the blog, reporting all the latest Covid developments from across the world.

I’ll be reporting to you from Sydney and my colleagues from London will take over a little later in the day.

A massive crater has been formed in the ground following an explosion in Ghana's rural west. The explosion happened when a truck carrying explosives to a gold mine collided with a motorcycle. Multiple people are believed to have been killed. Footage shows widespread damage to houses nearby

• Dozens feared dead after immense explosion rocks western Ghana

The blast was the result of a mining explosive vehicle colliding with a motorcycle

Dozens of people are feared dead after a truck carrying explosives collided with a motorcyle in western Ghana, causing an immense conflagration.

The accident happened around noon in Apiate, near the city of Bogoso some 300 km (180 miles) west of the mineral-rich West African country’s capital Accra.

Three days of mourning declared after crush which police say was sparked by a gang attacking worshippers

At least 29 people in Liberia, including 11 children and a pregnant woman, have died in a crowd crush of worshippers at a Christian ceremony in a densely populated area of the capital, Monrovia, officials say.

The crush occurred when a gang of thugs armed with knives attacked some of the hundreds of people attending the ceremony at about 9pm on Wednesday night, a police spokesperson, Moses Carter, said.

Africa’s unprecedented population growth will impact geopolitics, global trade, migration and almost every aspect of life. It’s time for a reimagining of the continent

In 2022 the world’s population will pass 8 billion. It has increased by a third in just two decades. By 2050, there will be about 9.5 billion of us on the planet, according to respected demographers. This makes recent comments by Elon Musk baffling. According to him, “the low birthrate and the rapidly declining birthrate” is “one of the biggest risks to civilisation”.

Fertility rates in Europe, North America and east Asia are generally below 2.1 births per woman, the level at which populations remain stable at constant mortality rates. The trajectory in some countries is particularly arresting. The birthrate in Italy is the lowest it has ever been in the country’s history. South Korea’s fertility rate has been stuck below one birth per woman for decades despite an estimated $120bn (£90bn) being spent on initiatives aimed at raising it. Japan started the century with 128 million citizens but is on course to have only 106 million by 2050. China’s population will peak at 1.45 billion in 2030, but if it proves unable to raise its fertility rate, the world’s most populous country could end the century with fewer than 600 million inhabitants. This is the “big risk” alluded to by Musk. The trouble is, his statement seems to imply that “civilisation” does not include Africa.

Western users may be logging off, but across the continent of Africa, the social media company is indispensable for everything from running a business to sourcing vaccines. How has it become so inescapable?

Badri Ibrahim is a Sudanese comic artist and the founder of the Abbas Comics empire. His strips are quirky and irreverent, poking fun at the Sudanese military and encouraging civic activism. One recurrent character is a hapless but wise cat called Ghadanfar, a sort of Garfield meets Snoopy protagonist, who finds himself on the wrong end of misunderstandings with neighbourhood felines and humans. It is all rendered in colloquial dialect and is dry, funny and often poignant. So popular has the comic become that Ibrahim is regularly commissioned to do private work, rendering Ghadanfar in different guises – as a bashful groom on a wedding invitation card, for example.

The majority of this work comes through Facebook, where his comics have about 19,000 followers. “I ran the page for about a year,” Ibrahim says. By then, it had become its own community, and now he does not need to spend much time maintaining it. During the launch period, Ibrahim spent a lot of time “posting regularly and engaging with comments” and also “sending the page to everyone I know”. Freelance work came through those comments. “People and businesses would send me a message through the page, looking for an artist. Sometimes they ask for one of my comic characters to use for a product.” He can’t imagine how he would have launched his artistic career without Facebook.

‘Both of the people on this train in Kinshasa are me. I superimposed myself because I can’t afford models’

This image, part of a series called Imaginary Trip, was taken in an abandoned train outside Kinshasa station in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. I was looking for a site to evoke an imaginary voyage to convey the idea of memory, the passage of time and the reappropriation of old places. A lot of young men hang around this area, which is a poor neighbourhood, and they squat in the trains during the day while doing various jobs such as helping people at the station. Sometimes they have something to do, other times nothing.

The two people in this photograph are both me. I took several digital images and then superimposed them to represent two young men playing a traditional game of draughts with bottle tops – as they do. When I started out on this project, I did not intend to put myself in the photographs – it was almost accidental. I did not have the money to pay for models, so it was partly a question of budget, but also of time. I spend ages in these places creating my photographs, too long for most people to hang around, so in the end I found myself in front of and behind the camera. I often work alone with a camera, a tripod and a remote trigger.

After rising to the top of a white-dominated industry, a new generation of Zimbabweans are bringing their talents home

Like many young Zimbabweans before and since, Tinashe Nyamudoka left the economic chaos of his country to find work and a better life for himself in neighbouring South Africa.

When he left in 2008, Nyamudoka had never tasted wine. Now, he ranks among southern Africa’s top sommeliers and has his own wine label with international sales.

Four arrests of cult-like criminal gang members made in southern Italy after Nigerian woman forced into prostitution comes forward

Four alleged members of the Nigerian mafia have been arrested in southern Italy after a young sex trafficking survivor spoke out against them.

The men, who were arrested in Palermo and Taranto in the early hours of Tuesday, allegedly belong to the feared Black Axe, a cult-like criminal gang that emerged in the 1970s at the University of Benin, according to police.

I was struck by how few authors I could name who are women. With Makewana, the ‘mother’ responsible for rain, as our namesake, my group set out to end the literary drought

I have often tried to imagine what Makewana, the original female rainmaker of ancient Malawi, must have looked like.

There is a statue of her with long hair at Mua Mission in Dedza, since to cut her hair would have signified drought.

Analysis: UK reportedly considering sending asylum seekers to Rwanda, which was involved in controversial scheme with Israel

Rwanda – one of two African countries to which the UK government is reportedly considering sending asylum seekers for resettlement and processing – was previously embroiled in a highly controversial migrant deportation scheme involving Israel.

Although few details have emerged after a report in the Times that migrants could be sent to Ghana and Rwanda, Rwanda’s previous involvement in receiving African deportees from Israel raises serious concerns over whether – even with UK funding – it has the resources or even willingness to host deportations.

It’s been dubbed the perfect invader, but the marbled crayfish may offer a sustainable food source and even help prevent disease

Small, bluish-grey and speckled, it would be easy to overlook the marbled crayfish. Except for the fact it is likely to be coming to a pond or river near you soon – if it is not already there. The all-female freshwater crustacean has become a focus of fascination for scientists in recent years, due to its unique ability among decapods – the family that includes shrimps, crabs and lobsters – to clone itself and quickly adapt to new environments, as well as the fact that it has spread exponentially.

The marbled crayfish was first recognised in 1995, when a biology student bought a bag of crayfish – sold to him as “Texas crayfish” – from American traders at a pet fair in Frankfurt. After becoming a burden to their new owner due to their inexplicably rapid rate of reproduction, he distributed them to friends who, in turn, dumped them in rivers, lakes and toilets, from where they spread rapidly, throughout Germany, much of mainland Europe and most profusely, the island of Madagascar, home to unique but extremely delicate freshwater ecosystems.

Etinosa Yvonne recalls a chance encounter with a Fulani woman in northern Nigeria

I met this woman in Machina, in Yobe state, when I was on assignment in northern Nigeria 2020. It had taken us seven hours to get there – it’s right on the border with Niger – and it was already late afternoon, early evening.

We were waiting for people to come and collect water from a solar-powered water pump when I saw her: this extremely beautiful Fulani woman. I was particularly drawn to the marks on her face. I knew Fulani women always like to look good, but it was really beautiful to see up close. There was a bit of a language barrier as I don’t speak Fula and she didn’t speak English or Hausa, but she agreed to have her photo taken.

Study finds ancient hunter-gatherers traded eggshell beads over vast area

Scientists have uncovered the world’s oldest social network, a web of connections that flourished 50,000 years ago and stretched for thousands of miles across Africa.

But unlike its modern electronic equivalent, this ancient web of social bonds used a far more prosaic medium. It relied on the sharing and trading of beads made of ostrich eggshells – one of humanity’s oldest forms of personal adornment.

Those worst affected by the climate crisis will show us the way forward – if they are given enough support to survive it first

• Help us support those on the frontline of the climate emergency
• Donate to our charity appeal here

Over the past month, the Guardian and Observer charity appeal 2021 has raised more than £830,000 for climate justice, partnering with four brilliant charities. As the appeal prepares to close, the charities talk about their missions – and the future of the planet.

Thousands of diabetics in region face ‘agonising death’ amid blockage on food, fuel and medicines in 14-month conflict

Doctors at Tigray’s main hospital are urging the Ethiopian government to allow supplies of insulin to be airlifted into the region, warning that their stocks will run out within a week and that patients with type 1 diabetes are “at serious risk of death”.

At the Ayder referral hospital in Mekelle, the largest in the region of 7 million people, staff have been told they only have 150 vials of insulin left and no oral diabetes medicines, according to a statement late on Friday.

People in two tiny West Africa towns are stunned by the deaths of sisters, nephews and mothers in a tight-knit immigrant community

Early on Sunday morning, Ebrima Dukureh, 60, answered a phone call at his home in the Gambian town of Allunhari.

It was his nephew, Haji Dukureh, 49, calling from New York City, to check in – as he often did. The two men caught up on news, asked after each other’s families and exchanged blessings.