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25, May 2017

Trump and Pence’s approval ratings fall to all-time lows ⁰

US President Donald Trump’s approval rating has sunk to a record low, standing at 40 percent, a new poll shows. According to a Fox new poll released on Thursday, 53 percent of voters disapprove of the job Trump is doing. Vice President Mike Pence is also facing the lowest approval rating, 42 percent, and 43 percent disapprove of him.

A similar Fox News poll last month found that only 45 percent of voters approved of Trump’s job performance, and 50 percent approved of Pence’s. The current numbers show a significant drop compared to those from April. The poll numbers also mirror how voters feel about the House Republicans’ latest effort to repeal Obamacare.

Forty percent of Americans approve of the Republican effort to replace the Affordable Care Act, while 53 percent are opposed. Businessman-turned-politician Trump, within hours of taking the oath of office on January 20, fulfilled one of his most impassioned promises he had made during his presidential campaign and signed an executive order to “ease the burden of Obamacare,” which covers some 20 million Americans.

Republicans criticized Obamacare as an excessive government intrusion into the health care market and contended that it was harming economic growth by burdening businesses. Other top issues of the poll included the investigation into possible ties between Russia and the Trump campaign, infrastructure repair, North Korea, and the war against Daesh (ISIL) in Iraq and Syria.

Pollsters also found that voters are most strongly concerned about government spending, with 80 percent saying they were very concerned. The results of the poll, which has a three percent margin of error, are based on interviews with about 1,011 adults.

Source:Presstv

25, May 2017

Kenya: 3 policemen killed in bomb blast ⁰

Three police officers were killed and two others injured when their vehicle ran over an improvised bomb near Kenya’s eastern border with Somalia, a Kenyan official said Wednesday. The police vehicle was moving from Kula Police Post toward the Liboi border town, North Eastern Regional Coordinator Mohamud Saleh said. He said three other officers were unhurt.

The incident came a day after Kenya’s police chief Joseph Boinnet announced al-Shabab extremists were stepping up attacks in the country. Boinnet said the Somalia-based al-Shabab is under pressure from African Union troops supporting Somalia’s weak government against the extremist group’s insurgency.

Al-Shabab, which has ties to al-Qaida, claimed responsibility for Wednesday’s attack in a report by its news agency and said it had killed at least five Kenyan police officers, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors extremist groups. In the last two weeks, attacks by al-Shabab in Kenya’s Garissa and Mandera counties have increased after a lull. Last week, an improvised bomb killed four people in a vehicle, including a minor.

Mandera County has been hardest hit in recent years by an al-Shabab campaign to avenge Kenyan troop presence in Somalia since 2011. Kenya’s troops are part of the AU force in Somalia. Kenya has managed to stop the frequency of al-Shabab attacks in its capital, Nairobi, and major towns, but human rights groups say the government uses methods such as extrajudicial killings that can fuel revenge attacks.

(Source: AP)

25, May 2017

André Onana: It wasn’t to be ⁰

Manchester United claimed their second major trophy of the season and secured Champions League football as they overcame Ajax and Cameroonian keeper Andre Onana to win the Europa League final in Stockholm.

On an emotional night following the attack which killed 22 people at Ariana Grande’s concert at the Manchester Arena on Monday, United’s fans were allowed a measure of celebration as Jose Mourinho’s side won in comfort.

Paul Pogba’s deflected shot put them ahead in the 18th minute and Henrikh Mkhitaryan’s sixth Europa League goal of the campaign, flicked in from Chris Smalling’s header at a corner, confirmed they would add to the EFL Cup won against Southampton earlier this season.

Wayne Rooney made a brief appearance as a substitute with a minute left and the game won, being handed the captain’s armband by Antonio Valencia on what could well be his farewell appearance for United.

And as the final whistle sounded and United’s celebrations began, chants of “Manchester” rang around the Friends Arena in tribute to those who died and were injured in the attack which cast a shadow over this showpiece occasion.

Source: BBC

25, May 2017

Politicization of Military Justice: La Republique Du Cameroun’s Court-Martial Adjourns Again ⁰

The Military Tribunal of La Republique du Cameroun May 24, 2017, adjourned the case against Southern Cameroons Consortium leaders and twenty-five Southern Cameroons hostages among hundreds or thousands held in Detention and Concentration Camps in unspecified militarized locations in La Republique du Cameroun to June 7, 2017. The reason provided for the adjournment is to enable the Court-martial to deliver a decision on the motions for bail submitted by the defense.

It is significant to recall that the cases brought by La Republique du Cameroun through its proxies against Southern Cameroons Christian Church leaders in Bamenda and Buea were adjourned June 5, 2017. Similarly, the Higher Judicial Council called ostensibly to provide cosmetic palliatives to the grievances presented by Southern Cameroons lawyers will be held on June 7, 2017.

Maxwell Oben a Southern Cameroonian SCNC activists has remained in jail for over two years above the maximum allowed by the Penal Code was he tried and found guilty for the offence he was charged. Four other Southern Cameroonians, Mr Numnvi, Mr Kongso, Mr Clovis and one other were invited to appear before another Court-martial in Bamenda on June 5, 2017 to answer alleged charges of terrorism.

The cases against the clergy and the main Christian Churches is pending before the Courts of First Instance in Bamenda and Buea. They were adjourned to the June 5, 2017 the same date as the Bamenda Court-martial. The dates to which these cases were adjourned or fixed for hearing in June 2017 provide evidence of a pre-co-ordination rather than co-incidental scheduling by supposed independent judicial actors. The June 7, 2017 date of adjournment at the Yaoundé Court-martial intended to deliver a bail application decision and the Higher Judicial Council meeting scheduled for the same date are not independent decisions taken without prior co-ordination. It is now obvious that none of the cases will be heard on the merit on the adjournment dates. This confirms our opinion that the cases are nothing more but political swords of Damocles held over Southern Cameroons to harass, intimidate and complement other high handed acts of terror, torture and criminality relied upon by La Republique du Cameroun to subdue and control the Southern Cameroons.

The co-coordinating authorities of La Republique through the close scheduling of these matters in different jurisdictions intend to disorient Southern Cameroonians, deprive them an opportunity to mobilize to protest judicial terror against Southern Cameroons civilians, civilian leaders and religious leaders. The adjournment of the bail decision to June 7, the very day the Judicial Council is meeting is scheduled is intended to serve calculated political and propaganda goals. La Republique knows that the Court-martial may play a balancing act by granting bail under very stringent conditions to the Consortium leaders while keeping Mancho Bibixy and the more than 25 Southern civilians in their dungeon. Similarly, its prized hostage Hon Chief Paul Ayah will remain detained under inhuman military and paramilitary detention although his uncertain professional fate will be determined on June 7, 2017 Higher Judicial Council meeting.

Mr Kongso and others who are in military detention in Bamenda are without lawyers, their lawyers Barrister Bobga and Shufai Blaise Berenyuy haven been forced into exile. Mr Maxwell Oben remains in Buea Prison haven been charged at the Military Tribunal, then charged again at the Magistrate Court in Buea since Paul Biya’s supposed anniversary celebration of the occupation of the Southern Cameroon more than four years ago. Several thousands of other Southern Cameroonians are in unspecified concentration Camps in La Republique du Cameroun.

The scheduling of some of these cases in proximate or the same dates in June 2017, will provide its genocide apologist-in-chief Isa Tchiroma the ammunition to tell the world that the judicial system in La Republique works after all. Together with the potential Judicial Council decision lightening the pressure of La Republique’s Francophone judicial imperialism through posting some of their judges back to their territory, it is hoped that La Republique will attempt to persuade the free world that at long last, it had embarked on a mission to resolve some of the grievances underpinning the revolt of Ambazonia.

La Republique hopes that this smokescreen will provide a fig leaf of manipulation for gullible traditional rulers, CPDM gas bags, corrupt journalists Iscariots and academic merchants to send motions of support thanking President Paul Biya for taking critical steps towards resolving the Southern Cameroons problem and then calling for a resumption of schools and courts in the Southern Cameroons. This reaction will be inimical to the overwhelming interest of Southern Cameroonians.

The fear and pain in the eyes of raped and violated University of Buea female students in military trucks and the lifeless bodies of young Southern Cameroonians cut short by arms procured with money from the rape of the natural resources in their ancestral lands, are good reasons for all Southern Cameroons traditional rulers, political leaders, all and sundry to rally to the battle cry against La Republique’s vampire predators. The crimes perpetrated by La Republique in the Southern Cameroons have violated the permitted limits of the sacred bonds of spiritual and temporal powers of our Kings and guarantors of our culture and traditions.

Any traditional ruler, political leader or community leader whose conscience did not revolt against the bestiality inflicted on the Southern Cameroons’ civilian population, the militarization of the territory and the collective punishment inflicted on women, men and children in the privacy of their homes and in public places and has instead chosen to side with the criminal occupier has chosen a date with the culture of shame and humiliation. These victims could indeed have been their own children. Indeed, as custodians of our traditions, these victims are their children. If sending motions supporting the oppression of their own people, is what makes them truly great, then the timeless God of Justice will grant them their wish of eternally sending motions of support until the ends of time, even when the tyrant god they are worshiping and supporting will no longer be there to feed them with the blood of innocent victims.

The plans and plots of the oppressor, La Republique du Cameroun described above will not dampen the liberating spirit of the freedom seeking Southern Cameroonians. That spirit of freedom is loosed and unstoppable. The events of June and thence on, will escalate and not dampen this spirit of freedom. The free world and Southern Cameroonians know so well that since the beginning of the Southern Cameroons conflict, La Republique has been using outdated models to confront a problem that is no longer entirely within its control, that of the victims of political military justice and that of any single Southern Cameroons leader no matter whosoever. The suffering peoples of the Southern Cameroons under colonial occupation have finally rediscovered their power and their destiny. They have finally realized that no weapon, no matter how lethal can kill a liberation ideology. They are indeed unstoppable in their resolve to reclaim their freedom. Nothing, not even political military justice will stifle the will of the people to be free.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Editor-in-Chief

Cameroon Concord News Group

25, May 2017

UN Secretary General opens channel of communication on safety of journalists ⁰

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres takes concrete steps on safety of journalists issue, setting up a channel for communication in emergency cases and to better coordinate UN bodies. The office of United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres decided to establish a direct and continuing channel of communication with a coalition of press freedom organizations on journalism safety. Guterres made this decision following a February 2017 meeting with Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans frontières – RSF), Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA), on behalf of the #ProtectJournalists coalition. The Secretary-General’s decision comes at a particularly dangerous period for journalists in many countries.

RSF, CPJ, and WAN-IFRA have been campaigning through the #ProtectJournalists campaign for the creation of a new position in the UN in order to implement international law regarding journalists’ safety. The #ProtectJournalists coalition has been in a dialogue with the Secretary-General’s senior staff to ensure that this direct communication channel will allow mobilization at the highest levels of the UN system to respond to emergency cases, and to ensure better coordination among the UN agencies, funds, and programs, as recommended by the UN Plan of Action.

“Secretary-General Guterres told us that he wanted to take immediate action to improve the safety of journalists on the ground and that his closest team will work towards this goal. In a second time, he will continue to consider our initial recommendation to appoint a UN Special Representative for the safety of journalists supported by a worldwide coalition of NGOs, media outlets, journalists and prominent public figures,” said RSF Secretary-General Christophe Deloire. “We deeply appreciate his commitment on this topic, and the decision he has already taken. The world’s major problems, from environmental issues to extremist violence, cannot be resolved without the work of journalists.”

“At a time of unprecedented threats to journalists around the world, we are grateful for the commitments made by the Secretary General to continue to speak out about the importance of the press around the world and to open a permanent channel of communication around emergency cases,” said Joel Simon, Executive Director of the Committee to Protect Journalists.

RSF and members of the #ProtectJournalists coalition will put in place a process to gather and relay emergency cases directly to the UN Secretariat. In the coming weeks, RSF will chair a consultation including international and local press freedom organizations to consider the best process for referring cases, so that cases can be referred to the Secretary-General as soon as possible.

Five hundred and eighty journalists and media assistants have been killed worldwide since the adoption of the UN Plan of Action in 2012, according to RSF research. Impunity remains the norm, with full justice in only three percent of journalist murders in the past decade, according to CPJ analysis.

Pauline ADES-MEVEL

REPORTERS SANS FRONTIÈRES/ REPORTERS WITHOUT BORDERS

24, May 2017

Filthy and inhumane: Biya regime bans Amnesty International press conference ⁰

Police banned a press conference today in Yaoundé organized by the Amnesty International office for West and Central Africa. The officials of the renowned body were surprised at the Biya’s regime reaction and informed press men and women that they had respected all legal procedures but “We are extremely surprised at the ban on this press conference,” said Aliuone Tine, Amnesty International’s regional director for West and Central Africa, facing a dozen policemen in uniform including some elements from the Secret Service.

Cameroon Concord News understands Amnesty International intended to present to the media a petition which recorded more than 300,000 signatures worldwide, through which thousands of people asked the 84 year old dictator President Biya for the release of three students each sentenced to 10 years in jail, for circulating a joke on Boko Haram, by SMS

The three Cameroonian students were convicted of non-denunciation of terrorist acts on the 2^nd of November 2016 and 310,000 people around the world are asking the Cameroonian authorities to release these students and allow them to join their families for them to realize their dream of being able to continue their studies and find a job. Among the signatories of the petition are celebrities like Patrick Mboma, a Cameroonian football legend.

In December 2014, Fomusoh Ivo received an SMS saying, “Boko Haram recruits young people from 14 years. Conditions of recruitment: 4 GCE subjects including religion “. According to Amnesty International, his friend’s SMS was meant to highlight the difficulty of finding a good job without a diploma, and suggested, in the tone of the joke, that included the armed group, Boko Haram.

The young Fomusoh, forwarded this message to Afuh Nivelle Nfor, who then sent it to Azah Lewis Gob. These three young people were charged on 3 March 2015, under the Penal Code and the Cameroonian Military Justice Code.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai with files from Sama Ernest

24, May 2017

Biafran secessionist protestors arrested in Nigeria ⁰

Nigeria arrested 55 members of a Biafran separatist movement during protests in the oil-rich south-east, police said. Secessionist sentiment simmered in the region since the Biafra separatist rebellion tipped the country into a civil war that killed an estimated 1 million people.

In Enugu, a major city in the south-east, 41 members of a Biafra group were arrested, police spokesman Ebere Amaraizu said. “They were not violent per se but they conducted themselves in a manner that could breach the peace,” he said. “They are still in custody and undergoing interrogation.”

In Bayelsa state, part of the Niger Delta, 14 Biafra movement members who had been trying join a protest were arrested, said a police source. Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra campaign group, was released on bail on Friday after being detained for nearly two years. He has been charged with criminal conspiracy and belonging to an illegal society. Amnesty International last year accused Nigerian security forces of killing at least 150 Biafra separatists at peaceful rallies, which the military and police deny.

Defenseweb

24, May 2017

Kofi Annan says Trump should engage in talks with Iran ⁰

Former United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan urges US President Donald Trump to engage in talks with Iran rather than retaining his current antagonistic stance towards the Islamic Republic. Trump has adopted an invariably harsh tone when talking about Tehran, calling it the “number one terrorist state” and criticizing his predecessor Barack Obama for being too soft on Iran.

During his recent Middle East tour, the new US president endorsed Saudi Arabia and Israel’s long-drawn-out practice of Iranophobia. Washington agreed to sell the kingdom USD 110 billion worth of arms to “counter” Iran. The Trump administration has also leveled sanctions against the country over its defensive missile work, which Iran asserts only serves the purpose of deterrence.

A handout picture provided by the Saudi Royal Palace on May 20, 2017, shows US President Donald Trump (2nd-R) and Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud (L) dancing with swords at a welcome ceremony ahead of a banquet at the Murabba Palace in Riyadh. (Via AFP)

“It is important to reach out and talk to Iran,” Annan told The Associated Press on Tuesday. “Iran is part of the solution” to the conflicts in the Middle East, including Syria and Iraq, and “we cannot get away from that fact,” he added.

Iran has been lending military advisory support to the Syrian and Iraqi counter-terrorism operations. It has also been trying successfully alongside Russia, another Syria ally, and Turkey, which backs anti-Damascus militants, to bring the warring sides in Syria to the negotiating table.

Annan said what justified an open approach towards Iran was its reaching out to the world by clinching the 2015 nuclear agreement with world powers. The former UN chief described the nuclear agreement as “good” and welcomed the re-election of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, a key architect of the deal “as a sign that the Iranian people clearly desire peaceful relations with the outside world.”

Trump has described the agreement, which was negotiated under the Obama administration, as the “worst deal ever” and threatened to “tear it up” during his election campaign late last year.

Annan added that Washington’s posturing, including labeling Iran the enemy and a purveyor of terrorism, is not going to contribute to the realization of peace in the region in any way. “What is required is steps which diffuse tensions and divisions, and not steps which deepen divisions,” he said. “And we need to be very careful of what action we take, what we say, because words can soothe, they can calm but they can also provoke and they can also excite.”

Annan also recalled Trump’s comments on the possibility of a meeting with North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un. “Iran has shown more discipline and responsibility than North Korea,” he said. “I can’t understand why he can’t go to Iran, a nation that by signing the agreement is also trying to open up and reach out to the broader world — and that should be encouraged rather than be pushed the other way.”

Culled from Presstv

24, May 2017

2 UN peacekeepers killed in Mali ⁰

Two peacekeepers were killed and a third wounded on Tuesday in an ambush in restive northern Mali, the nation’s UN mission said. The troops were patrolling on foot near Aguelhok, which is close to the border with Algeria, when they were attacked, the mission said in a statement.

A military source told AFP that the soldiers belonged to Chad’s contingent. Stationed in Mali since July 2013, MINUSMA has just over 12,000 military and police personnel working on what is considered the UN’s most dangerous active peacekeeping deployment.

The attack was the latest in “a wave of violence in the last weeks,” MINUSMA chief Mahamat Saleh Annadif was quoted in the statement as saying. A UN peacekeeper from Liberia was killed and nine others injured early this month in a rocket and mortar attack near Timbuktu.

UN peacekeepers stand guard near the airport on February 4, 2016 in Timbuktu, central Mali. (Photo by AFP)

The attack, like many others in the last weeks, was claimed by a powerful extremist alliance (GSIM), a fusion of three Malian extremist groups with previous Al-Qaeda links. It is headed by Malian extremist Iyad Ag Ghaly, a former leader of Ansar Dine.

Mali’s north came under attack from extremist groups linked to Al-Qaeda in 2012 who hijacked an ethnic Tuareg-led rebel uprising. Though the extremists were largely ousted by a French-led military operation in January 2013, extremist groups continue to mount attacks on civilians and security forces in the arid remote north.

(Source: AFP)

24, May 2017

Buea City Council: The sorry record of salaries under Mayor Patrick Ekema ⁰

Four workers of the Buea City Council in Southern Cameroons have embarked on a hunger strike over unpaid salary. The workers who had earlier suspended their strike last week due to the May 20 parade, on Tuesday May 23, 2017 besieged the premises of the regional delegation for Labour and Social Security before moving to the Governor’s office.

The strike leader, Hans Manga Monono is accusing Mayor Patrick Ekema of deliberately keeping their salaries for reasons best known to him. He told reporters that all attempts made to meet the Mayor has met with a stone wall. The workers are Hans Managa Monono 17 month’s arrears, Njie Martin Evakise and Moki Charles Toni 5 months each and Mbua Elizabeth Ngowo 22 months.

Njomo, a staff delegate speaking on behalf of the Council revealed that the four workers had abandoned their duties and cannot today be claiming months of arrears. He said he as a staff representative has not been handed the file of the workers who according to him were supposed to meet him first before taking the matter to court. The striking workers are now waiting on the Governor of the South West region to resolve the situation in their favor.

Source: Cameroon Info.Net