Coup leaders in Niger have overturned an eight-year-old law criminalising migrant smuggling in the country.

The legislation allowed authorities to take action against smugglers who transported migrants through Niger's vast desert on to Libya and Europe.

But President Mohamed Bazoum - who had worked with the EU to stem the flow of people across the Mediterranean - was overthrown in July in a coup.

Gen Abdourahmane Tchiani has since declared himself the new head of state.

The U.S., Norway, and the UK are urging the government of South Sudan to withdraw its troops from the disputed region of Abyei amid violence in which at least 27 people have been killed in recent days.

“We renew our calls upon the transitional government (of South Sudan) to urgently withdraw its troops in line with its commitments" as part of the deal for South Sudan's independence in 2011, their embassies in South Sudan said in a statement Monday.

Inter-communal and cross-border clashes have escalated since South Sudan deployed its troops to Abyei in March.

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has said he intends to confront critics of his government’s controversial plans to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda, days after the proposal was struck down by London’s Supreme Court.

The Rwanda asylum policy, which was part of a campaign pledge by Sunak to vastly reduce the flow of immigrants arriving into the UK on small boats across the English Channel, would see those arriving illegally deported to the African nation.

At a Chinese-run lithium mine in Namibia, local workers have complained for months about squalid living conditions and unsafe work practices.

An August fact-finding mission by the Mineworkers Union of Namibia into the Uis mine — which is operated by Chinese mining company Xinfeng Investments — found that the mine's local employees live in tiny, hot shacks made of corrugated zinc and without proper ventilation.