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DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — Senegalese President Macky Sall defended his decision to postpone elections as violent protests erupted across the country on Friday.

In his first interview since announcing the delay, Sall brushed off allegations that the decision was unconstitutional and that he’d created a constitutional crisis, saying the country needed more time to resolve controversies over the disqualification of some candidates and a conflict between the legislative and judicial branches of government.

But much of the public fears that Sall, who faces term limits, is just seeking to delay leaving office.

Senegal is one of West Africa’s most stable democracies, but the presidential vote has been dogged by controversies from deadly protests that resulted in Sall announcing that he would not seek a third term, to the disqualification of two opposition leaders by the highest election authority.

ACCRA, Ghana (AP) — Seven royal artifacts looted 150 years ago by British colonial forces from Ghana’s ancient Asante kingdom and kept by a United States museum have been returned and presented to the kingdom on Thursday, the latest of a series of stolen treasured items being repatriated to several African countries.

Looted from British-colonized Ghana in the 19th century before being transferred to Fowler Museum at the University of California, Los Angeles, in the 1960s, the artifacts included an elephant tail whisk, an ornamental chair made of wood, leather and iron, two gold stool ornaments, a gold necklace and two bracelets.

“We are here ... (because) the white man came into Asanteman to loot and destroy it,” Otumfuo Osei Tutu, the king of the Assante kingdom in Ghana’s largest city of Kumasi, said at a presentation ceremony that brought joy and relief to the kingdom.

After decades of resistance from European and Western governments and museums, the efforts of African countries to repatriate stolen artifacts are paying off with the increasing return of treasured pieces. Activists, though, say thousands more are still out of reach.

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — A presidential election in Indonesia, the world’s third-largest democracy, is highlighting choices to be made as the country seeks to profit from its rich reserves of nickel and other resources that are vital to the global transition away from fossil fuels.

President Joko Widodo capitalized on Indonesia’s abundant nickel, coal, oil and gas reserves as he led Southeast Asia’s biggest economy through a decade of rapid growth and modernization that vastly expanded the country’s networks of roads and railways

Increasingly, voters are demanding that the men vying to succeed him address the tradeoffs between fast growth and a healthy environment in the world’s fourth most populated country.

Indonesia has the world’s largest reserves of nickel — a critical material for electric vehicles, solar panels and other goods needed for the green energy transition.

It’s also the biggest producer of palm oil, one of the largest exporters of coal and a top producer of pulp for paper. It also exports oil and gas, rubber, tin and other resources.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Malaysia’s top court on Friday struck down Shariah-based criminal laws in an opposition-run state, saying they encroached on federal authority. Islamists denounced the decision and said it could undermine religious courts across the Muslim-majority nation.

In an 8-1 ruling, the nine-member Federal Court panel invalidated 16 laws created by the Kelantan state government, which imposed punishments rooted in Islam for offenses that included sodomy, sexual harassment, incest, cross-dressing and destroying or defiling places of worship.

The court said that the state could not make Islamic laws on those topics because they are covered by Malaysian federal law.

Malaysia has a dual-track legal system, with both government laws and Shariah — Islamic law based on the Quran and a set of scriptures known as the hadith — covering personal and family matters for Muslims. Ethnic Malays, all of whom are considered Muslim in Malaysian law, make up two-thirds of Malaysia’s 33 million people. The population also includes large Chinese and Indian minorities.

LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) — The former prime minister of Pakistan expected his party would claim an easy victory in the country’s parliamentary elections, sending him to the top job for a fourth time. Instead, Nawaz Sharif faces a difficult path to power.

Independent candidates backed by his imprisoned rival, Imran Khan, were leading in the vote count Friday, a surprisingly strong showing given assertions by Khan’s supporters and a national rights body that the balloting was manipulated to favor Sharif.

That scrambled the plans of Sharif — and the security establishment backing him — forcing him to announce plans Friday to try to form a coalition government.

A day earlier, Sharif had gruffly rejected the idea of a coalition, confidently telling reporters after casting his vote that he wanted a single party running Pakistan for a full five-year term.

Since the beginning of the war in Gaza, there have been several reports that Qatar is considering expelling Hamas from Doha.

The US and Qatar are working together to expel Hamas leaders from Doha, Al-Arabiya reported on Friday.

The head of Hamas's politburo, Ismail Haniyeh, has lived in luxury in Doha for years. Qatar has been central in meditating talks aimed at reaching a ceasefire and a release of the hostages being held by Hamas in Gaza. The Al-Arabiya report did not provide further details about the alleged Qatari and American efforts to expel Hamas from Doha.

In October, The Washington Post reported that Qatar and the US had agreed to discuss Hamas's presence in Doha once the crisis in the region was resolved, although it was unclear what exactly that would entail. In December, Israeli media reported that Qatar had agreed to exile Hamas leaders if a ceasefire was reached, although a Qatari official denied that this was the case.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine’s new military chief said Friday that his immediate goals are to improve the rotation of troops at the front lines and harness the power of new technology, at a time when Kyiv’s forces are largely on the defensive in the war with Russia.

Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, who previously was the commander of Ukraine’s ground forces, spoke a day after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy put him in charge of the battlefield campaign with the war poised to enter its third year. He replaced the broadly popular Gen. Valerii Zaluzhnyi.

“New tasks are on the agenda,” Syrskyi said on his Telegram channel.

Though he provided little detail, his remarks appeared to align with Zelenskyy’s stated aim of bringing “renewal” to the armed forces with Thursday’s shake-up and adopting a fresh approach to the fight.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- People who act shocked that a priest would bless a gay couple but have no problem with him blessing a crooked businessman are hypocrites, Pope Francis said.

“The most serious sins are those that are disguised with a more ‘angelic’ appearance. No one is scandalized if I give a blessing to an entrepreneur who perhaps exploits people, which is a very serious sin. Whereas they are scandalized if I give it to a homosexual -- this is hypocrisy,” he told the Italian magazine Credere.

The interview was scheduled for publication Feb. 8, but Vatican News reported on some of its content the day before when the magazine issued a press release about the interview.

Mr Nadezhdin has been relatively critical of Vladimir Putin's full-scale war in Ukraine when few dissenting voices have been tolerated in Russia.

Election authorities claimed more than 15% of the signatures he submitted with his candidate application were flawed.

He had tried to challenge this, but the commission rejected his bid.

Refusing to give up, Mr Nadezhdin, 60, said on social media that he would challenge the decision in Russia's Supreme Court.

The Central Election Commission said that of the 105,000 signatures submitted by Mr Nadezhdin, more than 9,000 were invalid. They cited a variety of violations.

That left 95,587 names, meaning he was just short of the 100,000 required signatures to register as a candidate, commission member Andrei Shutov said.

Russia's presidential election is due to take place from 15-17 March, although the result is not in doubt as only candidates viewed as acceptable to the Kremlin are running.

A final decision on who can take part will come on Saturday, but the election commission chairwoman said it was already clear there would be four candidates on the ballot.

Other than Vladimir Putin, they include nationalist leader Leonid Slutsky, parliament deputy speaker Vladislav Davankov and Communist Nikolai Kharitonov. All their parties have broadly backed Kremlin policies and none of the trio is seen as a genuine challenger.

Mary Lou McDonald had previously said unification was within "touching distance" after the return of power-sharing government to Northern Ireland, led by her Sinn Fein colleague Michelle O'Neill. But she acknowledges there is "an awful lot of work to be done".

Mary Lou McDonald was speaking to Sky News following the restoration of the Northern Ireland executive, where her party - a nationalist group - is now the largest caucus in Belfast for the first time since the Good Friday Agreement came into effect.

She said: "What I firmly believe is - in this decade - we will have those referendums, and it's my job and the job of people like me who believe in reunification to convince, to win hearts and minds and to convince people of that opportunity - part of which, by the way, will be really consolidating our relationship with Britain as our next door neighbour and good friend."

Asked if she meant before 2030, Ms McDonald said "yes".

One in two French people’s data was stolen in a major cybersecurity breach - the largest ever in France - leaving 33 million at risk.

Over 33 million people in France - nearly half of its population - have been impacted by the country’s biggest-ever cyberattack.

Two French service providers for medical insurance companies were targeted, with the companies admitting that millions of people’s data were potentially exposed to the hackers.

"This is the first time there has been a breach on such a scale," Yann Padova, a lawyer specialising in digital data protection and former Secretary General of the French data protection authority (CNIL) told French broadcaster Franceinfo on Thursday.