2026 WORLD CUP OPENED IN GHANA As with previous World Cup tournaments, FIFA has allocated a fixed number of accreditations to Member Associations for written press and photographers. 28th January,2026

SYLVESTER STALLONE, 79 RETIRE FROM ACTING You’d think that at 79, Sylvester Stallone may be ready to call it quits. But bring up retirement with the actor, and it’s clear there’s still plenty of fight left in him. “Forget it,” he tells Yahoo. “Because I don't know the concept of retiring. I thought I did. Wouldn’t it be great to mow your lawn every day and chase bees off the roses or whatever you do? And I go, 'No.' I'm just not — I'm built for war. You know what I mean? Creative war.” Nearly an octogenarian, Stallone is still notching career milestones, including on Tulsa King, which is his first leading role in a scripted TV series. Now entering its third season on Sunday, the hit show blends mob drama with offbeat humor and gives Stallone a chance to showcase his signature blend of grit and charm. But for the actor, it’s the role’s unexpected vulnerability that keeps him coming back. In Tulsa King, part of Taylor Sheridan’s sprawling slate on Paramount+, Stallone plays Dwight “The General” Manfredi, a New York mob capo who, after spending 25 years in prison, is unceremoniously sent to Tulsa, Okla., to establish new territory for the family. “The series has been very inventive,” he says. “I said, look, these other gangster [stories] — Sopranos, Goodfellas — they’ve done it perfectly. But no one has really had this dark humor, this oddball kind of twist, but also a guy who can be pathological when he has to.” Dwight is old-school and unpredictable. He’s a man capable of violence, yet driven by loyalty. He’s rebuilding his empire while trying to reconnect with a daughter who barely knows him. And perhaps most interesting of all, he’s a character Stallone says is the closest version of himself he’s ever played. “Truthfully, it's who I am,” he says, explaining he wanted to “experiment” with this series. “Why don’t I just pretend I woke up one morning and I'm not an actor, I'm not a writer — I’m now a full-blooded gangster. You still have your personality, but you're a gangster. You don’t write screenplays. You blow people away if necessary, that’s it.” Stallone, being Stallone, brings levity even to the darkest corners of Dwight’s world. “I'm always fooling around. It’s very hard for me to be serious [for] more than 10 minutes,” he says. “That’s why I was thrown out of 12 schools in 13 years. I’m like the village dunce. But finally, it paid off.” It’s in the emotional moments, particularly when Dwight taps into his softer side as father or grandfather, where Tulsa King really lands. “Oh, God, yeah,” Stallone says when I ask if those scenes hit differently as a father in real life. “Because that's when the audience relates. They say, ‘Ah, I got that going on right on the couch next to me. I understand that problem. I understand that sense of joy.’” The family thread is more than just acting for Stallone. “I pay very, very close attention to my family now — my wife [especially],” he says. Stallone and wife Jennifer Flavin have been together more than 30 years, despite a brief hiatus in 2022. They share daughters Sophia, 29, Sistine, 27 and Scarlet, 23. “So when [our family’s] working together, it’s a kind of a very happy, generative emotion, because you’re with your people…It just energizes the hell out of me.” That sense of presence — of valuing who and what’s in front of him — is something he’s also tried to pass along to the Tulsa King cast, many of whom have called him a mentor. It’s a title he wears proudly, especially since no one filled that role for him when he was starting out. 28th January,2026

AMAZON CUTS 16,000 JOBS Amazon is slashing about 16,000 corporate jobs in the second round of mass layoffs for the ecommerce company in three months. The tech giant has said it plans to use generative artificial intelligence to replace corporate workers. It has also been reducing a workforce that swelled during the pandemic. Beth Galetti, a senior vice president at Amazon, said in a blog post Wednesday that the company has been “reducing layers, increasing ownership, and removing bureaucracy.” The company did not say what business units would be impacted, or where the job cuts would occur. The latest reductions follow a round of job cuts in October, when Amazon said it was laying off 14,000 workers. While some Amazon units completed those “organizational changes” in October, others did not finish until now, Galetti said. She said U.S.-based staff would be given 90 days to look for a new role internally. Those who are unsuccessful or don't want a new job will be offered severance pay, outplacement services and health insurance benefits, she said. “While we’re making these changes, we’ll also continue hiring and investing in strategic areas and functions that are critical to our future,” Galetti said. CEO Andy Jassy, who has aggressively cut costs since succeeding founder Jeff Bezos in 2021, said in June that he anticipated generative AI would reduce Amazon’s corporate workforce in the next few years. The layoffs announced Wednesday are Amazon’s biggest since 2023, when the company cut 27,000 jobs. Meanwhile, Amazon and other Big Tech and retail companies have cut thousands of jobs to bring spending back in line following the COVID-19 pandemic. Amazon's workforce doubled as millions stayed home and boosted online spending. The job cuts have not arrived with a company on shaky financial ground. In its most recent quarter, Amazon's profits jumped nearly 40% to about $21 billion and revenue soared to more than $180 billion. Late last year after layoffs, Jassy said job cuts weren’t driven by company finances or AI. “It’s culture,” he said in October. “And if you grow as fast as we did for several years, the size of businesses, the number of people, the number of locations, the types of businesses you’re in, you end up with a lot more people than what you had before, and you end up with a lot more layers.” Hiring has stagnated in the U.S. and in December, the country added a meager 50,000 jobs, nearly unchanged from a downwardly revised figure of 56,000 in November. Labor data points to a reluctance by businesses to add workers even as economic growth has picked up. Many companies hired aggressively after the pandemic and no longer need to fill more jobs. 28th January,2026

U.S. IMMIGRATION SYSTEM OPERATES ON LAW, NOT PROTESTS “The US immigration system runs on US immigration laws. They don’t change it because of protests,” she stated. She acknowledged that public pressure can sometimes prompt institutions to act more quickly, but said such pressure does not override established legal procedures. “I know there are certain circumstances where pressure can be brought to bear on governments or institutions to act faster or try to steer them in one direction or another. But I will tell you this, he would go through the same process as everybody else, regardless.” Ms Moore explained that deportation and extradition are separate legal processes and should not be confused. “Barring the extradition request and focusing on deportation wouldn’t mean anything at all,” she said. Touching on asylum and humanitarian protections, Ms Moore noted that individuals seeking such relief are not treated differently under US law, although the grounds for applying are specific and demanding. “They don’t treat them differently. The grounds for applying for asylum are very peculiar and unique,” she explained. Applicants must show evidence of past persecution or a well-founded fear of future persecution on protected grounds such as political opinion or religion. “You must show that there is some past persecution or future persecution you can face on some protected grounds, such as political or religious reasons, or something unique that makes you more targeted than others,” she said. "Let's say if Ken Ofori-Atta was inclined to pursue immigration, maybe he could stay political," she added. Speaking on JoyNews’ AM Show on Wednesday, January 28, Ms Moore was responding to questions following a recent demonstration by pressure group Arise Ghana at the US Embassy in Accra, where protesters demanded the extradition of former Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta from the United States. According to the Founder and Managing Attorney of JJ Moore & Associates, PLLC, while protests may attract public attention and media coverage, they do not alter the legal processes governing immigration and extradition matters in the US. US-based Ghanaian immigration lawyer Angela Moore has emphasised Ms Moore explained that such a move would not be frivolous, even though it does not guarantee success, and would keep Mr Ofori-Atta in the United States while the process unfolds. "It's not frivolous. It's a good basis because if I were him, yeah, I would totally try to pursue that path. And when he does, now we must, immigration law must give him the time to fully develop the facts of his case and see if it's a winnable case. And that doesn't bring him here. It will keep him there." Read also: Arise Ghana continues protest at US Embassy, vowing to continue until Ofori-Atta returns She further clarified that the right to pursue asylum does not depend on whether a person is detained, noting that bond remains a key factor. 28th January,2026

MOBILE MONEY'S FESTIVE SURGE SMASHES RECORDS The value of transactions processed through Ghana's mobile money platforms surged to GH¢518.4 billion in December 2025, cementing the technology's position as the undisputed backbone of the nation's retail economy, according to newly released central bank data. The record figure, captured in the Bank of Ghana's Summary of Economic and Financial Data, represents the highest monthly throughput for the year and underscores a decisive and accelerating shift away from traditional payment methods. The December boom, a significant increase from the GH¢420.1 billion recorded in November, was propelled by festive season spending and the deepening integration of digital wallets into daily commerce. The sheer volume of activity reached 982 million individual transactions in the month, up from 892 million in November, highlighting both the frequency and scale of its use. Underpinning this growth is a rapidly expanding user base. The data shows the number of active mobile money accounts rose to 26.7 million in December, while total registered accounts surpassed the 80.5 million mark. Concurrently, the agent network—a critical infrastructure for cash-in, cash-out services—grew to include 491,000 active agents by year's end. Perhaps most indicative of public confidence is the swelling value stored within the system itself. The balance held on mobile money floats reached GH¢39.6 billion in December, the highest level recorded in 2025, suggesting Ghanaians are increasingly comfortable using their mobile wallets not just for transactions but as a secure store of value. The data paints a stark picture of the changing financial landscape. While mobile money soared, the value of cheques cleared in December stood at GH¢37.3 billion—a fraction of the digital platform's activity. Even modern, high-speed electronic systems like GhIPSS Instant Pay, which processed GH¢73.3 billion in the same month, operated at a scale dwarfed by the pervasive mobile money network. The growth in interoperability, which allows transfers across different telecom networks and banks, also strengthened, with transaction values rising to GH¢5.8 billion in December. This seamlessness is viewed as a key enabler for the ecosystem's continued expansion. 28th January,2026

WE CLEARED 3 OUT OF 4 CONTAINERS A former Managing Director of the Metro Mass Transit Limited (MMTL), Albert Adu Boahen, has said 30 VDL buses and three 40-foot containers of spare parts out of four supplied by the Dutch manufacturer VDL and arrive in Ghana in April 2024, were cleared from the port before he handed over office to his successor in March 2025. The buses and spare parts were handed over to the MMTL through a state-to-state arrangement between the government of Ghana and the Belgian government; therefore, taxes were excluded from the arrangement. According to Mr Adu Boahen, there were, however, delays in clearing the buses and the spare parts from the port due to issues with tax in the initial stages and later, the shipping line costs at the time the buses and spare parts arrived in Ghana in April 2024. He said MMTL was initially not getting a full tax exemption from the government, hence the delay in clearing the buses and sparts from the port He said by the time they succeeded in negotiating for tax exemption with the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) and the Ministry of Finance, the issue of shipping line costs also cropped up. By the time the MMTL was able to get the Ministry of Finance to issue a waiver for the imports, the shipping line costs had also become an issue, with estimated charges of over GH¢300,000. This, he said were the reason for the delay in clearing the containers by the MMTL, and that they were able to clear three containers, leaving one behind, and all this information was made available in his handing over notes. Mr Adu Boahen was reacting to an announcement by the current MD of MMTL, Kale Cezar that a container loaded with spare parts supplied by Dutch manufacturer VDL has remained at the port for more than two years. This, according to Mr Cezar, had compounded the operational and financial challenges confronting the state-owned transport company. Mr Cezar said this in an interview with the Daily Graphic and disclosed that the container was imported under the company’s previous management, but was never cleared from the port, leading to mounting charges and missed opportunities to deploy much-needed buses onto the roads. Reacting in a radio interview with Accra based Citi FM on Tuesday [January 27, 2025], monitored by Graphic Online, the former Managing Director of MMTL, Mr Albert Adu Boahen said the container arrived in April 2024 and described the shipping line charges as the main issue holding up its release. “I was challenging the shipping line charges because they were too high,” Mr Adu Boahen said. “I petitioned the ministry to engage the shipping line to reduce the amount He said the container formed part of several consignments that arrived with the VDL buses and were cleared after extended engagement with the Ghana Revenue Authority during his tenure. Mr Adu Boahen said three of the containers carrying spare parts were cleared, while one remained at the port at the time he left office. “I was left office in March. In my handing over notes, I personally told him that the parts were at the port and that he should clear them,” he said and added, “after one year, if they have not been cleared, I do not think anybody should blame Adu Boahen.” He disputed claims that the container had been at the port for more than two years and said the spare parts arrived in April 2024 alongside the VDL buses. The containers came together with the VDL buses around April 20, 2024,” he said. “We were given an exemption by the government, but it was not a full exemption.” Mr Adu Boahen said the delay affected the company’s ability to maintain and deploy buses, adding that the spare parts were intended for the VDL fleet. “They are spare parts for the VDL buses,” he said. “I am not too sure these parts are for the brand new buses.” 28th January,2026

IGP PROMOTES 17 OFFICERS Seventeen police officers have been promoted by the Inspector General of Police, Mr Christian Tetteh Yohuno, following their roles in separate operations that led to the seizure of suspected narcotic drugs and the recovery of illegal firearms. The promotions were carried out on Tuesday January 27, 2026, after internal assessments of the officers’ conduct during the operations, according to the Ghana Police Service. In one operation at Ho in the Volta Region, officers intercepted 10 wrapped slabs of substances suspected to be cocaine, together with sacks believed to contain other narcotic drugs. The suspected cocaine has an estimated street value of GH¢1,032,650. 28th January,2026

PARTISAN BOUNDARIES AND THE DECISIONS They act not only as representatives of their party but, in a meaningful respect, as custodians of the broader public interest. Since the advent of the Fourth Republic in 1992, the NPP has conducted several presidential primaries. These contests have produced notable leaders such as Professor Albert Adu Boahen, President John Agyekum Kufuor, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and Vice -President Mahamudu Bawumia, who have left enduring marks on Ghana’s political and institutional development. The party’s tradition, grounded in liberal democratic and conservative thought, places strong emphasis on the rule of law, constitutionalism, individual liberty, private enterprise and ethical leadership. Every major undertaking of the party, including the selection of its presidential candidate, ought to reflect these ideals with clarity and consistency. The NPP is widely recognised for its commitment to internal democracy and competitive politics. Its capacity to contest vigorously and subsequently reunite has often distinguished it within Ghana’s multiparty system. This primary election, once again, tests that reputation. Electoral contests, by their nature, generate intense debate, sharp disagreements and strong emotions. The current campaign season has not departed from this pattern. Yet, experience shows that elections pass, but words spoken during them endure. What remains are the words spoken and the conduct displayed by candidates and their authorised representatives. For this reason, restraint and measured language are indispensable. Careless statements, personal attacks or reckless accusations may secure temporary attention, but they risk long-term damage to party cohesion and public confidence. Temperate discourse before, during and after the primaries will ease reconciliation and strengthen unity. Such discipline accords with the party’s philosophical foundations and serves the strategic interest of preparing for the national contest ahead. It is also important to stress that the outcome of the primaries does not produce a real loser. Whoever emerges as flagbearer carries a collective mandate, while those who do not prevail remain essential to the shared enterprise. The primaries matter chiefly because of their capacity to position the party to regain political power and to revisit policy initiatives that have shaped Ghana’s governance and economic direction in previous administrations. Within the current field are individuals of experience and ability, each capable of contributing meaningfully to national leadership. The decisive question, however, concerns suitability for the present moment. Ghana operates within a complex global environment marked by economic uncertainty, technological change, security pressures and rising social expectations. Effective leadership today demands intellectual depth, practical judgment, administrative competence, emotional balance and the capacity to communicate clearly with a diverse citizenry. A prospective leader must, therefore, demonstrate pragmatic and implementable ideas, sound academic grounding and the ability to innovate. Equally important are personal discipline, accessibility and an inclusive disposition that inspires trust across regions and social groups. These qualities align closely with the mission of the Busia Institute for Rural and Democratic Development, which promotes thoughtful leadership, decentralised development and democratic accountability as foundations of national progress. Delegates do not merely select a candidate; they shape the moral tone of the party’s future. That responsibility demands restraint and judgment. The Presidential Elections Committee of the NPP deserves commendation for its efforts to uphold transparency and fairness. Clear rules, credible procedures and even-handed administration enhance the legitimacy of the process and reinforce confidence among party members and the wider public. Such institutional diligence reflects international best practices in democratic party management. Conversely, any candidate or supporter whose conduct undermines the process through violence, misinformation or deliberate obstruction inflicts harm, not only on the party but on the democratic culture of the nation. Any conduct that undermines a credible electoral process injures more than a political party; it weakens public confidence in democratic institutions. History records such moments with little generosity. As delegates prepare to vote, perspective remains essential. The immediate contest will pass, but its consequences will shape the party’s fortunes and Ghana’s political direction. A smooth, credible and dignified primary election will strengthen the NPP’s claim to leadership and contribute positively to democratic consolidation. Ultimately, this moment calls for statesmanship in the service of party, country and constitutional democracy. 28th January,2026