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9, March 2019

US: White House communications director and ex-Fox executive Shine resigns ⁰

White House deputy chief of staff and de facto communications director Bill Shine has stepped down after just eight months leading President Donald Trump’s communications team, the White House has announced.

Shine, a former top Fox News executive, will work as a senior adviser to Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement on Friday.

Sanders added that President Trump accepted Shine’s resignation on Thursday night.

“Bill Shine has done an outstanding job working for me and the administration,” Trump said in a statement. “We will miss him in the White House, but look forward to working together on the 2020 presidential campaign, where he will be totally involved. Thank you to Bill and his wonderful family!”

Shine joined the White House in July 2018. So far five men, including Shine, have resigned from this post under Trump. He was brought on in an attempt to burnish Trump’s image.

“Serving President Trump and this country has been the most rewarding experience of my entire life,” Shine said in a statement. “To be a small part of all this president has done for the American people has truly been an honor. I’m looking forward to working on President Trump’s reelection campaign and spending more time with my family.”

PressTV-Fears of 'brain drain' hit White House amid staff exits

Shine, 55, had been scheduled to travel with President Trump to Vietnam for the second North Korea summit but suddenly dropped off the trip two days before, according to reports.

He has kept a low profile throughout his time in the White House.

Presstv

9, March 2019

Yaounde to promote work opportunities for women in digital sector ⁰

Cameroon will make efforts to enhance the skills of and opportunities for women in the digital business as part of the measures to draw more young girls to the sector, said its telecommunications minister on Thursday.

“The more women we have in digital business, the better for the emancipation and growth of women,” said Minister of Post and Telecommunications Minette Libom Li Likeng.

“Digital economy is the future for our country and Africa. It plays a very important role in economies in developing countries. We will look for efficient and effective ways to encourage young digital entrepreneurs,” Likeng said while meeting with young female digital entrepreneurs at the National Advanced School of Post and Telecommunications.

The event was part of the activities to mark the International Women’s Day on March 8. Over 2,900 female students have been trained by the school with government support, Likeng said, calling for efforts to enroll more girls to the school.

Xinhuanet

9, March 2019

African Union to establish African Central Bank by 2045 ⁰

The plan to establish the African Central Bank (ACB) by the African Union will likely come to fruition by 2045.

Ms Naglaa Nozahie representing the Association of African Central Banks (AACB), said this while presenting the progress report on the convergence of criteria for the ACB to the African Union on Thursday.

The briefing was part of proceedings at the third session of the Specialised Technical Committee of the African Union (AU) on Finance, Monetary Affairs, Economic Planning and Integration, holding in Yaounde, Cameroon.

The meeting, which was organised in collaboration with the African Capacity Building Foundation, had as its theme: “Public Policies for Productive Transformation in Africa’’.

Nozahie, who is also a Special Advisor to the Governor, Central Bank of Egypt, said the purpose of ACB was “to build a common monetary policy and single African currency as a way to accelerate economic integration on the continent’’.

She said the AACB held several meetings from 2002 to 2017 and came up with the proposed macroeconomic criteria that must be met by each member state before the African Central Bank could be established.

She said inflation must be three per cent or less by 2038, overall budget deficit must also be less than or equal to three per cent by 2033.

Similarly, she said the ratio of central bank financing to the government must be zero by 2038 and that each country must have foreign reserves to cover at least six months of importation by 2038.

“In addition, the ratio of public debt to GDP must be less than 65 per cent while the ratio of total tax revenue to GDP must be more than 20 per cent.

“The ratio of government capital investment to tax revenue must be greater than 30 per cent,’’ she said.

Nozahie said experts, who worked on the convergence criteria, also agreed that member countries must maintain the stability of the nominal exchange rate at plus or minus 10 per cent.

She further said that analysis of member countries’ performance showed that only 18 countries, out of 52, currently met all the primary criteria for macroeconomic convergence.

It would be recalled that the AU Assembly in January 2005, which held in Abuja, outlined decisions for the establishment of some African financial institutions to improve intra-African trade.

Part of the decisions was that the African Central Bank should be located in Nigeria, the African Investment Bank in Libya, and the African Monetary Fund in Cameroon.

When it is fully implemented, the ACB will be the sole issuer of the African Single Currency and would become the banker of the African Government and Africa’s private and public banking institutions.

The ACB will regulate and supervise the African banking industry and will set the official interest and exchange rates, in conjunction with the African Government’s administration.

PMNews Nigeria

9, March 2019

No one should ask why things are as they are: These questions will be answered at the right time ⁰

On August 31, 2006, my friend Bate Besong wrote a dedicated poem titled “Why we laugh at politicians and give them names”. That poem and its premonitory message impels me to struggle to find the underlying message behind the poem dedicated to me by a friend with whom I spent time discussing everything from literature to history, law, Marx, Osageyfo Dr Kwame Nkrumah, Nwalimu Nyerere, CLR James, Marcus Garvey, politics generally, cultural issues, religion, maths, music etc. On occasion, he talked to me about many of his students whose potential intellectual bravery and literary ingenuity he admired. One of the names he mentioned was Dr Joyce Ashuntangtang.

Why do I bring up this name among others in this brief memorial statement? The name surely came up many times, but he first mentioned her name when we discussed the show of shame which is celebrated in Cameroun March 8, every year as the “Women Day”.

Bate Besong and I opposed the celebration of March 8, in ways that portrayed the African woman as hypnotised political tools. He opined that a celebration of the African woman should be in the systemic and societal recognition of women and their contribution toward human development. He hoped for a new generation of women intellectuals whom he believed will challenge the operating political, social and cultural order.

Bate Besong died on 8th of March 2007 the day set aside every year for showcasing the collective enslavement of women by the Cameroun systemic crime syndicate. This was not the intendment of the Peking Women Conference nor that of the international community that decided to use the ceremony every year to raise awareness on women related issues and women contributions as equal partners in efforts to protect and promote universal human values without discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, nationality or any discriminatory basis whatsoever. The Cameroun ceremony is the opposite of what the international community intended.

At the time of his death, I was not aware of the poem he dedicated to me and the underlying message in the poem. Our revulsion for the treatment of women by the crime syndicate so-called new deal, and the sycophantic submission of the population and the bastardising of scholarship and faculty admission that we discussed and despised has not abated. I have watched the younger generation whom Bate Besong told me about and his predictions are true. So therefore, was Bate Besong a Prophet? In the context of present-day commercial religion and prophesy, BB would never accept this title. BB went into the originality of the grassroot authentic creativity of some pathfinders to support his prediction that the challenge to the pervasive influence of contemporary Africa status quo will come from the grassroots, his students and their contemporaries.

We both agreed that a musician of Kalabari origin in the Nigeria Delta called Cardinal Jim Rex Lawson fitted in this category. Cardinal Jim Rex Lawson challenged the highlife music status quo in his time, imposing respect and recognition from highlife musical giants like E.T, Mensah, Bobby Benson, Victor Olaiya, Roy Chicago, EC Arinze, Chief Osita Osadebe. He died at the age of 32 after changing the face of highlife music and eternalising his musical genre for eternity. The religious and cultural messages conveyed through his music which he sang with passion at times made him cry on stage accompanied by his ever-increasing audience. Yet the music and the messages he delivered were the products of his work of art, some of which he composed on stage. While in Port Harcourt attending the conference of the African Bar Association, I requested and met Chief Tony Odili aged 93 and still and performing, the renowned percussionist of the Rex Lawson band. He confirmed in reasonable detail, what Bate Besong told me about Rex Lawson and his revolutionary change of the status quo in the Nigerian and West African highlife music. Nigerian gospel music is a derivative of the Rex Lawson highlife music revolution.

In the poem dedicated to me, Bate Besong in poetic form reminded me not to forsake the liberation struggle. He again raised our collective worries that years of enslavement and mental slavery had ruined generations of intellectuals and so-called elite on whom the people placed their hopes for liberation, freedom and independence. He like me believed that the peoples ‘moment would come when terror, fear and death will rather than scare the people, embolden them to take back their destiny, freedom and independence. As if to bid me and everyone goodbye, he in conclusion, enjoined us:

“No one should ask why things are as they are

These questions will be answered at the right time”

That right time is here for all to see and nothing will stop the wind of liberation and freedom which is blowing over the land. The relics of the old social order is fighting back through terror, treachery, corruption, criminality, distractions, confusions and all manner of sideshows. But Ground Zero and the generational liberators whom Bate Besong identified are out in arms fighting to win. And win they shall. Not the politicians whom Bate Besong came to distrust and made their treachery the subject of his premonitory poem to me. No not them. Their betrayal of the peoples’ aspirations has exposed them for what they have always been. This critical peoples’ moment when long deferred questions are finally been answered at the right time as BB predicted will consign them to ignominy and derision. This is also the moment to know “why we laugh at politicians and give them names” and for them to take stock of their treachery and the futility of their Iscariot politics of thirty silver and the unconscionable complicity in the extermination of their own people to satisfy the blood feeding of a vampiric dictator.

This memorial message should have been posted on March 8, 2019 but in honour of the greatest revolutionary and visionary seer of our times Dr Bate Besong, the judgment of the Abuja High Court exposing another international conspiracy and violations which like the McCleod Slave deal or bazaar aimed to stifle our march to freedom, it is but appropriate to place my considered opinion on the judgment in honour of Bate Besong the liberator, the Obasinjong warrior, the seer, and may I with his permission, call him the genuine prophet at the service of freedom and liberation of the sovereign people of the Southern Cameroons/ Ambazonia.

By Chief Charles A Taku

8, March 2019

‘Roma is in my DNA,’ says Ranieri as he returns to rescue hometown club ⁰

Claudio Ranieri urged Roma’s fans to get behind the team after returning as head coach of his hometown club on Friday looking to rescue their season and seal Champions League qualification.

Eusebio Di Francesco was sacked after the team’s last 16 Champions League elimination midweek, with the club’s Spanish sporting director Monchi following the coach to the exit on Friday.

Ranieri, who memorably guided outsiders Leicester City to the 2016 English Premier League title, returns to a club which he coach for 18 months from 2009 to 2011.

His contract runs until June 2019.

“Roma is in my DNA. My whole football life is tied to Roma,” said the 67-year-old former defender who began his senior playing career with Roma in 1973.

“I have always been a fan, I’ve been a player and a coach here,” he told Roma TV.

“I want to tell the fans, this is a special time. In 12 rounds, we are gambling with our future. We have the chance to get back into the Champions League.”

Ranieri arrived in the Italian capital on Friday from London having being sacked by Fulham last month after failing to ignite the English team’s revival after four months in charge.

“I talked to the team and asked for certain things,” he said after his first training session.

“The team is down, but you have to know how to react as men.

“I ask the fans to support them, encourage them even during the difficult moments, because at the end of the day, the ones who really suffer are us fans.”

The players are also reeling after crashing out of the Italian Cup 7-1 to Fiorentina last month and slumping 3-0 to city rivals Lazio last weekend in the Stadio Olimpico.

“The first aspect we have to work on is psychological, because after two defeats and a Champions League elimination, they’ll be wrecked,” said Ranieri of Roma who are fifth in Serie A, three points off the Champions League berths.

– ‘Safe hands’ –

AS Roma President Jim Pallotta said Ranieri had been chosen because he knows the team and the city.

“At this stage of the campaign, it was important to bring in a coach who knows the club, understands the environment, can speak the language and is able to motivate the players,” said the US businessman.

“Claudio ticks all of those boxes.”

Ranieri’s first match in charge will be an Italian league game at home against Empoli on Monday.

Club legend Francesco Totti, now on the board of directors, welcomed fellow Roman Ranieri. Captain Daniele De Rossi is also from the city.

“What we need now is a safe pair of hands to guide us back into the top four and ensure that we are playing Champions League football again next season,” said Totti.

Di Francesco led Roma to a third-place finish last season, and the Champions League semi-finals, but their last Serie A title was in 2001 and most recent trophy the 2008 Italian Cup.

Ranieri took over from Luciano Spalletti early in the 2009/10 season with Roma struggling and led them to runners-up finishes in Serie A and the Italian Cup.

He resigned in February of the following season after poor results. Seven coaches have sat on the Roma bench since his departure in 2011.

Ranieri’s coaching career has taken him to five different countries — Italy, Spain, England, France and Greece — often finishing second before his fairytale title success with Leicester only to be fired months later.

He then coached Nantes for a season before taking over at Fulham in November 2018, only to be sacked on February 28.

Ranieri led Fiorentina to the Italian Cup and Italian SuperCup trophies in 1996, and coached Valencia to the Copa del Rey in 1999 and UEFA Super Cup in 2005.

AFP

8, March 2019

Gabon dismisses rumors president is ‘cloned’ ⁰

The Gabonese presidency has dismissed rumours that the ailing president, Ali Bongo, has been replaced by a clone. Bongo, who is currently recovering in Morocco, has only returned to Gabon twice since he became ill in 2018 whiles on an official trip. On both ‘visits,’ he stayed briefly and flew back to Rabat.

Reports had been festering that the president had recruited a look alike to replace him for months while he received medical attention for a stroke in 2018.

Ike Ngouoni, presidential spokesman said: “The President of the Republic was (t) here in flesh, a number of people saw him. He went around the city. “Some of them were able to approach him, observe him, see him. It is totally a hoax. I admire the level of creativity, especially on the internet and their persistence in these rumours,” he told reporters.

The presidency initially said he had been hospitalized in Riyadh for fatigue. The vice-president admitted at a rally that the president had suffered a stroke weeks later. Since October last year, a section of Gabonese have expressed mixed concerns as to the health situation of their president as it has become increasingly difficult to differentiate rumours and the reality.

In January, a failed coup was attempted in Libreville to denounce the president’s absence and establish a “democratic transition.” Bongo is the second leader having to fight cloned rumours, the first being Nigeria’s Muhammadu Buhari.

Africa News

8, March 2019

WWF-funded forces in Cameroon have tortured and killed indigenous people ⁰

The World Wide Fund for Nature was warned years ago that its staff was complicit in “frightening” raids on indigenous villages by anti-poaching eco-guards, internal documents reveal. A BuzzFeed News investigation exposed on Monday how the beloved wildlife charity WWF has for years funded and equipped paramilitary forces that have tortured and killed villagers living near the national parks it supports. WWF responded by announcing an “independent review” of the evidence. “We see it as our urgent responsibility to get to the bottom of the allegations BuzzFeed has made, and we recognize the importance of such scrutiny,” the charity said in a statement.

BuzzFeed News has revealed that WWF-funded forces in Asia and Africa have tortured and killed indigenous people.

But this is not the first time WWF has launched an independent investigation of this kind. The charity commissioned a report in 2015, obtained by BuzzFeed News, which implicated WWF in violence against indigenous people in Cameroon. “Indigenous peoples and local communities bordering protected areas are victims of human rights abuses and violations by eco-guards,” the report found — noting the perpetrators were backed by “considerable technical, logistical and financial support” from WWF. But those findings were never made public, and WWF’s director general, Marco Lambertini, went on to dismiss concerns about the treatment of indigenous people as “matters for the government of Cameroon,” while the charity continued backing the park and its guards.

When asked about the 2015 findings by BuzzFeed News, WWF said that its new investigation would examine the way reports of abuse are handled by executives in Switzerland. “All allegations will be subject to our independent review, which will look at specific allegations, and governance,” a spokesperson said in a statement. The explosive 2015 report was prepared by an indigenous expert hired by WWF to review its operations in Cameroon, who found staff there were “gravely concerned” about the abuses they were witnessing.

According to the report, WWF Cameroon was participating in “coercive” nighttime raids of villages in which eco-guards employed by the government and backed by the charity “violate[d] the rights of communities” by looting houses and beating their occupants. The report found that the perpetrators went unpunished even when there was “evidence and testimony from the victims.”

“Indigenous peoples and local communities bordering protected areas are victims of human rights abuses and violations by eco-guards.”

After obtaining the report, BuzzFeed News contacted its author, Diel Mochire Mwenge. He said that the charity did not acknowledge the findings of his report publicly “because it incriminated them.” Mwenge told BuzzFeed News it was clear the charity was complicit in the abuse of indigenous people. “We understood that it was WWF that sent these eco-guards, it was WWF who paid, it was WWF who did everything,” Mwenge said. “And so we had to directly conclude that WWF was sufficiently implicated.”

WWF declined to answer detailed questions from BuzzFeed News about abuses in Cameroon. But in a January interview, the charity’s chief operating officer, Dominic O’Neill, said he had personally traveled to Cameroon to make clear to its partners that WWF “can’t tolerate any human rights abuses at all.” “We’ve had issues and we’ve dealt with those,” he said. “But not to the extent where we said this relationship is now broken.” BuzzFeed News can also reveal that WWF opened another investigation last summer into allegations including gang rape and murder by eco-guards at Salonga, a massive national park it comanages in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The charity confirmed after inquiries from BuzzFeed News that several rangers have been suspended or fired based on its findings. However, WWF declined to answer questions about its ongoing support for the park’s anti-poaching patrols. The German government’s development bank, a major backer of WWF, has confirmed to BuzzFeed News it has requested “statements and information” from the charity on the abuses and has said it will monitor the findings of its internal review.

The 2015 report warning of “frightening” raids on indigenous villages.

At Lobéké National Park, one of the Cameroonian parks highlighted in Mwenge’s report, allegations of ranger abuses — beatings, torture, torched huts, stolen goods — date back years. When the park opened in 1999 with the backing of WWF to protect the area’s forest elephants and lowland gorillas, local Baka people lost access to wide swaths of their ancestral forests.

WWF helped recruit Lobéké’s first forest rangers, who patrol the park for poachers. Known locally as “eco-guards,” the rangers are employees of the Cameroonian government run by the longtime dictator Paul Biya.

But secret budgeting documents show how closely WWF’s staff have worked with the government forces. The charity has helped train them, paid their salaries, and built them homes. It has bought them radios, satellite phones, TVs, 4x4s, and boats. And it has allocated a significant portion of the millions in donor money it spends at Lobéké to “enforcement” activities, including patrols and raids.

The park’s management plan says WWF will help organize raids, known as “coups de poing,” on local villages suspected of harboring poachers. In 2012, Sarah Strader, an American Fulbright researcher, witnessed eco-guards near Lobéké pull a man out of their 4×4. They beat him as he “moaned incomprehensibly,” Strader wrote in her diary, which she shared with BuzzFeed News.

“We torture them when they don’t want to tell the truth.”

Strader reported what she saw to a field office shared between the government and WWF. There, a forest ministry official told her the beating was a normal part of the fight against poaching. “We torture them when they don’t want to tell the truth,” the official said, according to Strader’s diary. Strader was stunned by this casual admission.

“Literally WWF is right there,” she told BuzzFeed News, “and he’s telling me that ‘we torture people.’ It was appalling to me that the WWF would stand for this juxtaposition.” Strader told a WWF senior manager, David Hoyle, about what happened. Hoyle, who has since died, complained to the Cameroonian government. He also reported the allegations back to WWF’s Swiss headquarters. Strader said she never heard from WWF about her complaint. The charity continued to work with the rangers.

Culled from BuzzFeed News

8, March 2019

Cameroon Holds Mass Wedding to Boost Women’s Legal Rights ⁰

In Cameroon, 82 couples have taken part in a mass wedding ceremony as part of efforts to better protect the legal rights of women. Only 10 percent of marriages in Cameroon are legalized, leaving wives with few rights. The mass wedding ceremony is part of activities to mark Friday’s International Women’s Day.

For the event, traditional Cameroonian dancers performed in the courtyard of the Maroua Town Council. There, they celebrated the official marriage of 82 couples, most of them Muslims.

Among the couples were 16-year-old Asta Ismaila and her 47-year-old husband.

Ismaila said she was forced to be the man’s third wife when she was barely 14 years old. After giving birth, she said, her husband did not take care of her or her baby.

Although the couple split last year, they agreed to legalize their marriage so Ismaila and their child would not be shunned by the community.

It also provides mother and child with important and rare legal protection.

Cameroon’s Institute of Statistics says only 10 percent of couples have legalized their marriages – relying instead on simple, traditional ceremonies.

If the husband dies, his family members often take the couple’s property and send the woman away with nothing.

The Cameroon Association of Lawyers’ Hamadou Hamajarou says with a legal marriage, the state protects the wife’s property rights.

He said Cameroon’s penal code punishes anyone who forces a widow out of her marital home with a prison term of three months to one year and a fine of $100 to $1,000. If the woman is pregnant or violence is used, the sentence can be from two to five years in prison.

In northern Cameroon’s polygamous Muslim communities, men often bring home an additional wife without consulting their current ones. Without a registered marriage, the wives have few legal options to challenge the man’s decisions.

Aissa Dumara, coordinator of the Association for the Fight Against Violence on Women and Girls, said women who defy their husband – legally or not — are often abused or kicked out of the house.

She said only 35 of the 351 abused women who sought the group’s help in 2018 were legally married. Dumara said they were forced at very young ages into the homes of men who promised to marry them but instead they were battered, forced to do difficult domestic work, or simply dismissed.

The group arranged the mass wedding to educate women of the importance of legalizing their marriages.

It’s no small challenge in Cameroon’s remote villages.

Ismaila tried to convince her husband’s two other wives to legalize their marriages as well. But they said their families were against it because the husband and his family had yet to pay them money or property for the marriage – known as a bride price.

The cost for the wives having no legal protection could prove to be much higher.

VOA

8, March 2019

Francophone Crisis: Yaounde High Court Refuses to Release Opposition Figures ⁰

High Court refused to release opposition leader Maurice Kamto, as well as six of his supporters, who were arrested in January on politically motivated charges.

The Mfoundi High Court, located in Cameroon’s political capital, Yaoundé, made this decision following a habeas corpus request filed by the detainees’ defence lawyers.

Kamto and his party, the Cameroon Renaissance Movement (CRM), claim they won the country’s 2018 elections, although the official results say the current President Paul Biya – in power for 36 years – won the vote.

They were detained as a part of a massive government crackdown on demonstrations and political activities, including the arrest over 200 people on January 26. Since then, political activists have been regularly threatened and harassed.

Kamto and his six supporters are charged with a number of offenses linked to their rejection of the election results, including hostility against the homeland and threats to public order and rebellion.

These arrests highlight the tightening political space in Cameroon as well as the impunity with which police can disregard the law.

Kamto was arrested without a warrant on January, 28 in Douala and held for 15 days at the headquarters of the Special Operations Groups (Groupement spécial d’opérations, GSO), which is not gazetted as a detention facility for those awaiting trial.

Célestin Djamen, a member of Kamto’s party, was arrested at the hospital where he was recovering after police shot him in the leg during a January 26 demonstration. He was held for 15 days at the Secrétariat d’Etat à la Défense (SED) which also is not meant to hold people in police custody.

Lawyers for Kamto say that they were unable to access their client for two days, in violation of the Cameroonian law. A lawyer for Djamen said he did not see his client for 15 days.

Kamto and the other detainees were only presented before the prosecutor 15 days after their arrest, in violation of the Cameroon Criminal Procedure Code. Moreover, despite being civilians, they are being tried in a military court. This means there are real questions about the legality of the court itself.

These arrests appear to be a politically motivated move to curtail dissent, and what’s happened so far calls into questions Kamto’s ability to get a fair trial. Cameroonians – political opponents or not – should be able to expect that officials will uphold the law, not flagrantly violate it.

HRW.ORGNEWS

8, March 2019

Yaounde needs to address Southern Cameroons Crisis: US Top diplomat ⁰

The current crisis in Cameroon’s Anglophone regions has raged since late 2016 with protests over perceived marginalisation by the Francophone majority morphing into almost daily clashes between security forces and armed separatists.

“There’s a very serious national crisis going on, but I believe the government needs to be more serious in how they address it,” said Nagy.

“I’m not sure, and I hope I’m wrong, that the government realises just what a serious problem it is,” added. “Even though there have been some policies announced by the government – in my view, they have been more symbolic than active.”

The US cut some military assistance to Cameroon in February over concerns about human rights violations allegedly committed by the Cameroonian military.

The country has been seen as a key security partner for the US and some 300 troops are based in the northern town of Garoua in an effort to fight hardline Islamists in the north of Cameroon.

“I think it could be settled relatively quickly,” said Nagy, in discussion of the Anglophone crisis. “A couple of positive steps would be if the people in the north west and south west could directly elect their governors.”

The American diplomat, referring to regional governors who are Francophone, said it would be unlikely that officials would be French speakers if Anglophones had more say over their own governance. Nagy also suggested that the security forces operating in the Anglophone regions “need to speak English”.

A conference bringing together all sides involved in the crisis would be “very positive”, according to Nagy. It would need to be “endorsed by the highest levels of government”.
RFI