Your morning five: Nigeria can’t find hundreds of lost girls
Nigeria’s president wants international help tracking down girls who were kidnapped by suspected Boko Haram fighters
FILE- In this Wednesday, April. 30, 2014 file photo, Women attend a demonstration calling on the government to rescue kidnapped schoolgirls of a government secondary school Chibok, in Abuja,Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan met through the night with security, school and state officials and issued a new directive that “everything must be done” to free the 276 girls kidnapped by Islamic extremists, one of his advisers said Sunday, May 4, 2014. It was the first time the president met with all stakeholders, including the principal of the Chibok Government Girls Secondary School where the girls and young women were kidnapped in a pre-dawn raid April 15, presidential adviser Reuben Abati told reporters. (AP Photo/ Gbemiga Olamikan, File)
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We tell you five things you need to know this morning.
1. Nigeria’s president can’t find 256 lost girls. Boko Haram fighters stand accused of abducting the girls on April 15, but worried Nigerians blamed President Goodluck Jonathan for doing little in the wake of the mass kidnapping. He now claims to want international help tracking down the girls. Elsewhere, activists say a colleague who was critical of the government response is now in police custody. Naomi Mutah, who organized rallies in support of the lost girls, apparently also attended a meeting called by Jonathan’s wife, Patience—and was then taken to a police station.
2. Ukrainians are still fighting in Slovyansk. Ukrainian troops and pro-Russian fighters have battled for days in Slovyansk, where rebels—as BBC now refers to the anti-Kyiv forces—recently shot down a pair of Ukrainian helicopters. The government forces appear to be advancing in the city. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk was in Odessa, claiming that Russia plans “to destroy Ukraine and its statehood” after more than 40 people died in the port city after clashes in the streets last Friday.
3. Anton Soloviov is Jason Kenney’s latest headache. The 25-year-old former mall kiosk employee, a temporary foreign worker in British Columbia, says his Canadian bosses paid him little for many hours of work. Soloviov claims to have the documents to prove his case, and he says dozens of other foreigners took jobs under the terms of a Labour Market Opinion granted to 0860005 B.C. Ltd, a company headed by a pair of B.C. residents. Soloviov may be a victim of human trafficking, according to a CBC report, and his former supervisor is under investigation.
4. IRFAN-Canada rejects its terrorist branding. An aid group that the federal government insists maintains ties with Hamas, and is thus a terrorist organization all its own, is fighting for its reputation. Yavar Hameed, an Ottawa lawyer, filed documents that say the feds have no reasonable grounds to believe that the International Relief Fund for the Afflicted and Needy-Canada is a terrorist group. The government points to audits over the last decade that detail IRFAN-Canada’s financial contributions to foreign groups that fund Hamas.
5. The Toronto Raptors came oh so close to the second round. Terrence Ross, a high-flying youngster who looked unsteady for most of his first seven playoff games in the NBA, saved a superhuman moment for the last seconds of the Raptors’ first-round playoff series against a Brooklyn Nets team built to win a championship. Down just a single point in the deciding seventh game, Ross deflected an inbound, corralled the loose ball, and fired it off Nets forward Paul Pierce and out of bounds. The Raptors maintained possession and called their final timeout. Kyle Lowry, the Raptors point guard whose leadership became the stuff of legend in Toronto in just a fortnight, put up a last-gasp shot as time ran out. Pierce, of all people, got his hand in the way. The Nets won 104-103. Bruce Arthur, Cathal Kelly and Eric Koreen all put words to the Raptors’ unlikely playoff run.