Salima Mukansanga, the first woman to officiate an Africa Cup of Nations match, says female referees deserve their place.

Africa's biggest football tournament is on in Cameroon and Rwanda's Salima Rhadia Mukansanga is the first woman to referee a match at the AFCON tournament. Salima took charge of the Zimbabwe vs Guinea game on January 21 and managed the men with grace and firmness.

In a dimly-lit room with racks of women's clothing, Ghanaian artist and LGBT+ activist Va-Bene Elikem Fiatsi prepares herself for the day, pairing a dress with carefully applied makeup. Transitioning is not illegal in Ghana, but it will become so if a new law is passed, intended to tighten already strict anti-LGBT+ regulations which render same-sex relations illegal. Homophobia is pervasive in the West African country and trans people are generally considered to be gay.

A student who set up a not-for-profit project in lockdown has helped 3,000 refugees out of period poverty. Ella Lambert, 21, who studies at the University of Bristol, launched the Pachamama Project last year. The initiative which has 1,000 volunteers globally, makes and distributes reusable sanitary pads to refugees.

Ninety-eight-year-old Priscilla Sitieni is the oldest primary school pupil in grade six at a school in Kenya's Rift Valley. Sitieni wants to achieve the goal of a lifetime: to pass her exams and obtain her diploma.

Lawyers for the family of a cinematographer killed when a gun mistakenly fired on the set of the movie "Rust" have said a real firearm was not required, and blamed "reckless behavior" for her death.

Sofiya, one of thousands of Kyiv residents who spent their sixth night at a metro station seeking shelter from Russian missile and rocket attacks, choked back tears as she spoke about Ukrainian families' ordeal. "It is terrible how many kids are there. We want to live as independent, normal country. And thank you that so many countries can hear us and support us. I hope all this violence and cruelness ends soon, ” she said.

A German woman who moved to Syria as a teenager to join the 'Islamic State' has gone on trial in the city of Halle. Leonora M. is accused of aiding and abetting crimes against humanity. Now 22, she is alleged to have enslaved a Yazidi woman in Syria.

Lebanon plunges into darkness as fuel shortage prompts shutdown of two power stations. Lebanon's two biggest power stations shut down due to fuel shortage, leaving the country in complete darkness on Saturday, a government official told Reuters.

A Japanese woman born at the dawn of the 20th century and believed to have been the world's oldest person died at age of 119, public broadcaster NHK said on Monday. Kane Tanaka, born in 1903, the year of the Wright Brothers' first controlled flight of their motor-driven airplane, was confirmed by Guinness World Records in 2019 as the oldest living person.

After years of political and financial crises, Lebanese people are now also in danger of going hungry. Germany has promised more food aid as imports from Ukraine and Russia dwindle.

Wishma Sandamali, a 33-year-old Sri Lankan woman, died in a Japanese detention centre in March of last year. Her death sparked debate on the treatment of the 1,500 asylum seekers currently in detention in Japan. Many of them claim they are being treated inhumanely. Despite its economic might, Japan takes in few refugees. In 2020, it accepted less than 100 asylum seekers, while France, whose population is half the size of Japan's, took in 24,000. Our correspondents report from the city of Nagoya, where Wishma died.