About soter

Posts by :

17, June 2021

Southern Cameroons Crisis: 6 Divisional Delegates in Amba protective custody ⁰

Six Divisional Delegates in Ndian Division were arrested by Ambazonia Restoration Forces and are currently under what is now known in Southern Cameroons as protective custody.

The civil servants representing the Biya Francophone regime in French Cameroun were picked up Tuesday, June 15, 2021 in Masore Balue village in Ekondo-Titi Subdivision, near Mundemba.

Their arrest was confirmed by Forwang Lawrence, the Senior Divisional Officer for Ndian Division who is also wanted by the Amba justice system.

The highly placed civil servants arrested include:-

-the Divisional Delegate of State Property, Land Tenure, and Surveys

-the Divisional Delegate of Housing and Urban Development

-the Divisional Delegate of Water and Energy Resources

-the Divisional Delegate of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises Social Economy and Handicraft

-the Divisional Delegate of Economy, Planning and Regional Development

-the Divisional Chief of Service for Surveys

Ambazonian General Ten Kobo who hails from Bekora in Ekondo Titi Subdivision and reportedly headed the Amba operation said on social media that the French Cameroun delegates were being held in separate Ambazonia detention centers.

It is vital to include in this report that those arrested were on a mission to demarcate and plant pillars on a parcel of land fraudulently allocated to a French Cameroun electricity utility company, ENEO.

By Rita Akana

17, June 2021

Former Zambia President Dr Kenneth Kaunda dies ⁰

Zambia’s former President Kenneth Kaunda has died. His death was announced this afternoon. He was 97.

Also known as KK, former President Kaunda had been receiving treatment for an undisclosed ailment at a military hospital in Lusaka.

He recently asked for prayers from all Zambians and the international community when he got into hospital.

Kaunda ruled Zambia from 1964, when the country got independence from Britain, until 1991. He was one of the few surviving liberation heroes in the region.

His death has come at a time when Zambia is battling a surge in Covid-19 cases.

Source: The Herald.co

17, June 2021

Troops loyal to the Biya Francophone regime are burning down Southern Cameroons villages ⁰

Violence is still plaguing the entire Southern Cameroons seven months after Paul Atanga Nji, Minister of Territorial Administration told the world that President Biya has defeated Ambazonian separatists. In their latest attempt to suppress the Southern Cameroons resistance, Cameroon government security forces have reportedly burned down nine villages in Ekondo Titi, Eyumojock and Kumbo districts.

Several villagers, who spoke on condition of anonymity, informed Cameroon Concord News on Tuesday that Cameroon government army soldiers set fire to scores of rural homes after clashing with Ambazonia Restoration Forces.

Five people are known to have burned to death in Tatum in Bui Division. Our correspondent in Kumbo observed that the five victims were elderly residents who had been unable to flee their homes during the fire, and their bodies were found after some people returned to the village.

Photographs seen by Cameroon Concord News indicate that several houses in Otu, Lobe and Tatum were reduced to piles of ash and bricks.

We understand that most of the residents remained in hiding in nearby forests after fleeing the villages, when soldiers firing guns entered the areas.

Photos and videos circulating on social media also showed the Francophone administrators in the South West informing public opinion that some highly placed civil servants have been kidnapped in Ndian Division by Amba fighters.

In Tinta in Akwaya, burnt planks of wood, sheet metal, bricks and cooking pots were scattered around, with only a few trees left standing including charred bodies of farm animals.

As the Vice President of the Southern Cameroons Interim Government Dabney Yerima blamed troops loyal to the Biya Francophone regime in Yaoundé for the near-destruction of the entire Southern Cameroons-Ambazonia, the Cameroon government army pointed the finger at Amba fighters.

In a recent press release, the spokesman for the Cameroon government army Captain Cyrille Serge Atonfack accused the exiled Ambazonian Vice President of deliberately plotting to discredit the Cameroon government military.

This is the latest example of how violence has become endemic in much of Southern Cameroons as the Biya Francophone Beti Ewondo regime widens its efforts to suppress British Southern Cameroonians.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

17, June 2021

Boko Haram confirms death of notorious leader Abubakar Shekau ⁰

The Nigeria-based Boko Haram terrorist group has confirmed the death of its notorious ringleader, Abubakar Shekau, who was recently reported to have killed himself following clashes with rival militants similarly allied to Daesh.

In a short video message, Boko Haram’s top militant commander Bakura Modu, also known as Sahaba, was seen surrounded by militants while addressing the camera as the new leader of the Daesh-affiliated Takfiri outfit, urging his militants to stay loyal to the group.

The undated video was provided to the AFP by a source close to Boko Haram, the agency reported Wednesday.

It was released over a week after Boko Haram’s main rival, another Daesh-affiliated faction operating in West Africa known as ISWAP, said Shekau had been hunted down by ISWAP and asked to pledge loyalty to the terror group.

ISWAP chief Abu Musab al-Barnawi was heard saying in an audio message, obtained by news agencies, that Shekau refused to join them and chose instead to “kill himself” instantly by detonating an explosive.

Shekau is said to have died around May 18. Nigerian intelligence sources also confirmed his death.

Boko Haram started from an underground African-terrorist group in 2009 and gained ground by killing, kidnapping and looting its way across northeast of Nigeria before pledging allegiance to Daesh.

Shekau gained notoriety after kidnapping 270 schoolgirls in 2014 from the town of Chibok. Some of the girls were rescued, but around 100 of them are still missing, possibly having died in captivity.

More than 30,000 people have been killed in over a decade of terrorism in Nigeria by the Boko Haram Takrifi group, which has spilled over into neighboring Chad, Niger, and Cameroon and has forced more than two million people to flee their homes.

ISWAP split from Boko Haram five years ago amid a conflict, separately pledging allegiance to the Daesh terrorist group.

Source: Presstv

17, June 2021

Doctors ‘killed’ Maradona through negligence, says nurse’s lawyer ⁰

A lawyer for a nurse under investigation in the death of Argentine football great Diego Maradona said Wednesday that doctors killed him through negligence.

“They killed Diego,” attorney Rodolfo Baque told reporters after his client, nurse Dahiana Gisela Madrid, was questioned by prosecutors.

Maradona died of a heart attack last November at the age of 60, weeks after undergoing brain surgery for a blood clot.

Madrid, 36, is one of seven people under investigation for manslaughter after a board of experts looking into Maradona’s death found he had received inadequate care and was abandoned to his fate for a “prolonged, agonising period.”

Baque insisted it was the doctors treating Maradona while he recovered from the brain operation, not his client, who were to blame for the soccer legend’s death.

He said Maradona was being treated for heart trouble but at the same time was on psychiatric medication that sped up his heart rate.

Also, Maradona fell while in the hospital, and when Madrid asked to have a CAT scan done on him, an aide to Maradona refused, arguing that if the press found out it would look bad, Baque said.

“In the end, there were many warning signs that Maradona was going to die, give or take a day. And none of the doctors did anything to prevent it,” Baque said during a break in the interrogation of Madrid, which went on for more than eight hours.

Madrid was Maradona’s daytime nurse and one of the last people to see him alive.

An investigation was opened following a complaint filed by two of Maradona’s five children against neurosurgeon Leopoldo Luque, whom they blame for their father’s deteriorating condition after the brain operation.

A panel of 20 medical experts convened by Argentina’s public prosecutor said last month that Maradona’s treatment was rife with “deficiencies and irregularities” and the medical team had left his survival “to fate.”

If found guilty, the seven, who are barred from leaving the country, could face between eight and 25 years in prison.

Process to last months or years

Madrid was one of the people to have found Maradona with no signs of life and had tried to revive him, she said in a previous witness statement.

On Monday, Maradona’s nighttime nurse Ricardo Almiron, 37, was the first of the seven to be questioned by prosecutors.

Other medical staff involved in caring for Maradona will be questioned by prosecutors over the next two weeks.

A judge will decide whether the matter should go to trial in a process expected to last months, or even years.

Maradona had battled cocaine and alcohol addiction.

The former Boca Juniors, Barcelona and Napoli star was suffering from liver, kidney and cardiovascular disorders when he died.

Maradona is an idol to millions of Argentines after he inspired the South American country to only their second World Cup triumph in 1986.

His death shocked fans around the world, and tens of thousands queued to file past his coffin, draped in the Argentine flag, at the presidential palace in Buenos Aires amid three days of national mourning.

Source: AFP

16, June 2021

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Huge fights erupt at the Otu border ⁰

A huge fight erupted on Monday in Cameroon’s border town of Otu, resulting in the deaths of at least four Cameroon government forces while four others could not be accounted for.

The fight started when seasoned Southern Cameroonian revenue collectors who also double as fighters ambushed Yaoundé government forces, wounding four and creating panic.

Otu is a Cameroon town on the border with Nigeria and together with Ekok, another border town in Manyu Division, account for about 60% of customs duty collected in the country.

Southern Cameroonian fighters hold that they now control the border and they will not give up their positions, especially as they are now aware of the huge amounts of money that have been heading to Yaoundé from those two Manyu border towns.

The fighters who sent a voice note to the Cameroon Concord News Group’s office in Mamfe argue that the Yaoundé government has been collecting customs duty for over 50 years and that makes the French-speaking government of Yaoundé to be indebted to Southern Cameroons to the tune of USD 70 billion.

The speaker in the voice note said the fighters were in control of that part of their territory, adding that the Yaoundé government would pay off that debt either in cash or “in life,” which explains why Yaoundé government soldiers are being chopped down or exploded by Southern Cameroonian fighters who have now resorted to using explosives.

The fighting started when Yaoundé government forces in Otu were on a patrol, claiming that they were in control of things, triggering the deadly ambush which resulted in the deaths of two police officers and two gendarme officers.

By Ojong Peter in Otu with additional editing by Oke Akombi Ayukepi Akap

16, June 2021

Africa Cup of Nations to take place as planned in Cameroon ⁰

The African Cup of Nations (CAN) will take place as planned in Cameroon in January 2022.

During a 48 hour visit to the Central African country, CAF Secretary General Véron Mosengo-Omba dismissed rumours that said Cameroon could once more be stripped of hosting the continent’s biggest sporting competition by the Confederation of African Football, as it was the case in like it did in 2019.

“The African Cup of Nations will be organised in this beautiful country in January 2022. That is clear. We have to be clear about that,” Véron Mosengo-Omba said during a press conference.

“Cameroon is a football country like no other. It is a great football country and Cameroon deserves to celebrate Africa at a very important level. But I am speaking on behalf of and under the control of the Secretary General to say and affirm, I repeat here: there is no alternative,” Cameroon Football Federation President Seidou Mbombo Njoya added.

The African Cup of Nations will begin on January 9 and conclude on February 6 with the final in capital city Yaounde.

Source: Africa News

16, June 2021

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Yerima urges unity to confront French Cameroun’s military ⁰

The Ambazonia Interim Government has warned all pro French Cameroun political elites in Ground Zero against fanning the flames of division after the disgraced 88-year-old President Biya appointed the so-called pioneer independent conciliators to the Federal Republic of Ambazonia.

“The French Cameroun Biya criminal appointments underscores the need for unity among all strata of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia and its Restoration forces to confront the enemy, which is showing no mercy to young men, women and the elderly in our homeland,” Vice President Dabney Yerima said in a statement on Wednesday.

“The atrocities committed against our people in Ground Zero obliges all Southern Cameroonians to engage with the occupiers by any means, especially at all police and gendarmerie checkpoints scattered all over our homeland” Vice President Yerima added.

In a press briefing late on Monday, the exiled Southern Cameroons leader said the occupying French Cameroun army soldiers continue to commit the most heinous crimes against the people of Southern Cameroons-Ambazonia and they are executing young people, women, children and the elderly in cold blood.

“Silence on these crimes is indeed a disgrace to world powers and international bodies that claim to be advocates of human rights, freedom and justice” Yerima opined.

“The blood of all Southern Cameroons martyrs is making Ambazonians more determined to continue the path of resistance until an independent state is gotten” Yerima furthered.

The Southern Cameroons was one of the territories set for decolonization in the context of the UN decolonization agenda. Britain’s devious handling of it and the British wheeling and dealing at the UN in 1959 and 1960 caused a great historical injustice to the people of the Southern Cameroons. That injustice continues to cry out for redress. British action resulted in the unconscionable imposition of an unnecessary and precipitated plebiscite with dead-end alternatives. Speaking through Lord Perth, Britain shamefully said the Southern Cameroons and its people were “expendable”.

The plebiscite was imposed in the teeth of opposition by the leadership of the trust territory. It offered a Hobson’s choice of ‘joining’ either Nigeria or French Cameroun. The internationally-prescribed political status option of sovereign independence was deliberately excluded. There was no good reason for doing so. On 11 February 1961, a skewed plebiscite was foisted on the people of the Southern Cameroons. Faced with the Hobson’s ‘choice’ that was forced down their throat, the people opted for independence in political association with Republique du Cameroun. It was agreed in writing between the two countries and to the knowledge of Britain and the UN, that the political association would take the form of an aggregative federation of two states, equal in status.

By Isong Asu

16, June 2021

Putin and Biden in Geneva: High interest but low expectations ⁰

US President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin square up on Wednesday for their first meeting since Biden took office with deep disagreements likely and expectations low for any breakthroughs.

Both have said they hope their talks in a lakeside Geneva villa can lead to more stable and predictable relations, even though they remain at odds over everything from arms control and cyber-hacking to election interference and Ukraine.

“We’re not expecting a big set of deliverables out of this meeting,” a senior US official told reporters aboard Air Force One as Biden flew to Geneva, saying the two are expected to talk for four or five hours starting at around 1.30pm CET (1130 GMT).

“I’m not sure that any agreements will be reached,” said Putin’s foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov.

Relations have deteriorated for years, notably with Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine, its 2015 intervention in Syria and US charges – denied by Moscow – of its meddling in the 2016 election that brought Donald Trump to the White House.

They sank further in March when Biden said he thought Putin was a “killer”, prompting Russia to recall its ambassador to Washington for consultations. The United States recalled its ambassador in April.

The senior US official said the United States aimed for a set of “taskings” – Washington jargon for assigning aides to work on specific issues – “about areas where working together can advance our national interests and make the world safer”.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said whether or not to send back ambassadors would be decided by the two presidents. “Today the presidents will need to determine how to proceed with the heads of the diplomatic missions,” Peskov was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies.

While the issues may be vexing, the surroundings will be serene when the presidents meet in Villa La Grange, an elegant mansion set in a 30-hectare (nearly 75-acre) park overlooking Lake Geneva.

‘Very little hope of progress’

FRANCE 24’s Gulliver Cragg confirmed the mood in Geneva, saying there is “very little hope on progress on any of the really big dossiers that could be on the table. But I think what they’re hoping for is to put the ‘table back together’”.

Cragg said the tit-for-tat expulsions have really soured the relations between Washington and Moscow, resulting in very little diplomatic contact between the two, but that “both sides seem to be willing to put those back together”.

He added that although such an rapprochement is usually referred to as a “reset” in the diplomacy world, “Biden absolutely doesn’t want it to be called a ‘reset’, he doesn’t want to use that term – that was the strategy that he, as vice president and Barack Obama as president, employed towards Vladimir Putin a little more than a decade ago and it is seen as not having been a success”.

Cragg said that although interest in the Geneva summit is extremely high, it “surpasses by a very long way the likelihood of anything really being achieved”.

Lockdown

On Wednesday, the summit perimeter was under a tight lockdown with heavy police presence. Following a their bilateral meeting, Biden and Putin will continue on to their discussions with broader US and Russian delegations including US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, along with interpreters.

Arms control is one domain where progress has historically been possible despite wider disagreements.

In February, Russia and the United States extended for five years the New START treaty, which caps their deployed strategic nuclear warheads and limits the land- and submarine-based missiles and bombers to deliver them.

The senior US official said Biden would also define areas of vital national interest where Russian misconduct would bring a response. Biden signed an executive order in April giving Washington wide latitude to impose sanctions on Moscow.

In a sign of the strained ties, the talks will not include any meals and Putin and Biden are expected to hold separate news conferences rather than a joint one.

“No breaking of bread,” said the senior US official.

Vladimir Frolov, a former Russian diplomat, told Reuters that Putin wanted respectful ties and to be treated like members of the Soviet Politburo were in the 1960s-1980s, with “a symbolic recognition of Russia’s geopolitical parity with the US”.

“In exchange, they (Moscow) would be willing to cut back on some of the loony stuff,” Frolov said, saying he meant “no poisonings, no physical violence, no arrests/kidnappings of US and Russian nationals. No interference in domestic politics”.

Dmitri Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center think tank, set the bar for Wednesday’s talks low.

“The principal takeaway, in the positive sense, from the Geneva meeting would be making sure that the United States and Russia did not come to blows physically, so that a military collision is averted,” he said.

In contrast to Trump, whose 2018 summit with Putin in Helsinki included a meeting accompanied only by interpreters, Biden and Putin are not expected to have any solo dealings.

Standing beside Putin in Helsinki, Trump refused to blame the Russian leader for meddling in the 2016 US election, casting doubt on the findings of his own intelligence agencies and sparking a storm of domestic criticism.

(FRANCE 24 with REUTERS)

16, June 2021

Irish Football U16: Nickson Okosun of Bohemians/St Kevin’s Boys FC among Osam’s 22 players ⁰

Republic of Ireland Under-16 Head Coach Paul Osam has called-in 22-players for a three-day training camp in Athlone this week.

Osam will prepare for the upcoming season with a new cohort of players who will experience international football for the first time having missed out on Under-15s football due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

More than 50 players were involved in assessment days held by Osam in the last month as he looked to whittle down numbers for the training camp which is taking place at Athlone Town AFC from today (Tuesday, June 15th) until Thursday, June 17th.

Republic of Ireland Under-16s training camp squad

Goalkeepers: Robert Barry (Cork City), Jason Healy (Waterford FC)

Defenders: Patryck Swieczka Andrzejczak (Cork City), Eamonn Armstrong (St. Patrick’s Athletic), Sean Hayden (St. Patrick’s Athletic), Orlandas Jakas (Shamrock Rovers), Sean Mackey (St. Patrick’s Athletic), Kyle McDonagh (Sligo Rovers), Caighlum Barry Mulvey (St. Patrick’s Athletic), Cory O’Sullivan (Shamrock Rovers).

Midfielders: Anthony Dodd (St. Patrick’s Athletic), Leo Healy (Klub Kildare), Daniel Negry McGrath (Bohemians), Taylor Mooney (St. Patrick’s Athletic), Adam O’Halloran (Galway United), Najemedine Razi (Shamrock Rovers).

Forwards: Trent Toure Kone Doherty (Derry City), Owen Elding (Longford Town), Odhran McLaughlin (Shamrock Rovers), Cillian Mulvihill (Cork City), Nick Okosun (Bohemians/St Kevin’s Boys FC), Cillian Sean Patton (Finn Harps).

Source: www.Fai.ie