Belarusian leader and Russian ally Alexander Lukashenko extended his 31-year rule on Monday after electoral officials declared him the winner of a presidential election that Western governments rejected as a sham.

The President of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, claims to have won a landslide victory in an election already being denounced across the Western world as a “sham”.

As an East African bloc urged an immediate ceasefire in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwandan-backed M23 rebels who seized the city of Goma extended their advance on Wednesday, and Congo said it planned a campaign to recover lost territory.