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28, July 2017

Consortium trial adjournments: La Republique’s frustration at its failures ⁰

La Republique’s frustration at its failures despite engagement in numerous campaigns of aggression inside and outside the country has put the regime in a state of instability. This current state of confused identity has prompted the Biya Francophone Beti Ewondo regime to again adjourn the case against the leaders of the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium including 25 other Southern Cameroons detainees. Another hearing has been slated for the 31st of August 2017.

The Francophone regime’s recent escalation of crackdown on West Cameroon-populated counties such as Kumbo, Jakiri, Mamfe, Buea, Kumba, Menji and Bamenda is rooted in its failures in the war against the Nigerian Islamic sect, Boko Haram, the civil war in the Central African Republic, poor management of the Bakassi peninsula as well as the economic crisis that has rocked the CEMAC zone countries.

The crackdown on the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium and its leadership and the continuous adjournments of the case against Dr. Barrister Agbor Nkongho Felix, Dr. Fontem Neba and radio host Bibixy Mancho is bearing witness to the fact that Paul Biya and his gang of Francophone political elites are losing the moral, ideological and political battle inside their own country- La Republique du Cameroun as they kill their own people including Bishop Jean Marie Beniot Bala of the Bafia Diocese.

We of the Cameroon Concord News Group believe and fervently too that the Biya regime is at war with itself and consequently, ghost town operations should be intensified in Southern Cameroons and schools should remain closed.

The Francophone dominated army is slowly but surely losing faith in the commander-in-chief who is likely planning to die in office. Biya is no longer respected and is not liked by his own clan because he has put one tribe against the other in the Center and South regions.

So inside the ruling gang there is a lot of infighting. Now when a regime is not stable within its own ranks and fights its own people in the Far North and in the Southern Cameroons, then it is not at ease and peace with the African Union, the UN and other countries in the CEMAC region. The leadership of the Holy Roman Catholic Church, the Moderator of the PCC and the Baptist Church should read from the same script and come into an agreement that Biya and his men no longer have a place in Southern Cameroons.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai
Cameroon Concord News Group

27, July 2017

11 Drowned soldiers recovered from sunken BIR ship ⁰

The families of the 34 soldiers, who died recently when the “Mundemba” sank off the coast of Debunsha in the Southwest Region, are expected tomorrow Friday 28 July 2017 in Douala for a tribute ceremony organized by the government.

We understand it is going to be hard for some of the family members who will take part in the event at the air base 201 in Douala. In addition to losing loved ones, they will leave the venue without their remains. Of the 34 servicemen including civilians who perished in the BIR boat, only eleven bodies have so far been recovered.

The Minister of Defense will preside tomorrow Friday in the name of the President of the Republic, the ceremony to pay tribute to the victims of the military ship which sunk on Sunday 16 July 2017. The corpses that have been found will be handed over to the families for burial.

By Rita Akana
Cameroon Concord News

27, July 2017

Putin warns of tough Russia response to insolent US sanctions ⁰

Russian President Vladimir Putin has deplored a new round of US sanctions on his country, saying Moscow will definitively respond to the embargos if they are implemented.

“It’s impossible to endlessly tolerate this kind of insolence towards our country,” Putin said on Thursday, referring to a recent vote in the US House of Representatives, where lawmakers endorsed an anti-Russia sanctions bill.

Putin, who was speaking at a joint press conference with Finnish President Sauli Niinisto in Savonlinna, said Russia’s patience with the US was waning as Washington was continuing to impose back-to-back sanctions on Moscow.

He said Moscow would definitively respond to the new US measures, adding that the size and scale of a possible response would depend on how Washington would decide to go on with the sanctions, which should be ratified in the Senate and signed by US President Donald Trump before it becomes law.
“We are behaving in a very restrained and patient way, but at some moment we will need to respond,” Putin said, adding, “When the response will be and what it will be — that we will see.”

Russia has been under a series of US sanctions since a crisis began in Ukraine in 2014. The new measures, however, come after Russia was accused of interfering in the US presidential election last year. Moscow denies any involvement in both cases. Officials in Moscow say new US bans on Russia would harm the interests of both nations.

In his remarks, Putin said investigations into alleged collusion between Russian officials and Trump’s campaign aides in last year’s elections were a sign of “a rise in anti-Russian hysteria” in the US. He called the case all but a “battle between President Trump and his political opponents,” adding that “Russian-US relations are being sacrificed to resolve questions of domestic politics.”

Elsewhere in his remarks, Putin said warmer ties between Washington and Moscow would help the two sides achieve better results in the “fight with terrorism,” adding that if the two act in agreement, they “could solve very acute problems much more effectively.”

Source: Presstv

27, July 2017

Dead sperm whale found washed up on Cameroon beach ⁰

The body of a whale estimated at 14 meters long was washed up on the beach at Yoyo I in the Littoral region of French Cameroun. The discovery though not an unusual event quickly attracted people, including young men and women always eager for photos to post on social networks.

We gathered that it was a motorcycle rider who first saw the carcass at dawn. The local population rushed to the scene to get portions of the flesh but was discouraged by officials of the Conservation of the Douala-Edea Wildlife Reserve. The flesh of the whale was declared not good for consumption.

The tide reportedly moved the impressive carcass some seven kilometers, dragging it to a place called Kombo Molaka, a fishing camp. The smell had started to inconvenient the residents of the area. Consequently, under the guardianship of conservation experts, the body of the Sperm Whale was cut up and burned.

The big sperm whale is a kind of big toothed whale whose size makes it the largest carnivore in the world. Its body is grayish and its head is parallelepipedic, representing a third of the body mass. It can weigh up to 16 tons.

By Sonne Peter with files from Cameroon Info.Net

27, July 2017

Peer Educators in Cameroon Promote HIV Testing for Mothers, Babies ⁰

As the world’s AIDS experts meet at a conference this week in Paris, health workers in Cameroon still struggle to identify and treat HIV-positive mothers and babies. Myriam Anang lost her husband and three-month-old baby two years ago to HIV. Now, Anang works as a peer educator in a government-initiated program to help others become better informed.

She was among the speakers in northern Cameroon at a gathering addressing AIDS and HIV. Anang said that when she tries to persuade sick villagers to go with their babies for HIV screening, they argue that they are not ill, but bewitched by their relatives. She said she knows three men who died of HIV, yet their wives have refused to take their babies to the hospital, claiming the families are suffering from a spell.

Anang did not have prenatal care. She delivered her baby at a traditional birth attendant’s home. It was only afterward, when she became sick, that she went to a hospital and found out she had HIV. In 2016, the government found that seven out of 10 women in the northern part of the country were not visiting hospitals when they were pregnant. About a third of those who did go to a hospital never returned for postnatal visits, even if they had tested positive for HIV.

The job of the peer educators is to identify pregnant women in their villages and encourage them to get medical care, even reminding them of their hospital appointments. The government says that since the start of the program, seven out of 10 pregnant women identified by peer educators now visit a hospital.

The results of a mother’s HIV test take a day. However, newborns need a special screening, and the bloodwork can only be processed a thousand kilometers away in the capital Yaounde, says Georgette Wekang, head of HIV Control and People Living with AIDS in Cameroon’s Ministry of Health.

Wekang says it takes between six and seven months for the results to be brought back from Yaounde and that, at times, those results are delivered after the babies have died. In addition, she says, fear of stigma prevents some women from returning with their babies for follow-up appointments.

The U.N. Children’s Fund estimates that in northern Cameroon, 40 percent of HIV-positive children do not receive treatment. Health officials say it is important to begin treatment as soon as possible after diagnosis.
The government of Cameroon has begun trials with new testing machines to reduce the time parents must wait for a baby’s test results. While antiretroviral drugs are provided for free, patients are requested to pay for laboratory tests.

In northern Cameroon, parents are told they can take their children to the town of Garoua for treatment. However, Mireille Yaki, the medical officer in charge of the hospital, says the facility regularly runs short of the antiretroviral drugs, and many parents stop bringing their children for treatment.

Source: VOANews.com

27, July 2017

Buhari governing from the UK ⁰

Nigeria is currently being run from the United Kingdom as ailing President Muhammadu Buhari received seven governors of his country on Wednesday. The delegation was led by the governor of Zamfara State, Abdulaziz Yari, who is also the president of the Forum of Governors in Nigeria and included Umar Ganduje (Kano State), Kashim Shettima (State of Borno), Samuel Ortom (State of Benue), Udom Emmanuel (State Of Akwa Ibom) and Abiola Ajimobi (State of Oyo).

The predominantly corrupt APC governors delegation took pictures with Buhari in an implicit way for the presidency to deny rumors that Buhari was in very poor health. The photographs were made public by Aso Rock but the governors have not yet commented on the visit.

The visit of the governors to Buhari was announced last Tuesday by three presidential spokespersons, Femi Adesina, Garba Shehu and Laolu Akande at a press briefing. The governors’ visit came a few days after last Sunday’s visit by leaders of the ruling APC party. Ever since the return of Buhari to London on May the 7th for medical treatment, he was no longer seen in public.

By Chi Prudence Asong
Cameroon Concord News

27, July 2017

Boko Haram kills 2 gendarmes’ in Far North region attack ⁰

Two gendarmes were killed and several others injured during a Boko Haram attack in the Far North Region near the Nigerian border on Wednesday, a military official told Anadolu Agency on Wednesday.

“Members of Boko Haram launched an attack at a gendarmerie station at dawn in the town of Sagme near Fotokol around the Lake Chad area and the incursion resulted in the death of two gendarmes,” Brig. Gen. Frederick Ndjokep, commander of a regional force, said

“Several other soldiers were injured during the attack,” Ndjokep added. “The heavily armed assailants fled to Nigeria via river when an army reinforcement arrived,” a military source, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to restrictions on talking to the media, said.

This is the second attack at a military post in the Far North Region since Monday. Last Monday, Boko Haram attacked a military station of the Multinational Joint Task Force that left a soldier dead, according to the military.

The latest attack comes as 10 Cameroonian regional governors gathered in the capital Yaounde to find solutions to the fight against terrorism that has hit the country’s economy hard. Last month, the Ministry of Defense announced the recruitment of more than 7,000 gendarmes and military personnel as part of the fight against Boko Haram.

Around 26 million people in the Lake Chad region have been affected by Boko Haram violence and more than 2.6 million displaced, according to the UN. Cameroon is part of a regional task force that aims to eradicate the militant group that has so far killed more than 2,000 people in the country, according to government officials.

Source: AA.com

27, July 2017

It’s a mess: Freight train carrying diesel fuel derails at Makondo ⁰

The cargo train has derailed at Makondo, the chief location in the Ngwei district of the Sanaga-Maritime Division, Littoral region. Witnesses say several wagons loaded with diesel fuel found themselves in the ravine, after being detached from the locomotive that continued its movement. The cause of this new derailment remains to be determined.

Scores of people reportedly escaped from the scene when the wagons began to pour their contents. A similar accident had occurred on the 14th of February 1998 in the Nsam Efoulan neighborhood in the capital Yaoundé that claimed the lives of hundreds of people.

Cameroon Concord News gathered that a legion of the gendarmerie was deployed at the site of the accident and the only victim was rushed to a nearby hospital.

By Rita Akana
Cameroon Concord News

26, July 2017

USA: Senator recorded saying Trump ‘is crazy’ ⁰

US Senator Jack Reed was accidentally recorded telling Senator Susan Collins that President Donald Trump “is crazy” while the two lawmakers discussed the federal budget and Trump’s lack of familiarity with the details of governing.

Someone sitting near Collins, a Republican from Maine, didn’t switch off a microphone near her at the end of a Senate subcommittee hearing on Tuesday, according to The Washington Post. After Reed, a Democrat from Rhode Island, praises Collins’ handling of the hearing, she laments the Trump administration’s handling of spending.

“I swear, [the Office of Management and Budget] just went through and whenever there was ‘grant,’ they just X it out,” Collins says. “With no measurement, no thinking about it, no metrics, no nothing. It’s just incredibly irresponsible.”

“Yes,” Reed replies. “I think – I think he’s crazy,” apparently referring to the president. “I mean, I don’t say that lightly and as a kind of a goofy guy.”
“I’m worried,” Collins replies.

“You know, this thing — if we don’t get a budget deal, we’re going to be paralyzed,” Reed says. “The DoD (Department) of Defense) is going to be paralyzed, everybody is going to be paralyzed.”

“I don’t think he [Trump] knows there is a BCA (Budget Control Act) or anything,” Collins says, referring to a 2011 law that defines the budget process.

Ousted FBI Director James Comey reportedly told associates in March that Trump was “outside the realm of normal,” even “crazy.”

Comey made the remarks after Trump suggested former President Barack Obama had spied on him. Trump was furious when Comey publicly dismissed his spying claims. Comey told the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee in March that his agency had “no information” to back Trump’s allegations.

In May, Trump fired Comey, who had been leading a politically-charged investigation into alleged ties between the Trump presidential campaign and Russia, telling him it was time for a “new beginning” at America’s “crown jewel of law enforcement.”

Source: Presstv

26, July 2017

New wildfire in southern France prompts evacuation of thousands ⁰

At least 10,000 people were evacuated overnight after a new wildfire broke out in southern France, which was already battling massive blazes that have consumed swathes of forest, authorities said Wednesday. The new fire came a day after France asked for Europe’s help to tackle the flames already raging in the tinder dry south, including near the popular resort of Saint-Tropez.

“The evacuations, at least 10,000, followed the progression of the fire. It’s an area that doubles or triples its population in summer,” said a fire service official of the blaze near Bormes-les-Mimosas on the Mediterranean coast.

The number of people on France’s Cote d’Azur bulges in July and August as holidaymakers head to the beach, though the area is experiencing an exceptionally hot, dry summer that has made it especially vulnerable to fires.
On Tuesday, over 4,000 firefighters and troops backed by 19 water bombers had already been mobilized to extinguish the flames, which have left swathes of charred earth in their wake. At least 12 firefighters have been injured and 15 police officers affected by smoke inhalation since the fires broke out on Monday, according to the authorities.

The blazes on Tuesday had devoured around 4,000 hectares of land along the Mediterranean coast, in the mountainous interior and on the island of Corsica. With strong winds and dry brush creating a dangerous mix, the government asked its European Union partners to send two extra fire-fighting planes — a request immediately fulfilled by Italy, according to the EU.

But one union official denounced what he said was a lack of spare parts preventing all the aircraft required from being put into action. Interior Minister Gerard Collomb announced on Tuesday that France would be adding six more firefighting planes to its fleet during a visit to Corsica.

(Source: AFP)