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20, March 2022

Negotiation is only way out of war, Ukraine’s Zelensky says ⁰

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday renewed his plea for talks with his Russian counterpart, taking to US television to say negotiations were the only way to “end this war.”

He stressed that he and President Vladimir Putin were the only principles able to thrash out a deal to stop the fighting, now in its fourth week.

But he signaled he would lay down red lines against ceding Ukrainian territory, including two pro-Moscow breakaway regions.

“I’m ready for negotiations with him,” Zelensky told CNN show “Fareed Zakaria GPS.”

“I think without negotiations we cannot end this war,” the Ukrainian leader said through a translator.

The reiteration of Zelensky’s call for peace talks came as he and other Ukrainians accused Russia of committing war crimes after authorities said the invading forces had bombed a school sheltering some 400 people in the besieged city of Mariupol.

“Russian forces have come to exterminate us, to kill us,” said Zelensky.

The leader, who has emerged as a national hero for his very public stance against Putin and his forces, has spoken of Ukrainians’ fierce resistance to the invasion and told Russia that several thousand of its soldiers have died in battle so far.

“If there is just one percent chance for us to stop this war, I think that we need to take this chance… to have the possibility of negotiating, the possibility of talking to Putin,” he said.

“Dialogue is the only way out,” and “I think it’s just the two of us, me and Putin, who can make an agreement on this,” Zelensky said.

“If these attempts fail, that would mean that this is a third world war.” Zelensky repeatedly has warned of the potential for the Russia-Ukraine conflict to mushroom into an all-out global war.

Last month, in a move seen as precipitating the conflict, Putin recognized two breakaway regions of eastern Ukraine, Donetsk and Lugansk, as independent entities, and debate has simmered about whether Zelensky might concede the regions as a way to bring the war to a close.

But on Sunday Zelensky stood defiant: “You cannot just demand from Ukraine to recognize some territories as independent republics,” he told CNN.

“These compromises are simply wrong,” he added. “We have to come up with a model where Ukraine will not lose its sovereignty, it’s territorial integrity.”

The crisis in Ukraine, in which Putin has sought to eradicate pro-Western leanings in the ex-Soviet state, has already triggered the largest refugee crisis in Europe since World War II.

Source: AFP

20, March 2022

Manchester: Sasse Old Boys Celebrate St. Joseph’s Feast Day ⁰

Members of the Sasse Old Boys Association in the United Kingdom joined their counterparts throughout the globe to celebrate Saint Joseph’s Feast Day, the day established to honour St. Joseph as the spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the step-father of Jesus Christ with church services and convention.

Preaching the sermon at Our Lady and Lancashire Martyrs Diocese of Salford, Fr Emmanuel Nuh in his homily gave a justification on why the Feast of Saint Joseph is now a popular custom deep within the Holy Roman Catholic Church.

Fr Peter Watson and Fr Bill Tollah both former lecturers at Saint Joseph College Sasse were full of praise for SOBA UK. The two retired clerics expressed their joy and satisfaction meeting with the new generation of Sasse Old Boys.

The Sasse Old Boys were reminded that anyone who comes to Sasse College begins a life-long academic journey that makes you a part of God’s plan.

The Alumni life simply focuses on multiplying and consolidating individual and collective gains deep within SOBA UK and it is available to all ex-students of Sasse College residing in the United Kingdom and all should avail themselves of the opportunity by accepting to be members of SOBA UK.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

20, March 2022

Biya regime owing teachers up to 10 years of salary arrears ⁰

Cameroon has sent government ministers and governors to convince disgruntled teachers to return to classrooms and teach. The teachers have been protesting for a month, demanding better pay and the payment of salary arrears, some dating back 10 years.

Cameroon officials say opposition politicians and what the government calls irresponsible civil society groups are encouraging protesting teachers to continue to defy state authority.

The government says several dozen politicians and civil society groups are asking children to not go to school and teachers not to teach until the government provides all their needs.

Cameroonian teachers have been protesting for a month, demanding better pay and working conditions.

Eleven political parties, including the Social Democratic Front, the Union of Cameroon People and the Cameroon Peoples Party, have asked the government to find satisfactory and definitive answers to the teachers’ demands. They said the protest is legitimate.

The government has asked senior state officials including governors and ministers to convince teachers to return to classrooms and teach.

Nalova Lyonga, Cameroon’s minister of secondary education, says Cameroonian President Paul Biya promised to pay teachers’ outstanding transportation fares and salary arrears gradually starting this month.

“Teachers, please come back. Don’t go to the streets. There is no need to go to the streets because the head of state is listening. We are going to make the teachers proud. We have to do that, so let me get my teachers back,” she said.

Lyonga said many teachers refuse to return to the classrooms but did not say how many.

The teachers say about 80,000 of them are owed a total of about $200 million.

Biya this month ordered the payment of $4 million in back pay for striking teachers who graded exams. Teachers dismissed the amount as insufficient.

Cameroon also promised to pay $34 million this month and said the rest of the transportation fares will be paid gradually. While some teachers returned to work, others again said the money is largely insufficient.

Eloundou Patrice, a spokesperson for OTS, a teachers’ pressure group spearheading the protest, says when a similar protest was held in 2017, Cameroon’s government said Biya ordered the payment of salary arrears. Eloundou says one month of salary arrears for some teachers was paid, and when the protest was called off, the government stopped settling the debts to teachers. He says he does not trust Biya and his government.

The government continues to claim it will improve the living and working conditions of teachers by providing their needs gradually.

Teachers say some of them are owed up to 10 years of salary arrears. They also asked for the monthly salaries of primary school teachers to be increased from about $150 to at least $400 and those of secondary school teachers to be increased from about $400 to at least $800.

Source: VOA

19, March 2022

Mamfe Diocese: Bishop Fondong Abangalo bags doctorate degree with distinction ⁰

The newly appointed Bishop of the Diocese of Mamfe His Lordship Aloysius Fondong Abangalo, has defended a Doctorate thesis in Canon Law at the Pontifical University, Urbaniana, Rome.

Cameroon Concord News understands the academic ritual was staged on March 16, 2022 at the Boardroom of the Faculty of Social and Management Sciences, bearing on the topic: “Parish Goods and Administration in a Diocese: Case in the Diocese of Buea. A study of Canon 532 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law”

After an intense and productive interactive session between the candidate and the panel members, the Man of God- Aloysius Fondong Abangalo was awarded grade A with a distinction in the impact-full work.

19, March 2022

Yaoundé: Another living corpse re-elected head of the Francophone dominated Senate ⁰

87-year-old Marcel Niat Njifenji was for the ninth consecutive time elected as head of the Francophone dominated Upper House of parliament on Friday, March 18, 2022, after an uncontested election.

As in the National Assembly known as the Lower House, the election of the executive board of the Senate took place without any big surprise, with the renewal of Marcel Niat Njifenji’s mandate as president of the upper house of parliament. Niat was elected with 84 votes out of 87 with 3 invalid ballots.

The barons of the ruling CPDM crime syndicate who have absolute control of the two houses renewed their confidence in Niat for an additional year. This is the ninth consecutive time he has been reelected to this position since 2013.

Like Cavaye Djibril of the Lower House, Niat too is a living corpse and can barely walk!

The consortium of criminal gangs continue to reign unchallenged in both houses, and many political commentators have opined that all the actions that are carried out in the National Assembly and the Senate are known in advance because the MPs and Senators act according to instructions from the presidency of the republic including on issues of national interest.

By Rita Akana

19, March 2022

Yaoundé: Cavaye Yeguié re-elected for the 30th time as House Speaker ⁰

The MP from the Mayo-Sava constituency in the Far North region was re-elected with 148 votes against only one vote for his challenger, Hon. Jean-Michel Nintcheu of the Social Democratic Front.

Cavaye Yeguié Djibril was elected on Friday, March 18, 2022, at the end of the election of the bureau teleguided from the presidency of the republic.

The French Cameroun political figure was elected for the 30th time in a row, having held the post for the first time in the 1992. The frail Cavaye will continue to preside over the destiny of the august chamber, at least for another year, even though the entire nation is aware that he no longer has the ability to continue to lead the National Assembly.

“Cavaye Yeguié Djibril as everyone knows is physically diminished. He no longer has the capacity, neither physical nor mental, to properly administer the National Assembly. He should retire” Hon. Jean-Michel Nintcheu of the SDF party was quoted as saying after the sham electoral process.

It vital to include in this report that in addition to having spent 30 years at the head of affairs at the National Assembly, Cavaye Yeguié Djibril was first elected MP in 1973.

By Rita Akana

19, March 2022

Russia uses hypersonic missiles for first time in Ukraine as troops enter central Mariupol ⁰

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made a fresh appeal for talks with Moscow in a video posted to Facebook on Saturday. “This is the time to meet,” he said, adding that: “Otherwise, Russia’s losses will be such that several generations will not recover.”

China should make the “right decision” and join other nations in condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Ukraine’s negotiator Mykhailo Podolyak said on Twitter on Saturday.

Ukraine hopes to open 10 humanitarian corridors on Saturday for the evacuation of citizens, according to Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk.

Russian forces backed by Chechen fighters broke through the defences of the besieged city of Mariupol and are now inside the city, which has been under Russian shelling for days.

The Russian military said it had used a Kinzhal hypersonic missile for the first time in combat during its offensive in Ukraine. The Russian defense ministry said on Saturday the “hypersonic aeroballistic missiles destroyed a large underground warehouse containing missiles and aviation ammunition” in the village of Deliatyn in the Ivano-Frankivsk region.

Ukrainian human rights ombudswoman Lyudmyla Denisova said on Friday that 130 people had been rescued so far from the rubble of a theatre in Mariupol after a Russian air strike hit the building, where hundreds of people had been sheltering from the war. Rescuers are still searching for survivors.

Kyiv city authorities on Friday said 222 people have been killed in the capital since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began.

The UNHCR has said that more than 3.25 million Ukrainians had fled across the border since the war began on February 24, with more than 2 million crossing the Polish border. The UN children’s agency said around half of those who have fled are children.

Source: France 24

19, March 2022

Syria’s president visits 1st Arab state in more than 1 decade ⁰

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad visits the United Arab Emirates in his first such visit to an Arab state since the beginning of foreign-backed violence in Syria.

Meeting with Assad on Friday, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahya “stressed that Syria is a fundamental pillar of Arab security,” the official Emirates News Agency (WAM) reported.

“The UAE is keen to strengthen cooperation with Syria,” the Emirati official added, describing the two nations as “brotherly peoples.”

Assad, for his part, urged that in order to protect the region, “we must continue with adherence to our principles, the sovereignty of our countries, and the interests of our peoples,” the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported.

Assad’s visit to the UAE took place only months after the Emirates’ Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan traveled to the Syrian capital Damascus. It also came amid the widely-reported prospect of Damascus’ return to the Arab League regional grouping.

Source: Presstv

19, March 2022

Ukraine Crisis Day 24: President Zelensky calls for talks with Putin ⁰

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called for talks with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin as Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine enters its 24th day.

“This is the time to meet, to talk, time for renewing territorial integrity and fairness for Ukraine,” Zelensky said in a video posted to Facebook on Saturday.

“I want to be heard by everyone, especially in Moscow,” he said, adding, “Otherwise, Russia’s losses will be such, that several generations will not recover.”

Delegations from Kiev and Moscow have been negotiating since the onset of the Russian military campaign. The latest round of talks opened on Monday.

Vladimir Medinsky, the head of the Russian delegation, who said the two sides have come closer to an agreement on a neutral status for Ukraine, noted on Friday that a meeting between Putin and Zelensky is possible after the teams finalize a draft treaty to end the hostilities that receives a preliminary approval from the countries’ governments.

Sources

19, March 2022

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Yerima asks Francophone soldiers going to rural Ambazonia to draft wills ⁰

The Vice President of the Ambazonia Interim Government in his latest assessment of the war in Southern Cameroons has advised all French Cameroun government army soldiers being deployed to rural areas in the Ambazonia homeland to draft their wills.

The Vice President Dabney Yerima statement issued late on Friday comes as soldiers loyal to the Biya Francophone regime in Yaoundé reportedly carried out operations in many Southern Cameroons towns and villages including Kumbo, Ndop, Wum, Bafut and Kom.

General Valere Nka, commander of the Francophone dominated military fighting Ambazonia Revolutionary Guards said several hundred Amba fighters have escaped to villages along Cameroon’s border with Nigeria.

“If you are a Francophone soldier currently in Bamenda or Buea preparing to be deployed to any rural area in Southern Cameroons, you should consider drafting a will and also discuss plans with your wife and children about funeral wishes” Dabney Yerima noted.

The security situation throughout Southern Cameroons is highly volatile, and conditions are deteriorating without warning.

The war in Southern Cameroons has killed more than 6,000 people and forced one million English speaking Cameroonians to flee their homes as they are caught between the Francophone Cameroon government army and Ambazonia fighters.

The war broke out in October 2017 when British Southern Cameroonians under the leadership of President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe declared an independent state-the Federal Republic of Ambazonia.

The five-year conflict is slowly but surely spilling over into Nigeria, with the Nigerian press reporting that Cameroonian security forces and Ambazonia fighters care little for the territorial integrity of their neighbours.

By Isong Asu and Chi Prudence Asong