Vladimir Putin has been vaccinated against Covid-19, partly to encourage other Russians who remain deeply reluctant to get the jab.

Although he has previously been filmed on horseback, ice skating and flying with Siberian cranes, he chose to be vaccinated behind closed doors.

The Kremlin has not specified which vaccine Mr Putin received.

The aim was to underline “all three Russian vaccines are absolutely reliable, very good and effective,” spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

Speaking to the BBC, he brushed off the suggestion that showing President Putin getting a shot in the arm would help persuade the sceptical majority of Russians to follow suit.

As for believing the president actually had the jab, he said people would just have to “take our word for it”.

There’s likely to be a limited increase in the slow pace of vaccination as a result.

The president’s own daughter took part in the Sputnik V safety trials, but he’s seemed oddly cautious given how highly he recommends the jab for others. Mr Putin, who is 68 years old, initially claimed he was waiting until it had been deemed safe for the over-65s. Later he said he’d wait for autumn when his doctors could fit the Covid shot in his “vaccine schedule”.

Mr Putin also told a gathering of Russian news editors that he wouldn’t be a “performing monkey” and get vaccinated before the TV cameras, surprising many with his sudden camera-shyness.

Mr Putin revealed on Monday that 6.3 million Russians had so far received one dose of a Covid vaccine since he became the world’s first leader to announce a “large-scale” vaccination back in December. That’s only around 5% of the adult population.

His target is to protect 60% of adults by July – sufficient for “collective immunity” to stop the virus spreading. But that would require boosting the current vaccination-rate from just a few thousand to more than 700,000 every day – and that’s just a single dose of the vaccine.

Despite Russia touting its most widely available jab, Sputnik V, as the world’s first and best, interest at home is low and falling.

A Levada-Center poll suggests the number of Russian opposed to getting it rose to 62% in February, with most citing concerns over possible side effects despite the fact Sputnik proved safe and almost 92% effective in trials.

Many also see no urgent need for protection. There’s been no lockdown here since spring 2020, the number of new infections is currently falling and the death toll from Covid is barely mentioned.

The daily count has reached 95,818, though the number of excess deaths recorded so far is some four times higher.

The Nigeria Union of Pensioners (NUP) has said the actions and inactions of Federal and State Governments is responsible for the untimely deaths of senior citizens in the country.

The union lamented the delay in the implementation of the consequential adjustment of monthly pensions following the approval of N 30,000 national minimum wage in April 2019.

Addressing journalists at the national secretariat of NUP in Abuja during the weekend, the union’s President, Dr Abel Afolayan, alleged that a report of the committee set up by Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission has been missing since November 2020.

“It is disheartening to note that for almost 2 years running, pensioners are still awaiting the approval of their own consequential adjustment of monthly pensions in compliance with the constitutional stipulations.

“It is to inform you that the committee set up by the Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission, having completed its assignment, submitted the committee’s report to the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) since November 2020 for onward transmission to the President for his assent,” he said.

The union, however, commended the federal government on the payment of the 10 months residual arrears of pensions to its members through PTAD.

They said, ‘You are a savage and dangerous woman.’

“I am speaking the truth. And the truth is savage and dangerous.”

So wrote Nawal El Saadawi, who has died at the age of 89, according to Egyptian media reports.

The pioneering Egyptian doctor, feminist and writer spent decades sharing her own story and perspectives – in her novels, essays, autobiographies and eagerly attended talks.

Her brutal honesty and unwavering dedication to improving the political and sexual rights of women inspired generations.

But in daring to speak dangerously, she was also subjected to outrage, death threats and imprisonment.

“She was born with fighting spirit,” Omnia Amin, her friend and translator, told the BBC in 2020. “People like her are rare.

Born in a village outside Cairo in 1931, the second of nine children, El Saadawi wrote her first novel at the age of 13. Her father was a government official, with little money, while her mother came from a wealthy background.

Her family tried to make her marry at the age of 10, but when she resisted her mother stood by her.

Her parents encouraged her education, El Saadawi wrote, but she realised at an early age that daughters were less valued than sons. Later she would describe how she stamped her foot in fury when her grandmother told her, “a boy is worth 15 girls at least… Girls are a blight”.

“She saw something wrong and she spoke out,” says Dr Amin. “Nawal can’t turn her back.”

One of the childhood experiences El Saadawi documented with uncomfortable clarity was being subjected to female genital mutilation (FGM) at the age of six.

In her book, The Hidden Face of Eve, she described undergoing the agonising procedure on the bathroom floor, as her mother stood alongside.

She campaigned against FGM throughout her lifetime, arguing that it was a tool used to oppress women. FGM was banned in Egypt in 2008, but El Saadawi condemned its continued prevalence.

El Saadawi graduated with a degree in medicine from Cairo University in 1955 and worked as a doctor, eventually specialising in psychiatry.

She went on to become director of public health for the Egyptian government, but was dismissed in 1972 after publishing her non-fiction book, Women and Sex, which railed against FGM and the sexual oppression of women.

The magazine Health, which had she founded a few years earlier, was closed down in 1973.

Still, she continued to speak out and write. In 1975, she published Woman at Point Zero, a novel based on a real life account of a woman on death row she had met.

It was followed in 1977 by the Hidden Face of Eve, in which she documented her experiences as a village doctor witnessing sexual abuse, “honour killings” and prostitution. It caused outrage, with critics accusing her of reinforcing stereotypes of Arab women.

Then, in September 1981, El Saadawi was arrested as part of a round-up of dissidents under President Anwar Sadat and held in prison for three months. There she wrote her memoirs on toilet paper, using an eyebrow pencil smuggled to her by a jailed sex worker.

“She did things that people just didn’t venture to do, but for her it was normal,” Dr Amin says.

“She wasn’t thinking about breaking rules or regulations, but telling her truth.”

People may need to wear face coverings and socially distance for several years until we return to normality, a leading epidemiologist has predicted.

Mary Ramsay, the head of immunisation at Public Health England, said basic measures could be in place until other countries successfully roll out jabs.

She also said a return of big spectator events required careful monitoring and clear instructions about staying safe.

The defence secretary has not ruled out the foreign holiday ban being extended.

Ben Wallace told BBC One’s Andrew Marr Show that booking a break abroad now would be “premature” and “potentially risky”.

The UK set another record for the number of coronavirus vaccine doses given in a single day on Saturday, with 873,784 jabs.

Dr Ramsay said restrictions such as face coverings in crowded places and social distancing had become accepted by many and still allowed the economy to function.

She said “people have got used to those lower-level restrictions now, and people can live with them, and the economy can still go on with those less severe restrictions in place”.

“So I think certainly for a few years, at least until other parts of the world are as well vaccinated as we are, and the numbers have come down everywhere, that is when we may be able to go very gradually back to a more normal situation,” she added.

Warning it was “very important that we do not relax too quickly”, Dr Ramsay said any circulating virus would inevitably pick on those who are vulnerable.

“We have to look very carefully before any of these restrictions are lifted,” she said.

Prof Chris Whitty, the UK government’s chief medical adviser, told MPs earlier this month that it was hoped “simple interventions like washing hands, face masks where appropriate, test-and-trace, and above all vaccines” would keep the virus controlled beyond the summer.

Sir Patrick Vallance, the chief scientific adviser, has also said face masks could be needed in certain situations if the number of infections rises in the winter, but that it was possible people will naturally behave in a way that promotes social distancing.

A group of government scientific advisers said last month that “maintaining a baseline of policies which reduce transmission” will be necessary for some time to come.

Those experts said these could include continuing test-and-trace, self-isolation, and public messaging that encourages “voluntary actions to reduce risks”.