President Buhari signs 2021 budget of N13.58 trillion, to make New Year broadcast Friday

The European Commission has recommended candidate status for Ukraine. Just over three months after being invaded by Russia, Kyiv has cleared the first hurdle on the road to membership.

Josep Borrell, the EU's foreign policy chief has called for Russia to end its blockade of Ukrainian ports. His comments come ahead of a meeting of the bloc's 27 foreign ministers.

UK's Johnson says he would defend Rwanda policy to Prince Charles

The powerful tremor has killed more than 1,000 people, and the death toll is likely to rise manifold. People need aid urgently, but with the Taliban in power, international help for quake victims is a complicated affair.

German pharmaceutical company BioNTech has begun construction of an COVID-19 vaccine plant in Rwanda. When completed, it will be the first mRNA vaccine plant in Africa.

Relatives of murdered Congolese independence hero Patrice Lumumba attend a sombre ceremony in Brussels as Belgium returns his tooth. It's all that remains of him after his assassination in 1961. Also, Kenya has no reproductive health legislation but the public is going to have its say on a regional bill that could make a big difference to national sexual health services. And the refugee status of hundreds of thousands of Ivorians who fled post-electoral violence in the country in 2011 is coming to an end.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine four months ago, the cost of living crisis has become a global issue. Prices have gone up around the world. In Europe, the countries that use the euro saw an average of 8.1 percent inflation in May. Pressure on prices, combined with stuttering economic growth, has sparked fears of a recession. These concerns could still come into play regarding the EU's response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In this programme, we're joined by two MEPs to discuss how the EU should balance sanctions against Russia with the risk of recession.

This week on Talking Europe we take a look at some of the other countries, aside from Ukraine, that are knocking on the EU's door to join the bloc. EU leaders held a summit on Thursday with the Western Balkan states to discuss their accession process. For Albania, that started back in 2008 and still hasn't advanced to the negotiations stage. Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama spoke to FRANCE 24’s Luke Brown on the sidelines of the EU-Western Balkans leaders' meeting in Brussels.

A new judicial report claims Jacob Zuma is "a critical player" in a massive theft from state enterprises in South Africa. But the ex-president pledged to challenge the findings.

Although EU candidacy for Ukraine and Moldova has been hailed as historic, frustrations among other candidates years into their own membership bids should serve as a reminder that the path ahead won't be easy.

Here are a few reasons to pick up a copy of The Guardian on Monday. Find these stories and much more when you grab a copy of The Guardian on Monday.⁣

Spiking food prices caused by the war in Ukraine are threatening to push more people to the brink of starvation. If G7 countries don't deliver on aid, poorer nations might turn elsewhere.