2, January 2018
French Cameroun 2019: CAF Appoints Inspection Team 0
The Confederation of African Football, CAF, have set aside a new date to inspect Cameroon’s state of readiness regarding the 2019 African Cup of Nations. The football governing body has appointed an inspection team that will visit Cameroon for 12 days from January 11 to 23 to assess the country’s progress as it prepares to host the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations. The delegation will inspect facilities such as stadiums and hotels in host cities towards the successful organisation of the 32nd edition of the biennial tournament scheduled for June and July 2019.
According to FECAFOOT’s Dieudenno Happi, he said the country is on the right track and will be ready to host the tournament. “The CAF has informed us that the inspection visit should take place on January 11-23,” he said in an interview with Actu Cameroun. “Based on the current level of progress, what we understand is that even if this visit was taking place this week, I think Cameroon would be ready. “Besides, it’s not a secret, I can deliver it to you too, I told Ahmad Ahmad at the CAN organizing meeting in Cairo. “I told him that Cameroon would be ready to receive the visit of this mission of the CAF in November 2017. “It’s good because I knew that the work was progressing normally, that logically, there should be no problem. And the decision to come rather in the first quarter of 2018 is a decision of the CAF and is welcome.“
Source: Leadership.Ng
2, January 2018
Pope says refugees’ hopes must not be dashed 0
Pope Francis has used his traditional New Year’s Day address to highlight the plight of refugees seekers, describing them as the world’s “weakest and most needy.”
In a Monday speech before an estimated 40,000 people who had converged at St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican, the Pope also said he had chosen the plight of migrants and refugees as the theme for the Church’s World Day of Peace, celebrated annually on January 1.
“For this peace, to which everyone has a right, many of them (the refugees) are willing to risk their lives in a journey, which is often long and dangerous; they are willing to face strain and suffering,” the pontiff said.
In November last year, the pope had released a message in which he said the politicians who incited fear of migrants were sowing violence and racism. He acknowledged, however, that the intake of refugees could complicate existing problems in a country, while appealing for practical solutions for welcoming newcomers.
Pope’s remarks about the plight of refugees come as some have questioned his response to the exodus of widely-persecuted minority Muslims from Myanmar to Bangladesh. In a trip to Myanmar last November, the pontiff refused to refer to the minority Muslims by their community name, the Rohingya, because of concerns not to unsettle the Myanmarese government.
More than 620,000 Rohingya have fled state-sponsored violence in Myanmar to Bangladesh. 40,000 have also escaped from Southern Cameroons into Nigeria.
In Myanmar, the Pope made no explicit mention of the brutality, amid reports that he had been warned by advisers against mentioning the word “Rohingya” out of fear that it would turn the country’s military and government against minority Christians in Myanmar as well.
Over the past months, Myanmarese government troops and Buddhist mobs have been raping, killing, and arbitrarily arresting the Rohingya. They have also been carrying out mass arson attacks to destroy houses in predominantly-Rohingya villages in the west of the country.