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9, November 2017

Nigeria: President Buhari says no going back to Delta insecurity ⁰

Nigeria President Muhammadu Buhari said the country “cannot afford to go back to dark days of insecurity” in the oil-producing Niger Delta region. In a speech to present the 2018 budget, Buhari called on all sides to maintain dialogue.

Last week, the militant group Niger Delta Avengers threatened a “brutal and bloody” return to the violence that last year slashed oil output. Oil minister Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu will visit the region this week in an attempt to maintain the ceasefire.

Buhari also said the country’s exemption from production cuts organised by the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) was a significant help to the country during its “most challenging time.”

Source: Reuters

9, November 2017

US Elections: Southern Cameroonian wins Alderman seat in Somerville ⁰

Another winner last night in the US elections was Wilfred Mbah, who won an alderman seat in Somerville, Massachusetts. Originally from Southern Cameroons now known as the Federal Republic of Ambazonia, he is the recipient of a visa through the diversity-lottery program that Trump announced he wanted to dismantle in the wake of last week’s attack in New York City.

In an interview about his experience as an immigrant, Mbah said of Somerville, “I feel like the city has helped me a lot. Right from the beginning, I had friends that were helping me with job searches, helping me with my résumé.” But, he added,

We cannot leave it up to the generosity of private citizens to look after people who are struggling. I don’t know how many people are out there struggling to live in this city: artists, immigrants, working class people, middle class people. The city government must take a more active role in looking out for people who care about this city, and want to live and grow here.

Democrats won big last night, but there’s an even more important lesson to learn here: Progressive Democrats won big last night.

Source: The Nation

9, November 2017

Togo’s opposition accuses security forces of ‘savage repression’ ⁰

Togo’s opposition on Wednesday accused the security forces of “savage repression” after nearly 20 of its supporters were injured as they tried to protest against the ruling party.

The opposition held the first of three planned demonstrations this week on Tuesday, calling for constitutional reform and the resignation of President Faure Gnassingbe.

But it said its supporters were prevented from taking to the streets in the northern cities of Sokode and Bafilo, despite government permission.

Heavily armed soldiers with their heads and faces covered positioned themselves at the starting points of the protests, breaking up crowds with sticks and tear gas.

In Sokode — the stronghold of opposition leader Tikpi Atchadam — the opposition said 16 people were injured by gunshots and beatings and three in Bafilo, where one disabled person was beaten up.

Protesters face security forces (unseen) during clashes as part of an anti-government protest in Togo’s capital, Lome, October 18, 2017. (Photo by AFP)

Amnesty International said it counted “at least 10 injured” in hospital in Sokode on Tuesday afternoon, including one with gunshot wounds in intensive care.

“There are others in houses,” making an exact number difficult to ascertain, the organization’s country director Aime Adi told AFP by telephone.

“The coalition condemns in the strongest terms this savage repression and the doublespeak of the regime,” the opposition said in a statement.

On Monday, the government had indicated it was open to talks with the opposition and announced the release of 42 people arrested during previous demonstrations.

Since the first protests began in late August, at least 16 people have died and more than 200 others have been injured as hundreds of thousands took to the streets across the country.

Demonstrators were again out in force on Wednesday and are expected again on Thursday.

In a joint statement, the European Union, United Nations and the French, US and German embassies said they welcomed the government’s measures to calm the situation.

It appealed for protests to take place peacefully.

The opposition wants Gnassingbe to step down and the introduction of a two-term limit for presidents, applied retroactively to prevent Gnassingbe standing for re-election.

Gnassingbe has been in power since 2005 and won three elections. His father General Gnassingbe Eyadema was president before him and ruled for 38 years.

(Source: AFP)

8, November 2017

Southern Cameroonian killed in Bafut checkpoint attack named ⁰

Janet Ngwafor has been named as the Ambazonian civilian victim of the attack on the gendarmerie checkpoint in Bafut. She died at a military hospital in the Bamenda County late yesterday.

She succumbed to her wounds inflicted by a bullet on Tuesday night in Bafut. In this attack, two gendarmes were also killed making a total of three deaths in this incident attributed to Southern Cameroons militants who in recent days are multiplying attacks against Francophone law enforcement officers.

In its latest report published last October, the International Crisis Group called on French Cameroun political authorities and international partners to find “strong” measures to prevent the birth of armed insurgency in Southern Cameroons. Speaking on the Southern Cameroons Television, Prof. Carlson Anyangwe blamed the Bafut attack on forces loyal to the Biya Francophone regime and called on the UN to investigate the killings.

Beyond the electoral issues pending the 2018 presidential elections, the sporadic violence of recent months and communications in social networks have shown that Ambazonians are bracing up for an armed struggle.

By Sonne Peter, CCN

8, November 2017

Ambazonian elected Chairperson of the Executive Committee of Commonwealth Parliamentary Association ⁰

An Ambazonian serving as deputy speaker of the national assembly of La Republique du Cameroun, Emilia Monjowa Lifaka has been elected as the next chairperson of the executive committee of Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) for the next three years.

Lifaka got 107 votes out of 192 in the election held at Bangabandhu International Conference Centre on Tuesday.

The other candidates for the CPA chairperson were Niki Raffle, speaker of Cook Islands, Pacific got 70 votes while Shirly M Osborne, MLA of Montserrat, got 17 votes.

All three candidates who contested for the chairperson post were female. CPA secretary general Akbar Khan announced the results of the election.

8, November 2017

Message to Ambaland: Catalonia on standstill amid pro-independence protests ⁰

Catalonia has been brought to a standstill as hundreds of pro-independence protesters blocked the main roads and halted transportation in the Spanish region.

On Wednesday, crowds blocked roads in the regional capital of Barcelona and caused heavy traffic jams on the highways leading to the regional capital. They also brought to a halt the high-speed train service in the region.

Holding Catalonia’s flags and banners, which read “Free political prisoners,” protesters also broke into police lines and gathered in front of Catalan and local government buildings in Barcelona.

Across the region, schools were closed, roads were blocked, and trains ran on a reduced service.

Catalans block a highway near Sitges, during a general strike, on November 8, 2017. (Photo by AFP)

The general strike was called by pro-independence groups and the CSC trade union to protest the imprisonment of members of Catalonia’s ousted government, which used to be headed by Carles Puigdemont.

The biggest labor unions, CCOO and UGT, said they did not support the strike but would hold protests outside their workplaces.

Pro-independence civil organizations ANC and Omnium as well as students are expected to take to the streets throughout the day.

The Spanish central government sacked Puigdemont and dissolved the regional parliament after legislators passed an independence declaration on October 27. It has called early elections to be held on December 21 to replace the sacked regional government.

Two secessionist parties fail to form coalition

Meanwhile, Catalonia’s two main secessionist parties have so far failed to form an alliance to contest the snap regional elections.

The two main secessionist parties, Puigdemont’s PDeCAT and the ERC Party, could not resolve differences that emerged after a declaration of independence last month.

“It has been impossible to form a joint list and we will therefore have to create a joint front from various candidacies,” said ERC lawmaker Sergi Sabria in a statement.

Protesters block the nudo de la Trinidat access road to Barcelona, November 8, 2017. (Photo by AFP)

On Tuesday, Puigdemont called on Catalonia’s political groups to unite against Madrid.

“The ideal would be a broad regional list of parties… that stand for democracy and freedom,” he said.

The ousted leader said that he might be in jail by the time of the elections, “but prison doesn’t deprive anyone of legitimacy.”

On Sunday, Puigdemont turned himself in to Belgian police. Spain had issued an arrest warrant against him on charges of rebellion and sedition. A Belgian judge, however, released him and four of his former ministers on bail.

Source: Presstv

8, November 2017

Gunmen kill 11 traders in Nigeria ⁰

Gunmen have killed at least 11 traders in central Nigeria, police said Wednesday, in the latest violence in the region, which has been hit by decades of ethnic and sectarian strife.

The traders were returning from a rural market in the Riyom district of Plateau state when they were ambushed by “unknown assailants” on Tuesday, said police spokesman Tyopev Terna.

“Eleven people who were returning from a weekly village market in Makera village were shot dead at about 7:30 pm (1830 GMT) yesterday”, he told AFP.

Four other traders were injured in the attack, which happened some 30 kilometers (19 miles) south of the state capital, Jos, heh added.

An investigation has been launched to establish the motive for the attack and to identify the victims, who are believed to be from the Fulani ethnic group.

Plateau state lies in Nigeria’s so-called Middle Belt that separates the predominantly Muslim north from the largely Christian south.

It has long been a hotbed of ethnic, sectarian and religious tensions between indigenous Christian farming communities and the Muslim settler Hausa/Fulani cattle herders.

Tensions typically boil over into tit-for-tat violence over access to land and resources, and the struggle for political control.

Riyom district has been hit by waves of violence between farmers and herders.

A camel herder crosses Yobe river, which separates Nigeria from Niger, on the outskirts of the town of Damasak in North East Nigeria, April, 25 2017. (Photo by AFP)

Last month two people were killed in Jol village in the area after a young herder’s body was found nearby. The cattle drivers were blamed.

At least 29 were killed in an attack targeting people sheltered in a rural primary school in nearby Bassa district.

The attack was apparently in revenge for the death of six Fulani herders who were killed by unidentified assailants in the area.

(Source: AFP)

8, November 2017

Ambazonians urge to form self-defence groups against occupation forces ⁰

Tension is reportedly mounting in many counties in Southern Cameroons ever since the Governing Council renamed the territory as the Federal Republic of Ambazonia. Cameroon Concord News has learned that representatives of the Governing Council are urging locals to form self-defence groups against the “occupation forces”, after the government deployed thousands of soldiers to the various states.

A gendarmerie officer was killed while pursuing Southern Cameroons militants who attacked a school in Jakairi in the Bui County.

“Suspected Ambazonian militants gunned down a gendarme on (Monday) in Jakiri,” a town in the Ambazonia’s northwest, a source close to local authorities said, an account confirmed by the Biya Francophone government. “They killed him with the officer’s own gun,” the sourced added.

Gendarmes were in pursuit when the officer found himself cut off and encircled by the attackers in a forest, the source said. Citizens of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia say they suffer inequality and discrimination, and last month the interim head of state, Sisiku Ayuk Tabe issued a symbolic declaration of independence which was met with a French Cameroun government crackdown.

International monitors say the Southern Cameroons conflict has created a refugees crisis in the Cross River State in Nigeria. At least 255 people have been killed in clashes since late September, but those figures are disputed by the government of the 84 year old President Paul Biya.

By Chi Prudence Asong, CCN

8, November 2017

UK: Prince Charles’s offshore investment revealed ⁰

New documents have revealed that British Prince Charles’s private estate invested hugely in an offshore firm that lobbied to alter deals on climate change.

Leaks from the newly-released Paradise Papers indicated that the Prince of Wales’s private estate, the Duchy of Cornwall, invested millions of pounds in offshore funds and companies to change climate agreements and allow “carbon credits” from rain forests to be traded.

Reports said the investment was regarded as highly sensitive and members of the estate had been sworn to secrecy about the Prince’s involvement.

This comes as the Prince of Wales has long been a vocal speaker on the issue of climate change, making speeches and writing books on the environment since the 1980s.

The main purpose of the Duchy of Cornwall is funding the “public, charitable and private activities of the Prince of Wales and his family.”

Some 53,000 hectares of land in 23 counties belong to the Prince of Wales’s private estate, with latest accounts showing it had assets of 913 million pounds in April.

Many of the leaked documents reveal how politicians, multinationals, celebrities and high-net-worth individuals use complex structures of trusts, foundations and shell companies to protect their cash from tax officials or hide their dealings behind a veil of secrecy.

The Paradise Papers also revealed that about 10 million pounds of the private funds of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth were placed in the Cayman Islands and Bermuda.

The tax evasion controversy adds to the debate on the Queen’s income that is estimated at around 100 million dollars for 2017.

Source: Presstv

8, November 2017

President Trump says he never knew there were so many countries ⁰

US President Donald Trump has candidly revealed his ignorance of geography and international politics, saying he never knew there were “so many countries” until he was elected president.

Trump dropped the clangor while delivering a speech to Japanese dignitaries on the first leg of his Asian tour on Monday, admitting that he had been unaware of the number of countries in the world until he became president and received congratulatory phone calls from world leaders over his election victory.

The US president also referred to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe by his first name as he was recounting how he first became acquainted with the premier during a meeting in New York in November last year, just over a week after his surprise election win.

“So my relationship with Shinzo got off to quite a rocky start because I never ran for office, and here I am. But I never ran, so I wasn’t very experienced. And after I had won, everybody was calling me from all over the world. I never knew we had so many countries,” Trump said.

US President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe review an honor guard during a welcome ceremony at Akasaka State Guest House in Tokyo on November 6, 2017. (Photo by AFP)

The businessman-turned politician continued to explain how inexperienced and ill-informed he had been when he assumed the office, once again proving his incompetence for the post of presidency.

“I didn’t know you were supposed to not see world leaders until after you were in office which was January 20th,” he said.

“You were just not supposed to because it was considered bad form. It was not a nice thing to do and I understand that from the standpoint of the president whose place you were taking,” Trump added. The US president’s offhand comments in Japan went viral on social media and faced massive outrage and mockery.

Trump’s visit to Japan was part of a 12-day Asian tour aimed at urging the international community to place maximum pressure on North Korea over its nuclear and missiles program. On his five-nation Asia tour, the US president will also visit South Korea, China, Vietnam, and the Philippines.

Source: Presstv