Headline
What Nigerians In US, Canada, Mexico Should Not Do During Solar Eclipse In April 8

As the total solar eclipse is going to happen on April 8, 2024, in North America, Nigerians living in Mexico, the United States (US), and Canada, are enjoined to take note of certain things to avoid.
The total solar eclipse will begin over the South Pacific Ocean, which will occur when the moon passes between the sun and the earth, blocking out the sun’s light partially or entirely.
The solar eclipse has always been seen as an important celestial event and has thrilled human beings for centuries.
A solar eclipse happens when the moon, in its orbit around the Earth, places itself directly between the Earth and the Sun.
Meanwhile, as the United States, Canada, and Mexico prepare for the solar eclipse, there are precautions for the people who will experience it including Nigerians residing in these North American countries.
A report said, “The Monday, April 8, 2024, a total solar eclipse will cross North America, passing over Mexico, the United States, and Canada. The total solar eclipse will begin over the South Pacific Ocean.
“Weather permitting, the first location in continental North America that will experience totality is Mexico’s Pacific coast at around 11:07 a.m. PDT. The path of the eclipse continues from Mexico, entering the United States in Texas, and traveling through Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine.
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“Small parts of Tennessee and Michigan will also experience the total solar eclipse. The eclipse will enter Canada in Southern Ontario, and continue through Quebec, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Cape Breton. The eclipse will exit continental North America on the Atlantic coast of Newfoundland, Canada, at 5:16 p.m. NDT.”
Meanwhile, below are the things to do and not do during an eclipse in the US, Canada, and Mexico:
Use eye protection
Staring directly at the sun, even during an eclipse, can cause permanent eye damage. People to experience it are advised to use specially designed solar viewing glasses or handheld solar viewers to protect their eyes from harmful rays.
Take care of your pets
While humans now have access to abundant information, animals may become confused or agitated during an eclipse due to the sudden change in light. So, Nigerians in the United States, Canada, and Mexico, are enjoined to keep their pets indoors or in a secure location to prevent them from harming themselves or running away.
Take photographs with safety
If you have decided to capture the eclipse with your camera or your smartphone, make sure to take proper precautions with that too. Make sure you have a solar filter to protect your device’s lens and your eyes. Never look directly at the sun through a camera or binoculars without appropriate filters.
Enjoy the moment
A solar eclipse is a rare and awe-inspiring event. And so if your thoughts and beliefs allow you to, take the time to appreciate this beauty of nature and the wonders of the universe, but with proper protection.
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What to NOT do during the eclipse
Don’t look directly at the sun
Citizens and foreigners like Nigerians in the US, Mexico, and Canada should not look directly at the sun during the total eclipse. Myths, beliefs and superstitions apart, staring at the sun during an eclipse, even for a few seconds, can cause severe eye damage or blindness. Always use proper eye protection or indirect viewing methods.
Don’t use unfiltered devices
Seeing the eclipse through smartphones, cameras, or telescopes without adequate solar filters can result in irreversible damage to the equipment and pose a risk to your eyesight as well. So, make sure to have the right equipment.
Don’t look for do-it-yourself options
While it is tempting to explore and experiment, try not to when your eyesight and your camera or other device are at stake. Homemade filters, such as smoked glass, CDs, or sunglasses, are not safe for viewing a solar eclipse and these makeshift filters do not provide sufficient protection from the sun’s harmful rays.
Don’t panic
Although there are many different myths and beliefs associated with the Solar eclipse, in the age of information, it is better to not panic. There is no need to panic or fear during an eclipse. As long as you follow certain safety guidelines and stay informed, no harm can happen due to the moon blocking the sun.
VANGUARD
Headline
Thousands Reported To Have Fled DR Congo Fighting As M23 Closes On Key City

Fierce fighting rocked the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo on Tuesday as the Rwanda-backed M23 militia rapidly advanced towards the strategic city of Uvira, with tens of thousands of people fleeing over the nearby border into Burundi, sources said.
The armed group and its Rwandan allies were just a few kilometres (miles) north of Uvira, security and military sources told AFP.
The renewed violence undermined a peace agreement brokered by US President Donald Trump that Kinshasa and Kigali signed less than a week ago, on December 4.
Trump had boasted that the Rwanda-DRC conflict was one of eight he has ended since returning to power in America in January.
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With the new fighting, more than 30,000 people have fled the area around Uvira for Burundi in the space of a week, a UN source and a Burundian administrative source told AFP.
The Burundian source told AFP on condition of anonymity he had recorded more than 8,000 daily arrivals over the past two days, and 30,000 arrivals in one week. A source in the UN refugee agency confirmed the figure.
The Rwanda-backed M23 offensive comes nearly a year after the group seized control of Goma and Bukavu, the two largest cities in eastern DRC, a strategic region rich in natural resources and plagued by conflict for 30 years.
Local people described a state of growing panic as bombardments struck the hills above Uvira, a city of several hundred thousand residents.
“Three bombs have just exploded in the hills. It’s every man for himself,” said one resident reached by telephone.
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“We are all under the beds in Uvira — that’s the reality,” another resident said, while a representative of civil society who would not give their name described fighting on the city’s outskirts.
Fighting was also reported in Runingo, another small locality some 20 kilometres (12 miles) from Uvira, as the M23 and the Rwandan army closed in.
Burundi views the prospect of Uvira falling to Rwanda-backed forces as an existential threat, given that it sits across Lake Tanganyika from Burundi’s economic capital Bujumbura.
The city is the main sizeable locality in the area yet to fall to the M23 and its capture would essentially cut off the zone from DRC control.
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Burundi deployed about 10,000 soldiers to eastern DRC in October 2023 as part of a military cooperation agreement, and security sources say reinforcements have since taken that presence to around 18,000 men.
The M23 and Rwandan forces launched their Uvira offensive on December 1.
Rich in natural resources, eastern DRC has been choked by successive conflicts for around three decades.
Violence in the region intensified early this year when M23 fighters seized the key eastern city of Goma in January, followed by Bukavu, capital of South Kivu province, a few weeks later.
– Regional risk –
The peace deal meant to quell the fighting was signed last Thursday in Washington by Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi and his Rwandan counterpart Paul Kagame, with Trump — who called it a “miracle” deal — also putting his signature to it.
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The agreement includes an economic component intended to secure US supplies of critical minerals present in the region, as America seeks to challenge China’s dominance in the sector.
But even on the day of the signing, intense fighting took place in South Kivu, where Uvira is located, which included the bombing of houses and schools.
Witnesses and military sources in Uvira said that Congolese soldiers fleeing the fighting had arrived in the city overnight Monday and shops were looted at dawn.
Several hundred Congolese and Burundian soldiers had already fled to Burundi on Monday, according to military sources, since the M23 fighters embarked on their latest offensive from Kamanyola, some 70 kilometres north of Uvira.
Since the M23’s lightning offensive early this year, the front had largely stabilised over the past nine months.
Burundian President Evariste Ndayishimiye warned in February there was a danger of the conflict escalating into a broader regional war, a fear echoed by the United Nations.
Headline
‘Santa Claus’ Arrested For Possessing, Distributing Child Sexual Abuse Material

A 64-year-old man from Hamilton Township has been arrested in the United States after investigators linked him to the possession and distribution of child sexual abuse material.
The suspect, identified as Mark Paulino, had been working as a “Santa for hire” at holiday events, a role that placed him in repeated contact with children.
Mercer County officials said the investigation began on 4 December when detectives were alerted to suspicious online activity involving the uploading of child pornography from a residence in Hamilton Township. The probe quickly identified Paulino, a retired elementary school teacher, as the person involved.
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Police stated that Paulino had presented himself online as a retired teacher and had recently performed as Santa Claus for photographs and private, corporate, and organisational events. “Because this role involved direct, repeated contact with children, detectives worked around the clock to secure a search warrant,” authorities explained.
The warrant was executed on 5 December, during which police seized multiple items regarded as evidentiary. Paulino was taken into custody without incident and charged with possession and distribution of child sexual abuse materials, as well as endangering the welfare of a child.
Prosecutors have filed a motion to detain him pending trial. The investigation remains ongoing, and authorities have urged members of the public with relevant information to come forward.
Headline
Why West African Troops Overturned Benin’s Coup But Watched Others Pass

When Benin’s government over the weekend fought back a coup attempt, they had unlikely help: troops and air strikes from neighbouring countries.
West Africa has seen a series of coups over the past five years, leaving critics to cast the regional political bloc ECOWAS as having little more than stern communiques at its disposal to stop them.
But in Benin, Nigerian jets and troops were quickly dispatched to help their smaller neighbour foil the putsch attempt, while the Economic Community of West African States promised more were on their way, from Ghana, Ivory Coast and Sierra Leone.
Multiple factors were at play, analysts, diplomats and government officials told AFP, from the critical period where President Patrice Talon remained in partial control of his country and loyal army forces to the high economic and political stakes — especially for regional power Nigeria — of a country like Benin falling under a junta.
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Perhaps most important was the fact that Talon was not taken prisoner as the soldiers declared their takeover, and was able to call on Nigeria — and presumably ECOWAS directly — for assistance.
The Nigerian presidency said that Benin’s foreign ministry requested air support.
A source within ECOWAS told AFP meanwhile that regional leaders, including the presidents of Ivory Coast, Nigeria and Sierra Leone decided “to stand firm and not repeat their error in Niger”.
The toppling of the civilian government in Niamey in 2023 sparked sanctions and threats of military intervention.
The isolation — and empty threats — potentially exacerbated the situation: the junta not only remains in place but left ECOWAS and formed the Alliance of Sahel States with fellow breakaway nations Burkina Faso and Mali, also under military control.
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– Nigerian security, economic links –
While pushing back on the coup offered an opening for Nigeria to regain a bit of its lost diplomatic shine of decades past, when it was a regional and continental heavyweight, there were also tangible economic and security reasons to intervene, analysts said.
“Unrest in Benin poses a direct risk to Nigeria’s economic and security priorities,” motivating a “fast Nigerian-fronted ECOWAS reaction,” Usman Ibrahim, a Nigerian security analyst at SARI Global, told AFP.
A former west African government minister said that the ECOWAS intervention heavily “depended on Nigeria’s willingness.”
Benin, like Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, is battling jihadist insurgents in its north.
In October, jihadists from the Al-Qaeda affiliated Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM) claimed their first attack in Nigeria last month, appearing to have crossed from the Beninese border.
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“If the military takes over and mismanages the security situation… it’s a front in western Nigeria that the Tinubu administration has to address at a time when the international spotlight is obviously on Nigeria’s national security predicament,” said Ryan Cummings, director of Signal Risk, referencing a recent US diplomatic offensive against Nigeria over the handling of its own myriad conflicts.
Analysts also pointed out that Nigeria’s apparent lead in shoring up the pro-western civilian government of Benin, a former French colony, comes at a time when Abuja and Paris are increasing security ties.
“Troops were mobilised rapidly and Paris decided to support the operation,” the ECOWAS source said.
At the request of the Beninese authorities, France provided “in terms of surveillance, observation and logistical” assistance to the Benin armed force, an aide to President Emmanuel Macron told reporters Tuesday.
– Breakaway juntas –
Another likely worry was whether the putschists in Benin would join the AES, who maintain uneasy relations with their neighbours, said Nnamdi Obasi, senior Nigeria adviser at International Crisis Group.
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But while some within and outside ECOWAS have painted the response to the coup in Benin as a turning point for ECOWAS, others aren’t convinced.
Critics often point out that ECOWAS does little when civilian presidents cement their rule without military means — extending term limits, altering the constitution to stay in power or cracking down on dissent.
Just last month, a coup in Guinea Bissau attracted the typical diplomatic-only playbook of harsh statements and communiques.
Guinea Bissau has fallen under military rule five times, and the latest putsch is suspected to have been ordered by the president himself — a “tough situation to handle”, noted Confidence MacHarry of SBM Intelligence.
Benin also commands a certain “prestige” as a “stable democracy in West Africa”, said analyst Ibrahim.
“The reaction to events in Benin does not firmly establish a novel or uniform protocol for ECOWAS,” Ibrahim said. “Rather, it underscores the continued selective and politically calculated nature of its engagements.”
(AFP)
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