Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney speaks during a press conference after the First Ministers Meeting in Ottawa, Canada on March 21, 2025. (Photo by Dave Chan / AFP)
Canada’s new Prime Minister Mark Carney on Sunday called early elections for April 28, pledging to defeat Donald Trump’s drive to annex the United States’s huge northern neighbor.
Carney, a former central banker, was chosen by Canada’s centrist Liberal Party to replace Justin Trudeau as prime minister, but he has never faced the country’s broader electorate.
That will now change as Carney brought parliamentary elections forward several months from October, and he made it clear that the barrage of trade and sovereignty threats coming from the US president will be the focus of his campaign.
“I’ve just requested that the governor general dissolve parliament and call an election for April 28. She has agreed,” Carney said in a speech to the nation, referring to King Charles III’s representative in Canada, a member of the British Commonwealth.
Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney (C) speaks during the First Ministers Meeting in Ottawa, Canada on March 21, 2025. (Photo by Dave Chan / AFP)
In power for a decade, the Liberal government had slid into deep unpopularity, but Carney will be hoping to ride a wave of Canadian patriotism to a new majority.
“I’m asking Canadians for a strong, positive mandate to deal with President Trump,” Carney said, adding that the Republican “wants to break us, so America can own us. We will not let that happen.”
“We are facing the most significant crisis of our lifetimes because of President Trump’s unjustified trade actions and his threats to our sovereignty,” Carney said.
“Our response must be to build a strong economy and a more secure Canada,” he added, pledging not to meet Trump until the US leader recognizes Canadian sovereignty.
Trump has riled his northern neighbor by repeatedly dismissing its borders as artificial, and urging it to join the United States as the 51st state.
Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney speaks at a news conference at Rideau Hall in Ottawa on March 23, 2025 after asking the Governor General to dissolve Parliament thereby triggering snap elections on April 28. (Photo by Dave Chan / AFP)
The ominous remarks have been accompanied by Trump’s swirling trade war, with the imposition of tariffs on imports from Canada, which could severely damage its economy.
Poll favorites
Domestic issues such as the cost of living and immigration usually dominate Canadian elections, but this time around, one key topic tops the list in this country of 41 million people: who can best handle Trump.
The president’s open hostility toward his northern neighbor — a NATO ally and historically one of his country’s closest partners — has upended the Canadian political landscape.
Trudeau, who had been in power since 2015, was deeply unpopular when he announced he was stepping down, with Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives seen as election favorites just weeks ago.
But the polls have narrowed spectacularly in Carney’s favor since he took over the Liberals, who only hold a minority in parliament, and analysts are now calling the race too close to call.
“Many consider this to be an existential election, unprecedented,” Felix Mathieu, a political scientist at the University of Winnipeg, told AFP.
“It is impossible at this stage to make predictions, but this will be a closely watched election with a voter turnout that should be on the rise.”
Poilievre, 45, is a career politician, first elected when he was only 25. A veteran tough-talking campaigner, he has sometimes been tagged as a libertarian and a populist.
On Sunday, Poilievre — seen by some as too similar to Trump in style and substance — set the tone.
“I want the opposite of what Donald Trump wants,” the Conservative leader said, promising to base his campaign on bread-and-butter economic issues and the worries of “regular people.”
Carney, 60, has spent his career outside of electoral politics. He spent more than a decade at Goldman Sachs and went on to lead Canada’s central bank, and then the Bank of England.
Smaller opposition parties could suffer if Canadians seek to give a large mandate to one of the big two, to strengthen their hand against Trump.
As for the US leader, he professes not to care, while pushing ahead with plans to further strengthen tariffs against Canada and other major trading partners on April 2.
“I don’t care who wins up there,” Trump said this week.
“But just a little while ago, before I got involved and totally changed the election, which I don’t care about […] the Conservative was leading by 35 points.”
Saudi Arabia has updated its tourist eVisa programme for 2026, limiting eligibility in Africa to only three countries as part of its list of 66 nations whose citizens can apply through the Kingdom’s online visa platform.
The move leaves most African countries, including Nigeria, outside the simplified entry scheme.
The electronic visa allows eligible travellers to visit Saudi Arabia for tourism, leisure activities, family visits and Umrah, excluding the annual Hajj pilgrimage. Applications are completed online, eliminating the need for embassy visits and lengthy visa processing.
Saudi authorities said the eVisa forms part of ongoing efforts to expand tourism, attract international visitors and simplify travel procedures through a fully digital application system. The visa is available only to citizens of approved countries and territories listed on the Kingdom’s official tourism portal.
Below is the list of African countries eligible for Saudi Arabia’s eVisa.
The South African government says more than 53,000 foreign nationals have been deported or repatriated since launching a “migration management” campaign five weeks ago.
Most were from Malawi, Zimbabwe, and Mozambique, officials say, and the number is likely to rise as repatriations and deportations continue.
South Africa is carrying out one of its biggest crackdowns on undocumented migrants in years, following weeks of anti-immigration protests that have seen violence, intimidation and looting.
Protesters have been demanding tighter border controls and mass deportations, accusing migrants of contributing to high unemployment, rising crime rates and collapse of public services.
The UN has warned against using migrants as scapegoats for South Africa’s socioeconomic challenges.
Anti-migrant activists have threatened to stage weekly protests to pressure the government until their demands are met, and there are fears the protests could turn violent.
The demonstrators had set an “unofficial deadline” of 30 June for all undocumented migrants to leave the country, which has seen many foreigners leave to escape violence and intimidation.
Several countries, including Ghana, Nigeria, Uganda and Kenya, have flown their citizens home in recent weeks.
Justice and Constitutional Development Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi announced on Sunday that 53,499 foreign nationals have been processed for deportation and repatriation, “which is dominated by the Malawians, followed by Zimbabweans and Mozambicans”.
“We are striving to achieve an orderly and regular migration which is mindful and sensitive to the concerns raised by our people, while observing human rights and dignity of all people in our country, irrespective of their citizenship and immigration status,” Kubayi told a news conference in Pretoria.
She said the repatriation and deportation process has helped them catch people who were wanted by the police for alleged criminal activity.
Authorities will continue to enforce its immigration laws, she added, but warned that protesters should not conduct unauthorised searches of homes and businesses that are suspected of sheltering undocumented migrants.
South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa has acknowledged public concerns about immigration but has condemned attacks against migrants, warning citizens against taking the law into their own hands.
South Africa is the continent’s wealthiest nation and has long attracted migrants searching for better economic opportunities, some of whom enter the country illegally.
Plans for a 64-team men’s World Cup are set to be assessed after the 2026 tournament, with Fifa boss Gianni Infantino saying the event needs to be “for the whole world”.
The proposal for an expanded tournament was put forward last year, and Infantino says the success of the expanded 48-team tournament means Fifa should look at how a 64-team World Cup could work.
“These are all issues that we will be examining after the World Cup,” Infantino told Swiss broadcaster Blue Sport, external when asked if the tournament could grow to 64 teams.
“When organising a World Cup, it’s important to organise it for the whole world – not just Europe and South America, but effectively the entire world. Every nation should be allowed to dream of participating in the World Cup.
“You can see that the quality of the teams is extremely high, and it’s getting higher and higher, all over the world. If you don’t give smaller countries a chance to participate in the World Cup, they’ll lack the incentive to keep improving.”
Infantino said that the first 48-team World Cup has been “a huge success”, citing the progression of nine out of 10 African teams to the knockout stages.
“At the last World Cup, there were only five teams from Africa,” he said. “That just goes to show how important it is to include all teams – to give them this opportunity to participate.”
The Fifa council approved the expansion of the World Cup from 32 to 48 teams in 2017.
An official proposal to boost the 2030 World Cup to 64 teams was put forward by South American governing body Conmebol in April 2025, but no decision has been reached.
The 2030 edition will be mainly co-hosted by Spain, Portugal and Morocco, with the three opening matches to be hosted by Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay to celebrate the centenary of the competition. Uruguay hosted the first World Cup, in 1930.
Uefa president Aleksander Ceferin is among those to have dismissed the 64-team proposal, with the Slovenian saying it is a “bad idea” for both the tournament itself and the qualifying process.
Asian Football Confederation (AFC) president Sheikh Salman bin Ibrahim Al Khalifa agreed, saying further expansion would bring “chaos”.
Victor Montagliani, president of the governing body for football in North and Central America and the Caribbean (Concacaf), said the suggestion “doesn’t feel right” and he believes the expansion would damage “the broader football ecosystem”.
However, Andrew Giuliani, executive director of the White House’s World Cup task force, said the United States could consider making a bid to host the 2038 World Cup and would be able to “handle it” if expanded to 64 teams.
Fifa’s official position has always been it will discuss expansion ideas with stakeholders and it is duty bound to consider any proposals from council members.
The Fifa council would make the ultimate decision, but there are no signs it is something expected to happen imminently.
