Kampala, Uganda | KEHINDE WILEY | Over the course of the past year, I have had the life-changing honour of painting President Obama’s portrait for the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery. On Monday, we unveiled it to the world. I’d like to tell you a bit about it. In choosing the composition …

Geneva, Switzerland | AFP | Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday accused Washington of training Europeans in the use of nuclear weapons, with the aim of using them against his country. “Nuclear disarmament is hampered by the US non-strategic nuclear weapons in Europe,” Lavrov told the UN Conference on Disarmament …

Brussels, Belgium | AFP | British Prime Minister Theresa May angrily rejected a draft divorce treaty unveiled by the EU on Wednesday, saying she would never allow the bloc to undermine her country’s “constitutional integrity”. May lashed out at the proposal to keep British-ruled Northern Ireland in a customs union if …

Oslo, Norway | AFP | Has Donald Trump really been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize? The Norwegian Nobel Institute said Wednesday it had filed a police report after receiving a seemingly fraudulent nomination for the US president. “We have good reason to believe that a nomination we received concerning Trump …

Moscow, Russia | AFP | The International Olympic Committee has lifted a ban against Russia, Moscow officials said on Wednesday, after the country had been barred from the Pyeongchang games over state-sponsored doping. The news, confirmed later by the IOC, was announced as Olympic athletes were feted in the Kremlin, thanking …

Nouakchott, Mauritania | AFP | Recep Tayyip Erdogan landed in Mauritania on Wednesday flanked by businessmen and primed to sign several cooperation deals in the first visit by a Turkish president to Nouakchott. He is undertaking a four-nation African tour to ramp up Turkey’s growing influence throughout the continent, where it …

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil | AFP | In Brazil, the land where football is king, Neymar’s foot injury has unleashed sharp emotions and concern, rumors and speculation about the star player upon whom so many hopes rest for World Cup victory in Russia. “We just might have lost the World Cup …

Londres, United Kingdom | AFP | Former prime minister John Major suggested Wednesday that Britons should be given the chance to vote again on Brexit, warning they were “misled” about its consequences. He said UK lawmakers should have the option of calling a second referendum on EU membership when they …

Abuja, Nigeria | AFP | It sounds like something from Wakanda, the futuristic African kingdom of the hit movie “Black Panther”. But “Transaqua” is a very real proposal for a very real problem — how to replenish the shrinking waters of Lake Chad. It imagines a 2,600-km (1,600-mile) canal from …

Lagos, Nigeria | AFP | Nigeria is suffering its worst outbreak of Lassa fever, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday, as local health officials said 72 people had died since the start of this year. “Nigeria’s Lassa fever outbreak has reached record highs, with 317 laboratory confirmed cases,” …