South Africa's president has condemned travel bans enacted against his country and its neighbours over the new coronavirus variant Omicron.

Cyril Ramaphosa said he was "deeply disappointed" by the action, which he described as unjustified, and called for the bans to be urgently lifted.

The UK, EU and US are among those who have imposed travel bans.

On 18 January, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy/Vice-President of the European Commission, Josep Borrell, met with President of the Republic of Moldova Maia Sandu.

Ghana’s economy contracted for the first time in almost four decades in the second quarter, by an annual 3.2%, hit by the fallout of the coronavirus pandemic, the statistics office said on Wednesday.

The gold-, oil-, and cocoa-producing West African nation imposed a three-week lockdown at the start of the pandemic in March, leading to the shutdown of numerous businesses, government statistician Samuel Kobina Annim told a news conference.