Headline News

6, December 2019

Football: Klopp doesn’t care about Christmas No. 1 spot for Liverpool ⁰

Jurgen Klopp says he does not care about being top of the Premier League at Christmas as he prepares his Liverpool team for a hectic few weeks.

Liverpool, who finished a single point behind champions Manchester City last season, travel to Bournemouth on Saturday with an eight-point lead over Leicester. City are a further three points adrift.

A win on the south coast would mean Liverpool cannot be caught before December 25.

Only three times in the past 11 years has the top-placed team at Christmas failed to go on to win the title — and on every occasion it was Liverpool, including last year.

Klopp, targeting Liverpool’s first English top-flight title for 30 years, said he was not interested in such numbers.

“There are a lot of people who celebrate already, a lot of people who worry still and a lot of people who hope that we will still fail so that’s it,” he said at his pre-match press conference on Friday.

“I don’t listen to (any) of them, to be honest. So I’m completely fine. We want to try and win at Bournemouth.

“What that means for Christmas, I never thought about. So it’s not really interesting. We know that we are in a really, really difficult situation with the games coming up.

“We know that but we accepted that a long ago. But now we have to deal with it and we are really positive in this moment but we need to be lucky with the players that they stay fit and healthy.”

The European champions face 10 matches between Saturday’s game at Bournemouth and their FA Cup tie against Everton on January 5, including two within 24 hours in the League Cup and Club World Cup, for which Liverpool will use two squads.

Klopp’s much-changed team coasted to a 5-2 win over Everton at Anfield on Wednesday, with rarely used Belgian striker Divock Origi scoring twice and Xherdan Shaqiri once to underline the depth of resources at the German manager’s disposal.

“Very often we used three other players up front, but Div was always so important for us and it’s really nice that he can show his importance as well in a game like this,” he said.

The Liverpool manager was asked whether he would follow a similar template to last December, when he made multiple changes to cope with a busy calendar.

He said: “It was not a plan last year to make 30 changes… but it’s a time where you have to make changes, that’s clear. It’s not a specific number. It’s just the need of the situation and that’s what we will do, 100 percent.

“I know when you are a football supporter then you want to play in your mind the best 11 all the time but it’s not FIFA or PlayStation where they don’t need a rest.”

Source: AFP

6, December 2019

Southern Cameroons Crisis: La Republique du Cameroun to adopt law against tribalism ⁰

Cameroon plans to introduce laws against tribalism.

The justice minister who defended the text amending Article 241 of the Penal Code in front of the National Assembly, said that the rise in tribalism and hate speech could compromise security and social cohesion.

If the law is passed someone convicted of tribalistic crimes could face one to two years imprisonment and/or pay a fine of up to 3 million FCFA or 5000 USD.

Source: Africa News

6, December 2019

Kenya: Governor of Nairobi arrested on corruption charges ⁰

Kenyan police arrested the Nairobi County governor, known for his chunky gold jewellery and impromptu raps, on Friday on corruption charges, a high profile move in the government’s much trumpeted anti-graft push.

Chief public prosecutor Noordin Haji told a news conference the Governor Mike Mbuvi Sonko and his associates were accused of conspiracy to commit corruption, failure to comply with laws related to procurement, unlawful acquisition of public property and laundering the proceeds of crime.

Sonko and his assistants did not respond to calls seeking comment.

Citizens and international investors have long complained of corruption in Kenya, East Africa’s business hub and richest economy.

President Uhuru Kenyatta appointed Haji, a former deputy head of national intelligence, last year after years of taking little action to rein in widespread graft.

On Friday, Haji accused Sonko, who runs the Kenyan capital as Nairobi’s most senior regional politican, of “deploying intimidation tactics and using goons to threaten law enforcement officials” investigating the case.

Police used teargas to disperse hundreds of Sonko’s supporters when he was called into the anti-corruption office for questioning in November.

Sonko, a former senator, was elected in 2017 after years of news splashes featuring his flamboyant lifestyle and flashy fashion, complete with ubiquitous chunky gold jewellery and eye-catching hairstyles.

After Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto faced charges of crimes against humanity following the disputed 2007 elections and subsequent violence, Sonko showed up to the proceedings at the Hague-based International Criminal Court with “Uhuruto Not Guilty” dyed into his hair.

He was recently photographed using a goldplated iPad and matching iPhone and has appeared in rap videos gyrating in public offices wearing gold-coloured trainers while insulting political opponents.

He invited a storm of public criticism this month after he shared photos online of his dining room, featuring a gold-plated lion statue, and a gold-tinted dining table and chairs.

He has recruited hundreds of people into his “Sonko Rescue Team” who sweep out streets or appear at fires wearing “Sonko” branded red boiler suits in Nairobi’s poorest neighbourhoods.

On Thursday, Sonko received an award sponsored by the Kenya Red Cross and United Nations Volunteers for encouraging volunteering.

Sonko has been photographed handing out cash for things like hospital bills but Nairobi has seen little improvement in public services under his watch.

Nairobi’s public schools and clinics are crumbling, roads are potholed and hundreds of thousands of people live in slums without access to electricity, sewage or services.

REUTERS

6, December 2019

Leak reveals Hong Kong firm’s troubled multimillion-dollar cannabis plan for Cameroon ⁰

When Gilbert Mvondo was hired to cut roads through pristine Cameroonian rainforest in 2015, he did so expecting to be paid.He had been recruited, along with a number of other residents of Meyomessala – birthplace of Cameroon’s President Paul Biya – to prepare the ground for representatives of the prime minister’s office and the Trade Park Corporation, a little-known but well-connected firm with a registered address in Hong Kong’s Wan Chai district.The Hong Kong company had promised to create jobs through the cultivation of cannabis and other crops for export, and was eyeing an area of land roughly the size of Kowloon for what its promotional materials said would be a “modern, technology-driven agriculture export free zone” called Meyo AgriPark.

But today, the rainforest has started to reclaim the roads that Mvondo and his countrymen helped dig, with neither the hemp plantation nor the promised jobs having materialised. Locals have returned to the farms they say they were told to vacate to make way for the project – and both Mvondo and his fellow road builders are still waiting to be paid.

A map showing the location of Meyomessala in CameroonAccording to interviews and internal documents seen as part of a joint investigation by the South China Morning Post , NBC News and the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, hundreds of thousands of US dollars appear to have been spent on Trade Park’s project in Meyomessala, yet questions remain about where the money actually went.

In an email to reporters, Meyomessala Mayor Christian Mebiame Mfou’ou said “unfortunately” his town had not received “anything” from the project – this despite an investor from Equatorial Guinea insisting that he had wired more than US$300,000 to the local official’s personal account.

Source: SCMP.com

6, December 2019

Why Cameroon’s 2021 Afcon venues are lagging behind ⁰

Cameroon’s ability to host the 2021 African Cup of Nations (Afcon) has once again been put to doubt as the company charged with the construction of the main stadium for the competition has abandoned the project.

The Cameroon government withdrew the contract for the construction of the Olembe Sports Complex in Yaoundé on grounds that Italian company Piccini was not delivering on time.

The complex that includes a 60,000 capacity stadium to host the opening game of the tournament was due to be completed in December last year but the government says Piccini unilaterally abandoned the project site.

Cameroon’s minister of Sports and Physical Education, Prof Narcisse Mouelle Kombi, said the construction of the complex, including the stadium named after the country’s long-serving president Paul Biya, had been rescinded from the Italian company and awarded to Canadian firm, MAGIL Construction.

In a statement on Friday which cancelled the contract of the Italian company, Mouelle Kombi said the work had been abandoned even after the government showed good faith by making available the sum of FCFA 2 billion (3.3 million US dollars)to get work started. The minister had earlier issued a two-week ultimatum for Piccini to complete the pitch.

In reaction, Piccini in a communiqué said it could seek legal action both at national and international levels for the government decision to be reversed.

The new contractor, MAGIL that was due to start work yesterday has promised to deliver the infrastructure by June 2020. Franck Mathiere, the firm’s Vice president for International Operations said in Yaounde on Tuesday that they will complete the works within record time.

“We will immediately work on the stadium, especially the pitch before the next inspection by the Confederation of African Football. A greater part of the work has already been done and we are going to use Canadian expertise to complete it,” Franck Mathiere said.

The Canadian company is also in charge of renovating the decades old Reunification Stadium in Douala.

Source: Daily Nation

6, December 2019

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Biya regime withdraws contested language law ⁰

Cameroon has withdrawn a controversial bill that sought to promote the use of French and English languages in official corridors.

The withdrawal just before Parliament adopted came after lawyers protested on the streets that the legislation could lead to more French-speaking judges being assigned to courts in the English-speaking North West and South West of the country.

Cameroon is deeply divided with the Anglophone region agitating for secession into a republic of Ambazonia on the grounds that political leadership and allocation of resources is skewed in favour of the Francophone parts of the country.

The agitation started in 2017 spawning a crisis that has to date left 3,000 people dead, displaced half a million internally and forced 40,000 others into refuge in Nigeria

President Paul Biya called a Major National Dialogue in October to seek solutions to the crisis but the talks were undermined by absence of rebel leaders and claims that government officials handpicked delegates.

Nevertheless, President Biya also extended a gesture of reconciliation through release of more than 330 people held over political charges including opposition leader Maurice Kamto.

The international community saw this as a promising foundation and have been urging for more talks over the crisis with the AU, the Commonwealth and La Francophone political groupings the latest to offer support.

The sticking point in the Bilingual Bill—which is part of a programme of cultural integration—provided for use of either English or French in ordinary and special courts during proceedings as well as rulings.

The use of either rather than both is the sticking point.

“If the bill is adopted, where is the guarantee that the French majority will use English in French speaking towns like Dschang, Yagoua and Monatele with relative ease just as officials have been doing in West Cameroon?,” posed Barrister Oliver Ngwang Shey.

“Yaounde does not have the zeal to foster or maintain the Anglophone culture as a minority,” said Shey, a member of the Cameroon Bar Association.

A lawyers’ strike in 2016 over what they termed an erosion of the common law practice degenerated into violence that metamorphosed into an armed conflict when separatists joined in and declared the creation of an independent state of Ambazonia in 2017..

The UN says the conflict has created a fast-growing humanitarian emergency now affecting nearly two million people, a “15-fold increase since 2017.”

In a rare public comment on the issue last month, President Paul Biya told a Mo Ibrahim-moderated panel discussion on the sidelines of the second Paris Peace Forum that the root cause of the problem was the country’s background of having been governed by Germany, Great Britain and France.

“My country was divided with the juxtaposition of cultures and civilizations. We have had conflicts that are being resolved at the moment to give the part that was under British colonization a special status,” President Biya said.

The Bilingual Bill appears to have been part of efforts to give the two languages am equal footing, a task complicated by the different cultures, education and judicial systems in the two regions.

Biya said the special status would recognise the needs of the Anglophone zone as part Cameroon’s territory. He said the government had considered integrating English speakers into the majority francophone system but shelved the idea.

“I believe that countries are now concerned about affirming their identity today,” President Biya said in justification for the special status. However, the regions want complete autonomy in a federal state with a rotational presidency which the government has ruled out.

Source: The East African

6, December 2019

US: Joe Biden slams Trump after he was mocked by NATO leaders ⁰

US Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has sought to take advantage of President Donald Trump’s cold reception at a NATO summit in Britain, as footage emerged of other leaders mocking the US president.

In an online election ad released Thursday, Biden said portrayed himself as someone who is highly experienced in foreign affairs and can restore America’s global standing.

Biden, 77, blasted Trump as a “dangerously incompetent” and “incapable” head of state.

“The world sees Trump for what he is; insincere, ill-informed, [and] corrupt,” he says in the video. “And if we give Donald Trump four more years, we’ll have a great deal of difficulty of ever being able to recover America’s standing in the world.”

His online ad features a video of other world leaders mocking Trump at a Buckingham Palace reception held alongside the NATO summit this week.

Biden has touched on Trump’s belligerent style on the world stage repeatedly this week as he travels across the state of Iowa. With his six terms as a senator and two terms as vice president, Biden believes the international experience is a winner for him in the upcoming presidential election.

In an interview with the Associated Press on Thursday, Biden said he not only has a better demeanor and skill set for the job than Trump, but he also has more relevant experience, deeper knowledge and more extensive relationships abroad than his Democratic competitors.

During this week’s NATO summit to mark the 70th anniversary of the military alliance, Trump branded the leader of America’s northern neighbor “two-faced” after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appeared to gossip about Trump in comments caught on camera and microphone.

Trudeau was seen standing in a huddle with French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and Britain’s Princess Anne, daughter of Queen Elizabeth II at Tuesday evening’s Buckingham Palace reception for NATO leaders.

Trudeau could be heard saying incredulously, “he takes a 40-minute press conference off the top.” Trudeau confirmed that was a reference to Trump’s long and unscheduled press conference earlier Tuesday.

Trudeau also said: “You just watched his team’s jaws drop to the floor.” He explained Wednesday that was in reference to Trump’s decision to hold the next Group of Seven meeting at Camp David, the US presidential retreat.

Source: Presstv

6, December 2019

Political Islam: Nigeria transfers Sheikh Zakzaky, wife to ‘dilapidated’ jail ⁰

Nigerian authorities transfer top Shia cleric, Sheikh Ibrahim Zakzaky, and his wife to a dilapidated prison, where many detainees have so far died due to lack of medical attention.

A High Court ordered the Department of State Services on Thursday to transfer the cleric and his wife, Zinat, to the Correctional Center, in Kaduna State, Northwest of the country.

Sheikh Zakzaky, who is in his mid-sixties, lost the sight of his left eye in a 2015 raid by security forces, that left more than 300 of his followers and three of his sons dead. His wife also sustained serious injuries during the raid.

He has been kept in custody along with his wife and a large number of his followers ever since.

Members of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN) said on Thursday that any attempt to take the couple anywhere other than a hospital will put them in further jeopardy.

The IMN described the move as a “mischievous” attempt by the government to humiliate “our leader, Sheikh Ibraheem Zakzaky, and subjecting him to further hardships.”

The IMN said the facilities at the Kaduna Central Prison are dilapidated.

They said it is the same prison where some survivors of the December 2015 raid perished due to lack of medical attention.

“It can therefore never be a substitute for appropriately furnished medical facility that can take care of their urgent medical needs,” the group said in a statement.

It said that by sending them to this prison, the government had “chosen a path of dishonor and shame in charging the Sheikh and his wife for aiding and abetting alleged offences they couldn’t prove in the same court against hundreds of his supporters.”

“They refused to diligently pursue the case, but rather use one flimsy excuse or the other to delay making any progress in the case because of their knowledge that they don’t have a case against them,” the IMN added.

Earlier this year, the IMN accused the Nigerian government of having poisoned Zakzaky in jail after “large and dangerous quantities of lead and cadmium have been found in his blood.”

Back in August, the couple was transferred to India to receive medical care. Days later, however, they had to return to Nigeria after they had “lost all faith” in the prospect of receiving proper treatment there, according to the Islamic group.

“Since that return, the Sheikh and his wife have been largely held incommunicado. No contact with their legal representatives was given and only a minimal contact with doctors and even that only after the Sheikh’s wife took seriously ill in detention.” the IMN said. .

Source: Presstv

6, December 2019

Japan launches human trial of new Ebola vaccine ⁰

Japanese scientists will begin the country’s first human trial for a new vaccine against the deadly Ebola virus this month, they said Friday.

The vaccine, which has previously been tested in monkeys, uses an inactivated form of the virus that can only effectively replicate in artificial cells.

Scientists hope that will make it safer than other treatments, the Institute of Medical Science at the University of Tokyo said in a press release.

“We think there’s high hope for a new, safe vaccine which can be produced effectively,” Yoshihiro Kawaoka, a professor of infectious diseases at the university who helped developed the vaccine, said in the release.

The university will begin the clinical study later in December, injecting 30 healthy adult men with two doses of the vaccine, four weeks apart.

They will be monitored for side effects and whether they have developed immunity to Ebola.

The Ebola virus is passed on by contact with the blood, body fluids, secretions or organs of an infected or recently deceased person.

The death rate is typically high, ranging up to 90 percent in some outbreaks, according to the WHO.

Several Ebola vaccines exist, including rVSV-ZEBOV and a new formula produced by a Belgian subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson that went into use last month in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The country is in the grip of an Ebola epidemic that has killed more than 2,000 people in 15 months.

It is the second most deadly to date after a 2014-2016 outbreak which left some 11,000 people dead and underscored the urgency to bring a vaccine to market.

The current outbreak is the tenth in the country since its first in 1976.

Source: AFP

5, December 2019

Ambazonia: Vice President Yerima says Bank of Ambazonia, Amba Bonds are vital IG financial reforms ⁰

Southern Cameroons Vice President, Dabney Yerima says the establishment of the Bank of Ambazonia and the Amba Bonds Project are necessary reforms carried out by the Interim Government to win the support of the diaspora and to equip the Restoration Forces.

Dabney Yerima made the comments during a telephone conversation with the Cameroon Concord News Group in which he also observed that fighting corruption in the Interim Government has made him a better leader and that financing the Restoration Forces is among the Ambazonia Interim Government’s top priorities.

The Ambazonia Second-in-Command revealed that he will be starting an international mobilization of Southern Cameroonians all over the globe beginning with the Republic of South Africa this December. Comrade Yerima added that the Interim Government’s priority has moved away from fighting corruption and misappropriation of funds to financing the creation of an Ambazonia Defense Force.

President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe replaced the disgraced former Acting President Samuel Sako Ikome under pressure from the Southern Cameroons Diaspora, who accused the gang of fake pastors of stifling the Southern Cameroons revolution and quest for an independent state.

Sako Ikome said at the time that he was the right man to take Southern Cameroonians back to their historic headquarters in Buea. But he reached a dead end in trying to resolve the financial scandal that rocked the Interim Government which has been further complicated by his refusal to obey the Ambazonian leader.

A source familiar with the exiled Southern Cameroons Interim Government cabinet said Sako Ikome and his acolyte, former Communications Secretary Chris Anu were both taking the last kicks of a dying horse.

Speaking at a news conference this week in Holland, Vice President Dabney Yerima indicated that progress had been made strategically in the formation of the Ambazonia Defense Force. He stated that the Interim Government was in agreement with the commanders in Ground Zero to appoint a trusted figure fully backed by all Restoration Forces and supported with a majority of competent, specialized people with military experience.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai in London