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Africa Cup of Nations: Comoros struggle to put team together against Cameroon as Covid racks squad

23, January 2022

Africa Cup of Nations: Comoros struggle to put team together against Cameroon as Covid racks squad 0

The Comoros, the surprise package of the Africa Cup of Nations, are struggling to put a team together for their last-16 tie against host nation Cameroon after 12 players and management tested postive for Covid-19, their federation announced Saturday.

The 12 positive tests include both of the Coelacanths’ fit goalkeepers, with the third goalkeeper, Salim Ben Boina already injured. Comoros are due to face Cameroon on Monday.

“The Coelacanths affected by Covid…include coach Amir Abdou, our only two goalkeepers, Moyadh Ousseini and Ali Ahamada,” the federation tweeted two days before an historic match for the Comoros who qualified for the last 16 in their first appearance at the tournament.

In a video posted on the account, general manager El Hadad Hamidi also named five outfield players who have tested positive: midfielders Nakibou Aboubakari, Yacine Bourhane, striker Mohamed M’Changama and defenders Kassim Abdallah and Alexis Souahy.

With no goalkeepers currently available for the tie, the Comoros are in serious trouble.

Confederation of African Football rules for the tournament dictate that teams must play games as long as at least 11 players test negative for the coronavirus.

If no goalkeeper is available, an outfield player has to stand in.

“We are trying to do everything in our power to find alternative solutions” but “without the coach, without major players and especially without our only two goalkeepers who remained, the situation is quite complicated”, admitted Hamidi.

The Comoros, representing a tiny island nation off the south-east coast of Africa, snatched their qualification to everyone’s surprise by beating Ghana 3-2 and advancing as one of the best third-placed sides.

Source: AFP

France detects new Covid variant IHU, 12 infected

4, January 2022

France detects new Covid variant IHU, 12 infected 0

As the world grapples with the highly mutated Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2, scientists have identified a new strain of the Covid-19 causing virus in Southern France.

Known as ‘IHU’, the B.1.640.2 variant has been reported by researchers at institute IHU Mediterranee Infection in at least 12 cases, and has been linked to travel to African country Cameroon.

However, the researchers noted that it is too early to speculate on how this variant behaves as far as infection and protection from vaccines is concerned.

The yet-to-be peer-reviewed study, posted on the preprint repository MedRxiv on December 29, revealed that IHU has 46 mutations and 37 deletions resulting in 30 amino acid substitutions and 12 deletions.

Amino acids are molecules that combine to form proteins, and both are the building blocks of life.

Fourteen amino acid substitutions, including N501Y and E484K, and nine deletions are located in the spike protein.

Most currently used vaccines are targeted at the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2, which the virus uses to enter and infect the cells.

N501Y and E484K mutations were earlier also found in Beta, Gamma, Theta and Omicron variants.

“The mutation set and phylogenetic position of the genomes obtained here indicate based on our previous definition a new variant we named IHU,” the authors of the study said.

“These data are another example of the unpredictability of the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 variants, and of their introduction in a given geographical area from abroad,” they added.

The B.1.640.2 has not been identified in other countries so far or labelled a variant under investigation by the World Health Organization (WHO).

According to the researchers, the index (first) case was an adult diagnosed positive by RTPCR performed in a laboratory on a nasopharyngeal sample collected in mid-November last year.

Epidemiologist Eric Feigl-Ding posted a long Twitter thread in which he said that new variants keep emerging but it does not necessarily mean they will be more dangerous.

“What makes a variant more well-known and dangerous is its ability to multiply because of the number of mutations it has in relation to the original virus,” Feigl-Ding tweeted on Tuesday.

“This is when it becomes a “variant of concern” – like Omicron, which is more contagious and more past immunity evasive. It remains to be seen in which category this new variant will fall,” he said.

Many countries are currently experiencing a spike in Covid-19 cases driven by the Omicron variant which was first identified in South Africa and Botswana in November last year.

Since then, the variant of concern has spread to over 100 countries.

In India, a total of 1,892 cases of Omicron variant have been detected across 23 states and Union Territories so far.

Source: Times of India

US Defense Secretary Austin tests positive for COVID-19

3, January 2022

US Defense Secretary Austin tests positive for COVID-19 0

Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin has tested positive for COVID-19, according to a statement from him released by the Pentagon.

Austin is fully vaccinated and received a booster in early October. He last met President Joe Biden on Dec. 21, over a week before he began experiencing symptoms.

“As my doctor made clear to me, my fully vaccinated status — and the booster I received in early October — have rendered the infection much more mild than it would otherwise have been,” Austin added.

Austin said he had requested a test earlier on Sunday after having symptoms while at home on vacation.

He was last at the Pentagon on Thursday. “I met briefly – and only – with a few members of my staff. We were properly masked and socially distanced throughout.”

Last week, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shortened the recommended times that people should isolate if they have tested positive from 10 days to five days provided that they do not have symptoms and wear a mask around others for at least five more days.

Austin said he will remain at home for the next five days “in accordance with CDC guidelines.”

“To the degree possible, I plan to attend virtually this coming week those key meetings and discussions required to inform my situational awareness and decision making. I will retain all authorities,” Austin said.

This comes after the Defense Department last week tightened restrictions at its headquarters over concern about the highly transmissible Omicron variant.

The military is confronted with the challenge of maintaining military preparedness for troops, often in close quarters on ships and planes.

In August, the Pentagon mandated that US military service members get fully vaccinated against COVID-19. However, a small number of Republican governors have pushed back against the mandate for National Guard members in their states.

Oklahoma’s Republican governor, for instance, has requested that the military’s vaccine mandate be halted. However, a federal judge last week denied the request, saying the state’s National Guard members must get vaccinated.

Austin is one of the most senior members of the Biden’s administration to test positive for COVID-19.

In October, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas tested positive for the virus.

On Saturday, at least 346,869 new coronavirus were recorded in the US, according to a Reuters tally. The country’s death toll rose by at least 377 to 828,562.

As of Dec. 25, the Omicron variant was estimated to be 58.6% of the coronavirus variants circulating in the United States, according to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Source: Presstv

Biya military aggressions have left over 1700 Anglophone young men dead

15, December 2021

Biya military aggressions have left over 1700 Anglophone young men dead 0

The Ambazonia Interim Government says more than 1700 Southern Cameroons young men have lost their lives ever since the 88-year old Paul Biya launched a bloody military onslaught against the people of West Cameroon roughly five years ago.

The Vice President of the Ambazonia Interim Government, Dabney Yerima, in a statement released on Monday, announced that 1700 young men including university graduates have been killed and 1200 others sustained injuries as a result of the incessant Biya regime military attacks in Southern Cameroons.

Vice President Dabney Yerima in the statement highlighted that the situation of Southern Cameroons rural women is fairly dire; and the level of Francophone army violence against them has soared.

Dabney Yerima pointed out that the devastating French Cameroun military campaign has deprived British Southern Cameroonians of their basic rights to access health services as hospitals and medical centers are in ruins and in very unhygienic conditions that encourage the spread of infectious diseases such as Covid-19.

Yerima went on to note that thousands of Southern Cameroons children who are presently living in the forest suffer from malnutrition.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Africa Cup of Nations 2021: The most useless Francophones in Africa are living in Cameroon

25, November 2021

Africa Cup of Nations 2021: The most useless Francophones in Africa are living in Cameroon 0

More than eight months ago, CAF officials sounded a note of caution to Cameroonian football authorities that CAF will relocate the opening ceremony of the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations, from the Olembe Football Stadium in Yaoundé to another venue in Douala if something is not done and done in a hurry to complete construction work in the stadium.

Today , the Secretary General of CAF, Veron Mosengo has gone public with the matter saying “I am sorry to note that despite the many visits, including that of the President and Secretary General of CAF and the Vice President of CAF and the promises that followed, the actions have not followed.”

Mr. Veron Mosengo added “Regarding the Olembe stadium, know that if everything is not settled by November 30, 2021, the opening match will take place elsewhere. Arrangements have already been made in this direction, but it would be unfortunate for the Organizing Committee, for CAF and for Cameroon.”

Cameroon football is indeed a source of glory and shame because of the Francophone factor

On November 20, 2021, a delegation led by Prof. Mouelle Kombi Minister of Sports was at the Olembe Stadium and the big man was quoted as saying “I am satisfied with what I have seen in relation to the progress of work, inside and outside.”

However, mindful of the fact that this is not a CPDM Congress; the Confederation of African Football has identified shortcomings in various organizational aspects and is threatening to relocate the opening match.

With less than 50 days to go before the kick-off of the African Cup of Nations, scheduled for January-February in Cameroon, the Confederation of African Football (CAF) is now increasing the pressure on the ruling CPDM crime syndicate.

Veron Mosengo observed that “The state of progress of the exteriors of the Olembe stadium, whose delivery is scheduled for November 30, 2021, is still without an iota of development since my last visit dated October 22.”  The secretary general of CAF illustrated his words with images dating from November 16, 2021 and also denounced the state of the grass in some of the training grounds.

He also raised a finger against the government’s laxity in developing strict Covid-19 protocols aimed at protecting players from the spread of the virus during the tournament.

Mr. Veron Mosengo furthered that “None of the recommendations made by the team of experts from CAF during its October 3 to 15, 2021 tour for development work has been taken into consideration.”  He cited the problem of recruitment, volunteers, the use of visuals during the competition without permission and customs procedures to facilitate the entry of equipment into the country.

By Rita Akana in Yaoundé

Pandora Papers expose greed, Assange exposed war crimes

8, October 2021

Pandora Papers expose greed, Assange exposed war crimes 0

The only surprise when it comes to the Pandora Papers revelations, exposing the scale of the greed and corruption of various world leaders, political figures and officials in hoarding obscene amounts of cash in offshore tax havens, is that anyone should be surprised.

We are living through a crisis of late capitalism, an economic system whose many and manifold contradictions have been exacerbated by a global pandemic. And we have reached the point where huge imbalance in wealth within states, between states – and also within and between regions – is no longer tenable. What is also no longer tenable is the clawing hypocrisy that underpins Western liberal democracy.

The man who more than any other has exposed this hypocrisy is Julian Assange, currently languishing in Belmarsh high security prison in London awaiting the outcome of the US government’s appeal against the decision of a British judge towards the end of 2019 not to allow his extradition to the US on grounds that his treatment there is likely to amount to cruel and unusual punishment.

The level and intensity of the persecution Assange has been made to endure is a measure of the extent to which he removed the flowery curtains of democracy and human rights behind which the savage beast of US-led Western hegemony resides. In exposing the vicious and racist character of the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, the mountain of war crimes committed in their name, Julian Assange and Wikileaks quickly became a greater and more potent threat to the ability of the Empire to continue as normal than a thousand bayonets.

In societies underpinned by justice and decency instead of injustice and hypocrisy and lies, Julian Assange would be celebrated and lionised for his courage and fidelity to the truth in awakening the masses to the high crimes and war crimes committed by the powerful in their name. We don’t in the West live in such societies, however, which is why Assange has and continues to suffer the prolonged persecution at the hands of the medieval minds who sit at the apex of power in Washington and London.

The journalists responsible for the Pandora Papers story have been hailed as truthtellers and can no doubt look forward to being showered in awards for their efforts. The only difference between them and Julian Assange is the willingness to dig down into the very belly of this warmongering beast in Washington, responsible for unremitting death and destruction since the demise of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, and show the world its entrails.

“It is the job of thinking people not to side with the executioners,” French philosopher and thinker Albert Camus tells us, and since the aforementioned demise of the Soviet Union the executioners of our time have been on the march, leading to the executions of Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, and the putative executions of Cuba, Venezuela, Syria, and Iran, et al.

Julian Assange walks in the same tradition as Albert Camus. Like him he is a man of fierce moral principle who could, if he’d so wished, have ploughed the same lucrative furrow as the journalists over at the Guardian do. This is the same Guardian that squeezed Assange like a lemon, enjoying the prestige of publishing the explosive revelations that came his way as head of Wikileaks, before tossing him aside when the going got tough and fabricated allegations of sexual abuse came down the pipe against him from Sweden.

“Better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven,” is the Miltonian line from his classic 17th century poem, Paradise Lost, yet what we have with our mainstream journalists are people who made their peace with those who reign in hell and willingly serve the lie that this is the best of all possible worlds.

The revelations contained in the Pandora Papers are seismic, but compared to those contained in the Afghanistan and Iraq war logs, released by Julian Assange and Wikileaks, merely skim the surface of the depravity of the rich and powerful.

Every second of every day Julian Assange spends in prison stands as an indictment of Washington and its servile British ally. Yet on the level of consciousness, Julian Assange is not in prison we are. He has been to the mountaintop, as Dr King famously proclaimed towards the end of his life, but unlike Dr King Assange did not see the Promised Land there, he saw instead the broken land created in the name of US foreign policy.

There are no words to describe the foul stench of hypocrisy that permeates the corridors of power and corridors of mainstream newspapers and news organizations in the West. They are all part of the same lie and in order to live with themselves, they banish truth into the wilderness as if banishing a heretic.

Julian Assange is the great heretic of our age. He stands in the tradition of all the brave men and women in history who dared to say “No,” regardless of any personal sacrifice and cost involved. It is the job of all right- thinking people never to forget him or forgive those responsible for his plight.

Culled from Presstv

Cameroon humanitarian crisis worsens

27, September 2021

Cameroon humanitarian crisis worsens 0

The dust has settled on the ethnic clashes that recently left at least 12 people dead in northern Cameroon but humanitarian needs are escalating.

Over a month after the land dispute featuring the Mouzgoum and Choa Arab communities in the Logone-Birni district in the Far North left another 100 people injured and an estimated 30 000 others displaced from their homes, the rainy season brings a peak in the rates of malaria and diarrheal diseases.

Recurrent floods increase the risk of cholera.

This after the looting and burning of villages led people to seek refuge in Kousseri while others acrossed the border to Chad.

Health workers have been mobilised in the central African region to respond to the consequences of the clash.

In collaboration with the Kousseri Health District, Doctors Without Borders/ Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) intervened in the first days of the clashes.

This enabled the hospital in Kousseri to provide better care for the injured.

Ballé Diouf, head of MSF’s Kousseri emergency project, said the support MSF provided by referring injured patients with serious cases to the Chadian capital, N’djamena, relieved the patients, families and staff at the hospital.

“This has made it possible to save the lives of patients who would otherwise might not have received appropriate care in Kousseri,” he said.

When the fighting began, an MSF team comprising two doctors, two nurses, and a clinical psychologist along with a coordinating team cared for injured and displaced people in the villages of Missika, Madiak and the Logone Birni district.

Most of the people displaced were forced to leave their possessions behind when they fled their homes, walking several kilometres to reach safety.

Malaria, diarrhea and child malnutrition have been identified as the main health problems.

A total of 1 972 medical consultations were carried out in Oundouma and Gamakotoko.

Some 33 patients, including wounded people, pregnant women and severely malnourished children were assisted.

MSF has been present in Cameroon since 1984.

Source: CAJ News

Cameroon civil war rages unabated

28, July 2021

Cameroon civil war rages unabated 0

NEW research has revealed the devastating scale of destruction caused by the ongoing conflict in Cameroon’s English-speaking regions.

Fighting between various armed groups and the Cameroonian armed forces has continued unabated in the regions for the past three years.

Civilians have borne the brunt of unlawful killings, kidnappings, and widespread destruction of houses and villages.

Government intervention has been limited, and there has been near-complete silence from the international community, according to Amnesty International.

Violence between government forces and the Anglophone armed separatist groups-who are themselves divided-erupted in 2017, when protests against alleged discrimination and marginalisation were repressed by the authorities.

Based on eyewitness testimonies and analysis of satellite images, Amnesty International documented how dozens of civilians have been killed and multiple villages destroyed since 2019.

“All parties to the conflict in Cameroon’s Anglophone regions have committed human rights violations and abuses, and civilians are caught in the middle,” said Fabien Offner, Amnesty’s Central Africa Researcher.

Offner said in one case, armed separatists shot dead two elderly women with barrage rifles.

In another, Fulani vigilantes burned hundreds of houses and killed four people.

Amnesty has decried the difficulty of obtaining accurate information about the human rights crisis unfolding in affected regions, which are hard to reach by road and have poor telecommunications networks.

“But this is no excuse to look away – without strong action by the authorities and the international community, civilians will continue to bear the brunt of the crisis,” Offner said.

The Anglophone regions of Cameroon – the South-West and North-West – make up approximately 20 percent of the country’s population of 27 million.

Violence has recently intensified in parts of the North-West.

Source: CAJ News

Yerima says Amba fighters have many powerful cards to play against La Republique

10, July 2021

Yerima says Amba fighters have many powerful cards to play against La Republique 0

Vice President Dabney Yerima has said that Southern Cameroons Self Defense Groups have many strong options they can use to chase away the Biya French Cameroun army soldiers from the Ambazonian homeland.

Dabney Yerima made the remarks on Thursday in South Africa, where he arrived from Namibia at the head of a powerful Southern Cameroons delegation, Southern Cameroons Broadcasting Cooperation (SCBC) news agency reported. The Southern Cameroons’ official has taken the trip to hold meetings with senior Ambazonian officials and activists in Southern Africa.

Southern Cameroons Self Defense Forces have many powerful cards at their disposal that can create deterrence and send the occupying army packing out of Ambaland, Yerima said while meeting with the representatives of various Ambazonian groups in South Africa.

He addressed the issue of the Big Rubbergun Project launched for defensive campaign by the Southern Cameroons Interim Government.

Upwards of 70 explosive devices were denoted towards the occupied Cameroon government military convoys killing dozens and causing millions of FCFA in damage to the occupying French Cameroun regime’s various military vehicles.

Dabney Yerima said the Operation Big Rubbergun and “Kontry Sunday” have united the entire Ambazonian nation whether inside or outside Southern Cameroons territory.

He added that Southern Cameroons would eventually recover from the damage that the Francophone military has afflicted on it during this war of liberation.

The Southern Cameroons official, meanwhile, underlined, “The right of Southern Cameroons to exist as an independent state.

By Isong Asu

Amba Fighters are determining the magnitude, depth of the war in Southern Cameroons

8, July 2021

Amba Fighters are determining the magnitude, depth of the war in Southern Cameroons 0

The leader of the Southern Cameroons Interim Government President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe says it is Ambazonians that are presently determining the magnitude and quality of the war in Southern Cameroons.

“We have to do what we’ve got to do today; we will and we must as Ambazonians, so our children will be able to do tomorrow that which they want to do” President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe said on twitter.

“Regarding the course for the Restoration of our Statehood which is rooted in its History and Geography, there are many amongst the people of LRC who don’t understand and don’t care, while others understand but disagree, and a few others who understand and support us. However, it is important that we understand the limits to which the people of LRC, however well-meaning, will empathise with our experience. If they truly listened to our calls for equality and development, we might have avoided this inevitable hurt, pain, destruction, breakage and ultimate separation.

The pain of the experience of the people of the former British Southern Cameroons now known as Ambazonia, through many decades of oppression and subjugation is real and very deep. The good in most people outweighs the evil in them. This is how we learn to trust, forgive and live with people. Many Ambazonians now accept that we will never have to live together with LRC in any form. Our people have endured enough, so our children can finally enjoy Opportunity and Promise” the Ambazonia leader added.

The mineral-rich but poverty-stricken Southern Cameroons has been unstable ever since the Biya Francophone Beti Ewondo regime in Yaoundé declared war against the people of Ambazonia four years  ago.

Thousands of people have died since the war erupted and more than a quarter of the population have fled their homes. Of these, 75,000 are refugees in neighbouring Nigeria.

Even though bloodshed has receded in intensity over the few months, violence remains chronic.

By Chi Prudence Asong

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