Ghana

Stay with a herding family in Mongolia’s Gobi Desert

Eternal Landscapes offers individual and small-group trips to Mongolia, with a focus on supporting local communities. On the five-day Erdenedalai Explorer trip, guests stay with a herding family in the vast steppes of the “Middle Gobi”, an area often bypassed by travellers heading to the better-known sights of the desert’s southern region.

The trip offers a glimpse into local life in a wild landscape. A tour of the capital Ulaanbaatar is also included, during which you can visit projects working to improve life in the community. Eternal Landscapes (a member of The Conscious Travel Foundation) also visits other towns overlooked by mainstream tourism and provides employment for local women by using only female trip assistants.
From $1,045pp (£773) in a group of six ($1,800 for a solo traveller or $1,265pp in a group of two), including meals and transfers outside the capital, eternal-landscapes.co.uk

Book into a hotel run by women in Sri Lanka

Opened in January, Amba Yaalu, on a mango plantation on the banks of the Kandalama Reservoir, is Sri Lanka’s first hotel fully managed and staffed by women. In a country where less than 10% of the country’s workforce is female, the aim is to promote equality and provide employment for women – many of whom leave the island in search of opportunities in the Gulf states.

Part of the eco-friendly hotel chain the Thema Collection, the idea for Amba Yaalu came from its founder, Chandra Wickramasinghe, who was inspired by his mother raising eight children while working as a nurse. A selection of immersive experiences are on offer, from cooking classes to village visits, allowing guests to delve into local life and culture.
Rooms from $120 (£89) B&B, themacollection.com

Take the road less travelled in Morocco

Intrepid Travel’s 11-day South Morocco Discovery adventure heads to the Atlas Mountains and deep into the Sahara, and includes plenty of community-led experiences. Guests stay in a family-run mountain gite, and head to Tafraoute to visit an Amazigh home and learn about traditional life and how it’s changing.

There’s the chance to visit a women’s cooperative outside Essaouira, which specialises in argan oil production. Camping under the stars, a camel safari at sunset and discovering ancient sites with a local guide are also part of the package.
From £662, including accommodation, breakfast, two lunches and dinners and activities, intrepidtravel.com

Serengeti safari with a clean cooking initiative in Tanzania

Small-group adventure specialist G Adventures puts community tourism at the heart of many of its itineraries, with more than 130 projects built into its trips, working with nonprofit partner Planeterra. Local nurseries also grow a tree for every day a traveller is on a trip, providing revenue for communities too.

Among its initiatives in Tanzania is the Masai Clean Cookstoves project that helps people to replace their traditional stoves, which cause deadly household air pollution, with modern models. An all-female team of engineers has so far installed 4,000 stoves across 60 Masai villages in the Serengeti.
The 12-day Serengeti Safari and Zanzibar trip includes a visit to the Clean Cookstove project, from £2,649pp, including hotels, camping, breakfast and some meals, gadventures.com

Preserving traditional customs in Georgia

Adventure specialist Wild Frontiers offers a range of tailored community-led trips, including Adventures with Purpose: Georgia, a 13-day itinerary with a focus on social enterprise projects that are preserving traditions and empowering locals, combined with classic sights such as Tbilisi old town and the Gergeti Trinity church.

Highlights include staying in the Tusheti region, a protected landscape managed by the Tushetian people, contributing to the preservation of the area and village life. In the Kakheti wine region, guests visit the Nukriani Workshops, a scheme that supports local communities and encourages the preservation of traditional crafts.
From £3,090, including accommodation, some meals and transport, wildfrontierstravel.com

Village life in Peru

The Rukha Ayllu project helps families in the traditional weaving village of Huilloc, in the Peruvian Andes, to benefit from responsible tourism. Despite being on a popular trekking route, the village was marginalised, with poor living conditions, until tour operator Valencia Travel Cusco launched the initiative to improve infrastructure and develop community-based experiences.

Now, the 25 families there welcome travellers into their homes and share their cultural heritage, food and crafts, with tourism bringing a welcome new revenue stream. Valencia Travel Cusco is a finalist in this year’s ICRT Global responsible tourism awards, the winners of which will be announced in November.
The 14-day Colours of Peru trip costs from $2,607 (£1,929), including a visit to the project, accommodation, breakfast and some other meals, valenciatravelcusco.com

Safaris and storytelling in rural India

One of the newest trips from operator Village Ways takes visitors to the central Indian states of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh to stay with forest-dwelling communities and learn about traditional life and crafts, and ancient beliefs. From staying in a community-owned guesthouse to discovering the Baiga and Gond people’s connection to the land, rivers and forests – and their medicinal use of local plants – the nine-night itinerary delves into village life.

Hikes through forests, fireside dances and storytelling, and a safari in Kanha national park are among many highlights. Village Ways is a pioneer in sustainable tourism, providing rural communities with additional income streams and job opportunities and helping to reduce urban migration.
Forests and Fables: A Discovery of Ancient India, from £889pp, including transfers, accommodation and meals, villageways.com

Volunteering with children in Ghana

For travellers aged between 18 and 30, Gap360 offers a choice of trips of two to 12 weeks that support local communities. One option is the Ghana Teaching and Childcare Project, where volunteers work alongside locals in a school or childcare centre. This involves spending between four and six hours a days supporting children.

Staff and volunteers live together, and there’s plenty of free time to get immersed in Ghanaian culture and explore the country’s national parks and beaches. Volunteers can get involved in a youth development programme too. Alternatively, those with the skills can opt to work as a sports coach in anything from athletics to swimming or tennis.
From £599 for two weeks, including accommodation and meals, gap360.com

Hiking through farms and paddy fields in Bali

Astungkara Way is an 85-mile (137km) hiking route across Bali, designed to boost community tourism and regenerative farming. Walkers can choose sections or take on the entire 10-day route, either self-guided or with a group, meandering through paddies and forests, staying with local farming families, joining various daily activities, and tucking into farm-to-table dinners.

The project brings income to the villages and profits support regenerative rice farming along the trail. Besides benefiting from employment, many of the young Indonesians involved have become national spokespeople for ecotourism and sustainable agriculture.
The four-day Tree to Waterfall hike covers 29 miles and costs 6,100,000 rupiah (around £276) all inclusive, astungkaraway.com

Dinner in a South African township

Township and Village (a finalist in the 2025 ICRT Global responsible tourism awards) welcomes visitors into communities in the town of Stellenbosch and its surrounding vineyards to experience day-to-day life in the Western Cape province.

Launched in 2023, the social enterprise offers a host of activities, from dining on traditional Xhosa cuisine at a family home in the Kayamandi township, to djembe drumming sessions and guided walks to learn more about the area’s cultures and turbulent history. Community-based guides ensure authentic encounters, and visitors contribute directly to the local economy.
A three-course home dining experience is 550 rand (around £23), townshipandvillage.co.za

A federal judge Saturday said it appeared the Trump administration was making an “end run” around U.S. court orders prohibiting five African immigrants to be deported to their home countries by sending them first to Ghana, which was poised to then relocate them to countries where they could face torture or death.

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan ordered the government to detail Saturday night how it was trying to ensure Ghana would not send the immigrants elsewhere in violation of domestic court orders. One of the plaintiffs has already been shipped from Ghana to his native Gambia, where a U.S. court found he could not be sent, Lee Gelernt of the ACLU told Chutkan.

Elianis Perez of the Department of Justice acknowledged that she told Chutkan in court Friday that Ghana had pledged that wouldn’t happen. But she argued that Chutkan had no power to control how another country treats deportees. She noted the Supreme Court this summer ruled the administration could continue sending immigrants to countries they are not from, even if they hadn’t had a chance to raise fears of torture.

Gelernt, however, compared the case to that of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man the Trump administration mistakenly deported to El Salvador despite a court order prohibiting it, then argued it couldn’t get him back. After multiple courts directed the administration to “facilitate” his return, Abrego Garcia came back to the U.S., where he is now fighting human-trafficking charges and another Trump administration push to deport him.

“This appears to be a specific plan to make an end run around these obligations,” Chutkan said of the administration shipping the immigrants to Ghana. “What does the government intend to do? And please don’t tell me you don’t have any control over Ghana, because I know that.”

Chutkan later issued an order giving the administration until 9 p.m. Eastern Time to file a declaration detailing how they were trying to ensure the other immigrants weren’t improperly sent to their home countries from Ghana.

Riccardi writes for the Associated Press.

The falls guy – Harry Leach is moved by a humbling adventure in an unforgettable African land when he experiences the intoxicating, chaotic charm of Ghana

Thousands of fruit bats whirled in a tornado, spiralling 300ft above as Ghana’s tallest waterfall crashed in a thunderous beat beside me – its mist cooling the heat on my skin.

We had hiked through a sweaty tropical forest to get here – ducking under vines, stepping over startled reptiles, brushing off bold insects, crossing nine clanging bridges. Each footstep sank into rich, red earth as the path narrowed underfoot and the sound of falling water grew louder.

Then, suddenly, the trees parted and there it was – Ghana’s famous Wli Waterfalls, the tallest in West Africa. Wild and beautiful. The bats squeaked as the 262ft-high fall poured down a jagged cliff into a pool over which butterflies scattered, their wings glowing in flecks of sunlight.

The noise was deafening, and yet the moment seemed utterly still.

If this were Europe, a sea of phones would block the view. But here, deep in Ghana’s Volta Region, it was just us and nature – raw and unspoilt. The fall’s soft waves didn’t just cool my body, they stripped back life’s pressures. This wasn’t just a trip; it was unfiltered adventure.

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I was travelling to West Africa with Intrepid Travel, a firm that threads you into the fabric of Ghana as well as taking you way off the beaten track. That was evident that very morning when we broke bread with a family living in Liati Wote – a beautiful, remote village hugging the Ghana-Togo border. Our hosts welcomed us with open arms in the way I quickly learned all Ghanaians do: with a warmth and effortless generosity that is rare to find wherever you go in the world.

As goats wandered past, and the sun beat down, we chatted about sport, family, our passions, as mighty Mount Afadjato leaned over us. “Everything is focused on each other,” said 16-year-old Elizabeth, while her sister Precious served omelettes fresh from the pan.

She spoke of her yearning to explore Accra, Ghana’s capital, but her love for her village was deep, palpable. I understood why. In this community of just 600, everyone plays a part. Later we met Charles, tending his farm. Together we planted corn and watched him work his charcoal ovens – delicate, smoky earth mounds that collapse if oxygen sneaks in.

Elsewhere, Emmanuel, the village’s chief farmer and palm wine-maker since 1991, tapped sap from a fallen palm tree. I drank it sharp and fresh, then again later when it was fermented, sweet and dizzying. That night, we rejoined our hosts to dine in their home. We shared plates of jollof (rice, vegetables and/or meat), akple (fermented dough balls), watermelon, and grilled drumsticks.

It was the kind of hospitality that makes you feel like you have slipped into someone else’s life… just for a moment.

As we laughed and sang together, including a slightly off-key rendition of Wonderwall, conversation paused when the beat of drums began to creep through an open window.

We broke away from the table, unable to ignore it any longer. Outside, a group of 30 was rehearsing an Ewe drumming performance. The ensemble had packed up to leave for a funeral, but then graciously unpacked to play once more, just for us.

We jived under stars to their captivating tempo because, in Ghana, when the beat calls, you don’t just listen – you follow it. The next morning, I danced again, this time with a machete in my hand at the village of Tafi Atome. I was taught the “hunter’s dance” by the Akpi performers, as they pounded drums behind a statue with a lit cigarette hanging from its stone lips.

“They’re showing their strength in the forest with this performance,” said Isaac, our endlessly insightful guide and native Ghanaian who knows his country inside out. Behind us, monkeys stirred. “They live together with the people,” he explained.

After spicy snails and grilled fish at Afrikiko River Front Resort, we cruised down the shimmering Volta River – part of Lake Volta, the largest artificial reservoir in the world at 3,283 square miles – completely relaxed. Then we moved on to the lively town of Elmina, where we checked into charming hilltop cabins at Golden Hill Parker Hotel, above Ghana’s largest fish market.

After sunrise, we ventured through its heart. Women balancing bowls of fish on their heads encouraged us to dance with them, smiling ear-to-ear, as traders in every direction shouted prices over crates of squid and the bleeding sharks on the wet concrete.

It was loud, chaotic, intoxicating: Ghana at its most tactile and authentic. But nothing felt more real than our visit to Cape Coast Castle. Inside the silent dungeons, history closed in from every side. No light or airflow. Just thick stone walls and the memory of thousands of slaves held captive before being trafficked as human cargo.

Our guide Kojo spoke with the gravity of someone who had told this story too many times, yet aware it must never stop being told. “It cannot be repeated,” he said simply, standing by the plaque that now marks the “Door of No Return” –once the last threshold before Africans were forced onto ships in the dark days of the transatlantic slave trade.

My final days in Ghana unfolded in the busy and electric capital Accra. One minute you’re weaving through the packed Osu night market, eating smoked fish and waakye (rice and beans), next you’re standing in a workshop staring at a coffin shaped like a Nokia mobile phone. That was Eric’s creation – a master craftsman of fantasy coffins. From sneakers to Club beer bottles, he carves caskets that reflect lives once lived.

In Ghana, death isn’t feared, it is a “celebration”, said Eric. Funerals honour those lost with colour, music and flair. What struck me most about this country wasn’t any one place. It wasn’t even the food – although I’d fly back in a heartbeat for palm nut soup or “red red”.

It was the way people let us in; their smiles; how they embraced us into their world and homes. It was truly humbling.

On my final day, I stood in the impoverished Jamestown, watching children play basketball near a beautiful lighthouse. A battered speaker played Afrobeats as we moved through tiny streets, when a barefoot girl spun and waved with a grin so infectious, it made me smile too.

This is why you travel. Not for the Instagram pictures, but for the people who turn the unfamiliar into something unforgettable. “Kwame is your Ghanaian name,” Isaac said after finding out I was born on a Saturday. “Take this with you.”

I will.

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Each year, the world produces about 400 million tonnes of plastic waste – more than the combined weight of all the people on Earth.

Just 9 percent of it is recycled, and one study predicts that global emissions from plastic production could triple by 2050.

Since 2022, the United Nations has been trying to broker a global treaty to deal with plastic waste. But talks keep collapsing, particularly on the issue of introducing a cap on plastic production.

Campaigners blame petrostates whose economies depend on oil – the raw ingredient for plastics – for blocking the treaty negotiations.

This week, the UN is meeting in Switzerland in the latest attempt to reach an agreement. But, even if the delegates find a way to cut the amount of plastic the world makes, it could take years to have a meaningful effect.

In the meantime, institutions like the World Bank are turning to the markets for alternative solutions. One of these is plastic offsetting.

So what is plastic offsetting? Does it work? And what do programmes like this mean for vulnerable communities who depend on plastic waste to make a living?

What is plastic offsetting, and how do credits work?

Plastic credits are based on a similar idea to carbon credits.

With carbon credits, companies that emit greenhouse gases can pay a carbon credit company to have their emissions “cancelled out” by funding reforestation programmes or other projects to help “sink” their carbon output.

For each tonne of CO2 they cancel out, the company gets a carbon credit. This is how an airline can tell customers that their flight is “carbon neutral”.

Plastic credits work on a similar model. The world’s biggest plastic polluters can pay a plastic credit company to collect and re-purpose plastic.

If a polluter pays for one tonne of plastic to be collected, it gets one plastic credit.

If the polluter buys the number of plastic credits equivalent to its annual plastic output, it might be awarded “plastic neutral” or “plastic net zero” status.

Does plastic offsetting work?

Like carbon credits, plastic credits are controversial.

Carbon markets are already worth hundreds of millions of dollars annually, with their value set to grow to billions.

But in 2023, SourceMaterial, a nonprofit newsroom, revealed that only a fraction of nearly 100 million carbon credits result in real emissions reductions.

“Companies are making false claims and then they’re convincing customers that they can fly guilt-free or buy carbon-neutral products when they aren’t in any way carbon-neutral,” Barbara Haya, a US carbon trading expert, said at the time.

The same thing could happen with plastics. Analysis by SourceMaterial of the world’s first plastic credit registry, Plastic Credit Exchange (PCX) in the Philippines, found that only 14 percent of PCX credits went towards recycling.

While companies that had bought credits with PCX were getting “plastic neutral” status, most of the plastic was burned as fuel in cement factories, in a method known as “co-processing” that releases thousands of tonnes of CO2 and toxins linked to cancer.

A spokesperson for PCX said at the time that co-processing “reduces reliance on fossil fuels, and is conducted under controlled conditions to minimise emissions”.

Now, the World Bank is also pointing to plastic credits as a solution.

In January last year, the World Bank launched a $100m bond that “provides investors with a financial return” linked to the plastic credits projects backed by the Alliance to End Plastic Waste, an industry initiative that supports plastic credit projects, in Ghana and Indonesia.

At the UN talks in December last year, a senior environmental specialist from the World Bank said plastic credits were an “emerging result-based financing tool” which can fund projects that “reduce plastic pollution”.

What do companies think of plastic credits?

Manufacturers, petrostates and the operators of credit projects have all lobbied for market solutions, including plastic credits, at the UN.

Oil giant ExxonMobil and petrochemicals companies LyondellBasell and Dow Chemical are all members of the Alliance to End Plastic Waste in Ghana and Indonesia – both epicentres of plastic pollution that produce plastic domestically and import waste from overseas.

But those companies are also members of the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, a lobby group that has warned the UN it does “not support production caps or bans”, given the “benefits of plastics”.

What do critics and affected local communities say?

Critics like Anil Verma, a professor of human resource management at the University of Toronto who has studied waste pickers in Brazil, call plastic offsetting a “game of greenwashing”.

Verma argues that offsetting lets polluters claim they are tackling the waste problem without having to cut production – or profit.

Patrick O’Hare, an academic at St Andrews University in Scotland, who has attended all rounds of the UN plastic treaty negotiations, said he has “noticed with concern the increasing prominence given to plastics credits”.

Plastic credits are being promoted in some quarters “despite the lack of proven success stories to date” and “the evident problems with the carbon credit model on which it is based”, he added.

Even some of the world’s biggest companies have distanced themselves from plastic credits.

Nestle, which had previously bought plastic credits, said last year that it does not believe in their effectiveness in their current form.

Coca-Cola and Unilever are also “not convinced”, according to reports, and like Nestle, they back government-mandated “extended producer responsibility” schemes.

Yet the World Bank has plans to expand its support for plastic offsetting, calling it a “win-win with the local communities and ecosystems that benefit from less pollution”.

Some of the poorest people in Ghana eke out a living by collecting plastic waste for recycling.

Johnson Doe, head of a refuse collectors’ group in the capital, Accra, says funds for offsetting would be better spent supporting local waste pickers.

Doe wants his association to be officially recognised and funded, instead of watching investment flow into plastic credits. They’re a “false solution”, he says.

This story was produced in partnership with SourceMaterial 

READ MORE: Ghana’s waste pickers brave mountains of plastic – and big industry

‘It’s important work’

Back at the waste yard, business has died down for the day.

Bamfo and her youngest children, Nkunim, 10, and Josephine, 6, are emptying the last few bottles. She will be in bed by 8pm, rising at midnight for her Bible studies before starting work again at dawn.

Bamfo never thought she would become a waste picker.

She was 19 when she finally gained her school certificate, and by selling oranges, she scraped together enough money for a secretarial course. But she couldn’t afford a typewriter.

While the other girls tapped away at their machines, she drew the keyboard on her exercise book and practiced on that, pressing her fingers into the paper.

Soon, the money ran out. Instead of the office job she dreamed of, she found work breaking stones on a building site.

“At that moment, I see myself – I’m a big loser, and there’s nothing,” says Bamfo, leaning forward on her office chair to keep a watch for any final delivery tricycles. “I see the world is against me.”

Then one morning she woke to find the building site had disappeared overnight, replaced by a dump: Truckloads of water sachets, drinks bottles and nylon wigs.

Her five children lay sleeping. Her husband, as usual, had not come home. To buy cassava to make banku – dumpling stew – she needed money urgently.

A friend had told her that factories in the city would buy plastic waste for a few cedis a kilogramme. It was one of the lowliest jobs there were, involving not only backbreaking labour but stigma and shame.

“If you are a woman doing this waste picking, people think you have no family to care for you,” she says. “They think you are bad. They think you are a witch.”

She came home one day to find her husband had abandoned her. But not before he had called her father to tell him his daughter had become a “vulture”.

Estrangement from her father only compounded the shame. To escape her neighbours’ taunts, Bamfo moved with her children to the other side of the city.

There, she took over her small yard, buying waste from pickers and selling it on to factories and recycling plants. Bit by bit, she built a wooden house. Eventually, she plucked up the courage to phone her father.

“I said, ‘Come and see the work I do. See that it is not something to feel bad about.’”

When he saw the yard and the tricycle teams that had become Bamfo’s business, Nkosoo Waste Management (“nkosoo” is Twi for “progress”), he couldn’t help but be impressed.

“You are not a woman, you are a man,” she recalls him telling her once, half admiring and half accusing. “The heart that you have – even your brother doesn’t have that heart.”

Now she hopes to pass on some of her resilience. King, her supervisor at the yard, slept on a nearby dumpsite as a small child and says Bamfo and her waste business saved him. “I cannot say a bad thing about her. She is my mother.”

As night settles on Accra, the polluting plastic tide has crept a little higher. But Bamfo has, she says, found dignity in the fight to keep it at bay.

“It is important work we do,” she says. “Sometimes I feel very sad and bad about not getting the education I wanted. But we clean the city. I think of that.”

This story was produced in partnership with SourceMaterial

Footage from a forest in Ghana’s Ashanti region showed smouldering wreckage from a helicopter crash that killed the country’s defence and environment ministers. Three other officials and three air force crew members were also killed.

Host nation Morocco will face Nigeria in the Women’s Africa Cup of Nations after beating Ghana on penalties.

Goalkeeper Khadija Er-Rmichi blocked Comfort Yeboah’s attempt, and the hosts, Morocco, advanced to the championship of the Women’s Africa Cup of Nations (WAFCON) on a penalty shootout after a 1-1 draw with Ghana.

Morocco, which prevailed 4-2 on penalties on Tuesday, will face Nigeria in the final on Saturday. The Super Falcons defeated defending champions South Africa 2-1 in the earlier semifinal on Tuesday in Casablanca.

Ghana took a first-half lead. Er-Rmichi got a hand on Josephine Bonsu’s header, but it bounced off the post and skittered across the goal for Stella Nyamekye to push it into the net in the 26th minute.

Morocco equalised in the 55th when Sakina Ouzraoui bounced a pass from her chest to her feet and scored from underneath diving Ghana goalkeeper Cynthia Konlan.

Scoreless for the rest of regulation, the match went to extra time at Rabat’s Olympic Stadium.

Morocco has seen its national team rise in recent years. The team reached the WAFCON final in 2022 but fell to South Africa. Morocco also went to the Women’s World Cup for the first time in 2023 and advanced to the round of 16.

Morocco advanced to the semifinals with a 3-1 victory over Mali, while Ghana downed Algeria 4-2 on penalties after a scoreless draw.

Nigeria beat South Africa in first WAFCON semi

Michelle Alozie’s long ball bounced into the goal in stoppage time to give Nigeria a 2-1 victory over South Africa earlier on Tuesday, and send the Super Falcons into the final at the WAFCON.

The Super Falcons have won nine WAFCON titles. Disappointed by their fourth-place finish in the 2022 tournament, the Super Falcons dubbed their goal to win this event as “Mission X”.

Alozie, who plays in the National Women’s Soccer League for the Houston Dash, sent the ball forward from distance four minutes into stoppage time. Although two teammates were in front of South Africa’s net, neither of them touched the ball as it bounced into the goal.

Rasheedat Ajibade, who plays for Atlético Madrid, converted a penalty just before half-time to put Nigeria ahead 1-0. The Super Falcons were awarded the penalty because of a handball in the box.

South Africa, the defending WAFCON champions, pulled even on Linda Motlhalo’s penalty in the 60th minute.

Nigeria, which had not previously conceded a goal in the tournament, routed Zambia 5-0 in the quarterfinals to advance. South Africa, led by coach Desiree Ellis, advanced on penalties after a scoreless draw with Senegal.

There was a scary moment in the 84th minute when South Africa midfielder Gabriela Salgado went down with an injury, and players from both teams frantically gestured for help.

Salgado was stretchered off with her left leg heavily wrapped as her teammates sobbed. The crowd at Stade Larbi Zaouli chanted her name.

Ken Ofori-Atta skipped prosecutor summons over several corruption claims, including multimillion-dollar cathedral project.

Ghana’s former finance minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, has been placed on Interpol’s red notice list after allegedly using public office for personal gain.

Ofori-Atta, whose location remains unclear as he reportedly seeks medical treatment, is being investigated over a string of high-profile contracts relating to petroleum revenues, electricity supply and ambulance procurement.

He is also under investigation over a controversial national cathedral project that swallowed tens of millions of dollars in public money yet remains little more than a hole in the ground.

The red notice – a request to police worldwide to detain a suspect pending extradition – was issued four days after Ghana’s Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) re-declared the 65-year-old a wanted person after he failed to appear for a scheduled interrogation.

The OSP insists Ofori-Atta must appear in person, rejecting requests from his legal team for a virtual session on medical grounds.

The prosecutor’s notice, published by the state-run Ghana News Agency on Monday, stated a number of possible locations, including the United States, the United Kingdom, South Africa, Guyana, Hong Kong and the Cayman Islands.

“We will not countenance this conduct, not in this case,” Special Prosecutor Kissi Agyebeng told local media on Monday.

Frank Davies, a member of Ofori-Atta’s legal team, was cited by the news agency AFP as saying medical records had been submitted “in good faith”, but that “the office has chosen to ignore them”.

“The special prosecutor is not being sensitive to the issues at hand, especially knowing that Mr Ofori-Atta is unwell and receiving treatment,” said Davies on Friday.

The new administration of President John Mahama has been on the heels of former government appointees to account for their tenure in office.

The attorney general is currently building 33 cases of corruption and related offences against former government appointees.

Ofori-Atta served as former President Nana Akufo-Addo’s finance minister for seven years.

Its been over 20 years since the first Unity Cup and since then it has yet to return however this year that all changed – The friendly competition is back but this time starring more countries than before.

This week, four nations with deep roots in the UK brought community, culture and football to Brentford’s Gtech Community Stadium for the long-awaited return of the Unity Cup.

From steel pans and DJs to flags waving proudly in every direction, this was more than a football cup, it was a full on cultural link up and one that had been missing from the scene for twenty one years.

On Tuesday 27th May, Jamaica’s Reggae Boyz beat Trinidad and Tobago’s Soca Warriors in a fierce Caribbean clash. The following day, Nigeria’s Super Eagles edged past Ghana’s The Black Stars, securing their place in the final. With the third-place match and final showdown happening on Saturday , fans showed up not just to support their teams but to celebrate community, culture and shared roots.

What is the Unity Cup?

The Unity Cup is an international friendly football tournament originally launched in 2004, when teams from Nigeria, Jamaica and Ireland faced off at Charlton Athletic’s ground. Then it was a moment, now it’s a movement.

Two decades later, the tournament returned with clearer purpose: to celebrate the cultural impact of African and Caribbean communities in the UK, particularly in London. Where those communities have helped shape the city’s identity through food, music, language and history.

This year’s line-up features Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Nigeria and Ghana – four nations chosen for their heritage, their undeniable pride and their presence in the UK’s multicultural landscape.

From the food we eat, to the rhythms we dance to each of these cultures have left a mark in British identity in countless ways. The Unity Cup is a tribute to that legacy.

Why Brentford?

It’s no coincidence that the tournament was hosted by Brentford FC. West London is known for its multicultural spirit, and Brentford’s commitment to inclusion made it the perfect stage.

Just weeks ago, the club was awarded the Premier League’s Intermediate Level for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (PLEDIS), highlighting their work both on and off the pitch – the decision to bring the Unity Cup her shows this wasn’t just a football event – it was a celebration designed to reflect the city.

From start to finish, the vibes were immaculate. On one end, a steel pan band played sweet melodies throughout the match. On the other, artist performances and DJs kept the energy high, soundtracking the day with bashment, afrobeats, gospel and everything in between.

Crowds were filled out in jerseys and flags, the crowd came with whistles ready. It wasn’t just a game – it felt like a mini carnival, with football as the headliner.

But beyond the party, there was a powerful undercurrent of unity. Because although every player on that pitch shares a Black identity, the cultural nuances between African and Caribbean communities are deep but the Unity Cup created space for both and what came from that space was a beautiful sight.

Brentford FC and NHS Blood & Transplant also used the event to host a ‘Bee A Hero’ blood donor drive – encouraging attendees to get their blood type tested and sign up as donors. This wasn’t a side initiative. It was central part of what made the Unity Cup feel different and deeply necessary.

This is especially important for Black communities, where conditions like sickle cell disproportionately affect lives. It the fastest-growing genetic condition in the UK. It causes excruciating pain, organ damage, and in many cases, lifelong complications. Treatment often relies on blood transfusions – but only 2% of donors in the UK are Black, even though over 55% of Black Londoners have the rare Ro subtype, which is crucial for sickle cell patients.

The Unity Cup didn’t just bring people together. It reminded them how they can help keep each other alive.

Before the big final, the third-place playoff saw Ghana beat Trinidad & Tobago 4-0, securing the bronze position after dominating both halves. But what most people really came to see is the fight for the first place title – Jamaica vs Nigeria.

The first half saw both teams scoring once, but in the final half the pressure was evident, the tackles were fiercer, the chants were louder – both teams were battling for the crown. The friendly competition started to look not so friendly.

But when the final whistle came, both teams had scored twice. Which left no option, but a penalty shootout – all eyes were peeled. In a tense final few minutes, Nigeria came out on top, edging past Jamaica after the Reggae Boyz missed a crucial spot-kick.

Whether it was the Reggae Boyz or the Super Eagles lifting the trophy, or you call it plan-tain or plan-tin, the real win was seeing the stands full of colour, culture, and connection in Brentford FC.

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Bokeo province, Laos – Khobby was living in Dubai last year when he received an intriguing message about a well-paying job working online in a far-flung corner of Southeast Asia.

The salary was good, he was told. He would be working on computers in an office.

The company would even foot the bill for his relocation to join the firm in Laos – a country of 7.6 million people nestled between China, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Myanmar.

With the company paying for his flights, Khobby decided to take the plunge.

But his landing in Laos was anything but smooth.

Khobby discovered that the promised dream job was rapidly becoming a nightmare when his Ghanaian passport was taken on arrival by his new employers.

With his passport confiscated and threats of physical harm ever present, he endured months working inside a compound which he could not leave.

The 21-year-old had become the latest victim of booming online cyber-scam operations in Southeast Asia – an industry that is believed to have enslaved tens of thousands of workers lured with the promise of decently paid jobs in online sales and the information technology industry.

“When I got there, I saw a lot of Africans in the office, with a lot of phones,” Khobby told Al Jazeera, recounting his arrival in Laos.

“Each person had 10 phones, 15 phones. That was when I realised this was a scamming job,” he said.

The operation Khobby found himself working for was in a remote area in northwest Laos, where a casino city has been carved out of a patch of jungle in the infamous “Golden Triangle” region – the lawless border zone between Myanmar, Laos and Thailand that has long been a centre for global drug production and trafficking.

He said he was forced to work long days and sleep in a dormitory with five other African workers at night during the months he spent at the scam centre in the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone.

Khobby recounted the original message he received from an acquaintance encouraging him to take the job in Laos.

“My company is hiring new staff”, he said, adding that he was told the salary was $1,200 per month.

“He told me it was data entry.”

Casino city

The Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone (GTSEZ) where Khobby was lured to for work operates as an autonomous territory within Laos.

Leased from Laotian authorities by Chinese national Zhao Wei, whom the US government has designated the leader of a transnational criminal organisation, life in the GTSEZ is monitored by a myriad of security cameras and protected by its own private security force.

Clocks are set to Beijing time. Signage is predominantly in Chinese, and China’s yuan is the dominant and preferred currency.

Central to the GTSEZ city-state is Zhao Wei’s Kings Romans casino, which the United States Treasury also described as a hub for criminal activity such as money laundering, narcotics and wildlife trafficking.

During a recent visit to the zone by Al Jazeera, Rolls Royce limousines ferried gamblers to some of the city’s casinos while workers toiled on the construction of an elaborate and expansive Venice-style waterway just a stone’s throw from the Mekong river.

While luxury construction projects – including the recently completed Bokeo International Airport – speak to the vast amounts of money flowing through this mini casino city, it is inside the grey, nondescript tower blocks dotted around the economic zone where the lucrative online scam trade occurs.

Within these tower blocks, thousands of trafficked workers from all over the world – just like Khobby – are reported to spend up to 17 hours a day working online to dupe unsuspecting “clients” into parting with their money.

The online swindles are as varied as investing money in fake business portfolios to paying false tax bills that appear very real and from trading phoney cryptocurrency to being caught in online romance traps.

Anti-trafficking experts say most of the workers are deceived into leaving their home countries – such are nearby China, Thailand and Indonesia or as far away as Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda and Ethiopia – with the promise of decent salaries.

Online ‘butchering’

Khobby told how his “data entry” job was, in fact, a scam known in the cybercrime underworld as “pig butchering”.

This is where victims are identified, cold-called or messaged directly by phone in a bid to establish a relationship. Trust is built up over time to the point where an initial investment is made by the intended victim. This can be, at first, a small amount of the victim’s money or emotions in the case of fake online relationships.

There are small rewards on the investments, Khobby explained, telling how those in the industry refer to their victims as pigs who are being “fattened” by trust built up with the scammers.

That fattening continues until a substantial monetary investment is made in whatever scam the victim has become part of. Then they are swiftly “butchered”, which is when the scammers get away with the ill-gotten gains taken from their victims.

Once the butchering is done, all communications are cut with the victims and the scammers disappear without leaving a digital trace.

According to experts, cyber-scamming inside the GTSEZ boomed during the 2019 and 2020 COVID lockdowns when restrictions on travel meant international visitors could not access the Kings Romans casino.

In the years since, the cyber-scam industry has burgeoned, physically transcended borders to become one of the dominant profit-making illicit activities in the region, not only in the GTSEZ in Laos but also in neighbouring Cambodia and in conflict-ridden Myanmar.

Though not as elaborate as the GTSEZ, purpose-built cyber-scam “compounds” have proliferated in Myanmar’s border areas with Thailand.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies estimates that cyber-scamming in Southeast Asia generates tens of billions annually, while the United States Institute of Peace equates the threat to that of the destructive fentanyl trade.

“Cyber-scam operations have significantly benefitted from developments in the fintech industry, including cryptocurrencies, with apps being directly developed for use at [cyber-scam] compounds to launder money,” said Kristina Amerhauser, of the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime.

“Victims and perpetrators are spread across different countries, money is laundered offshore, operations are global,” Amerhauser told Al Jazeera, explaining that the sophisticated technology used in cyber-scamming, along with its international reach, has made it extremely difficult to combat.

Complicit victims?

About 260 trafficked scam-centre workers were recently rescued in a cross-border operation between Thailand and Myanmar. Yet, even in rare instances such as this when trafficked workers are freed, they still face complications due to their visa status and their own potential complicity in criminal activity.

Khobby – who is now back in Dubai – told Al Jazeera that while he was coerced into working in the GTSEZ, he did actually receive the promised $1,200 monthly salary, and he had even signed a six-month “contract” with the Chinese bosses who ran the operation.

Richard Horsey, International Crisis Group’s senior adviser on Myanmar, said Khobby’s experience reflected a changing trend in recruitment by the criminal organisations running the scam centres.

“Some of the more sophisticated gangs are getting out of the human trafficking game and starting to trick workers to come,” Horsey said.

“People don’t like to answer an advert for criminal scamming, and it’s hard to advertise that. But once they’re there, it’s like – actually, we will pay you. We may have taken your passport, but there is a route to quite a lucrative opportunity here and we will give you a small part of that,” he said.

The issue of salaries paid to coerced and enslaved workers complicates efforts to repatriate trafficking victims, who may be considered complicit criminals due to their status as “paid” workers in the scam centres, said Eric Heintz, from the US-based anti-trafficking organisation International Justice Mission (IJM).

“We know of individuals being paid for the first few months they were inside, but then it tapers off to the point where they are making little – if any – money,” Heintz said, describing how victims become “trapped in this cycle of abuse unable to leave the compound”.

“This specific aspect was a challenge early on with the victim identity process – when an official would ask if an individual previously in the scam compound was paid, the victim would answer that initially he or she was. That was enough for some officials to not identify them as victims,” Heintz said.

Some workers have also been sold between criminal organisations and moved across borders to other scam centres, he said.

“We have heard of people being moved from a compound in one country to one in another – for example from Myawaddy to the GTSEZ or Cambodia and vice versa,” he said.

Khobby said many of the workers in his “office” had already had experience with scamming in other compounds and in other countries.

“Most of them had experience. They knew the job already,” he said.

“This job is going on in a lot of places – Thailand, Laos, Myanmar. They were OK because they got paid. They had experience and they knew what they were doing,” he added.

‘What are we here for? Money!’

High-school graduate Jojo said she was working as a maid in Kampala, Uganda, when she received a message on the Telegram messaging app about an opportunity in Asia that involved being sponsored to do computer studies as part of a job in IT.

“I was so excited,” Jojo recounted, “I told my mum about the offer.”

Jojo told how she was sent an airline ticket, and described how multiple people met her along the way as she journeyed from Kampala to Laos. Eventually Jojo arrived in the same scam operation as Khobby.

She described an atmosphere similar to a fast-paced sales centre, with Chinese bosses shouting encouragement when a victim had been ‘butchered’ and their money stolen, telling how she witnessed people scammed for as much as $200,000.

“They would shout a lot, in Chinese – ‘What are we here for? Money!’”

On top of adrenaline, the scam operation also ran on fear, Jojo said.

Workers were beaten if they did not meet targets for swindling money. Mostly locked inside the building where she worked and lived; Jojo said she was only able to leave the scam operation once in the four months she was in the GTSEZ, and that was to attend a local hospital after falling ill.

Fear of the Chinese bosses who ran the operation not only permeated their workstations but in the dormitory where they slept.

“They told us ‘Whatever happens in the room, we are listening’,” she said, also telling how her co-workers were beaten when they failed to meet targets.

“They stopped them from working. They stopped them from coming to get food. They were not getting results. They were not bringing in the money they wanted. So they saw them as useless,” she said.

“They were torturing them every day.”

Khobby and Jojo said they were moved to act in case it was their turn next.

When they organised a strike to demand better treatment, their bosses brought in Laotian police and several of the strikers – including Jojo and Khobby – were taken to a police station where they were told they were sacked.

They were also told they would not be paid what was owed in wages and their overseers refused to give their passports back.

Khobby said he was left stranded without a passport and the police refused to help.

“This is not about only the Chinese people,” Khobby said. “Even in Vientiane, they have immigration offices who are involved. They are the ones giving the visas. When I got to Laos, it was the immigration officer who was waiting for me. I didn’t even fill out any form,” he said.

With help from the Ghanaian embassy, Khobby and Jojo were eventually able to retrieve their passports, and with assistance from family and friends, they returned home.

The IJM’s Heintz, said that target countries for scammer recruitment – such as those in Africa – need better awareness of the dangers of trafficking.

“There needs to be better awareness at the source country level of the dangers associated with these jobs,” he said.

Reflecting on what led him to work up the courage to lead a strike in the scam centre, Khobby considered his childhood back in Ghana.

“I was a boy who was raised in a police station. My grandpa was a police commander. So in that aspect, I’m very bold, I have that courage. I like giving things a try and I like taking risks,” he said.

Jojo told Al Jazeera how she continues to chat online with friends who are still trapped in scam centres in Laos, and who have told her that new recruits arrive each day in the GTSEZ.

Her friends want to get out of the scam business and the economic zone in Laos. But it is not so easy to leave, Jojo said.

“They don’t have their passports,” she said.