Communist-run Cuba is to officially recognize the ownership of private property in an effort to boost its economy.

Private property has long been officially rejected in the Communist state as a sign of decadent capitalism.

Ruling Communist Party newspaper Granma reported on Saturday, however, that a new constitution, to be put to a referendum, recognizes free market policies and private property.

The new constitution also creates the position of prime minister alongside the president, according to Granma.

The document, by creating the position of prime minister, divides the roles of the head of state and the head of government.

The new constitution also imposes a term limit on the presidency of two consecutive five-year periods.

However, Granma said the constitution reaffirmed that central planning and state enterprise remained as the pillars of Cuban economy.

It said the government commission reforming the constitution will present its draft to the national assembly when it meets next week. It will then be put to a national referendum, expected later this year.

The commission is headed by former president Raul Castro, 87, who remains the head of the Communist Party.

Castro’s market reforms have prompted hundreds of thousands of Cubans to join the ranks of the island’s self-employed since 2010, in new privately-owned businesses ranging from restaurants to beauty salons.

Castro, who together with his older, the late revolutionary leader Fidel Castro, ruled over Cuba for nearly six decades, had proposed the reforms in 2011, as part of a bid to modernize the political system.

Fidel led the revolution that toppled Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959. He died in November 2016.

Source: Presstv

More than 21,000 people from Cameroon’s Anglophone region have fled to Nigeria in recent months. Not only do they struggle to find enough to eat but also have to come to terms with their traumatic experiences.

Pauline Agba knows many residents of the Adikpo refugee camp. They keep stopping her on her rounds to talk about their situation. Agba works for the Caritas Justice, Development and Peace Committee (JDPC). Together with 20 colleagues and other help organizations she tries to provide for the refugees’ needs. “A couple of days ago the water pumps stopped working,” she said. Now the water supply is functioning again. On this particular day, 34-year-old Napoleon Egumu stops her to ask for building material. “We need doors, to build our houses,” he said, pointing at the unfinished structures.

Nearly 1,100 people, most of them Cameroonians, live in the camp in Nigeria’s Benue state. It doesn’t look like other refugee camps. Small houses are being built everywhere. The children go to schools nearby. The refugees and the local authorities, as well as international organizations, do not expect the conflict in Cameroon to stop anytime soon. They believe the number of refugees will increase.

The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) says that more than 21,000 people have left Cameroon since October 2017. The majority fled to Nigeria’s Cross River State, followed by Benue and Taraba. “New people are arriving every day,” said Remigius Ihyula, a priest and JDPC coordinator.

Dreams of independence

The refugees fled Cameroon due to the ongoing conflict in the Northwest and Southwest regions. The population there speaks English and not French which is widely spoken in the rest of the country. But Anglophones make up only 20 percent of the 25 million Cameroonians. They have been complaining of discrimination for years. “We suffer. Our children do not get any jobs. We do not have roads, only villages,” said Dorothy Offum, who fled with seven of her own children, two grandsons and two other children.

35-year-old Offum finally feels safe in Adikpo. The fact that the refugee camp is three hours away from the Cameroonian border helps. “We discussed this with the government. Keeping them closer to the border would have increased a sense of uncertainty. The Cameroonian government might have come looking for them,” said UNHCR representative in Nigeria, Antonio Jose Canhandula. However, there is a logistical challenge. New refugees have to be picked up in places like Abande. Due to the bad state of the roads, this can take several weeks.

The refugees’ flight is fraught with danger. Dorothy Offum took a whole week to reach the border. She kept having to hide in the forest until she finally reached Adikpo months later. What she saw still haunts her. “The day we fled they shot at people. Some managed to hide in the bush. Others died.” A woman sitting next to her nodded silently. Later she told us that one of her children was killed on the way to Nigeria.

More than one conflict

It takes the refugees a while to be able to talk about what they’ve experienced. “Many people are traumatized. We haven’t had a chance to deal with this yet,” Remigius Ihyula told DW. The conflict has attracted little attention worldwide, he added. One reason is that Nigeria’s Middle Belt, where the state of Benue is situated, is itself in a deep crisis. Hundreds have died in a conflict between farmers and herdsmen since the beginning of the year. Thousands have left their homes.

When visiting Benue, Antonio Jose Canhandula was made aware of the situation. The Nigerians who have been displaced are now also receiving aid. Canhandula expects the number of Cameroonian refugees to go up. “According to our information, the situation in Cameroon is not improving; it is getting worse,” he said.Separatist violence grips anglophone western Cameroon.

Source: Deutsche Welle

A blimp depicting Donald Trump as an orange, snarling nappy-wearing baby flew outside the British parliament in London on Friday, launched by critics of the U.S. president who are demonstrating throughout his visit to the country.

Trump, who arrived on Thursday, said he would avoid London as much as possible to avoid the protests.

“I guess when they put out blimps to make me feel unwelcome, no reason for me to go to London,” he told the Sun newspaper. “I used to love London as a city. I haven’t been there in a long time. But when they make you feel unwelcome, why would I stay there?”

Many British politicians regard close ties with the United States, which they call “the special relationship”, as a pillar of foreign policy and Prime Minister Theresa May has courted Trump before the country’s departure from the European Union.

But some Britons see Trump as crude, volatile and opposed to their values on a range of issues. More than 64,000 people have signed up to demonstrate in London against the visit while other protests are expected around the country.

Around 1,000 people gathered to watch the blimp launch in Parliament Square, with organizers of the stunt wearing red boiler suits and baseball caps emblazoned with “TRUMP BABYSITTER”.

Nicola Tanner, a 33-year-old public official from the southwestern city of Bristol, took the day off work to demonstrate. Wearing a t-shirt with the word “RESIST” on it, she said it was great that the blimp had “touched a nerve” with Trump.

“It’s embarrassing how much our government is falling over themselves to try to appease someone who has no interest in any sort of give-and-take in the UK-U.S. relationship at all, and is so capricious he can change his mind between the end of one tweet and the start of the next one,” she told Reuters.

After a countdown from 10, a cheer went up as the six-meter (20 foot) high balloon rose up. It hovered around 10 meters off the ground, next to the Westminster parliament building and near the River Thames.

Organizer Daniel Jones, 26, a charity communications officer, said they were trying to make people laugh as well as making a serious point. “It’s also about giving a boost to those in America resisting his policies,” he said.

One man dressed as a gorilla and wearing a plastic Trump mask, stood inside a large metal cage.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan, who was criticized by Trump in the Sun interview for failing to control crime and prevent militant attacks, gave his blessing for the blimp to be flown.

Khan rejected suggestions this showed a lack of respect for the U.S. president. “The idea that we restrict freedom of speech, the right to assemble, the right to protest because somebody might be offended is a slippery slope,” he told BBC radio. “We have a rich history in this country of having a sense of humor as well.”

(Source: Reuters)