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Use Your Phones To Share Environmental Challenges, Not Jokes, Environmental Activist Tells Nigerians

Published

4 years ago

March 3, 2022

The Executive Director, Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), Nnimmo Bassey, has urged Nigerians particularly young ones who use their phones to share all sorts of short video jokes on social to divert such skills and time to sharing short videos on our environmental challenges with a view to enlightening the public.

Bassey made the appeal in Benin Wednesday at a day training on ‘use of video documentary as tools for advocacy,’ organised by HOMEF with resource persons drawn from Nigeria and abroad.

The environmental activist said there are a lot of environmental challenges people are not aware of or overlook, hence making short videos about them and sharing them on social media would go a long way in increasing awareness about our environment and having a better protected environment.

The Executive Director added: “So, if we have young people who share what they see and who understand the consequence of what goes around us such as pollution, deforestation and other challenges, then we are going to have environment that is better protected.

Anita and Maria, resource persons at the training.

“We spend a lot of time just making videos for jokes, we can actually make such videos about our environment and pass a serious and strong message that will help protect our environment.”

One of the resource persons at the training, Babayanju Babawale, said the human brain is built for visuals hence short video documentry produced from our phones about the environment can be used to persuade and push for awareness.

Another resource person at the training, Maria Dyrvik from Norway, said “it has been proved that video documentry can actually make a difference especially when it comes to environmental issues.”

She added: “It has been proved that video documentry can actually make a difference especially when it comes to environmental issues. When you put the people at the centre of your message; You look at the person story and how we all have been affected by climate change.” (Sic)

She urged participants at the training to put into use the basic knowledge gotten with a view to making an impact on the environment.

In her part, Anita Veda also from Norway, said short video documentry made from our phones can make great changes.

INFO DAILY reports that the training was organised by HOMEF for selected people to have basic knowledge on how to make short videos with Android phone for advocacy.

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Serbia Indicts Ex-minister, 12 Others Over Train Station Tragedy

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7 hours ago

September 16, 2025

Editor

Serbian prosecutors filed an updated indictment on Tuesday against 13 people, including a former minister, over a fatal railway station roof collapse that has triggered a wave of anti-government protests.

The prosecution said all those indicted, among them former construction minister Goran Vesic, face charges of “serious crimes against public safety” over the tragedy that killed 16 people last November.

“The indictment proposes that the Higher Court in Novi Sad order custody for all the defendants,” the prosecutor’s office said in a statement.

The roof collapse at the newly renovated station in Serbia’s second-largest city, Novi Sad, became a symbol of entrenched corruption and sparked almost daily protests.

Protesters first demanded a transparent investigation, but their calls soon escalated into demands for early elections.

The Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office in Novi Sad initially filed an indictment at the end of December, but judges returned it in April, requesting more information.

The accused were released or placed under house arrest following the decision.

The prosecutor’s office said it had complied with the judge’s request and had now completed the supplementary investigation.

The prosecutor specialising in organised crime and corruption in Belgrade is leading a separate, independent investigation into the tragedy.

That investigation is focused on 13 people, including Vesic and another former minister, Tomislav Momirovic, who headed the Construction Ministry before him.

In March, the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) launched a third, separate investigation into the possible misuse of EU funds for the station’s reconstruction.

AFP

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Kazakhstan Bans Forced Marriage, Bride Kidnapping

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7 hours ago

September 16, 2025

Editor

Kazakhstan has banned forced marriages and bride kidnappings through a law that came into effect Tuesday in the Central Asian country, where the practice persists despite new attention being paid to women’s rights.

Forcing someone to marry is now punishable by up to 10 years in prison, Kazakh police said in a statement.

“These changes are aimed at preventing forced marriages and protecting vulnerable categories of citizens, especially women and adolescents,” it added.

Bride kidnappings have also been outlawed.

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“Previously, a person who voluntarily released a kidnapped person could expect to be released from criminal liability. Now this possibility has been eliminated,” the police said.

There are no reliable statistics of forced marriage cases across the country, with no separate article in the criminal code prohibiting it until now.

A Kazakh lawmaker said earlier this year that the police had received 214 such complaints over the past three years.

The custom is also present in neighbouring Kyrgyzstan, where it mostly goes unpunished due to indifferent law enforcement and stigma surrounding whistleblowers.

The issue of women’s rights in Kazakhstan gained media attention in 2023 following the murder of a woman by her husband, a former minister, a case that shocked Kazakh society and prompted President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev to react.

“Some people hide behind so-called traditions and try to impose the practice of wife stealing. This blatant obscurantism cannot be justified,” Tokayev said last year.

AFP

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Russia Arrests Woman For Detonating Bomb On Railway

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7 hours ago

September 16, 2025

Editor

Russia’s FSB security service said on Tuesday it had arrested a woman in her fifties accused of detonating explosives in a bid to sabotage the Trans-Siberian Railway.

The suspect was allegedly working on behalf of Ukrainian intelligence, the FSB said, in the latest incident of alleged covert activity during the countries’ conflict.

“In August 2025, following the instructions provided by the adversary, the suspect manufactured a homemade explosive device from publicly available components, placed it on the railway tracks and triggered it,” the Russian agency said.

“She recorded the moment of the explosion on her mobile phone camera and sent the footage as a report to the handler to receive a reward.”

The statement did not name the suspect but said she was born in 1974 and carried out the alleged attack in eastern Siberia’s Zabaikalsky region.

The FSB warned Russians that it was monitoring social networks and online messenger services such as Telegram and WhatsApp for evidence of Ukrainian services recruiting Russians to carry out sabotage.

Separately, the agency told state news agency TASS that a man had been sentenced to 18 years and six months for transporting explosives on behalf of a “pro-Ukrainian” group.

A resident of the Bryansk region, which borders Ukraine, had, the FSB said, established contact through the Telegram app with a banned “terrorist organisation”.

He allegedly retrieved explosives from a cache on the orders of this group before waiting for “further instructions”, according to the same source cited by TASS.

He was jailed by a military tribunal.

AFP