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News_Naija

Police Arrest Two Women Trying To Sell Kidnapped Minor In Imo

The Imo State Police command has arrested two women while attempting to sell a kidnapped four-year-old boy in Owerri for ₦2.7 million. The boy was kidnapped in Abuja while hawking vegetables and then brought to Owerri to be sold before luck ran out for them. The suspects are Joy Ugwu from Idah, Kogi State, and Rosella Michael of Zamba in Abuja, while the third suspect, a nurse, is currently on the run. This was disclosed by the state Police spokesperson, DSP Henry Okoye, in a statement released on Thursday. Okoye said the suspects were arrested in Owerri, the state capital on April 14, following a discreet operation by operatives while they were trying to sell the boy, for ₦2.7million. He said the arrests were made following joint efforts between the Imo State Police Command and Zone 7 Police Headquarters, Abuja, though the suspects have been transferred to the Zonal Criminal Investigation Department, Abuja, for further investigation and prosecution. Okoye said, “The Imo State Police Command has uncovered a suspected case of child trafficking, leading to the arrest of two female suspects and the rescue of a four-year-old boy. Acting on credible intelligence, operatives of the Scorpion Unit intercepted the suspects—Joy Ugwu from Idah, Kogi State, and Rosella Michael of Zamba, FCT Abuja—in Owerri on 14th April 2025 at about 6:00 p.m., following a discreet operation. “Investigations revealed that the boy, Jaffa Umar, who speaks Hausa fluently, was abducted in Abuja while hawking vegetables. The suspects brought him to Owerri and were negotiating to sell him for ₦2.7 million before their arrest. A third accomplice, believed to be a nurse, is currently at large. “The child has been safely reunited with his family through coordinated efforts between the Imo State Police Command and Zone 7 Police Headquarters, Abuja while the suspects have been transferred to the Zonal Criminal Investigation Department, Abuja for further investigation and prosecution”. “The Commissioner of Police, CP Aboki Danjuma, reassures the public of the Command’s commitment to protecting vulnerable persons and dismantling trafficking networks. He encourages residents to report suspicious activity to the nearest police station or via the emergency line 0803 477 3600,” Okoye said.

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Worldnews

Reporting From Behind Shifting Front Lines In Myanmars Civil War

Journalists with the Shan State-based news outlet Shwe Phee Myay continue to report amid civil war and military repression. On a typical day, Mai Rupa travels through his native Shan State, in eastern Myanmar, documenting the impact of war. A video journalist with the online news outlet Shwe Phee Myay, he travels to remote towns and villages, collecting footage and conducting interviews on stories ranging from battle updates to the situation for local civilians living in a war zone. His job is fraught with risks. Roads are strewn with landmines and there are times when he has taken cover from aerial bombing and artillery shelling. “I have witnessed countless people being injured and civilians dying in front of me,” Mai Rupa said. “These heartbreaking experiences deeply affected me,” he told Al Jazeera, “at times, leading to serious emotional distress.” Mai Rupa is one of a small number of brave, independent journalists still reporting on the ground in Myanmar, where a 2021 military coup shattered the country’s fragile transition to democracy and obliterated media freedoms. Like his colleagues at Shwe Phee Myay – a name which refers to Shan State’s rich history of tea cultivation – Mai Rupa prefers to go by a pen name due to the risks of publicly identifying as a reporter with one of the last remaining independent media outlets still operating inside the country. Most journalists fled Myanmar in the aftermath of the military’s takeover and the expanding civil war. Some continue their coverage by making cross-border trips from work bases in neighbouring Thailand and India. But staff at Shwe Phee Myay – a Burmese-language outlet, with roots in Shan State’s ethnic Ta’ang community – continue reporting from on the ground, covering a region of Myanmar where several ethnic armed groups have for decades fought against the military and at times clashed with each other. After Myanmar’s military launched a coup in February 2021, Shwe Phee Myay’s journalists faced new risks. In March that year, two reporters with the outlet narrowly escaped arrest while covering pro-democracy protests. When soldiers and police raided their office in the Shan State capital of Lashio two months later, the entire team had already gone into hiding. That September, the military arrested the organisation’s video reporter, Lway M Phuong, for alleged incitement and dissemination of “false news”. She served nearly two years in prison. The rest of the 10-person Shwe Phee Myay team scattered following her arrest, which came amid the Myanmar military’s wider crackdown on the media. Spread out across northern Shan State in the east of the country, the news team initially struggled to continue their work. They chose to avoid urban areas where they might encounter the military. Every day was a struggle to continue reporting. “We couldn’t travel on main roads, only back roads,” recounted Hlar Nyiem, an assistant editor with Shwe Phee Myay. “Sometimes, we lost four or five work days in a week,” she said. Despite the dangers, Shwe Phee Myay’s reporters continued with their clandestine work to keep the public informed. When a magnitude 7.7 earthquake hit central Myanmar on March 28, killing more than 3,800 people, Shwe Phee Myay’s journalists were among the few able to document the aftermath from inside the country. The military blocked most international media outlets from accessing earthquake-affected areas, citing difficulties with travel and accommodation, and the few local reporters still working secretly in the country took great risks to get information to the outside world. “These journalists continue to reveal truths and make people’s voices heard that the military regime is desperate to silence,” said Thu Thu Aung, a public policy scholar at the University of Oxford who has conducted research on Myanmar’s post-coup media landscape. On top of the civil war and threats posed by Myanmar’s military regime, Myanmar’s journalists have encountered a new threat. In January, the administration of US President Donald Trump and his billionaire confidante Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) began dismantling the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). USAID had allocated more than $268m towards supporting independent media and the free flow of information in more than 30 countries around the world – from Ukraine to Myanmar, according to journalism advocacy group Reporters Without Borders. In February, The Guardian reported on the freezing of USAID funds, creating an “existential crisis” for exiled Myanmar journalists operating from the town of Mae Sot, on the country’s border with Thailand. The situation worsened further in mid-March, when the White House declared plans for the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) to reduce operations to the bare minimum. USAGM oversees – among others – the Voice of America and Radio Free Asia, which were both leading providers of news on Myanmar. Last week, RFA announced it was laying off 90 percent of its staff and ceasing to produce news in the Tibetan, Burmese, Uighur and Lao languages. VOA has faced a similar situation. Tin Tin Nyo, managing director of Burma News International, a network of 16 local, independent media organisations based inside and outside Myanmar, said the loss of the Burmese-language services provided by VOA and RFA created a “troubling information vacuum”. Myanmar’s independent media sector also relied heavily on international assistance, which had already been dwindling, Tin Tin Nyo said. Many local Myanmar news outlets were already “struggling to continue producing reliable information”, as a result of the USAID funding cuts brought in by Trump and executed by Musk’s DOGE, she said. Some had laid off staff, reduced their programming or suspended operations. “The downsizing of independent media has decreased the capacity to monitor [false] narratives, provide early warnings, and counter propaganda, ultimately weakening the pro-democracy movement,” Tin Tin Nyo said. “When independent media fail to produce news, policymakers around the world will be unaware of the actual situation in Myanmar,” she added. Currently, 35 journalists remain imprisoned in Myanmar, making it the world’s third-worst jailer of journalists after China and Israel, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. The country is ranked 169th out of 180 countries on Reporters Without Borders’ World Press Freedom Index. “Journalists on the ground must work under the constant fear of arrest or even death,” Tin Tin Nyo said. “The military junta treats the media and journalists as criminals, specifically targeting them to silence access to information.” Despite the dangers, Shwe Phee Myay continues to publish news on events inside Myanmar. With a million followers on Facebook – the digital platform where most people in Myanmar get their news – Shwe Phee Myay’s coverage has become even more critical since the military coup in 2021 and the widening civil war. Established in 2019 in Lashio, Shwe Phee Myay was one of dozens of independent media outlets which emerged in Myanmar during a decade-long political opening, which began in 2011 with the country’s emergence from a half-century of relative international isolation under authoritarian military rule. Pre-publication censorship ended in 2012 amid a wider set of policy reforms as the military agreed to allow greater political freedom. Journalists who had lived and worked in exile for media outlets such as the Democratic Voice of Burma, The Irrawaddy and Mizzima News began cautiously returning home. However, the country’s nascent press freedoms came under strain during the term of Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy government, which came to power in 2016 as a result of the military’s political reforms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s government jailed journalists and blocked independent media access to politically sensitive areas including Rakhine State, where the military committed a brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya community and for which it now faces international charges of genocide. But the situation for independent journalists dramatically worsened following the 2021 coup. As the military violently cracked down on peaceful protests against the generals seizing power, it restricted the internet, revoked media licences and arrested dozens of journalists. That violence triggered an armed uprising across Myanmar. Shwe Phee Myay briefly considered relocating to Thailand as the situation deteriorated after the coup, but those running the news site decided to remain in the country. “Our will was to stay on our own land,” said Mai Naw Dang, who until recently served as the editor of Burmese-to-English translations. “Our perspective was that to gather the news and collect footage, we needed to be here.” Their work then took on new intensity in October 2023, when an alliance of ethnic armed organisations launched a surprise attack on military outposts in Shan State near the border with China. The offensive marked a major escalation in the Myanmar conflict; the military, which lost significant territory as a result, retaliated with air strikes, cluster munitions and shelling. Within two months, more than 500,000 people had been displaced due to the fighting. With few outside journalists able to access northern Shan State, Shwe Phee Myay was uniquely positioned to cover the crisis.   Then in January this year, Shwe Phee Myay also received notice that USAID funds approved in November were no longer coming and it has since reduced field reporting, cancelled training and scaled back video news production. “We’re taking risks to report on how people are impacted by the war, yet our efforts seem unrecognised,” editor-in-chief Mai Rukaw said. “Even though we have a strong human resource base on the ground, we’re facing significant challenges in securing funding to continue our work.” During staff meetings, Mai Rukaw has raised the possibility of shutting down Shwe Phee Myay with his colleagues. Their response, he said, was to keep going even if the money dries up. “We always ask ourselves: if we stop, who will continue addressing these issues?” he said. “That question keeps us moving forward.” Follow Al Jazeera English:...

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Healthwatch

Shining Light On Night Blindness

Trouble seeing at night? Here's what may help.

What are the dangers for those experiencing night blindness?

What happens in the eye to create night blindness?

What causes night blindness?

glaucoma, a disease that damages the eye's optic nerves and blood vessels

cataracts, cloudy areas in the lens that distort or block the passage of light through the lens

dry eye syndrome.

What helps if you have night blindness?

Three more ways to make night driving safer

Wash the lenses of your glasses regularly. And take them to an optician to buff out minor scratches.

Keep both sides of your front and rear car windshields clean so that you can see as clearly as possible.

Dim your dashboard lights, which cause glare, and use the night setting on your rearview mirror.

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Worldnews

World Could Be Witnessing Another Nakba In Palestine, UN Committee Warns

Israel’s priority is a ‘wider colonial expansion’, the committee on Israeli practices in occupied territories said. The world could be witnessing “another Nakba”, or the expulsion of Palestinians, a United Nations special committee has warned. The committee sounded the alarm on Friday, accusing Israel of “ethnic cleansing” and saying it was inflicting “unimaginable suffering” on Palestinians. The comments come after Israel announced a plan earlier this week to expel hundreds of thousands of hungry Palestinians from the north of Gaza and confine them in six encampments. For Palestinians, any forced displacement evokes memories of the “Nakba“, or catastrophe – the mass displacement that accompanied Israel’s creation in 1948. “Israel continues to inflict unimaginable suffering on the people living under its occupation, whilst rapidly expanding confiscation of land as part of its wider colonial aspirations,” said the UN committee tasked with probing Israeli practices affecting Palestinian rights. “What we are witnessing could very well be another Nakba,” the committee added, after concluding an annual mission to Amman. “The goal of wider colonial expansion is clearly the priority of the government of Israel,” its report stated. “Security operations are used as a smokescreen for rapid land grabbing, mass displacement, dispossession, demolitions, forced evictions and ethnic cleansing, in order to replace the Palestinian communities with Jewish settlers.” The committee also noted Israel’s human rights violations against Palestinians. “According to testimonies, it is evident that the use of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, including sexual violence, is a systematic practice of the Israeli army and security forces, and is widespread in Israeli prisons and military detention camps,” it said. “The methods read as a playbook of how to try to humiliate, derogate, and strike fear into the hearts of individuals.” The committee’s mission took place as Israel’s weeks-long total blockade of aid to Gaza continues. “It is hard to imagine a world in which a government would implement such depraved policies to starve a population to death, whilst trucks of food are sitting only a few kilometres away,” the committee said. “Yet, this is the sick reality for those in Gaza.” The UN Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People and Other Arabs of the Occupied Territories was established by the UN General Assembly in December 1968. During the formation of Israel in 1948, approximately 760,000 Palestinians fled or were driven from their homes in what became known as “the Nakba”. The descendants of some 160,000 Palestinians who managed to remain in what became Israel presently make up about 20 percent of its population. The committee is currently composed of the Sri Lankan, Malaysian and Senegalese ambassadors to the UN in New York. Follow Al Jazeera English:...