Headline News

16, September 2017

US: Protesters take to St. Louis streets after murder acquittal for ex-cop ⁰

Several hundreds of Black Lives Matter protesters have taken St. Louis’ streets to voice their anger after a Missouri judge acquitted a white former St. Louis police in the 2011 killing of an African-American man. Some protesters clashed with police and a few scuffles broke out on Friday in the state of Missouri where racially charged clashes in the nearby city of Ferguson created the Black Lives Matter movement in 2014.

Police said some demonstrators hurled rocks and water bottles, while witnesses and video footage showed police used pepper spray on at protesters about a block from the courthouse. A court in Missouri freed Jason Stockley, 36, who was charged with first-degree murder for killing Anthony Lamar Smith, 24. He was arrested in May 2016.

The former policeman was accused of planting a gun in Smith’s car but claimed in his testimony that he did this in self-defense. More than 500 protesters held a demonstration following the verdict in downtown St. Louis, chanting, “No justice, no peace” and “Shut it down.” Some held “Black Lives Matter” signs.

“I’m sad, I’m hurt, I’m mad,” said the Reverend Clinton Stancil of the Wayman AME Church in St. Louis. “We haven’t made any progress since Ferguson, that’s clear. Cops can still kill us with impunity.” The deaths of unarmed black men at the hands of police over the past years have sparked nationwide protests under the banner of Black Lives Matter movement.

On Tuesday, the US Department of Justice will not bring civil rights charges against six Baltimore police officers involved in the arrest and death of Freddie Gray, the young African-American man whose killing sparked mass protests in 2015.

The department said that “the evidence is insufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt” that the officers who arrested Gray “willfully violated” his civil rights.

Source: Presstv

16, September 2017

French Cameroun: Um Nyobe honored in Boumnyebel monument ⁰

A monument has been erected in honour of the late freedom fighter Ruben Um Nyobe in his village at Libellingoi Boumnyebel in a ceremony that held on the 13th of September 2017. Libellingoi Boumnyebel is located some 84 kilometres from Yaounde. The occasion was attended by many politicians in the company of the wife and son of the fallen hero, Mme Ngo Ndjock Y. Marie and Daniel Ruben Um Nyobe.

Speaking during the event, the Secretary General of the UPC party enjoined the youth to emulate the example of Ruben Um Nyobe. He regretted the fact that the freedom fighter did not live to see Cameroon gain her independence.
Ruben Um Nyobe was co- founder of the Cameroon People’s Union (UPC) on 10th April 1948. On 14th September 1958, the independence crusader was assassinated by the French army still in Libellingoi Boumyebel . On the 27th of June 1991, President Paul Biya promulgated the law on the rehabilitation of UPC martyrs as national heroes.

Ruben Um Nyobe was born on 13th September, 1913 in the Nyong and Nkelle Division in the centre region. He attended Presbyterian schools in the French occupied territory and worked as a civil servant in the Finance and judicial administration sectors.

He made several appearances at UN the headquarters in New York where he criticised French refusal to prepare Cameroon for independence or self government . His efforts paid off when the Trusteeship council issued a series of resolutions asking France to implement political reforms in French Cameroun. French Cameroon finally became independent on 1st January 1960.

16, September 2017

Yaounde: Aids plague reaching peak ⁰

According to estimates by the National AIDS Committee, Cameroon is recording approximately 38,000-53,000 new HIV infections each year. Cameroon Concord News understands that 620, 000 people are living with HIV in Cameroon. Since 2004, the trend in prevalence has been marked by a downward trend, from 5.5% to 4.3% in 2011 in the population aged 15-49, with a peak between 35-39 years (8 , 1%).

Given that the HIV epidemic is more urban (4.8 per cent) than rural (3.8 per cent), and that current control strategies are cost-effective in a context of scarce and increasing resources, the Yaounde regime is considering boosting communication to people aged 15-49 and particularly for those who are developing risky behaviours. One of the goals is to reduce the incidence of HIV in the population aged 15-49 by at least 50%.

Health official say to achieve this, a relevant and well-targeted communication strategy must be developed, taking into account already identified risk behaviors: poor or ignorant girls who have unprotected sex with men who are generally older and have financial power, multiplicity of partners among girls and boys, homosexual swinging, etc.
Yaounde also noted that the increased use by young people of phones to quickly exchange messages and images through Facebook, Whatsapp, Twitter, Viber, etc., is a new facort to be integrated inevitably into the campaign to eradicate virus.

Sama Ernest
Cameroon Concord News

15, September 2017

Police investigate ‘explosion’ on London subway station ⁰

British police are investigating a reported explosion at a subway station in southwest London, which left several people injured and hundreds of commuters running from the platform in panic.

The Metropolitan Police said Friday that officers have arrived at the Parsons Green station and are investigating and will give more information as soon as possible.

According to news agencies, the blast left some passengers with facial burns and that paramedics were present at the scene.

Transport for London confirmed that Parsons Green station has been closed and there was no service between Earls Court and Wimbledon on the District Line which runs through Parsons Green.

One witness reported seeing “a flash and a bang” in a bag holding the container, which is said to have had wires coming from it, on the packed rush-hour carriage.

14, September 2017

Russia launches military drills with Belarus, causing alarm ⁰

Russia is set to launch major joint military drills with Belarus on Thursday, amid continuing tensions between Moscow and NATO. The large-scale drills, called Zapad (West) 2017, are scheduled to be held from September 14 to 20 around the Baltic Sea, in western Russia, Belarus, and the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad.

The maneuvers, described by Moscow as “purely defensive,” will involve 12,700 troops, 70 aircraft, 250 tanks, and 10 warships.

NATO claims that Russia is under-reporting the number of troops participating in the drills and that the military exercises could provide cover for a possible permanent relocation of offensive equipment near the Baltic countries. Some of the alliance’s eastern members allege that Moscow has committed more than 100,000 servicemen to the war games, a claim that has been rejected by Russia as flat-out wrong.

The Russian Foreign Ministry has said that the “artificial hype” about the maneuvers is aimed at “justifying the spending on NATO’s military buildup on Poland and the Baltic states in the eyes of the western audience.”

Russia and NATO have had strained ties since conflict erupted in eastern Ukraine some three years ago. More than 10,000 have been killed in the war in Ukraine’s industrial east, where the Kiev government is fighting pro-Russia forces.

Russia has long been wary of NATO’s expansion eastward — toward Russia’s western borders. NATO has deployed around 4,000 troops, consisting of four battle groups, to Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, and Poland in recent years.

The US military took part in a training exercise with Baltic allies in June that included B-1 and B-52 bombers and 50 naval ships. Also in July, 25,000 servicemen from 17 countries participated in a NATO training exercise in the Black Sea, which were monitored by members of the Russian military.

Sweden holds biggest war games in 20 years

Meanwhile, the Swedish military has started its “first and largest” drills, dubbed Aurora 17, in more than two decades on Wednesday, involving 19,000 troops with support from NATO countries.

Sweden, which is not a member of NATO, plans to conduct the war games in the air, on land and at sea, with the participation of a US Patriot missile battery, helicopters, and a unit of National Guard tanks.

Swedish soldiers participate in the Aurora 17 military exercise in Gothenburg, Sweden, September 13, 2017. (Photo by Reuters

Around 1,500 troops from the United States, France, Norway, and other NATO allies are taking part in the exercises over a three-week period.

Brandishing the ‘Russian threat’

Micael Byden, the commander of the Swedish Armed Forces, seemed to suggest that the drills were being launched in response to a perceived security threat from Russia.

“The security situation has taken a turn for the worse,” Byden said. “Russia is the country that affects security in Europe right now with its actions… so it is clear that we are watching very closely what Russia is doing.”

Moscow has repeatedly expressed concern over Sweden’s growing military activities and its closer cooperation with NATO. Russian President Vladimir Putin warned in early June that Moscow would need to take additional security measures if the Scandinavian country decided to join NATO.

“If Sweden joins NATO, that will affect our [bilateral] relations in a negative way,” Putin said back then, adding that Moscow would regard the move as “an additional threat.”

14, September 2017

Late Bishop Bala’s aide dies in Yaounde hospital of food poisoning after vomiting red ⁰

Barely three months after the tragic and mysterious disappearance of Bishop Jean-Marie Benoît Bala, the late Bishop’s mechanic who moonlighted as his courier has died in strange circumstances after a trip to the Yaounde Nsimalen International Airport to convey a nun back from leave.

Pascal Boade died tragically in the middle of last week according to Cameroon Concord News sources in Bafia. Some family members have opined that the deceased succumbed to some kind of poison that was given to him via a meal and a drink.

Camcordnews is yet to establish the correctness of this allegation. However, what we do know is that, he collapsed at the entrance of the Nsimalen airport, vomited blood, was transported to the dispensary at the airport and later on evacuated to the emergency ward at the Central Hospital in Yaounde where he passed on.

Pascal Boade was one of the late Bishop’s confidante. His numerous aptitudes in the field of mechanics made him the appointed technician of the diocese. His availability also made him indispensable within the late Bishop Bala administration. It is also reported that he had been seen in the morning of his death in full possession of his physical means.

By Sama Ernest
Cameroon Concord News

13, September 2017

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Hon Wirba calls for a review of the 1961 Foumban Agreement ⁰

The respected SDF MP from the Jakiri constituency in Southern Cameroons has said that the Biya Francophone government should engage with West Cameroon elites in relation to the 1961 Foumban Agreement.

In a correspondence dated September 7, 2017, addressed to several diplomatic missions such as La Francophonie, the Commonwealth, the United Nations, CEMAC, UNHCR, etc., the MP stated that Southern Cameroonians are being treated as slaves by French Cameroonians.

The Honourable Joseph Wirba reviewed the Bui incident of September 4, when a teenager was shot dead by a gendarme. For the deputy, it is a “genocide” orchestrated on his people with “the complicit silence and the blessing of President Paul Biya, commander in chief of the armed forces”.

The MP also described the militarization of Southern Cameroons on the eve of the new school year and the suspension of the Internet for a period of three months as “a discriminatory sanction” that has ruined several businesses in these regions.

The Honourable member noted that despite his parliamentary immunity, an arrest warrant had been issued against him. “All this to silence the injustice suffered by the marginalised people of the Northwest and Southwest regions,” the MP said.

Joseph Wirba called on the international community and the United Nations to put pressure on the Cameroonian government to engage in dialogue with the leaders of the Anglophone uprising. The MP further pointed out that he would like to see federalism on the agenda in this dialogue as ruled in Foumban in 1961.

By Sama Ernest
Cameroon Concord News

13, September 2017

La Republique: Gunmen kill one, kidnap 22 ⁰

Gunmen thought to have crossed the border from violence-racked Central African Republic attacked civilians in a remote part of Cameroon, killing one and carrying off 22, a local government official said on Wednesday. Banditry is a long-standing problem in eastern Cameroon, but armed attacks and kidnapping for ransom have become much more frequent in the last two years as civil conflict has intensified across the border in Central African Republic.

Armed bandits have taken advantage of insecurity in Central African Republic to loot homes and kidnap children, fuelling calls from human rights organisations including Amnesty International, for a United Nations force to protect civilians there. The latest attacks in Cameroon happened on Sunday in the isolated localities of Landou and Ouro Kessoum, Jean Kalandi, sub-prefect of Rey-Bouba in northeastern Cameroon, said on state radio.

“The armed bandits attacked shortly before midnight on the fateful day. They ransacked houses, looted food items and took away any valuable property they could carry,” Kalandi said. “They were well armed with very modern weapons, killed one person and took away 22 others as hostages to an unknown destination. We suspect these kidnappers are either highway robbers or rebels from CAR who have been harassing our people living along our common frontier,” he said.

A week earlier gunmen had taken 15 people hostage in a similar attack in the same area, but the victims managed to escape when their captors got drunk and fell asleep, Kalandi said. Kalandi gave no details about the victims of the latest attacks, and could not immediately be reached by phone from the capital Yaounde. Kidnappers often target the nomadic cattle-herding Mbororo people, who have a reputation for wealth and sometimes pay millions of CFA francs to free their relatives. Cameroon has recently deployed large numbers of its Rapid Intervention Brigade to combat insecurity in the east, but they are hampered by poor roads along the 600 km (375 mile) border.

Central African Republic has suffered years of conflict. In the north-west, which borders Cameroon, government forces have burned scores of villages in the past two years in the hunt for rebel fighters, leaving displaced villagers and nomadic herders vulnerable to armed bandits known locally as Zaraguinas. A northeastern revolt mounted last year from Sudan’s violent Darfur province was eventually repulsed with the help of fighter jets and special forces from former colonial power France.

Source: IOL

12, September 2017

Cameroon: Hurricane Biya hits the entire country ⁰

This period is always a difficult one for the entire North American continent, especially the United States and Mexico who are always in the eyes of a storm. Recently, Harvey hit the US, like a ton of bricks, leaving Houston totally under water. Many thought it was all over and that Americans could heave a sigh of relief. But that was not going to the situation as Irma, another dangerous hurricane had been preparing to hit Americans where it hurt the most. This time around, when it touched down, it left a trail of death and destruction in the Sunshine State of Florida, after having battered Cuba on Saturday with deafening winds and relentless rain, pushing seawater inland that flooded homes and knocked out power across a wide area.

Meanwhile, in other Caribbean islands, the story has been heartbreaking. Islands already reeling from Irma had to prepare for a second pounding from another hurricane called Jose.The twin Category 4 storms had desperate residents seeking shelter across the region. In Cuba, high winds from Irma brought down trees, utility poles and made a mess of the streets with debris strewn all over the place. On the French overseas islands of St. Martin and St. Barts, Jose was expected to bring torrential rains and dangerous currents to their shores.

If the Caribbean islands and North America think they have been hit by any strong hurricanes, then they are clearly mistaken. Hurricane Biya which has destroyed everything in Cameroon over the last 35 years remains the strongest hurricane to have visited any people in recent times. It has killed many Cameroonians and left millions in very challenging circumstances. Cameroonians are out of tears. They are sick and tired of crying. Hunger, health issues and a dangerous government have reduced them to sorry spectators of events in their own country. The international community will surely be taking a good decision to help them check the fury of Hurricane Biya if Cameroon will continue to exist as a country.

By the editorial desk.

12, September 2017

French Cameroun media “buys” the silence of the Consortium leaders ⁰

French Cameroun media houses are worried about the deliberate silence maintained by the leaders of the outlawed Cameroon Anglophone Civil Consortium. Several Francophone newspapers have questioned the “silence of the lamb” attitude adopted by Dr. Barrister Agbor Felix Nkongho and Dr. Neba Fontem Neba including Lord Justice Ayah Paul Abine.
A sea of Francophone tabloids have observed that ever since their release, the leaders of the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium have not issued any statement or press release even on social networks. Le Jour, Cameoon Info.Net and Nouvelle Expression are among the French Cameroun publications that have openly targeted the leaders of the Consortium.

We learned Dr. Fontem Neba blatantly refused saying a word during a meeting organized at the Secretariat for Defense prior to their release by French Cameroun surrogate, Brigadier General Elokobi Daniel Njock.

French Cameroun radio and television stations have also claimed that the Anglophone leaders including Justice Ayah Paul have are not willing to grant any interview with the press. The media houses in La Republique are now reporting that the leaders of the Consortium had promised while in detention that they were willing to play the role of mediators in the Southern Cameroons crisis. “Their silence raises questions,” noted La Nouvelle Expression.

At the time of filing this report, a well-placed source hinted Cameroon Concord News that the Francophone regime was putting pressure on Dr. Barrister Agbor Nkongho to issue a statement calling for the resumptions of schools in Southern Cameroons.

By Chi Prudence Asong
Cameroon Concord News