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Southern Cameroons Crisis: Police killed in flashpoint city of Buea

11, July 2018

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Police killed in flashpoint city of Buea 0

At least three policemen, including a superintendent, have been killed in fighting between English-speaking separatists and security forces in western Cameroon, local sources said on Tuesday.

The violence, which continued on Tuesday, marks a bloody escalation in a campaign to gain independence for two English-speaking regions from the rest of the French-speaking country.

A local official in Buea, the capital of Southwest Region, said, “two police were killed yesterday [Monday] on the southern part of the city by terrorists.”

A policeman was also kidnapped “and we have no news of him,” the source said. A hospital source gave a higher toll, saying five police and a civilian had died on Monday, and another civilian had been wounded.

On Sunday, a police superintendent in Kumba, a town on the main road out of Buea towards Mamfe, was “slain in cold blood by armed men suspected to be anglophone secessionists,” the official said.

“He was having a drink at home when they killed him,” the source said. The report was confirmed by a local resident.

Separatists in the English-speaking Southwest and Northwest Regions want to break free of the rest of the country, after long protesting at perceived neglect by Cameroon’s francophone rulers.

The campaign began in 2016 with demands for greater autonomy, but radicalised as the authorities refused to make concessions.

After the separatists issued a symbolic declaration of independence last October 1, the authorities responded with a crackdown, and acts of violence and arson attacks on schools are now almost daily occurrences.

According to a government report last month, separatists had killed 74 soldiers and seven police since late 2017 while more than 100 civilians had died “over the past 12 months”.

The United Nations says 160 000 people have been internally displaced and 20 000 have sought refuge in neighbouring Nigeria.

Violence continued on Tuesday in the wake of President Paul Biya’s announcement on Monday before of a presidential election nationwide on October 7.

Biya, at 85 Africa’s longest-serving president, has not made his intentions known. But the main opposition Social Democratic Front (SDF), traditionally associated with the anglophone regions, has designated a candidate, Joshua Osih.

The presence of a large English-speaking minority in Cameroon originates in the colonial period. The former German colony was divided between Britain and France after World War I.

The French colony gained independence in 1960, becoming Cameroon. The following year, the British-ruled Southern Cameroons were amalgamated into it, giving rise to the Northwest and Southwest regions.

Source: AFP


Keeping Biya in power in a divided country through a counterfeit presidential election will undermine efforts to achieve peace

10, July 2018

Keeping Biya in power in a divided country through a counterfeit presidential election will undermine efforts to achieve peace 0

Paul Biya has accepted and announced a President Macron initiative to hold presidential elections in French Cameroun without any attempt at resolving the crisis with Southern Cameroonians. This could be the greatest political disaster in the making for both Southern Cameroons and French Cameroun including the European Union.

The deliberate silence maintain by the 85 year-old head of state and the ever growing influence of the Ambazonian Interim Government in Southern Cameroons  cast doubts on the feasibility of securing the October elections, making it premature to envisage a path towards peace and stability in lawless Cameroon.

The French are currently presenting the presidential elections as the way forward for the so-called one and indivisible Cameroon. However, it is abundantly clear that the French government’s position is more international than local. The plan is very ambitious and very risky, for a country that has been gripped by chaos since the emergence of the Nigerian Islamic sect, Boko Haram and the numerous rebel movements in the Central African Republic.

A plethora of armed organizations and the Interim Government of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia are now in control of Southern Cameroons. Consequently, the idea of postponing municipal and parliamentary elections and focusing on holding presidential elections is unwise.

This President Macron-Buhari led initiative that did not consult powerful local forces and the leadership in Southern Cameroons will achieve nothing but a civil war. Europe and the US want to stabilize Cameroon but the Trump and Macron administrations are not reading from the same script. One very important issue in diplomacy is that whenever the equities are equal, the first one prevails. So, President Biya has opted to listen to French ambassador Gilles Thibault than the prophetic voice of US ambassador, Peter Barlerin.

We of the Cameroon Concord News Group are of the opinion that the presidential elections will not change anything. To be sure, it will make the political situation more intractable. President Buhari does not care about the difficulties of the people of Cross River and Benue States in curbing with the influx of Southern Cameroons refugees.  President Macron and French multinationals, on the other hand are only interested in French business interest and the oil fields in the Bakassi Peninsular.  Both Buhari and French President Macron claim to support Cameroon’s stability and President Emmanuel Macron’s push for a presidential election is an indication that France is ready to gamble with the giant of the CEMAC region.

The French can live with the risks from a destabilization of the Sub Saharan region and will still run the oil and gas fields in Cameroon but spikes in Southern Cameroons refugee numbers crossing into the Federal Republic of Nigeria could generate new security challenges for the Buhari administration. On one hand the Germans and the US government to a large extent believe a transition from Biya to the new generation should come before elections but the French are for presidential elections first.

It is really shocking for the French to still continue to present Biya to the west as a strong leader who can bring order to the country. Biya is expected to continue his often brutal military campaign under the banner of fighting separatists and terrorism in Southern Cameroons. That may well extend from the recent fighting in the South West and the North West into Littoral and West regions.

French support for Biya and granting him international legitimacy without ensuring there is any real form of genuine dialogue with Southern Cameroonians and rewarding potential Ambazonian spoilers such as Paul Atanga Nji in a corrupt, fractured environment may help to disintegrate what is left of French Cameroun.

Pro Biya comedians including French Cameroun political elites are now using the presidential elections as a political tool to avoid dialogue or reconciliation. Cameroon as a nation remains too chaotic for elections with Ambazonian Restoration Forces and the Cameroon government army soldiers indulging in extra-judicial killings, attacking civilians and civilian infrastructure, and abducting and disappearing people.

Southern Cameroonians residing in French Cameroun are now facing the risks of beatings, torture, extortion, sexual violence, and in detention centers nominally under the Francophone dominated army control. The UN revealed that some 161,000 Southern Cameroonians have been displaced internally and another 21,000 registered as refugees in Nigeria. This has created some new dramatic demographic changes and has led to more instability, poverty and violence thus pushing desperate Ambazonians across to Nigeria.

The upcoming presidential elections with the 85 year-old Biya as a candidate will further destabilize the already fragmented political situation. Keeping Biya in power in a divided country through a counterfeit presidential election will undermine efforts to achieve peace and stability making reconciliation between Southern Cameroons and French Cameroun much more difficult to achieve.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai


US: Trump picks Brett Kavanaugh for US Supreme Court, angry protests erupt

10, July 2018

US: Trump picks Brett Kavanaugh for US Supreme Court, angry protests erupt 0

US President Donald Trump has nominated Judge Brett Kavanaugh for the US Supreme Court, provoking angry protests in Washington and elsewhere.

“It is my honor and privilege to announce that I will nominate Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the United States Supreme Court,” Trump said at the White House on Monday.

Kavanaugh’s nomination set the stage for a bruising confirmation battle in the Senate, where Trump’s fellow Republicans hold a slim majority.

If confirmed, the 53-year-old judge will replace long-serving Justice Anthony Kennedy, who announced his retirement on June 27th.

This is the second time Trump nominates a judge for the US Supreme Court. Last April, Trump’s pick for the post, Neil Gorsuch, garnered the Senate’s support after heated debates.

US Judge Brett Kavanaugh (R) speaks after being nominated by US President Donald Trump to the Supreme Court in the East Room of the White House on July 9, 2018 in Washington, DC. (Photo by AFP) 

 

Trump described Kavanaugh as “one of the finest and sharpest legal minds of our time,” saying he is “considered a judge’s judge and a true thought leader among his peers.”

Kavanaugh, who is a Conservative federal appeals court judge, underlined the need for a judge to be independent.

Shortly after the announcement, protesters decrying Trump’s nomination blocked traffic outside of Trump Tower in New York City, leading to the arrest of seven people, according to law enforcement sources.

In Washington DC, people took to the streets to show their opposition to Trump’s pick, chanting, “Hey Hey, Ho Ho, Kavanaugh has got to go.”

Among protesters were US Sens. M Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt) who led a demonstration against Kavanaugh’s nomination on the steps of the Supreme Court in Washington.

Sen. Bernie Sanders speaks with protesters in front of the Supreme Court in Washington on July 9, 2018. (Photo via AP)

 

“Are you ready for a fight? Are you ready to defend Roe vs. Wade?” Sanders said. “This is a tough fight but it is a fight that we can win . . . We have the American people on our side, now we have to go state by state by state to make sure senators do what their constituents want.”

“It’s a huge moment for our country,” said protester Kevin Camps, who was concerned that a more conservative court would undermine environmental protections. “What’s impossible to exaggerate is that this is the final word on most issues in this country.”

Source: Presstv


Kinshasa: President Kabila delays UN chief’s visit, refuses to see U.S. envoy Haley

10, July 2018

Kinshasa: President Kabila delays UN chief’s visit, refuses to see U.S. envoy Haley 0

Congolese President Joseph Kabila has put off a planned visit this week by U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and refused to see U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, who diplomats said had also separately planned to visit Kinshasa.

Kabila, who succeeded his assassinated father Laurent in 2001, was busy organizing Dec. 23 elections and had to postpone a visit by Guterres and African Union Commission chairman Moussa Faki Mahamat, said Congolese government spokesman Lambert Mende.

“As for Nikki Haley I don’t see why and how the president’s refusal to see her has created so much controversy. Nikki Haley … was already in DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) and she met President Kabila,” Mende said.

Haley met privately with Kabila for 90 minutes in Kinshasa in October, warning him that “a relationship with the United States is dependent on how he acts going forward.” Diplomats said she had planned to visit again this week.

The U.S. mission to the United Nations was not immediately available for comment on Haley’s trip.

“Is it the case that in all African countries in the middle of the electoral process these same visitors come to verify if the preparations are going in the right direction? If yes, they are also welcome in our country,” Mende said.

Kabila’s ‘cat and mouse’ game with elections

Kabila was required by the constitution to step down in December 2016 but the election to replace him has been repeatedly delayed.

Since then, security forces have killed dozens of anti-Kabila protesters while surging militia violence has raised the specter of a repeat of civil wars around the turn of the century that cost millions of lives.

Term limits prevent Kabila from running for office again, but he has refused to publicly commit to leaving office and some of his supporters have recently floated a legal rationale that would allow him to stand again.

Candidates are due to register for the presidential election between July 25 and Aug. 8.

U.N. spokesman Farhan Haq said there had been not been any “firm plans” for Guterres to visit Kinshasa. “If and when he’s ready to go there, we’ll let you know,” Haq told reporters on Monday.

Guterres is currently in Ethiopia at the African Union and diplomats said he had planned to visit Democratic Republic of Congo this week. The United Nation’s largest and most expensive peacekeeping mission, known as MONUSCO, is in the country, where some 18,000 U.N. troops and police are deployed.

The Congolese foreign ministry said in a statement that Guterres and Faki “remain welcome in Kinshasa at a date to be agreed on jointly.

REUTERS


Biya sets presidential elections for October 7, amid worsening Southern Cameroons crisis

10, July 2018

Biya sets presidential elections for October 7, amid worsening Southern Cameroons crisis 0

Cameroon’s president Paul Biya issued a decree on Monday saying a presidential election will be held on October 7, amidst a worsening security situation in the Southwest and Northwest Anglophone regions.

As Biya’s decree was being read on public television, the inhabitants of Buea, the capital of the Southwest region were still confined to their homes for fear of going out after witnessing gunfire in the morning between soldiers and Anglophone separatists.

This is the first time that gunfire has been exchanged in neighbourhoods of this city of more than 100,000 inhabitants, that has had a large number of military personnel deployed since the beginning of the English-speaking crisis at the end of 2016.

President Paul Biya, 85, who has been in power for close to 36 years has not announced whether he will run for a seventh re-election, but in May his party sais he is their “natural” candidate.

“Paul Biya is our candidate in the next presidential election, given his eloquent record, his national and international credibility, diplomatic, economic, social and cultural”, wrote leaders of the ruling party and traditional leaders from the South, where Biya comes from.

The same month, the US ambassador to Cameroon, Peter Henry Barlerin, said after a meeting with the president that Paul Biya “should reflect on his legacy and how he wants to be remembered in history books”, provoking strong criticism in the presidential camp.

Biya’s likely opponents

The opposition has described Biya’s state record as “chaotic”.

Among them, Joshua Osih, who was elected in February as candidate of the main opposition party, the Social Democratic Front (SDF, English-speaking).

This 49-year-old businessman contest for the Cameroonian presidency, after Ni John Fru Ndi, leader of the SDF and historical opponent to Biya decided to give way to the “young cadets” of the party.

Other prominent opposition candidates, according to analysts, include Transparency International lawyer and former vice president Akere Muna, as well as the president of the Mouvement pour la renaissance du Cameroun (MRC) party, Maurice Kamto.

On October 7, these candidates will seek the 7 year mandate to run the affairs of the troubled West African nation.

Security crisis

The voting will take place in a delicate context.

The jihadist group Boko Haram is still active in the far north of the country and the English-speaking regions of the North-West and South-West have been facing a serious socio-political crisis since late 2016.

The latter started as a modest industrial strike action by English-speaking lawyers and teachers in 2016, but has since developed into a full blown armed conflict.

Today, fighting between Cameroonian security forces and armed men claiming to be “restoration forces” of an English-speaking state that had briefly emerged between the two world wars, under British mandate, has disrupted business and livelihoods in the Anglophone regions.

According to the government, more than 80 members of the security forces were killed in the fighting.

The UN says up to 160,000 people have fled their homes as a result of the violence, while the Nigerian Emergency Management Agency says 34,000 have fled to Nigeria.

Source: Agencies


Congo-Kinshasa faces upsurge of violence unless a deal is done with President Kabila

9, July 2018

Congo-Kinshasa faces upsurge of violence unless a deal is done with President Kabila 0

Amid a fresh wave of civil unrest in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the international community must question its confidence in President Joseph Kabila to achieve stability in a turbulent region. He has been at the helm since he took over as president in 2001 after his father, Laurent, was assassinated. The young Kabila ruled for a transitional period until 2006, before winning two elections.

He is now in his seventh year of what should have been just five years of his second term and is constitutionally barred from standing again. But he has remained in office after his mandate ended in late 2016. This, as the country awaits a long-delayed election. The delay has sparked deadly protests.

While Kabila cannot legally stand for a third term, the opposition is concerned that he might. Fears among opposition and church leaders have been further fuelled by Kabila’s appointment of three new judges to the constitutional court. Two are well-known allies.

But Kabila has no legitimacy and his authority is disintegrating. If the elections are delayed again there’s a real possibility that central Africa will slide into violent conflict once again. The armed violence is likely to be bloodier than in the past due to the number of fragmented localised groups aiming to grab their slice in one of the world’s most resource-rich countries.

If the international community wants to avoid another major armed conflict on the African content – in addition to the outstanding conflicts in Libya, Nigeria, Somalia and South Sudan – urgent action is needed to negotiate with Kabila for his own peaceful exit before the country slides back into full-scale armed conflict.

Deteriorating situation

In the wake of Kabila’s refusal to cede power, the security situation has deteriorated. At least 10 of Congo’s 26 provinces are in the grip of armed conflict. This has forced over two million people to flee their homes, 800,000 of them children. The total number of internally displaced people is estimated to be 4.5 million while refugees are flocking into Uganda, Tanzania, Angola and Zambia.

The security situation in the DRC is dire. As the violence in Kasai and eastern parts of the country intensifies, escalating conflict in south eastern Congo looks set to continue.

File 20180703 116152 zmz6ac.jpg?ixlib=rb 1.1
President Kabila’s time in government has shown an inability to bring together the various ethnic groups. EPA/Michael Kappeler

More than 70 rebel groups are estimated to be operating in the country. They are all variously involved in skirmishes with the army or, more commonly, prey on civilians. This in turn creates a tangle of ethnic and tribal grievances for warlords to exploit.

In 2012, the M23 rebel movement briefly took the city of Goma. They were eventually thrown out by the Congolese army, supported by the UN. But the current violence in Kasai is threatening to overshadow even that disaster. In August 2017, for example, the “dead city” movements ensured that significant parts of the country’s urban population went on strike.

Some reports have suggested that more than 3,000 people have been killed since the start of 2017. More than 33,000 Kasai residents have fled into Angola. It has been suggested that the Bana Mura- a government sponsored militia – was behind the violence.

Last year major fighting occurred between Twa and Bantu populations in Tanganyika province. And as the year entered its last quarter, Uvira, on the outskirts of Lake Tanganyika, was the site for fighting between the rebel Yakutumba militia and government forces. Government forces fled and the rebels would have taken the city had they not been repulsed by Pakistani peacekeepers.

Despite a failure by the Yakutumba militia to take Uvira, it was a reminder of the level of dissatisfaction rising in the east, since the end of the Second Congo War in 2003. The rise of rebels operating in the east means violence could potentially spread to Kivu and beyond.

Uncertain times ahead

In 2017, presidential and legislative elections were delayed despite the Catholic Church reaching a deal with Kabila. The political crisis was further complicated by the death of long-standing opposition leader Étienne Tshisekedi later in the year.

The election planned for December this year is unlikely to bring together the various groups or solve the outbreak of violence in the country. The most likely candidate with the perceived ability to bring together the different groups is Moïse Katumbi. He has succeeded in rallying together opposition parties into a coalition backing his candidacy – an impressive feat in a country as fragmented as the Congo.

He also has by far the best broad plan to reconcile the country, which is what the country needs if the fragile peace is going to hold. But the country’s attorney general announced recently that Katumbi may not be eligible to stand in presidential elections because he held Italian citizenship from October 2000 until January 2017.

Under Congo’s constitution, its nationals cannot hold dual citizenship and have to petition the government to regain their citizenship if they take up a foreign nationality. But the provision, however, is loosely enforced and many prominent politicians are believed to have second citizenships.

Kabila’s time in government has shown an inability to bring together the various ethnic groups and to control the growth of dissatisfied rebel groups. This is despite the fact that the DRC has the world’s largest UN peacekeeping force, numbering 18,000 blue helmets, who try to enforce a measure of calm in the east of the country.

The ConversationBotswana’s President Mokgweetsi Masisi has said that he hopes to see a commitment from Kabila to leave office at year’s end. More African leaders need to acknowledge the gravity of the crisis and apply pressure on Kabila through existing African Union mechanisms.

Source: News 24


Biya regime deploys more soldiers to check Ambazonian militants attacking the Fako County

9, July 2018

Biya regime deploys more soldiers to check Ambazonian militants attacking the Fako County 0

Yaoundé has deployed more personnel to the Fako County attacked by Ambazonian Restoration Forces today in Muea and Mile 17. The additional troops deployed by the Francophone regime were drawn from the nation’s capital and Douala. The Southern Cameroons freedom fighters staged the raids in Muea and inside Buea.

The French Cameroun commander who received the elements of the Rapid Intervention Battalion on behalf of the Governor of the South West told our correspondent that Yaounde had deployed them, accordingly, to fortify the security arrangement put in place within and around Buea the chief city in the Southern Zone.

The Ambazonian forces carried out coordinated attacks on two fronts beginning from Liongo in Muea and from Bomaka via Mile 17 exchanging gun fire with Cameroon government army soldiers. The Amba fighters reportedly pushed towards Bwitingi and Malingo killing two gendarmerie officers. Troops loyal to the Biya Francophone regime in Yaoundé retreated to Bonduma.

The Southern Cameroons Liberation Army advanced as far as Small Soppo, Long and Razel Streets. Teachers handling this year’s GCE Examination of Shame in Baptist Buea and Lycee Molyko were forced to stop marking and told to hide under benches. A police officer Tiku Richard who attempted to fight back was killed by the restoration forces.

Many of the senior officers who had been scheduled to visit and supervise the newly deployed men were conspicuously absent. The mayor of Buea, Patrick Ekema has appealed to fleeing residents of the affected areas to return as normalcy had been restored and all the affected areas effectively secured with the presence of policemen and other security operatives.

By Sama Ernest in Buea


Southern Cameroons Crisis: Beginning of the End for Biya?

9, July 2018

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Beginning of the End for Biya? 0

Actions by French President Macron and Defense Minister Joseph Beti Assomo this week have given a seal of approval to Ambazonian Restoration forces and could mark the beginning of the end of the Biya Francophone Beti Ewondo dictatorship that has ruled Cameroon for more than 35 years. Despite the fact that French president Emmanuel Macron all but confirmed the presence of French soldiers in Cameroon, the Biya regime denied that French soldiers were fighting in Southern Cameroons.

In the words of our senior contributing editor, Valerian Ekinneh Agbaw-Ebai, Defence Minister Joseph Beti Assomo told MPs that the Anglophone crisis is a Cameroonian problem that will be solved by Cameroonians. He denied the presence of any French soldier either in the SW or NW region an indication that  Beti Assomo did not listen to President Macron during his live town hall in Nigeria, where he said, the goal of the French soldiers in Cameroon was to help re-establish “stability” in the Anglophone regions.

Top aides to the Acting President of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia, Dr. Samuel Ikome Sako and members of other Southern Cameroons restoration groups expect the process to gain independence for Southern Cameroons to be long, complicated and bloody. But they say that events in French Cameroun and President Biya’s succession palaver – once the symbol of Anti Southern Cameroons nationalism – will embolden Ambazonian forces and encourage key foreign countries such as Nigeria to turn decisively against the regime of President Biya.

The United States Senate has had a hearing on the happenings in Southern Cameroons and slowly but surely the Trump administration will agree to allow the Interim Government to open an office in Washington. German MPs have also been pressing for sanctions against the Biya crime syndicate and the SPD party is expected to call for deploying of monitors in Southern Cameroons.

A source in the Bundestag hinted this reporter that the intent of such a deployment would be to deter the Francophone dominated armed forces from killing more Southern Cameroonians and provide independent accounts of clashes with Ambazonian Restoration Forces when they occur. With French government support, it is highly unlikely, however, that the consortium of CPDM crime syndicate headed by the 85 year old Biya would allow monitors into the country after killing more than 1000 Southern Cameroonians since 2016.

The Southern Cameroons opposition to the Interim Government of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia has yet to unify as most South Sudanese did during their struggle for independence. The externally-based Morisc and an obscure organization known as ADF are at odds with the Interim Government.

French Cameroun opposition to Biya including the much respected NOW Movement of Barrister Akere Muna have said the only thing they want to negotiate with Biya is the manner and timing of his departure. Several members of the Cameroon government military have already defected, with many escaping to the Ivory Coast.

The Biya regime’s genocidal campaign in Southern Cameroons is being carried out largely by soldiers from the North and Far North regions and the Presidential Guard – both largely comprised of members of the Beti Ewondo minority. The commanders are predominantly Beti- Ewondo.

Fear of Cameroon devolving into a multi-sided civil war among its numerous ethnic components was a major factor during the President Buhari-Macron meeting in Abuja. But Yaoundé is yet to stop the shooting of innocent Southern Cameroonians.

Over the past few weeks, Biya who lacks the strategic finesse of his legendary political god father, the late Ahmadou Ahidjo – has managed to alienate most of his once ardent CEMAC backers, including President Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea who has reportedly chosen the path to dialogue for his country than excessive use of force.

Recently, a senior French Cameroun political elite told our Yaoundé correspondent, that Biya should see the tragic ends of the ones who declared war against their own people. The MP who hails from the Obala constituency also added that if he were in President Biya’s shoes, he would step down. The American Ambassador Peter Barlerin has also called for Biya to leave and an immediate end to the violence in Southern Cameroons.

Pressure from Paris forced the regime in Yaoundé to allow family members and a group of legal practitioners to meet with the detained Interim President of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia, Sisiku Ayuk Tabe and nine others who were arrested in Nera hotel in Abuja but there were no indications that France, which virtually owns La Republique du Cameroun, was ready to break with the Biya regime.

The main Nigerian opposition party, the PDP has said it will keep the military option open to convince Biya to step down.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai


Tunisia: 9 police killed in attack

9, July 2018

Tunisia: 9 police killed in attack 0

Nine members of Tunisia’s security forces were killed on Sunday in an attack in the west of the country close to the border with Algeria, state news agency TAP reported.

Militants present in rural parts of Tunisia occasionally target security forces, but Sunday’s toll was the highest since 2015, a year in which extremist militants carried out three major attacks.

The police unit from Gar Dimaou in the region of Jendouba was ambushed during a regular patrol, TAP reported.

“The terrorist attackers threw a grenade at the first security car and there were confrontations with firearms,” the report cited a security source as saying.

One of the Arab world’s most secular nations, Tunisia became a target for militants after being hailed as a beacon of democratic change with an uprising against autocrat Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in 2011.

Some militants operate in remote areas near the border with Algeria, which has been fighting the remnants of a major extremist insurgency in the 1990s.

Two of the attacks in 2015 were against tourists, the first at a museum in Tunis and the second on a beach in Sousse. The third targeted presidential guards in the capital, killing 12.

All three attacks were claimed by Daesh.

Tourism, after collapsing, has since gradually recovered.

The government has maintained a state of emergency, allowing it greater powers in its attempts to dismantle militant networks.

(Source: Reuters)


Bundes: SPD leader warns US envoy over talks with carmakers

9, July 2018

Bundes: SPD leader warns US envoy over talks with carmakers 0

Leader of Germany’s Social Democratic Party (SPD) has slammed the new US envoy to Berlin for quietly engaging in talks with major German carmakers over a trade dispute between Washington and the European Union.

US Ambassador to Berlin Richard Grenell has reportedly been in talks with the heads of German carmakers such as BMW, Daimler and Volkswagen. He argues he is empowered by the US administration to work out a solution to the trade dispute.

Grenell, a staunch supporter of President Donald Trump, suggested a “zero tariff” solution, which requires both Berlin and Washington to lift all tariffs on automobile imports from their respective countries.

His closed-door talks, however, prompted a response from SPD leader Andrea Nahles, who said Germany is not “a banana republic.”

“That is news to me that ambassadors hold talks on such issues. What kind of an approach is it?” she said.

“If the US government wants to talk about tariffs with us, then this issue must be discussed between the US Secretary of Commerce and German Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy Peter Altmaier. We are not some kind of banana republic!” Nahles added.

Trump hit the EU, Canada and Mexico with tariffs of 25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminum at the start of June, ending exemptions that had been in place since March.

US ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell

 

Washington currently imposes a 2.5 percent tariff on imported passenger cars from the EU and a 25 percent tariff on imported pickup trucks.

“If these Tariffs and Barriers are not soon broken down and removed, we will be placing a 20% Tariff on all of their cars coming into the US Build them here!” Trump said last month.

The EU also imposes a 10-percent tariff on imported US cars.

Not long after his arrival in Berlin in May, the US envoy prompted anger in Germany by calling on German companies via Twitter to “wind down operations in Iran immediately.”

The move was part of a broader policy taken by the Trump administration to convince European companies to voluntarily disengage with Iran after Washington pulled out from a 2015 landmark nuclear agreement.

 

Source: Presstv


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