President Alassane Ouattara of Côte d’Ivoire on Wednesday presided over a council of ministers meeting at the presidential palace in Abidjan, the Ivorian capital.

The Ivorian presidency confirmed Ouattara’s attendance in a statement issued, including pictures showing the president and cabinet members at the meeting.

Diversification of electricity sources and adequate housing for citizens were among the topics addressed at the meeting.

The high-level meeting took place amid growing coup reports on social media in Ivory Coast.

An X-user claimed that Ouattara may have been killed after military forces allegedly took over on Tuesday.

“Internet access in the country has been disrupted,” the user wrote.

The allegations were spread across multiple accounts via various social media platforms, including X, Facebook, TikTok, and mainstream media platforms.

On Facebook alone, some 9.7k users discussed the alleged coup, the platform’s metric showed as of Wednesday.

Lassina Doumbia, chief of army staff, was also rumoured to have been killed.

TheCable spoke to journalists in the French-speaking West African country to confirm the development. They debunked the reports.

“There is no coup in Côte d’Ivoire. The country is stable,” Christelle Kouamé, an Ivorian journalist living in Abidjan, said.

Kouamé is also a member of the executive council of the National Union of Journalists of Côte d’Ivoire and a member of the organisation of Investigative Journalists in Côte d’Ivoire.

“The president was also recently at the opening of the Africa CEO Forum. It was last week. There was even a council of ministers today. And President Ouattara was there,” she added.

“It is fake news. People do what they want with the internet. But it is thanks to the internet that I speak to you,” she said, debunking rumours of disrupted internet access.

Coup rumours have become increasingly common in West Africa, reflecting a region grappling with political instability, weakened democratic institutions, and growing public distrust in civilian governments.

In recent years, several countries—including Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Guinea—have experienced successful military takeovers, fuelling speculation and anxiety in neighbouring states about who might be next.

Ivory Coast’s coup rumours came as the country prepares to host the African Development Bank’s (AfDB) annual meetings next week.

A new president is expected to be elected, succeeding Akinwumi Adesina, who has served two terms.

Former US president Joe Biden has been diagnosed with an “aggressive” form of prostate cancer that has spread to his bones, and is reviewing treatment options, a statement from his office said Sunday.

On Friday, the 82-year-old Democrat was diagnosed with the cancer after he experienced increasing urinary symptoms and was seen for a new finding of a prostate nodule, the statement said.

“While this represents a more aggressive form of the disease, the cancer appears to be hormone-sensitive which allows for effective management. The President and his family are reviewing treatment options with his physicians,” it continued.

Cancer cells are commonly found in the prostates of men of Biden’s age, though in most cases they grow slowly. Hormone therapy is a common treatment that can shrink tumors and slow cancer growth, but is not a cure.

According to the statement, Biden’s cancer was found to have “a Gleason score of 9 (Grade Group 5).”

Prostate cancer that looks “very abnormal” is assigned the highest rating, Grade 5, according to the American Cancer Society. The Gleason Score often indicates the sum of the grades from the two areas in the prostate that make up most of the cancer, but can also be calculated other ways.

Biden left office in January this year as the oldest serving US president in history, and was dogged by questions over his health and age for much of his presidency.

For years he had faced questions, including from Democratic voters, over whether he was too old — lacking in mental acuity or physical endurance — for a job as trying as the presidency.

His response to doubters was a brisk: “Watch me.”

But in July last year he was forced to drop his reelection bid after a disastrous debate against Republican Donald Trump in which fears about his decline and cognitive abilities came surging to the fore.

His vice president, Kamala Harris, eventually lost to Trump.

Biden maintains that he could have won the election, but questions have long swirled over the responses of staff and key Democrats to evident signs of his decline.

They have flared with the release, set for this Tuesday, of “Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again” by CNN journalist Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson of Axios.

Last week a newly published recording of Biden speaking hesitantly and struggling to remember key events and dates fueled renewed debate over his mental capabilities while still in office.

Biden’s life has been marked by personal tragedy. In 1972 his wife and baby daughter were killed in a car crash, days after he had been elected as a US senator at the age of 29.

Biden underwent surgery twice in 1988 for brain aneurysms. In 2023 he had a skin lesion — a basal cell carcinoma — removed from his chest. He had previously had non-melanoma skin cancers removed.

Biden’s son Beau Biden died of brain cancer in 2015.

AFP

Several people died Saturday when two helicopters carrying a total of five collided mid-air in Finland and crashed to the ground, police said.

“The accident has resulted in several fatalities. The exact number of victims and the identities of the passengers are still being determined,” the police said in a statement.

Media reported that the helicopters had taken off from Estonia and were carrying businessmen, with three people in one and two in the other.

Reports said they collided west of the capital Helsinki around midday. Officials gave no indication of what caused the collision.

Finnish newspaper Iltalehti quoted a witness, Antti Marjanen, as saying they saw one of the helicopters hit the other during a manoeuvre.

“One of them dropped like a stone and the other one more slowly. I didn’t hear any sound,” Marjanen was quoted as saying.

AFP