The two leaders discussed the pandemic, climate change and human rights during a video call. Xi Jinping reportedly called Merkel a "friend of the Chinese people."

The ex-apartheid fighters locked the ministers in a hotel room after failed talks over a compensation deal. Police arrested a total of 56 people after the incident.

Police said the man suspected of killing five with a bow and arrow in Norway was a recent convert to Islam who had previously come to the attention of security services.

At an age when most teenagers are busy learning the latest Tik Tok dance craze, banjo virtuoso Nora Brown has just released her second album of old-time twang. When her parents gifted her a ukulele for Christmas at age six they never envisioned she would grow into one of the bluegrass world's rising stars. The now 16-year-old raised in Brooklyn is among the musicians carrying on traditions from the mountains of Appalachia passed down from the genre's old masters.

Queen Elizabeth II takes aim at world leaders who "talk" but "don't do" enough about climate change, in an apparent jibe at those not attending the upcoming COP26 summit. The 95-year-old monarch is overheard making the remarks as she opened the Welsh Assembly in Cardiff.

We head to northern Mali, where French forces are preparing to close a base used by the Barkhane force as France decides to reduce its presence in the country. Also, Botswana's court of appeal starts hearing a government attempt to overturn a landmark ruling that decriminalised homosexuality in 2019. And Cape Verde gears up for elections, with the revival of the tourism industry a key campaign issue.