Netflix on Tuesday amended its takeover offer for Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) into an all‑cash proposal of $27.75 per share, dropping the stock component in a bid to blunt a hostile approach from Paramount Global.

The revised offer preserves an enterprise value of about $82.7 billion and targets WBD’s film and television studios, HBO, and HBO Max, while excluding cable networks that would be spun off into a separate company, Discovery Global.

WBD’s board has unanimously approved the amended Netflix bid, setting a shareholder vote for April 2026, even as Paramount presses a rival $108.4 billion all‑cash hostile bid at $30 per share and pursues legal and proxy actions.

Why this matters in Nigeria

After weeks of uncertainty over expiring carriage agreements, MultiChoice (now under Canal+ ownership) reached a multi‑year deal with WBD on December 31, 2025, that preserved 12 WBD channels on DStv and GOtv, averting a mass blackout on January 1. Channels saved include CNN International, Cartoon Network, Cartoonito, TNT Africa, and Discovery networks.

Separately, four channels from Paramount Africa and CBS AMC: BET Africa, MTV Base, CBS Reality, and CBS Justice were discontinued on DStv on January 1, 2026.

The carriage agreement includes plans to launch HBO Max as a dedicated tile/service on MultiChoice platforms in 2026, ensuring continued local access to HBO programming even as Netflix pursues WBD’s production assets.

Local impact and viewer reaction

Millions of Nigerian subscribers were spared the immediate loss of core news and children’s channels, content often cited as a primary reason households retain DStv subscriptions. This averted an abrupt disruption to school‑time programming and international news access.

Many subscribers say prices have not fallen despite the permanent loss of four channels, intensifying debates about value for money in a market where subscriber TV is a significant household expense.

Analysts warn the episode highlights growing fragility in regional content supply chains — global M&A and carriage negotiations can quickly alter local lineups, pushing viewers toward standalone streaming services or cheaper alternatives.

What to watch next for

Shareholder votes in April 2026 on the Netflix‑WBD deal and Paramount’s legal and proxy challenges could reshape which assets remain bundled for international carriage.

For Nigerian viewers, the key questions are whether MultiChoice will adjust packages or pricing to reflect the changed channel mix and how the HBO Max tile will be priced and bundled locally.

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Wildfires that have killed 20 people in southern Chile and wiped out entire towns raged for a third day Monday, fanned by warm temperatures and strong winds at the height of the southern hemisphere summer.

The blazes started Saturday in the Nuble and Biobio regions — about 500 kilometers (310 miles) south of the capital Santiago — and have since ripped through an area the size of the US city of Detroit.

Around 1,000 homes have been destroyed or damaged, officials said.

President Gabriel Boric said Monday that firefighters had managed to contain some of the blazes but that others remained “very active” and that new fires had broken out in the Araucania region bordering Biobio.

Both Nuble and Biobio were declared disaster areas, allowing for the deployment of soldiers who patrolled a desolate landscape of melted cars, twisted metal and houses reduced to rubble.

“It was horrible. I tried to wet the house as much as possible, but I saw the flames coming toward my neighborhood. I grabbed my son, my brother got my dog out, and we fled,” Yagora Vasquez, a resident of the small port town of Lirquen, which was particularly hard hit, told AFP.

Residents returned to what remained of their homes on Monday, digging through the rubble and ash to salvage what they could.

Vasquez told AFP she had chosen to live in Lirquen — on a hill far from the sea — after seeing the devastation wrought by the tsunami of 2010 that killed more than 500 people in the same region of Chile.

This time the threat came from the forest.

‘A wave of fire’

Mareli Torres similarly moved away from the coast after the tsunami, only for her home to be destroyed this weekend in “a wave of fire, not water.”

“This is much worse, much more devastating. In the earthquake the sea surged, there was destruction, but compared to this it’s nothing,” said Torres, 53.

Of the two-story house she lived in with her family for nearly two decades, only blackened walls and a haze of smoke remained.

More than 3,500 firefighters were fighting the fires in Nuble and Biobio on Monday.

Temperatures in the area hit around 25C (77F) on Monday, slightly lower than at the weekend.

Wildfires have severely impacted south-central Chile in recent years, especially in its warmest and driest months of January and February.

A 2024 study led by researchers at the Santiago-based Center for Climate and Resilience Research, found climate change had “conditioned the occurrence of extreme fire seasons in south-central Chile” by contributing to a long-term drying and warming trend.

In February 2024, several fires broke out simultaneously near the city of Vina del Mar, northwest of Santiago, resulting in 138 deaths, according to the public prosecutor’s office.

Unprecedently large areas of the country burnt during the 2016-17 and 2022-23 fire seasons.

Elsewhere in southern South America, wildfires have burnt more than 15,000 hectares in recent days in Argentine Patagonia.

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Ugandan opposition leader Bobi Wine was under house arrest on Friday, a day after elections in which early results showed a commanding lead for President Yoweri Museveni as he seeks to extend his 40-year rule.

Museveni, who has ruled Uganda since 1986, has been accused of “brutal repression” of the opposition in the run-up to the vote, and his government imposed an internet blackout this week.

With around a quarter of votes counted, the Electoral Commission said Museveni was on 76.25 percent to Wine’s 19.85.

Election day on Thursday was marred by significant technical problems after biometric machines — used to confirm voters’ identities — malfunctioned and ballot papers were undelivered for several hours in many areas.

The final results of the presidential and parliamentary elections are due by 0200 GMT on Saturday.

Analysts view the election as a foregone conclusion since Museveni, an 81-year-old former guerrilla fighter, has total control over the state and security apparatus and has ruthlessly crushed any challenger during his four-decade rule.

Wine, 43, whose real name is Robert Kyagulanyi, has emerged as his main opponent in recent years. The former singer styles himself the “ghetto president” after the slum areas of Kampala where he grew up.

“The military and police have surrounded the residence of President Kyagulanyi Ssentamu Robert, effectively placing him and his wife under house arrest,” his party, the National Unity Platform wrote on X late Thursday.

“Security officers have unlawfully jumped over the perimeter fence and are now erecting tents within his compound,” it added.

AFP journalists visited the compound on Friday and said it was outwardly calm, though a military vehicle and several police officers were stationed outside.

There was a heavy security presence across the country on election day.

The United Nations rights office said last week that the elections were taking place in an environment marked by “widespread repression and intimidation” against the opposition.

On Thursday, Wine accused the government of “massive ballot stuffing” and attacking several of his party officials under of the internet blackout that was imposed on Tuesday.

His claims could not be verified by AFP.

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Nigeria’s Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) run ended in heartbreak on Wednesday night as the Super Eagles fell to hosts Morocco in a tense penalty shootout, sparking a firestorm of “good, bad, and ugly” reactions across social media.

After a goalless 120 minutes at the Prince Moulay Abdellah Stadium, the Atlas Lions triumphed 4-2 on penalties to secure their place in Sunday’s final against Senegal. For Nigeria, it was a familiar stumbling block; despite a campaign that promised much, they were unable to clear the final hurdle to reach the final.

“Chukwueze should retire”

The reaction in the social media space was instantaneous and passionate.

There was pride in the fight as many fans chose to focus on the team’s overall progress under Eric Chelle, praising the grit shown in a hostile environment.

@beedey4u: “What a journey it was, Super Eagles. Hold your heads high and be proud of the performance you gave out there. Truly proud.”

Questioning the leadership of the team, critics pointed fingers at the senior players for failing to step up during the shootout, with some questioning the absence of Victor Osimhen from the initial list of penalty takers.

@EmceeCeeKay: “Shame on Osimhen, Moses Simon, Lookman and Iwobi for shying away from penalties when it mattered most.”

However, the most vitriolic comments were reserved for Samuel Chukwueze. Following his lacklustre penalty, the phrase “Chukwueze should retire” began trending as fans vented their frustration at the Fulham winger’s perceived lack of consistency.

@harrysone9: “AFCON: ‘Chukwueze should retire’ – Nigerians react as Morocco beat Super Eagles. With all your experience, what kind of soft shot is that? Absolute nonsense!”

One of the hardest matches we have had – Coaches’ Corner

Morocco coach Walid Regragui was full of praise for the resilience shown by the Nigerian side after the final whistle.

“It was one of the hardest matches we have had against a very solid and talented team,” Regragui said. “I am very happy for the players and for the Moroccan people who really deserve this. It is a great gift for them to be in the final, but we will need to recover quickly because we put a lot of energy into this game.”

For Super Eagles’ Eric Chelle, the defeat was a bitter pill to swallow, especially given the atmosphere in Rabat, where the game was played.

“The players fought for every ball, and it is difficult to lose on penalties, but this is football, and we have to accept it,” Chelle said. “It is difficult to play here in Morocco because you have to play against the team and against the crowd.”

Morocco will return to the Prince Moulay Abdellah Stadium on Sunday to face Senegal, who are looking to reclaim the title they last won in 2021.

For the Moroccans, the stakes could not be higher. They are aiming to win AFCON for only the second time in their history, with their only previous triumph coming exactly 50 years ago in 1976. While they chase history, Nigeria is left to pick up the pieces ahead of their third-place play-off against Egypt.

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Elon Musk’s platform X on Wednesday announced measures to prevent its AI chatbot Grok from undressing images of real people, following global backlash over its generation of sexualised photos of women and children.

The announcement comes after California’s attorney general launched an investigation into Musk’s xAI — the developer of Grok — over the sexually explicit material and multiple countries either blocked access to the chatbot or launched their own probes.

X said it will “geoblock the ability” of all Grok and X users to create images of people in “bikinis, underwear, and similar attire” in those jurisdictions where such actions are deemed illegal.

“We have implemented technological measures to prevent the Grok account from allowing the editing of images of real people in revealing clothing such as bikinis,” X’s safety team said.

“This restriction applies to all users, including paid subscribers.”

In an “extra layer of protection,” image creation and the ability to edit photos via X’s Grok account was now only available to paid subscribers, the statement added.

The European Commission, which acts as the EU’s digital watchdog, earlier said it had taken note of “additional measures X is taking to ban Grok from generating sexualised images of women and children.”

“We will carefully assess these changes to make sure they effectively protect citizens in the EU,” European Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier said.

‘Shocking’

Pressure had been building on xAI to rein in Grok after its so-called “Spicy Mode” feature allowed users to create sexualized deepfakes using simple text prompts such as “put her in a bikini” or “remove her clothes.”

“The avalanche of reports detailing the non-consensual, sexually explicit material that xAI has produced and posted online in recent weeks is shocking,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said earlier Wednesday.

“We have zero tolerance for the AI-based creation and dissemination of nonconsensual intimate images or of child sexual abuse material.”

Bonta said the California investigation would determine whether xAI violated state law after the explicit imagery was “used to harass people across the internet.”

California Governor Gavin Newsom said that xAI’s “vile” decision to allow sexually explicit deepfakes to proliferate prompted him to urge the attorney general to hold the company accountable.

Further adding pressure onto Musk’s company Wednesday, a coalition of 28 civil society groups submitted open letters to the CEOs of Apple and Google, urging them to ban Grok and X from their app stores amid the surge in sexualized images.

Indonesia on Saturday became the first country to block access to Grok entirely, with neighboring Malaysia following the next day.

On Thursday, Malaysia’s communications minister said national regulators had found that X’s steps to prevent Grok generating indecent images were “not done in totality”.

If X can successfully deactivate and prevent the generation of such online content considered harmful, Malaysia will lift the temporary restriction imposed on Grok, minister Fahmi Fadzil said.

India has said X removed thousands of posts and hundreds of user accounts in response to its complaints.

And Britain’s Ofcom media regulator said Monday it was opening a probe into whether X failed to comply with UK law over the sexual images.

Last week, an analysis of more than 20,000 Grok-generated images by Paris non-profit AI Forensics found that more than half depicted “individuals in minimal attire” — most of them women, and two percent appearing to be minors.

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The UK no longer plans to make a new digital ID card mandatory to work in Britain, finance minister Rachel Reeves confirmed Wednesday, in the latest U-turn by her embattled government.

The climbdown follows an intense backlash to contentious plans to introduce a free digital ID for both nationals and those residing in the country in a bid to curb illegal migration.

After officials briefed British media late Tuesday that the new ID would no longer be mandatory for employment, Reeves insisted the right to work would still become contingent on providing a form of digital verification.

“We are saying that you will need mandatory digital ID to be able to work in the UK,” she told the BBC.

“Now the difference is whether that has to be one piece of ID — a digital ID card — or whether it could be an e-visa or an e-passport,” Reeves added.

“We’re pretty relaxed about what form that takes.”

The mandatory digital ID policy, unveiled by Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer in September, had sparked fierce opposition from rival political parties and public concern.

Some criticism, including from far-right figures, promoted unproven claims that it will be used to boost government control over people’s lives.

They included fearmongering that digital ID will be used to store data on vaccinations and carbon footprint and limit access to flying and food, which the government has vehemently denied.

Starmer said in September that the ID card would be introduced by 2029 and while it would not be mandatory, it would be required to prove the right to work.

Opposition politicians seized on the latest government reversal, which follows around a dozen other U-turns on various policies since centre-left Labour won power in July 2024.

“This is a victory for individual liberty against a ghastly, authoritarian government,” Nigel Farage, leader of the anti-immigration Reform UK party, said.

He vowed to scrap the ID “altogether” if it wins power.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said “good riddance” to “a terrible policy”.

A government spokesman said it is “committed to mandatory digital right to work checks”.

“Currently right to work checks include a hodge podge of paper-based systems with no record of checks ever taking place,” he added, calling them “open to fraud and abuse”.

The spokesman also noted the digital ID scheme will be set out “following a full public consultation which will launch shortly”.

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From the air, Monguno looks like a fortress, with deep trenches slashing into the sand around this garrison town in Borno State.

These defences have kept the Monguno largely secure despite the region witnessing a recent surge in attacks on military bases by jihadists fighting a grinding 16-year war.

Fighting in Borno may have eased since the conflict’s peak in 2015, as jihadists have been forced back.

But militants from the Islamic State West Africa Province group or its rival, Boko Haram, have attacked or temporarily overrun a dozen army bases this year in Borno and neighbouring Yobe state.

Monguno itself fell briefly to the jihadists in 2015.

Since 2019, the Nigerian army has withdrawn from villages and smaller bases to hunker down in so-called “supercamps”, or garrison towns, to protect its troops.

But critics argue this gives the jihadists free rein in rural areas.

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US President Donald Trump sued media magnate Rupert Murdoch and The Wall Street Journal for at least $10 billion Friday over publication of a bombshell article on his friendship with the infamous alleged sex trafficker of underage girls, Jeffrey Epstein.

The defamation lawsuit, filed in federal court in Miami, saw the 79-year-old Republican hitting back at a scandal threatening to cause serious political damage.

“We have just filed a POWERHOUSE Lawsuit against everyone involved in publishing the false, malicious, defamatory, FAKE NEWS ‘article’ in the useless ‘rag’ that is, The Wall Street Journal,” Trump posted on Truth Social late Friday.

The Journal reported Thursday that in 2003, the then-real estate magnate wrote a suggestive birthday letter to Epstein, illustrated with a naked woman and alluding to a shared “secret.”

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Brazilian police raided former President Jair Bolsonaro’s home Friday, as a judge imposed further restrictions on the far-right former leader while he stands trial on coup charges that have vexed US President and ally Donald Trump.

His son Eduardo Bolsonaro, a congressman who recently moved to the United States to lobby for his father, wrote on X that federal police carried out a “raid on my father’s home this morning.”

He lashed out at Supreme Court judge Alexandre de Moraes, a Bolsonaro adversary who on Friday ordered the ex-president to wear an electronic ankle bracelet, not leave his home at night, or use social media.

Moraes, one of the judges in Bolsonaro’s trial for allegedly seeking to nullify leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s 2022 election victory, said the measures were necessary given the “hostile acts” against Brazil by the accused and his son.

This came after Trump announced a 50 percent tariff on the South American powerhouse for what he said was a “witch hunt” against his ally Bolsonaro.

Moraes, said Eduardo Bolsonaro, “has long abandoned any semblance of impartiality and now operates as a political gangster in robes, using the Supreme Court as his personal weapon.”

The judge was “trying to criminalize President Trump and the US government. Powerless against them, he chose to take my father hostage,” he added in a letter he signed as a “Brazilian congressman in exile.”

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Friday Washington was revoking a US visa for Moraes for his “political witch hunt against Jair Bolsonaro.”

‘Supreme humiliation’

Accusing him of creating a “persecution and censorship complex,” Rubio also announced visa restrictions on other judges who side with Moraes, as well as their immediate family members.

Bolsonaro, 70, described the Moraes order Friday as a “supreme humiliation” and said the prohibitions were “suffocating.”

It also prohibited him from approaching foreign embassies, and confined him to his home on weekdays between 7:00 pm and 6:00 am, and all day on weekends or public holidays.

“I never thought about leaving Brazil, I never thought about going to an embassy,” Bolsonaro insisted on emerging from the justice secretariat offices in Brasilia. He had been taken there after the raid, during which police seized cash.

His defense team in a statement expressed “surprise and indignation” at the new measures.

The former army captain denies he was involved in an attempt to wrest power back from Lula as part of an alleged coup plot that prosecutors say failed only for a lack of military backing.

After the plot fizzled, rioting supporters known as “Bolsonaristas” raided government buildings in early 2023 as they urged the military to oust Lula. Bolsonaro was abroad at the time.

The case against Bolsonaro carries echoes of Trump’s failed prosecution over the January 6, 2021 attacks by his supporters on the US Capitol to try and reverse his election loss to Joe Biden.

Both men have claimed to be victims of political persecution, and Trump has stepped in in defense of his ally, to the anger of Lula who has labeled the tariff threat “unacceptable blackmail.”

Washington also announced an investigation into “unfair trading practices” by Brazil, a move that could provide a legal basis for imposing tariffs on South America’s largest economy.

On Tuesday, prosecutors asked the trial judges of the Supreme Court to find Bolsonaro guilty of “armed criminal association” and planning to “violently overthrow the democratic order.”

The defense must still present its closing arguments, after which a five-member panel of judges including Moraes will decide the ex-president’s fate.

Bolsonaro and seven co-accused risk up to 40 years in prison.

He has repeatedly stated his desire to be a candidate in presidential elections next year, but has been ruled ineligible to hold office by a court that found him guilty of spreading misinformation about Brazil’s electoral system.

Lula, for his part, said Friday he intends to seek another term.

“You can be sure that I will be a candidate again… I will not hand this country over to that bunch of lunatics who almost destroyed it,” the 79-year-old said at a public event in the state of Ceara.

Moraes has repeatedly clashed with Bolsonaro and other rightwing figures he has accused of spreading fake news.

Last year, the judge suspended tech titan Elon Musk’s X network in Brazil for 40 days for failing to tackle the spread of disinformation shared mainly by Bolsonaro backers

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