ACCRA: Ghana’s outgoing President Nana Akufo-Addo Friday announced visa-free travel for all African passport holders from the start of this year, marking a step toward continental economic integration.
The announcement came during his final state of the nation address as he prepares to step down on January 6 after two terms in office.
“I am proud to have approved visa-free travel to Ghana for all African passport holders, with effect from the beginning of this year,” Akufo-Addo said in his speech to parliament.
“This is the logical next step to the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) and the workings of the largest trading bloc in the world,” he said.
“All these are essential elements to the realization of the AU’s Agenda 2063, which envisages an integrated and connected Africa by 2063,” he added, referring to the African Union’s development blueprint for a 50-year period.
Ghana joins Rwanda, Seychelles, Gambia and Benin in offering visa-free entry to African travelers.
Ghana had previously allowed visa-free access to citizens of 26 African nations and visas on arrival for travelers from 25 others, while only two African countries — Eritrea and Morocco — required a visa before entry.
The visa-free policy builds on Ghana’s efforts to strengthen its international reputation, particularly through initiatives like the 2019 Year of Return, which celebrated the African diaspora and commemorated 400 years since the transatlantic slave trade.
The campaign attracted thousands of visitors, including celebrities, to Ghana and led to some receiving citizenship, bolstering the country’s global profile as a cultural and tourism hub.
Akufo-Addo also used his last address to trumpet economic progress under his leadership, citing an increase in Ghana’s gross international reserves to $8 billion, from $6.2 billion in 2017, and significant GDP growth in 2024.
“Economic growth has returned to the pre-Covid trajectory,” he said, projecting a 6.3-percent growth rate for 2025.
“I leave behind a Ghana that is thriving, one that has navigated significant global challenges with remarkable tenacity, whose economy is steadily rebounding, and whose institutions are operating effectively,” he said.
The oil-and-gold-rich West African nation is one of the most stable democracies in Africa.
Since 2022, it has been battling one of its worst economic crises in decades and is currently under a $3-billion International Monetary Fund relief program.
The outgoing president hands over power to John Mahama, who won the December elections.
Ghana announces visa-free entry for African passport holders
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Ghana announces visa-free entry for African passport holders
- Ghana joins Rwanda, Seychelles, Gambia and Benin in offering visa-free entry to African travelers
Trump pays respects to 2 Iowa National Guardsmen and interpreter killed in Syria as they return home
Trump pays respects to 2 Iowa National Guardsmen and interpreter killed in Syria as they return home
- The two guardsmen killed in Syria on Saturday were Sgt. Edgar Brian Torres-Tovar, 25, of Des Moines, and Sgt. William Nathaniel Howard, 29, of Marshalltown, according to the US Army
DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, Delaware: President Donald Trump on Wednesday paid his respects to two Iowa National Guard members and a US civilian interpreter who were killed in an attack in the Syrian desert, joining their grieving families as their remains were brought back to the country they served.
Trump met privately with the families at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware before the dignified transfer, a solemn ritual conducted in honor of US service members killed in action. The civilian was also included in the transfer.
Trump, who traveled to Dover several times in his first term, once described it as “the toughest thing I have to do” as president.
The two guardsmen killed in Syria on Saturday were Sgt. Edgar Brian Torres-Tovar, 25, of Des Moines, and Sgt. William Nathaniel Howard, 29, of Marshalltown, according to the US Army. Both were members of the 1st Squadron, 113th Cavalry Regiment, and have been hailed as heroes by the Iowa National Guard.
Torres-Tovar’s and Howard’s families were at Dover for the return of their remains, alongside Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, members of Iowa’s congressional delegation and leaders of the Iowa National Guard. Their remains will be taken to Iowa after the transfer.
A US civilian working as an interpreter, identified Tuesday as Ayad Mansoor Sakat, of Macomb, Michigan, was also killed. Three other members of the Iowa National Guard were injured in the attack. The Pentagon has not identified them.
They were among hundreds of US troops deployed in eastern Syria as part of a coalition fighting the Daesh group.
The process of returning service member remains
There is no formal role for a president at a dignified transfer other than to watch in silence, with all thoughts about what happened in the past and what is happening at Dover kept to himself for the moment. There is no speaking by any of the dignitaries who attend, with the only words coming from the military officials who direct the highly choreographed transfers.
Trump arrived without first lady Melania Trump, who had been scheduled to accompany him, according to the president’s public schedule. Her office declined to elaborate, with spokesperson Nick Clemens saying the first lady “was not able to attend today.”
During the process at Dover, transfer cases draped with the American flag that hold the soldiers’ remains are carried from the belly of a hulking C-17 military aircraft to a waiting vehicle under the watchful eyes of grieving family members. The vehicle then transports the remains to the mortuary facility at the base, where the fallen are prepared for burial at their final resting places.
Iowa National Guard members hailed as heroes
Howard’s stepfather, Jeffrey Bunn, has said Howard “loved what he was doing and would be the first in and last out.” He said Howard had wanted to be a soldier since he was a boy.
In a social media post, Bunn, who is chief of the Tama, Iowa, police department, said Howard was a loving husband and an “amazing man of faith.” He said Howard’s brother, a staff sergeant in the Iowa National Guard, would escort “Nate” back to Iowa.
Torres-Tovar was remembered as a “very positive” family-oriented person who always put others first, according to fellow Guard members who were deployed with him and issued a statement to the local TV broadcast station WOI.
Dina Qiryaqoz, the daughter of the civilian interpreter who was killed, said Wednesday in a statement that her father worked for the US Army during the invasion of Iraq from 2003 to 2007. Sakat is survived by his wife and four adult children.
The interpreter was from Bakhdida, Iraq, a small Catholic village southeast of Mosul, and the family immigrated to the US in 2007 on a special visa, Qiryaqoz said. At the time of his death, Sakat was employed as an independent contractor for Virginia-based Valiant Integrated Services.
Sakat’s family was still struggling to believe that he is gone. “He was a devoted father and husband, a courageous interpreter and a man who believed deeply in the mission he served,” Qiryaqoz said.
Trump’s reaction to the attack in Syria
Trump told reporters over the weekend that he was mourning the deaths. He vowed retaliation. The most recent instance of US service members killed in action was in January 2024, when three American troops died in a drone attack in Jordan.
Saturday’s deadly attack followed a rapprochement between the US and Syria, bringing the former pariah state into a US-led coalition fighting the Daesh group.
Trump has forged a relationship with interim Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa, the onetime leader of an Islamic insurgent group who led the ouster of former President Bashar Assad.
Trump, who met with Al-Sharaa last month at the White House, said Monday that the attack had nothing to do with the Syrian leader, who Trump said was “devastated by what happened.”
During his first term, Trump visited Dover in 2017 to honor a US Navy SEAL killed during a raid in Yemen, in 2019 for two Army officers whose helicopter crashed in Afghanistan, and in 2020 for two Army soldiers killed in Afghanistan when a person dressed in an Afghan army uniform opened fire.
