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Burkina Faso’s only eye doctor for children sees the trauma of both play and conflict

Burkina Faso’s only eye doctor for children sees the trauma of both play and conflict
Dr. Claudette Yaméogo, Burkina Faso’s only pediatric ophthalmologist checks on a patient at the Sanou Sourou University Hospital in the city of Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso. (AP)
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Updated 2 min 34 sec ago

Burkina Faso’s only eye doctor for children sees the trauma of both play and conflict

Burkina Faso’s only eye doctor for children sees the trauma of both play and conflict
  • Dr. Yaméogo who started her practice late last year, said the work is daunting and often requires her to visit at no cost, families who cannot afford care or cannot make their way to the hospital where she works

BOBO-DIOULASSO: Isaka Diallo was playing with friends when a stone struck his left eye. For two weeks, his parents searched hospitals in western Burkina Faso for an eye doctor. The village clinic only prescribed painkillers. Other health workers did not know what to do.
When they eventually found Dr. Claudette Yaméogo, Burkina Faso’s only pediatric ophthalmologist, the injury had become too difficult to treat.
“The trauma has become severe,” Yaméogo said of Diallo’s condition as she attended to him recently at the Sanou Sourou University Hospital in the city of Bobo-Dioulasso. “Cases like (Diallo’s) must be treated within the first six hours, but I’m seeing him two weeks later, and it’s already too late.”
It is a common problem in the country of about 23 million people, which has just 70 ophthalmologists.
Yaméogo , who started her practice late last year, said the work is daunting and often requires her to visit — at no cost — families who cannot afford care or cannot make their way to the hospital where she works.
While there is limited data available on eye defects in children in Burkina Faso or in Africa at large, an estimated 450 million children globally have a sight problem that needs treatment, according to the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness.
Late intervention can significantly alter a child’s future, the organization said, with many such cases in less developed countries.
In Burkina Faso, an estimated 70 percent of the population lives in rural areas. And yet ophthalmologists are concentrated in the capital, Ouagadougou, and other main cities, making them unreachable for many.
While more than 2,000 ophthalmology procedures were performed in Burkina Faso’s western Hauts-Bassins region in 2024, only 52 of those were carried out in its more rural areas, according to the Ministry of Health. Most procedures were done in the area of Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso’s second city.
Not many people are aware of Yaméogo’s work. Even when they are, traveling to reach her often requires days of planning and financial saving.
In a further challenge to accessing care, Diallo’s family is among the 2 million people displaced by violence as extremist groups seize parts of the country.
To visit Yaméogo’s hospital from the village where they are sheltering, they had to travel about 40 kilometers (21 miles) on a motorcycle to Bobo-Dioulasso, spending 7,500 francs ($13) on transport, a high price for a small-scale farming family.
At least 70 percent of the trauma cases in children treated at the hospital come from rural areas where the risk of exposure — from conflict or from play — is higher, Yaméogo said.
Examining and treating a child is a delicate practice that requires a lot of time, something many families can’t afford. Many must return home to earn money for the treatment.
As she treated Diallo, Yaméogo noticed that the boy associated a drawing of an apple with a pepper, making her wonder: Is it that he can’t see it, or that he doesn’t know what an apple is? The fruit doesn’t grow in the region where he lives.
“There’s no fixed time for examining children,” she said. “You need a lot of patience.”
Yameogo’s work has had a “very positive impact on training future pediatricians and on the quality of ophthalmology services,” said Jean Diallo, president of the Burkinabè Society of Ophthalmology.
“A child’s eye is not the same as that of an adult, which is why we need specialists to treat problems early so the child can develop properly,” Diallo said.
He cited retinoblastoma, a retinal cancer mostly affecting young children, and congenital cataracts, eye diseases that can be cured if diagnosed early. Pediatricians won’t necessarily detect them.
During another consultation, Yaméogo told the family of 5-year-old Fatao Traoré that he would need cornea surgery as a result of an injury sustained while playing with a stick.
“Sometimes I feel a pinch in my heart,” Yaméogo said as she examined the boy after they arrived from their farm on the outskirts of Bobo-Dioulasso. “His iris has detached from his cornea, so he needs to be hospitalized.”
The father, looking overwhelmed, sighed, unsure of where the money for the child’s surgery would come. On paper, Burkina Faso’s government covers the cost of medications and care for children under 5, but often no drugs are available in hospitals, meaning families must buy them elsewhere.
A surgery like the one for Traoré can cost 100,000 CFA ($179), several months’ income for the family.


31 workers have been safely removed after part of an industrial tunnel in LA collapsed

Updated 7 sec ago

31 workers have been safely removed after part of an industrial tunnel in LA collapsed

31 workers have been safely removed after part of an industrial tunnel in LA collapsed
LOS ANGELES: Thirty-one workers have been safely removed from an industrial tunnel under construction in Los Angeles after part of it collapsed on Wednesday, the Los Angeles Fire Department said.
The collapse occurred 5 to 6 miles (8 to 9.7 kilometers) from the tunnel’s sole entrance in an industrial section of the city. Aerial footage from local television showed workers being lifted up through the tunnel’s entrance.
Some workers on the other side of the collapsed portion of the tunnel scrambled over a 12 to 15-foot-tall (19.3 to 24.1-meter-tall) mound of loose soil and reached several coworkers on the other side. The workers were then shuttled several at a time by tunnel vehicle to the opening.
Paramedics were evaluating 27 of the workers removed from the tunnel.
The tunnel is under construction to eventually carry wastewater. It’s 18 feet (5.5 meters) wide, LAFD said.
More than 100 LAFD workers were assigned to the scene, including those who specialize in rescues from confined spaces.

S Korea’s disgraced ex-president Yoon detained, again, over martial law

S Korea’s disgraced ex-president Yoon detained, again, over martial law
Updated 24 min 39 sec ago

S Korea’s disgraced ex-president Yoon detained, again, over martial law

S Korea’s disgraced ex-president Yoon detained, again, over martial law
  • The latest arrest warrant was issued over concerns that Yoon would “destroy evidence”

SEOUL: South Korea’s disgraced ex-president Yoon Suk Yeol was detained for a second time Thursday over his declaration of martial law and held in a solitary cell as investigators widened their insurrection probe.
Yoon plunged South Korea into a political crisis when he sought to subvert civilian rule on December 3 last year, sending armed soldiers to parliament in a bid to prevent lawmakers voting down his declaration of martial law.
He became South Korea’s first sitting president to be taken into custody when he was detained in a dawn raid in January, after he spent weeks resisting arrest, using his presidential security detail to head off investigators.
But he was released on procedural grounds in March, even as his trial on insurrection charges continued.
After Yoon’s impeachment was confirmed by the court in April, he again refused multiple summons from investigators, prompting them to seek his detention once more to ensure cooperation.
The latest arrest warrant was issued over concerns that Yoon would “destroy evidence” in the case, Nam Se-jin, a senior judge at Seoul’s Central District Court said.
Yoon is being held in a solitary cell which has only a fan and no air-conditioning, as a heat wave grips South Korea. According to the official schedule, he was offered a regulation breakfast including steamed potatoes and milk.
Investigators said Thursday that Yoon’s status as former president will be “duly considered” but otherwise he will be “treated like any other suspect.”
“Investigations during the detention period will focus on the warrant’s stated charges,” prosecutor Park Ji-young told reporters.
Yoon’s criminal trial also continued with a hearing Thursday, although he did not attend for the first time.


The former president, 64, attended a hearing over the new warrant on Wednesday that lasted about seven hours, during which he rejected all charges, before being taken to a holding center near Seoul where he awaited the court’s decision on whether to detain him again.
During his warrant hearing, the former president said he is now “fighting alone,” local media reported.
“The special counsel is now going after even my defense lawyers,” said Yoon during his hearing.
“One by one my lawyers are stepping away, and I may soon have to fight this alone.”
Once the warrant was issued early Thursday, Yoon was placed in a solitary cell at the facility, where he can be held for up to 20 days as prosecutors prepare to formally indict him including on additional charges.
“Once Yoon is indicted, he could remain detained for up to six months following indictment,” Yun Bok-nam, president of Lawyers for a Democratic Society, told AFP.
“Theoretically, immediate release is possible, but in this case, the special counsel has argued that the risk of evidence destruction remains high, and that the charges are already substantially supported.”


During the hearing, Yoon’s legal team criticized the detention request as unreasonable, stressing that Yoon has been ousted and “no longer holds any authority.”
Earlier this month, the special counsel questioned Yoon about his resistance during a failed arrest attempt in January, as well as accusations that he authorized drone flights to Pyongyang to help justify declaring martial law.
The former president also faces charges of falsifying official documents related to the martial law bid.
Yoon has defended his martial law decision as necessary to “root out” pro-North Korean and “anti-state” forces.
But the Constitutional Court, when ousting Yoon from office on April 4 in a unanimous decision, said his acts were a “betrayal of people’s trust” and “denial of the principles of democracy.”
South Korea’s current president, Lee Jae Myung, who won the June snap election, approved legislation launching sweeping special investigations into Yoon’s push for martial law and various criminal accusations tied to his administration and wife.


Britain and France try again to tackle English Channel migrant crossings

Britain and France try again to tackle English Channel migrant crossings
Updated 53 min 26 sec ago

Britain and France try again to tackle English Channel migrant crossings

Britain and France try again to tackle English Channel migrant crossings
  • Britain and France agree the dangerous and unregulated crossings are a problem, but have long differed on how to address it
  • About 37,000 people were detected crossing the channel in 2024, and more than 20,000 made the crossing in the first six months of 2025, up by about 50 percent from the same period last year

LONDON: After the bonhomie and banquets of a formal state visit, Prime Minister Keir Starmer and President Emmanuel Macron are turning to a topic that has stymied successive British and French governments: how to stop migrants from crossing the English Channel in small boats.
At a UK-France summit on Thursday that caps Macron’s three-day stay, senior officials from the two countries will try to seal deals on economic growth, defense cooperation and – perhaps trickiest of all – unauthorized migration.
Macron and Starmer also will visit a military base and dial in to a planning meeting of the ” coalition of the willing, ” a UK- and France-backed plan for an international force to guarantee a future ceasefire in Ukraine.
During a meeting inside 10 Downing St. on Wednesday, the two leaders agreed that tackling small boat crossings “is a shared priority that requires shared solutions, including a new deterrent to break the business model” of people-smuggling gangs, Starmer’s office said.
It said they would aim for “concrete progress” on Thursday.
Channel crossings are a longstanding challenge
Britain receives fewer asylum-seekers than Mediterranean European countries, but sees thousands of very visible arrivals each year as migrants cross the 20-mile (32 kilometer) channel from northern France in small, overcrowded boats.
About 37,000 people were detected crossing the channel in 2024, and more than 20,000 made the crossing in the first six months of 2025, up by about 50 percent from the same period last year. Dozens of people have died trying to reach the English coast.
Britain and France agree the dangerous and unregulated crossings are a problem, but have long differed on how to address it.
The UK wants France to do more to stop boats leaving the beaches, and has paid the Paris government hundreds of millions of pounds (dollars, euros) to increase patrols and share intelligence in an attempt to disrupt the smuggling gangs.
“We share information to a much greater extent than was the case before,” Starmer told lawmakers in the House of Commons on Wednesday. “We’ve got a new specialist intelligence unit in Dunkirk and we’re the first government to persuade the French to review their laws and tactics on the north coast to take more effective action.”
Macron says Britain must address “pull factors” like the perception it is easy for unauthorized migrants to find work in the UK Many migrants also want to reach Britain because they have friends or family there, or because they speak English.
Solutions have proved elusive
As far back as 2001, the two countries were discussing ways to stop migrants stowing away on trains and trucks using the tunnel under the channel.
Over the following years, French authorities cleared out camps near Calais where thousands of migrants gathered before trying to reach Britain. Beefed up security sharply reduced the number of vehicle stowaways, but from about 2018 people-smugglers offered migrants a new route by sea.
“You see that pattern again and again, where smuggling gangs and migrants try to find new ways to cross from France to the UK,” said Mihnea Cuibus, a researcher at the University of Oxford’s Migration Observatory. “The authorities crack down on that, and then gradually you see migrants and gangs try to adapt to that. And it becomes a bit of a game of cat and mouse.”
Cooperation on stopping the boats stalled after Britain’s acrimonious split from the European Union in 2020, but in the past few years the countries have struck several agreements that saw the UK pay France to increase police and drone patrols of the coast.
Britain’s previous Conservative government came up with a contentious plan in 2022 to deport asylum-seekers arriving by boat to Rwanda. Critics called it unworkable and unethical, and it was scrapped by Starmer soon after he took office in July 2024.
Britain hopes for a returns deal with France
Starmer is staking success on closer cooperation with France and with countries further up the migrants’ routes from Africa and the Middle East.
British officials have been pushing for French police to intervene more forcefully to stop boats once they have left the shore, and welcomed the sight of officers slashing rubber dinghies with knives in recent days.
France is also considering a UK proposal for a “one-in, one-out” deal that would see France take back some migrants who reached Britain, in return for the UK accepting migrants seeking to join relatives in Britain.
Macron said the leaders would aim for “tangible results” on an issue that’s “a burden for our two countries.”
Cuibus said irregular cross-channel migration would likely always be a challenge, but that the measures being discussed by Britain and France could make an impact, “if they’re implemented in the right way.
“But that’s a big if,” he said.


EU chief von der Leyen faces no confidence vote

EU chief von der Leyen faces no confidence vote
Updated 10 July 2025

EU chief von der Leyen faces no confidence vote

EU chief von der Leyen faces no confidence vote
  • A major complaint is that von der Leyen’s center-right camp has increasingly teamed up with the far-right to further its agenda, most notably to roll back environmental rules

STRATSBOURG: EU chief Ursula von der Leyen faces a confidence vote Thursday that has little chance of succeeding but has exposed frictions between her backers and complaints about her leadership style.
European lawmakers will vote on the rare challenge pushed by a far-right faction against the European Commission president at around midday (1000 GMT) in Strasbourg.
Addressing parliament this week, von der Leyen dismissed the no-confidence motion as a conspiracy theory-laden attempt to divide Europe, dismissing its supporters as “anti-vaxxers” and Russian President Vladimir “Putin apologists.”
She urged lawmakers to renew confidence in her commission arguing it was critical for Europe to show unity in the face of an array of challenges, from US trade talks to Russia’s war in Ukraine.
The no-confidence motion was initiated by Romanian far-right lawmaker Gheorghe Piperea.
He accuses von der Leyen of a lack of transparency over text messages she sent to the head of the Pfizer pharmaceutical giant when negotiating Covid vaccines.
The commission’s failure to release the messages — the focus of multiple court cases — has given weight to critics who accuse its boss of centralized and opaque decision-making.
That is also a growing refrain from the commission chief’s traditional allies on the left and center, who have used the vote to air their grievances.


A major complaint is that von der Leyen’s center-right camp has increasingly teamed up with the far-right to further its agenda — most notably to roll back environmental rules.
Centrist leader Valerie Hayer told parliament this week that von der Leyen’s commission was “too centralized and sclerotic” before warning that “nothing can be taken for granted.”
“Pfizergate” aside, Romania’s Piperea accuses the commission of interfering in his country’s recent presidential election, in which pro-European Nicusor Dan narrowly beat EU critic and nationalist George Simion.
That vote came after Romania’s constitutional court scrapped an initial ballot over allegations of Russian interference and massive social media promotion of the far-right frontrunner, who was barred from standing again.
Piperea’s challenge is unlikely to succeed.
It has support from some groups on the left and part of the far right — including the party of Hungary’s nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
“Time to go,” Orban tweeted on Wednesday alongside a photo of von der Leyen.
But Piperea’s own group, the ECR, is split. Its largest faction, the party of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, said it would back the EU chief.
The two largest groups in parliament, the center-right EPP and the center-left Socialists and Democrats, have also flatly rejected the challenge, which needs two-thirds of votes cast, representing a majority of all lawmakers to pass.


UK, France to enable ‘co-ordinated’ nuclear deterrent

UK, France to enable ‘co-ordinated’ nuclear deterrent
Updated 10 July 2025

UK, France to enable ‘co-ordinated’ nuclear deterrent

UK, France to enable ‘co-ordinated’ nuclear deterrent
  • Western Europe's two nuclear powers agree to “refresh” their defense ties
  • Vow to jointly respond to any “extreme threat to Europe”

LONDON: The UK and France will declare that the two nations’ nuclear deterrents, while independent, can be co-ordinated and that they will jointly respond to any “extreme threat to Europe,” both countries said Wednesday.
The declaration, to be signed Thursday, will state that the respective deterrents of both countries remain under national control “but can be co-ordinated, and that there is no extreme threat to Europe that would not prompt a response by both nations,” the UK’s Ministry of Defense (MoD) and the French presidency said in an overnight statement.
French President Emmanuel Macron will sign the agreement Thursday as he wraps up his three-day state visit to the UK with a bilateral summit, where the allies will “reboot” defense ties with a focus on joint missile development and nuclear co-operation.
France’s leader and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer will co-host the London summit, with the two sides also expected to discuss maintaining support for Ukraine and curbing undocumented cross-Channel immigration.
Ahead of the gathering, which follows two days of varied events spanning pomp and politics, trade and culture, France and Britain announced their “defense relationship” will be “refreshed.”
It will see London and Paris order more Storm Shadow cruise missiles — long-range, air-launched weapons jointly developed by the two countries and called SCALP by the French — while stepping up work on a replacement system.
The missiles have been shipped to Ukraine in significant numbers in recent years to help Kyiv in its war with Russia.
The new partnerships herald a new “Entente Industrielle” making “defense an engine for growth,” said the MoD.
“As close partners and NATO allies, the UK and France have a deep history of defense collaboration and today’s agreements take our partnership to the next level,” Starmer said in the statement.
Starmer and Macron will also on Thursday dial into a meeting of the so-called “coalition of the willing” on Ukraine, a group of countries backing the embattled nation.