Seyyed Ebrahim Raeisi has won Iran’s 2021 presidential election by a landslide, according to the final results by the Interior Ministry.

At a presser on Saturday, Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani-Fazli said out of a total of 28,933,004 votes cast in the presidential election, Raeisi garnered over 17.9 million votes, followed by Mohsen Rezaei who secured 3.4 million.

Nasser Hemmati garnered 2.4 million votes, and Amir-Hossein Ghazizadeh-Hashemi won almost one million votes.

Orf said he was not offering precise figures because vote counting was still ongoing and said he was merely providing preliminary updates.

Rouhani, Qalibaf meet Raeisi

Later in the day, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Parliament Speaker Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf turned up at the campaign HQ of Raeisi to congratulate him in person.

Following the meetings, the three briefed reporters on the content of their talks.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani (L) meets with President-elect Ebrahim Raeisi to congratulate him on his election win, June 19, 2021. (Photo by president.ir)

Rouhani thanked all those in charge of holding, overseeing and providing security to the election process.

The outgoing president said his team was fully ready to offer any cooperation or assistance to their successors.

Similarly, Parliament Speaker Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf said the legislative branch stood fully ready to cooperate with the president-elect’s administration.

In turn, Raeisi pledged all-out efforts to resolve the country’s problems, especially those affecting the people’s livelihoods.

To achieve that goal, he said, he would consult with the outgoing administration, the parliament, and the elites.

Raeisi has been the chief of Iran’s Judiciary since 2019. The Muslim cleric has formerly held several other posts in Iran’s judicial branch since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Raeisi is associated with the Principlist camp, but he said he ran in the election this year as an independent when he announced his presidential bid last month.

He was campaigning with the slogan “Popular Administration, Strong Iran” on a platform of uprooting corruption in the executive branch, fighting poverty, creating jobs, containing inflation, and corruption.

Source: Presstv

Seven soldiers have been killed in an ambush in Bambili in the northwest region of the country.

The soldiers were ambushed while on duty in the restive northwest region where a gruesome insurgency is currently unfolding.

The insurgency, which has displaced more than one million English-speaking Cameroonians, has already resulted in the killing of more than 7,000 Cameroonian civilians.

More than 3,000 soldiers have also been killed and more than two thousands of them have been seriously injured.

The government of Cameroon has not been releasing the numbers and names of soldiers killed in battle for fear that such news could demoralize its military.

Last week, some three army soldiers were hastily buried by their colleagues after Southern Cameroonian fighters ambush government soldiers in Otu in the Southwest region to hide the reality on the ground.

Sources close to the ministry of defense in Yaounde have disclosed that the government is hiding the numbers and, in certain cases, it tells the families of the soldiers that their children have simply defected or escaped from the military.

The sources add that more than 1,000 army soldiers cannot be accounted for by the military and there are no efforts by the government to establish the truth about their whereabouts.

More on the Bambili story will be yours as details come in.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

A court in Cameroon has sentenced three plantation workers to 12 months in jail for insulting Africa’s oldest and second longest-serving president, Paul Biya, and members of his government.

The Mbanga Court in the Littoral region of the country on Thursday found Clement Ytembe Bonda, André Boris Wameni and Flavy Kamou Wouwe guilty of “contempt of the president of the republic” and “propagation of fake news via social media.”

A judge ruled that the trio, labourers at a banana plantation who are in their early 30’s, will each also pay a fine of FCFA 500,000 (about $922).

The convicts were arrested on June 10 after they were seen in a video raining insults on the 88-years-old leader and his top ministers. In the video, which went viral on social media, the main speaker, Bonda, used vulgar language to describe Biya and accused members of his government of siphoning FCFA 180 billion ($338 million).

In the clip, he said they labour at a banana plantation from 6am to 6pm, “under the rain and sun for a salary of $58.3 but ministers who loiter in the capital, Yaounde, go to their offices at 8am or 9am and turn around just for a few minutes and steal $338 million…All of you will go to hell.”

Two other convicts, who are accused of being Bonda’s accomplices, assisted in videotaping the young labourer’s outburst.

The video came after reports that Cameroon would be getting a loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to aid the fight against Covid-19.

It also came after a preliminary report by the Audit Bench of the Supreme Court of Cameroon that showed there was glaring mismanagement and misappropriation of the $338 million coronavirus response special fund instituted in 2020.

The leaked report indicted several government officials of corruption, wasteful spending, improper accounting, unprocedural procurements, irregular allowances, conflict of interest and embezzlement of Covid-19 funds.

Barrister Fabien Kengne, lead counsel for the defendants, said he would appeal the ruling.

“It’s true…no one approves of the statements made, but we could have taken that as a rant. I found from my investigation that they do not have a criminal past. So these are honest citizens who were fed up,” the lawyer said.

Source: Daily Monitor

Ambazonia Restoration Forces overrun a Cameroon government army joint patrol in Nguti, Kupe Muanenguba Division in the South West killing two soldiers before pulling back in the face of reinforcement.

The Amba fighters were believed to belong to the Restoration Force defending the Nguti-Manyemen main road. They hit the Special Amphibious Battalion in Nguti convoy on Friday June 18 and Cameroon Concord News understands one Cameroon government soldier was seriously wounded.

Rising insecurity across Southern Cameroons has killed scores of soldiers and civilians this year. Just last week, 4 soldiers were killed in an attack in Otu in Eyumojock.

A Cameroon government military spokesman in Meme Division reached by phone said they would issue a statement on the incident but declined to comment further.

By Rita Akana in Kumba

A series of Ambazonia raids in Ndian Division against a French Cameroun gang of divisional delegates suspected of engaging in anti Southern Cameroons activities was carried out recently and sources familiar with the operation say Mabia Johnson Mudika, Divisional Delegate of Economy, Planning and Regional Development died during interrogation.

The 42-year-old civil servant was among six French Cameroun Divisional Delegates arrested by Ambazonia Restoration Forces in Misore-Balue village in Ekondo-Titi Subdivision, near Mundemba.

“It seems at this stage that he was absolutely shocked after he found himself in Amba protective custody and when he was questioned about dishing-out Southern Cameroons land to a French Cameroun electricity company known as Eneo he went into cardiac arrest and died,” said one source in Ekondo Titi. Although the same person stressed only a postmortem would establish the cause of death.

By Rita Akana in Mundemba

A gang of three men has been accused of stealing 86 iPhones worth Dh355,000 from a Dubai shop.

According to the Dubai Court of First Instance, the three Cameroonian men broke into the shop at Dubai’s Naif area and stole the phones after damaging the door and surveillance cameras in May this year.

The 43-year-old Indian shop owner testified that he received a call at 4am, saying that his shop was stolen by an unknown group. “They broke the locks and the door. They stole 86 iPhones of different models and Dh14,735 in cash which was in a drawer,” the Indian victim said in official records.

Surveillance cameras

Dubai Police identified the burglars through nearby surveillance cameras. Police then arrested the men who admitted to the robbery. The stolen phones were handed over to a fourth countryman who was identified and arrested.

The three defendants were charged with robbery and damaging property. The fourth defendant was charged with obtaining stolen valuables.

A verdict will be issued on July 11.

Source: Gulfnews.com

Two people have died and three others were injured Tuesday in Cameroon’s North region after a storm swept across Benoue division of the region, a government official said on Wednesday.

Benoue division’s prefect Oumarou Wabi told reporters that the tragedy happened when violent wind uprooted an old tree and it fell on a car that was carrying five people.

“Two died on the spot and three others were seriously injured. They are responding to treatment. We have asked municipal authorities to identify old trees risky to the population and take them off,” Wabi said.

The storm also destroyed property including houses. Local authorities have asked residents to stay indoors.

Source: Xinhuanet