A message from US President Donald Trump on Wednesday landed like a grenade in Brazil, bringing the relationship between the two countries to an all-time low.

Trump pledged to impose tariffs on Brazil at a rate as high as 50%. He accused the country of "attacks" on US tech companies and of conducting a "witch hunt" against the far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro, a longstanding ally who is facing prosecution over his alleged role in a plot to overturn the 2022 Brazilian election.

The move follows a fresh round of political sparring between Trump and the current Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. It further strained a relationship that was already tense.

Trump had earlier threatened members of the BRICS group - of which Brazil is a part - with tariffs, accusing those countries of anti-American positions.

The bloc includes India, Russia and China and has grown to include Iran. It was designed to counterbalance US influence in the world.

• Brazil vows to match threatened Trump tariffs
• Trump accuses Brazil of 'witch hunt' against Bolsonaro

Lula replied to Trump's tariff threat in a post on X, writing that "Brazil is a sovereign nation with independent institutions and will not accept any form of tutelage".

Trump has unleashed a wide-ranging programme of tariffs - or import taxes - since he returned to office in January. He argues that these will boost US manufacturing and protect jobs, though he has also used them to pursue political ends.

This appears to be true in the case of Brazil, too.

Lula's government said it would reciprocate - probably meaning tariffs on American products. But it is not clear how that would happen, or whether Brazil has the economic clout to face the consequences of an escalation.

In the meantime, many Brazilians are asking why Trump has targeted their country and how this new saga might play out.

Defending an old ally

Brazil is one of the relatively few countries that buys more from the US than it sells - a setup which theoretically suits Trump's trade agenda.

Given this imbalance, the tariff threat was seen by many Brazilian analysts and politicians as an overt gesture of support for Jair Bolsonaro, the former president.

This was underscored by Trump's letter, which strongly criticised the Brazilian government and Bolsonaro's ongoing trial in the Supreme Court that centres on an alleged coup attempt two years ago.

Some kind of assistance for Bolsonaro from Trump was already expected by Brazilian politicians - but not on this scale.

On 8 January 2023, hundreds of Bolsonaro's supporters stormed Brazil's Congress, Supreme Court, and the presidential palace - in an apparent attempt to overturn the election won by Lula a few months earlier.

Bolsonaro denies any connection to that event, which was seen by many as a Brazilian version of the attacks on the US Capitol building by Trump's supporters two years before. Trump, too, was investigated in the aftermath of the US riot - and condemned those who tried to prosecute him.

Bolsonaro's supporters have asked for some kind of Trump support for months. His son Eduardo took a leave of absence from Brazil's Congress, where he serves as a representative, and moved to the US. His aim was to rally support for his father from Trump's inner circle and his broader MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement.

In another intervention that was seen as pro-Bolsonaro, Trump also accused the Brazilian government of "insidious attacks on Free Elections, and the fundamental Free Speech Rights of Americans", including the censorship of "US Social Media platforms".

As part of an ongoing investigation into the spread of disinformation in the country, Brazil's Supreme Court has, in recent years, ordered the blocking of several social media accounts - many of them belonging to Bolsonaro's supporters.

Boost for Bolsonaro…

Brazil's authorities and businesses are scrambling to calculate the economic impact of the potential tariffs, but the political consequences could also be huge.

The words used by Trump suggest that Bolsonaro has a political proximity with the American president that few Brazilian or Latin American politicians could dream of.

That will be seen as a powerful endorsement for Bolsonaro, who wants to run for president again - despite being banned from doing so until 2030.

Bolsonaro's supporters have made political capital of the tariffs, suggesting that the blame lies firmly with the current president.

"Lula put ideology ahead of economics, and this is the result. The responsibility lies with those in power. Narratives won't solve the problem," said São Paulo Governor Tarcísio de Freitas, a staunch ally.

Despite the apparent positive consequences for Bolsonaro, some analysts and politicians say that Trump's gesture could backfire for him.

The US is Brazil's second most important trade partner, behind only China.

And some of the sectors that could be most affected by a new round of American tariffs are those closely aligned with Bolsonaro's political base - particularly agribusiness. There are growing concerns over the potential impact on Brazilian exports of oranges, coffee, and beef to the US.

… Or lifeline for Lula?

Rather than playing into Bolsonaro's hands, Trump's tariff threat could serve as a lifeline for Lula, who has been struggling with falling popularity rates and difficulties in dealing with Congress.

A poll released in May suggested that 55% of the Brazilians disapprove of Trump. And a new wave of tariffs is unlikely to shift that sentiment.

Just after Trump's announcement, Lula and other members of the Brazilian left-wing reacted by playing a nationalist tune - talking about sovereignty and trying to blame Bolsonaro for the possible economic consequences of the tariffs.

Even among centrist politicians, the reactions to Trump's threats have been largely negative.

"No citizen, especially representatives elected by the people, can tolerate foreign aggression against Brazil, regardless of the alleged justification. It's time for true patriotism," wrote Alessandro Vieira, a centrist senator who usually has a critical stance against Lula.

Some analysts argue that this could generate a rally-around-the-flag effect for Lula in Brazil's political disputes.

"Even Lula's critics may see Trump's move as an attack on national sovereignty and the independence of the judiciary," said Oliver Stuenkel, a professor at the Getúlio Vargas Foundation (FGV) and a researcher at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think tank in Washington.

• Trump delays tariffs as the rest of the world plays hardball
• How Trump's allies stoked Brazil Congress attack

Brazil's presidential election in October 2026 is still some way off, but some analysts are already drawing comparisons with Canada, where a right-wing candidate lost this year to a more centrist opponent who openly campaigned against Trump.

Bolsonaro cannot run for president due to his conviction by the Supreme Court, and allies are already disputing which candidate will represent the Brazilian right at the polls.

On social media - where much of the political debate happens - memes of Bolsonaro allies are being shared by the thousands, often with words of criticism. One of these shows probable candidate Tarcísio wearing a Trump MAGA hat.

With his threat of tariffs, Trump has caused a potential storm not only in Brazil's economy - but also its political future.

Who is Caster Semenya?

Everyone agrees: it's getting worse.

The people of Kyiv have, like the citizens of other Ukrainian cities, been through a lot.

After three and a half years of fluctuating fortunes, they are tough and extremely resilient.

But in recent months, they have been experiencing something new: vast, coordinated waves of attacks from the air, involving hundreds of drones and missiles, often concentrated on a single city.

• Deadly new Russian drone and missile attack hits Kyiv

Last night, it was Kyiv. And the week before too. In between, it was Lutsk in the far west.

Three years ago, Iranian-supplied Shahed drones were a relative novelty. I remember hearing my first, buzzing a lazy arc across the night sky above the southern city of Zaporizhzhia in October 2022.

But now everyone is familiar with the sound, and its most fearsome recent iteration: a dive-bombing wail some have compared to the German World War Two Stuka aircraft.

The sound of swarms of approaching drones have sent hardened civilians back to bomb shelters, the metro and underground car parks for the first time since the early days of the war.

"The house shook like it was made of paper," Katya, a Kyiv resident, told me after last night's heavy bombardment.

"We spent the entire night sitting in the bathroom."

"I went to the parking for the first time," another resident, Svitlana, told me.

"The building shook and I could see fires across the river."

The attacks don't always claim lives, but they are spreading fear and eroding morale.

After an attack on a residential block in Kyiv last week, a shocked grandmother, Mariia, told me that her 11-year old grandson had turned to her, in the shelter, and said he understood the meaning of death for the first time.

He has every reason to be fearful. The UN's Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU) says June saw the highest monthly civilian casualties in three years, with 232 people killed and over 1,300 injured.

Many will have been killed or wounded in communities close to the front lines, but others have been killed in cities far from the fighting.

"The surge in long-range missile and drone strikes across the country has brought even more death and destruction to civilians far away from the frontline," says Danielle Bell, head of HRMMU.

Modifications in the Shahed's design have allowed it to fly much higher than before and descend on its target from a greater altitude.

Its range has also increased, to around 2,500km, and it's capable of carrying a more deadly payload (up from around 50kg of explosive to 90kg).

Tracking maps produced by local experts show swirling masses of Shahed drones, sometimes taking circuitous routes across Ukraine before homing in on their targets.

Many – often as many as half – are decoys, designed to confuse and overwhelm Ukraine's air defences.

Other, straight lines show the paths of ballistic or cruise missiles: much fewer in number but the weapons Russia relies on to do the most damage.

Analysis by the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War shows an increase in Russia's drone and missile strikes in the two months following Donald Trump's inauguration in January.

March saw a slight decline, with occasional spikes, until May, when the numbers suddenly rose dramatically.

New records have been set with alarming regularity.

June saw a new monthly high of 5,429 drones, July has seen more than 2,000 in just the first nine days.

With production in Russia ramping up, some reports suggest Moscow may soon be able to fire over 1,000 missiles and drones in a single night.

Experts in Kyiv warn that the country is in danger of being overwhelmed.

"If Ukraine doesn't find a solution for how to deal with these drones, we will face great problems during 2025," says former intelligence officer Ivan Stupak.

"Some of these drones are trying to reach military objects - we have to understand it - but the rest, they are destroying apartments, falling into office buildings and causing lots of damage to citizens."

For all their increasing capability, the drones are not an especially sophisticated weapon. But they do represent yet another example of the vast gulf in resources between Russia and Ukraine.

It also neatly illustrates the maxim, attributed to the Soviet Union's World War Two leader Joseph Stalin, that "quantity has a quality of its own."

"This is a war of resources," says Serhii Kuzan, of the Kyiv-based Ukrainian Security and Cooperation Centre.

"When production of particular missiles became too complicated - too expensive, too many components, too many complicated supply routes – they concentrated on this particular type of drone and developed different modifications and improvements."

The more drones in a single attack, Kuzan says, the more Ukraine hard-pressed air defence units struggle to shoot them down. This forces Kyiv to fall back on its precious supply of jets and air-to-air missiles to shoot them down.

"So if the drones go as a swarm, they destroy all the air defence missiles," he says.

Hence President Zelensky's constant appeals to Ukraine's allies to do more to protect its skies. Not just with Patriot missiles – vital to counter the most dangerous Russian ballistic threat – but with a wide array of other systems too.

On Thursday, the British government said it would sign a defence agreement with Ukraine to provide more than 5,000 air defence missiles.

Kyiv will be looking for many more such deals in the coming months.

The original Birkin bag, which set the template for arguably the most coveted accessory in fashion history, has been bought for €8.6m (£7.4m; $10.1m), becoming the most valuable handbag ever sold at auction.

The black leather bag was made for singer Jane Birkin in 1985 after she spilled her belongings while sitting next to the boss of luxury fashion house Hermès on a flight.

She asked why they didn't make bigger bags, so he sketched out the design for a new, more practical but still highly desirable item on the aeroplane's sick bag.

The prototype he made was sold to a private collector from Japan at Sotheby's in Paris on Thursday, far surpassing the $513,000 (£378,000; €439,000) previous record sale.

The auction house said there was an "electrifying" 10-minute bidding war between "nine determined collectors".

Morgane Halimi, Sotheby's global head of handbags and fashion, said the price was a "startling demonstration of the power of a legend and its capacity to ignite the passion and desire of collectors seeking exceptional items with unique provenance, to own its origin".

She added: "The Birkin prototype is exactly that, the starting point of an extraordinary story that has given us a modern icon, the Birkin bag, the most coveted handbag in the world."

The €8,582,500 total includes commission and fees. Sotheby's did not publish a pre-auction estimate.

• The icon who inspired the Birkin bag

After creating the bag for the Anglo-French singer and actress, Hermès put the bag into commercial production, and it remains one of the most exclusive status symbols in fashion.

Some styles cost many tens of thousands of dollars and have waiting lists of years, with owners including celebrities like Kate Moss, Victoria Beckham and Jennifer Lopez.

The original has some unique features, such as Birkin's initials on the front flap, a non-removable shoulder strap, the nail clippers she kept attached to the strap, and marks where she put stickers for causes she supported, such as Médecins du Monde and Unicef.

Birkin, who died in 2023 at the age of 76, owned the original bag for a decade and donated it to an auction to raise funds for an Aids charity in 1994.

It was later bought by Catherine Benier, who has a luxury boutique in Paris, who owned it for 25 years before selling it on Thursday.

Sotheby's said the previous record price for a handbag was set by a White Himalaya Niloticus Crocodile Diamond Retourne Kelly 28 in 2021.

A senior Ukrainian intelligence officer has been gunned down in broad daylight in Kyiv, officials have said.

The agent of the domestic Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) was shot several times in a car park after being approached by an unidentified assailant who then fled the scene, footage circulated on social media shows.

The spy agency did not identify the victim, though Ukrainian media outlets have named him as Colonel Ivan Voronych.

The SBU is primarily concerned with internal security and counter-intelligence, akin to the UK's MI5. But since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022, it has also played a prominent role in assassinations and sabotage attacks deep inside Russia.

Sources within Ukraine's security services have previously told the media - including the BBC - that they were behind the killing of the high-ranking Russian Gen Igor Kirillov in December 2024.

Earlier this year, Gen Yaroslav Moskalik was killed in a car bomb attack in Moscow - an incident the Kremlin blamed on Kyiv. Ukraine's security services have never officially admitted responsibility for the deaths.

Neither the SBU nor the Kyiv Police gave a possible motive for the shooting.

The Ukrainian capital's police force said in a statement that officers arrived at the scene to find a man's body with a gunshot wound.

It said officers were working to identify the assailant and that "measures are being taken to detain him".

The SBU said it was taking "a comprehensive set of measures to clarify all the circumstances of the crime and bring the perpetrators to justice".

CCTV footage - which has been verified by the news agency Reuters - shows a man in jeans and a dark t-shirt exiting a building in the southern Holosiivskyi district shortly after 09:00 local time (06:00 GMT) on Thursday.

As he walks to a nearby car while holding a plastic bag and a holdall, another man can be seen running towards him.

Online news site Ukrainska Pravda reports that the assailant had used a pistol and had shot the SBU officer five times, citing unnamed sources.

The apparent assassination follows what Ukraine described as the largest Russian aerial attack on Tuesday, when 728 drones and 13 cruise or ballistic missiles struck cities across the country.

Overnight into Thursday, a Russian attack on the Ukrainian capital killed at least two people and injured 16 others.

The strikes - which hit eight districts across the city - involved 18 missiles and 400 drones, officials said. Russia has been repeatedly accused of targeting civilian areas.

Meanwhile, fighting on the front line continues, with Russian forces slowly making advances in western Ukraine and retaking control of the part of Russia's Kursk region that Ukrainian forces seized in a surprise offensive last summer.

Russia currently controls around a fifth of Ukrainian territory, including the southern Crimean peninsula it annexed in 2014.

Efforts to negotiate a ceasefire in the more than three-year-long war have faltered, with US President Donald Trump becoming increasingly impatient with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin.

The number of school suspensions and exclusions in England has reached its highest level since 2006, Department for Education figures show.

There were 954,952 suspensions in state schools in 2023/24 - a 21% increase on the previous year - while exclusions also rose 16% to 10,885.

While secondary school pupils comprised most suspensions, more than 100,000 were primary age - a number that has grown significantly.

A suspended pupil must stay out of school for a fixed period of up to 45 days per school year, while those excluded are permanently removed. Individual pupils often account for more than one period of suspension.

The government says it is tackling the root causes of poor behaviour and is intensively supporting 500 schools with the worst behaviour.

Persistent disruptive behaviour was the most common reason pupils were sent home, accounting for half of all suspensions and 39% exclusions.

Nearly half of the suspensions were among pupils getting support for special educational needs - who were three times more likely to be suspended than their classmates.

Children on free school meals were also overrepresented, making up a quarter of the school population but 60% of suspensions.

Paul Whiteman, general secretary at school leaders' union NAHT, said schools alone could not address the causes of poor behaviour.

"Schools have a duty to provide a safe environment for all pupils and only use suspensions and exclusions when other options to ensure this have been exhausted," he said.

"The reasons for disruptive behaviour often lie beyond the school gates and have their roots in wider challenges, including everything from poverty to access to support with special educational needs and mental ill-health."

The vast majority of suspensions - nine in 10 - occurred at secondary schools, with Year 9 having the highest rate.

But primary-age suspensions rose too, up 24% on the previous year.

The vast majority (88%) of pupils who were excluded at primary school were getting support for special educational needs, compared with 46% of excluded secondary school pupils.

Research from charity Chance UK, which supports families of excluded children in London, suggests that 90% of children who are excluded at primary school fail to pass GCSE English and maths.

Sophie Schmal, the charity's director, said Thursday's figures revealed a "very concerning picture" - particularly the rise in primary school suspensions.

"Early intervention has to mean early. We can't wait until these children are teenagers to tackle this."

Sarah - not her real name - is a mum of one in London. Her six-year-old son was suspended several times within his first few weeks at primary school for hitting other pupils and throwing things in class.

She said that even after school staff agreed that her son showed signs of autism, he continued to be sent out of class regularly and suspended, which made him feel "isolated".

"Since he was three years old, my son has been labelled as the naughty and difficult kid when all he really needed was help," she said.

"I sought help as soon as I recognised that he needed additional support. But rather than helping me immediately, they waited until it was an emergency."

Sarah eventually managed to move her son to a different mainstream school where he is getting more support, she said.

Responding to the figures, early education minister Stephen Morgan said the Labour government had "wasted no time in tackling the root causes of poor behaviour", including offering mental health support in every school and expanding free school meals.

He pointed to its new attendance and behaviour hubs, which will directly support the 500 schools that "need the most help".

"We're also continuing to listen to parents as we reform the SEND system, while already putting in place better and earlier support for speech and language needs, ADHD and autism," Morgan added.

The original Birkin bag, which set the template for arguably the most coveted accessory in fashion history, has been bought for €8.6m (£7.4m; $10.1m), becoming the most valuable handbag ever sold at auction.

The black leather bag was made for singer Jane Birkin in 1985 after she spilled her belongings while sitting next to the boss of luxury fashion house Hermès on a flight.

She asked why they didn't make bigger bags, so he sketched out the design for a new, more practical but still highly desirable item on the aeroplane's sick bag.

The prototype he made was sold to a private collector from Japan at Sotheby's in Paris on Thursday, far surpassing the $513,000 (£378,000; €439,000) previous record sale.

The auction house said there was an "electrifying" 10-minute bidding war between "nine determined collectors".

Morgane Halimi, Sotheby's global head of handbags and fashion, said the price was a "startling demonstration of the power of a legend and its capacity to ignite the passion and desire of collectors seeking exceptional items with unique provenance, to own its origin".

She added: "The Birkin prototype is exactly that, the starting point of an extraordinary story that has given us a modern icon, the Birkin bag, the most coveted handbag in the world."

The €8,582,500 total includes commission and fees. Sotheby's did not publish a pre-auction estimate.

• The icon who inspired the Birkin bag

After creating the bag for the Anglo-French singer and actress, Hermès put the bag into commercial production, and it remains one of the most exclusive status symbols in fashion.

Some styles cost many tens of thousands of dollars and have waiting lists of years, with owners including celebrities like Kate Moss, Victoria Beckham and Jennifer Lopez.

The original has some unique features, such as Birkin's initials on the front flap, a non-removable shoulder strap, the nail clippers she kept attached to the strap, and marks where she put stickers for causes she supported, such as Médecins du Monde and Unicef.

Birkin, who died in 2023 at the age of 76, owned the original bag for a decade and donated it to an auction to raise funds for an Aids charity in 1994.

It was later bought by Catherine Benier, who has a luxury boutique in Paris, who owned it for 25 years before selling it on Thursday.

Sotheby's said the previous record price for a handbag was set by a White Himalaya Niloticus Crocodile Diamond Retourne Kelly 28 in 2021.

Everyone agrees: it's getting worse.

The people of Kyiv have, like the citizens of other Ukrainian cities, been through a lot.

After three and a half years of fluctuating fortunes, they are tough and extremely resilient.

But in recent months, they have been experiencing something new: vast, coordinated waves of attacks from the air, involving hundreds of drones and missiles, often concentrated on a single city.

• Deadly new Russian drone and missile attack hits Kyiv

Last night, it was Kyiv. And the week before too. In between, it was Lutsk in the far west.

Three years ago, Iranian-supplied Shahed drones were a relative novelty. I remember hearing my first, buzzing a lazy arc across the night sky above the southern city of Zaporizhzhia in October 2022.

But now everyone is familiar with the sound, and its most fearsome recent iteration: a dive-bombing wail some have compared to the German World War Two Stuka aircraft.

The sound of swarms of approaching drones have sent hardened civilians back to bomb shelters, the metro and underground car parks for the first time since the early days of the war.

"The house shook like it was made of paper," Katya, a Kyiv resident, told me after last night's heavy bombardment.

"We spent the entire night sitting in the bathroom."

"I went to the parking for the first time," another resident, Svitlana, told me.

"The building shook and I could see fires across the river."

The attacks don't always claim lives, but they are spreading fear and eroding morale.

After an attack on a residential block in Kyiv last week, a shocked grandmother, Mariia, told me that her 11-year old grandson had turned to her, in the shelter, and said he understood the meaning of death for the first time.

He has every reason to be fearful. The UN's Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU) says June saw the highest monthly civilian casualties in three years, with 232 people killed and over 1,300 injured.

Many will have been killed or wounded in communities close to the front lines, but others have been killed in cities far from the fighting.

"The surge in long-range missile and drone strikes across the country has brought even more death and destruction to civilians far away from the frontline," says Danielle Bell, head of HRMMU.

Modifications in the Shahed's design have allowed it to fly much higher than before and descend on its target from a greater altitude.

Its range has also increased, to around 2,500km, and it's capable of carrying a more deadly payload (up from around 50kg of explosive to 90kg).

Tracking maps produced by local experts show swirling masses of Shahed drones, sometimes taking circuitous routes across Ukraine before homing in on their targets.

Many – often as many as half – are decoys, designed to confuse and overwhelm Ukraine's air defences.

Other, straight lines show the paths of ballistic or cruise missiles: much fewer in number but the weapons Russia relies on to do the most damage.

Analysis by the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War shows an increase in Russia's drone and missile strikes in the two months following Donald Trump's inauguration in January.

March saw a slight decline, with occasional spikes, until May, when the numbers suddenly rose dramatically.

New records have been set with alarming regularity.

June saw a new monthly high of 5,429 drones, July has seen more than 2,000 in just the first nine days.

With production in Russia ramping up, some reports suggest Moscow may soon be able to fire over 1,000 missiles and drones in a single night.

Experts in Kyiv warn that the country is in danger of being overwhelmed.

"If Ukraine doesn't find a solution for how to deal with these drones, we will face great problems during 2025," says former intelligence officer Ivan Stupak.

"Some of these drones are trying to reach military objects - we have to understand it - but the rest, they are destroying apartments, falling into office buildings and causing lots of damage to citizens."

For all their increasing capability, the drones are not an especially sophisticated weapon. But they do represent yet another example of the vast gulf in resources between Russia and Ukraine.

It also neatly illustrates the maxim, attributed to the Soviet Union's World War Two leader Joseph Stalin, that "quantity has a quality of its own."

"This is a war of resources," says Serhii Kuzan, of the Kyiv-based Ukrainian Security and Cooperation Centre.

"When production of particular missiles became too complicated - too expensive, too many components, too many complicated supply routes – they concentrated on this particular type of drone and developed different modifications and improvements."

The more drones in a single attack, Kuzan says, the more Ukraine hard-pressed air defence units struggle to shoot them down. This forces Kyiv to fall back on its precious supply of jets and air-to-air missiles to shoot them down.

"So if the drones go as a swarm, they destroy all the air defence missiles," he says.

Hence President Zelensky's constant appeals to Ukraine's allies to do more to protect its skies. Not just with Patriot missiles – vital to counter the most dangerous Russian ballistic threat – but with a wide array of other systems too.

On Thursday, the British government said it would sign a defence agreement with Ukraine to provide more than 5,000 air defence missiles.

Kyiv will be looking for many more such deals in the coming months.

US President Donald Trump has praised Liberian President Joseph Boakai for speaking "good English" and asked him where he went to school.

What Trump might have missed is that Liberia shares a unique and long-standing connection with the US.

English is the country's official language and many Liberians speak with an American accent because of those historical ties to the US.

It may have been this accent that Trump picked up on.

Here are five things to know about the country:

Founded by freed slaves

Liberia was founded by freed African-American slaves in 1822 before declaring independence in 1847.

Thousands of black Americans and liberated Africans - rescued from transatlantic slave ships - settled in Liberia during the colonial era.

Former US President Abraham Lincoln officially declared Liberia's independence in 1862 but the country retained a lot of US heritage and it remained in the American "sphere of influence" during the colonial period.

Due to this integration, Liberian culture, landmarks, and institutions have a heavy African-American influence.

Ten of Liberia's 26 presidents were born in the US.

The capital is named after a former US president

Liberia's capital, Monrovia, was named in honour of America's 5th President, James Monroe, who was a strong supporter of the American Colonization Society (ACS).

The ACS was the organisation responsible for resettling freed African-Americans in West Africa - which eventually led to the founding of Liberia.

Not surprisingly the early architecture of the city was largely influenced by American-style buildings.

Many streets in Monrovia are named after colonial American figures, reflecting the city's founding and historical ties to the US.

Nearly identical flags

The flag of Liberia closely resembles the American flag. It features 11 alternating red and white stripes and a blue square with a single white star.

The white star symbolises Liberia as the first independent republic in Africa.

The US flag, in comparison, has 13 stripes representing the original 13 colonies and 50 stars, one for each state.

The Liberian flag was designed by seven black women - all born in America.

Ex-president's son plays for US football team

Timothy Weah, the son of Liberia's former President George Weah, is an American professional soccer player who plays for Italian club Juventus as well as the US national team.

The 25-year-old forward was born in the US but began his professional career with Paris St-Germain in France, where he won the Ligue 1 title before moving on loan to the Scottish team, Celtic.

His father, George, is a Liberian football legend who won the Ballon d'Or in 1995 while playing for Juventus's Italian rivals AC Milan. He is the only African winner of this award - and went on to be elected president in 2018.

Former president won the Nobel Peace Prize

Liberia produced Africa's first elected female president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.

She was elected in 2005, two years after the nation's bloody civil war ended, and served as president until 2018.

Sirleaf has a strong American background as she studied at Madison Business College and later went to Harvard University where she graduated as an economist.

She has received worldwide recognition and accolades for maintaining peace during her administration.

Her story is pitted with remarkable feats of defiance and courage.

In 2011, along with Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkul Karmān, she won the Nobel Prize for Peace for her efforts to further women's rights.

In 2016, Forbes listed her among the most powerful women in the world.

What do Liberians make of the comments?

There has been a mixed reaction.

Accountant Joseph Manley, 40, told the BBC that Trump should have been properly briefed before meeting Liberia's leader.

"Liberia has always been an English-speaking country. Our president represents a country with a rich educational tradition."

For human resources professional Henrietta Peter-Mogballah, The US president's surprise at Boakai's eloquence reflects a broader problem of global ignorance about African nations and its peoples.

"From travel experiences and observations, most citizens of other nations outside Africa do not know a lot about African countries," she said. "The few that know a little, their minds are clouded by narratives of war, poverty, and lack of education."

While many have criticised Trump, others see nothing wrong in his comments.

"I believe President Trump's remark was a genuine compliment on President Boakai's command of English," lawyer and politician Kanio Gbala told the BBC. "There is no evidence of sarcasm. Reading it as disrespectful may reflect political agendas."

More about Liberia from the BBC:

• Why Trump invited five African leaders to the White House
• Liberian president killed in coup gets state funeral after 45 years
• How President Joseph Boakai hopes to rid Liberia of its problems
• Liberia's war and peace: Lessons from 30 years' reporting

Go to BBCAfrica.com for more news from the African continent.

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