Former footballer Hesse Odamtten has celebrated his daughter, Louisa Naa Suele Hesse-Odamtten, following her successful call to the Ghana Bar, urging her to pursue higher academic qualifications and strive for professional excellence.

Louisa was among more than 1,500 new lawyers called to the Bar at an impressive ceremony in Accra last Friday.

The ceremony attracted several personalities from politics, the media and other fields, marking a significant milestone in the professional lives of the newly qualified lawyers.

Ever heard of cervical mucus? This often-overlooked discharge that you see in your underwear is actually an important marker of your cycle and fertility.

Let’s dive into how you can improve the health and production of your cervical mucus.

When Hamdia Issahaku gained admission to the University for Development Studies (UDS) to study Nursing, she was excited to begin her journey towards becoming a professional nurse.

But financing her education was a major concern.

Growing up in Gambaga in the North East Region, Hamdia lost her mother at a young age. By the time she was preparing to enter Senior

High School, her father had retired, leaving the family with limited financial resources.

You can tell a Ghanaian festival is approaching when the town suddenly develops a memory.

People who have not visited home for months — sometimes years — begin asking for the date. The WhatsApp groups become unusually busy.

Auntie in Accra is asking who is driving. Uncle in Kumasi wants to know whether there is a place to sleep. 

Accra is set to become a major gathering place for writers, artists, readers, and literary enthusiasts as Pa Gya! A Literary Festival in Accra celebrates its 10th edition from October 16 to 18, 2026.  

Organised by the Writers Project of Ghana in partnership with Goethe-Institut Ghana and the Foundation for Contemporary Art (FCA), the festival will bring together more than 80 writers, artists, and speakers from Ghana and at least 13 other countries for more than 70 events.

The main programme will take place at the Goethe-Institut Ghana and FCA in Cantonments, with selected workshops held at the British Council and dot.ateliers.

Being single does not necessarily mean there is something wrong with you. Instead, single life gives people more freedom and independence to pursue their interests, passions and the work they care about most.

You develop a greater sense of autonomy and may experience personal growth. You answer to no one or consult someone before making important decisions.

You get what you want, go where you want and get to bed when you want. You also have more control over your time and therefore have more time to better yourself.

When I read the Bank of Ghana’s published press release on Wednesday, October 7, 2026, on “Digital Fraud and the Cost of Ignorance”, my mind went back to my September 13, 2025 article in this column in which I explained how, through a scam, an order for pizza cost me GH¢5848 instead of the GH¢149 I would have paid if not for the scam.

What I have learnt is that today, you are more likely to be robbed on your phone than on the street! If you are “old school” like me, you are most likely concerned about security within your immediate surroundings.

Get the dogs out, ensure the electric fence is well secured and all doors are firmly locked when you leave the house. These will be the safety protocols you are most likely to follow. But no, it is not enough.

Prof Alfred Patrick Addaquay has built a career through which performance and scholarship continuously inform each other.

He is a celebrated classical and arts musician, keyboardist, tenor soloist, composer and choral musician.

Prof Addaquay’s rise to Associate Professor of Musicology at the University of Ghana is the latest milestone in a journey that began with the piano, and has taken him in quest of African music, musical identity, education and the professional lives of musicians.

Why do people kill their loved ones for money? Why do others risk their health through prostitution? Why do people engage in illegalities they would normally avoid? One reason: desperation.

Desperation, like seduction, leads you where you never dreamt of going! 

Many situations make us vulnerable. Our gender can make us vulnerable. Our background can expose us to some vulnerability. Even how we think can make us vulnerable. If we are desperate in life, we are vulnerable, too.

In Ghana, there are several predictable and familiar responses when someone introduces themselves as an artist. Among these, one response stands out as both interesting and disturbing.

Whether one meets an artist at an exhibition or in an ordinary social setting, people are often quick to declare their exclusion from what is a fundamental creative endeavour—one of the basic human endowments for creating and sustaining a meaningful life.

This declaration is expressed in the common admission: “I am not an artist.”

This is often accompanied by the assertion that they cannot draw to save their lives.

Advances in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer continue to enable doctors to identify the specific type of cancer in patients and tailor treatment accordingly, a radiologist, Dr Afua Amoa-Mensah, has said.

She explained that biopsy and pathology could distinguish between breast cancer types, such as Invasive Ductal Carcinoma and Invasive Lobular Carcinoma and identify markers such as ER, PR and HER2 after a mammogram detects cancer.

This allows treatment to be tailored, unlike the broader approach used in the past.

Dr Amoa-Mensah, who works with the Greater Accra Regional Hospital, explained these in an interview with The Mirror in Accra last Thursday on ‘What’s new in the fight against breast cancer’.

A 15-year-old boy has pleaded not guilty to 22 sexual offences, including rape, against eight girls.

The teenager, who cannot be named because of his age, was charged with one count of rape, rape of a child under 13 and assault by penetration at Northampton Crown Court on Friday.

The offences are alleged to have taken place between 2023 and 2025, with the victims aged between 10 and 15.

Three Afghan nationals who raped a teenager, before being stopped by French police as they fled the UK in the back of a lorry, have been jailed.

Mehrab Safi, 21, Awal Ahmadzai and Salman Habibkheil, both 19, were found guilty on 26 June of multiple offences against the girl at a house in St Werburghs, Bristol, last year.

Safi first met the 17-year-old girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, while she was Christmas shopping, and groomed her over Snapchat before paying for a taxi to bring her to Bristol.

Prepare all you like, but there is often still one job interview question that leaves you feeling uncomfortable.

While employers in the UK are within their rights to ask you how much you get paid in your current role, applicants are not obliged to tell them.

When you are looking to manage blood sugar levels, what you drink is as important as what you eat. No single drink will lower your blood sugar by itself.

There is a wide range of blood sugar responses to different drinks. Some cause quick spikes, while others produce slower, more moderate effects.

For example, a regular soda contains large amounts of sugar and can cause rapid blood sugar peaks in some people. 

Stand at Keta and look towards Fort Prinzenstein, and you get a disturbing lesson in the fragility of history. The sea is not interested in heritage.

It does not care that European powers once built forts along Ghana’s coast, that these buildings witnessed the gold trade and the transatlantic slave trade, or that tourists now travel from across the world to encounter the stories embedded in their walls.

The sea simply keeps coming. And that is why climate change should be a tourism conversation.

In Ghanaian culture and tradition, the main focus in life is to marry, have children and raise a family to preserve the human race.

Marriage is therefore a sacred duty, and every adult is expected to marry. The Akans have an axiom, “wiase yɛtra no baano, baano” (human beings live in pairs in this world).

Dear Mirror Lawyer, My wife and I have been married for 12 years and have two children, Pearl, aged 11 and Perry, aged seven. 

I am an engineer and have been unemployed for the past five years, while my wife is currently a second-year student at the Ghana School of Law.

For the past three years, my wife has persistently refused to engage in sexual relations with me and has, on at least three occasions, suggested that I may leave the marriage if I so desire.

When Theobald Kambonga gained admission to the University for Development Studies (UDS) in Tamale to pursue a Doctor of Pharmacy degree, he knew the six-year programme would be demanding.

What concerned him more, however, was how his family would finance his education.

His father, a teacher, had retired, causing the family’s income to decline. His mother ran a small beer bar in Navrongo in the Upper East Region, and much of the cost of Theobald’s education depended on what she earned from the business.

In her work in paediatrics, Dr Abigail Takyiwaah Nyarko sees every child who comes into her care as more than a patient.

To her, each child represents a family’s hopes, dreams and future, a belief that has shaped the way she approaches child care.

That belief has been reinforced by some of the most difficult cases she has handled, including a patient she lost to cancer. 

Poverty is a product. If it were to be sold in a market, it would be more expensive than riches. If one had to buy it from a shop, they would have paid more to get it than they would have paid for wealth. The price tag on poverty is huge!

Poverty is one thing no one should wish for, even their worst enemies. If poverty were a punishment, it should have been given to those who had committed the worst of crimes because it makes people live substandard lives.

Poverty cuts dreams short. No matter how great one’s ambitions are, if they are poor, those ambitions may unfortunately remain unfulfilled.