Headline News

27, November 2020

Maradona buried in Buenos Aires as world mourns flawed football legend ⁰

Argentina’s Diego Maradona, one of the world’s greatest football players, was buried on Thursday amid a global outpouring of grief from the streets of his hometown Buenos Aires to Naples, Italy.

The death of Maradona at the age of 60 on Wednesday, following a heart attack, has sparked both mourning and celebrations of a true sporting star, who was a genius on the football field but lived a life marred by struggles with addiction.

In a day of high emotion, the World Cup winner was taken by hearse late on Thursday to the Bella Vista cemetery on the outskirts of Buenos Aires – where his parents are also interred – for a small private ceremony of his family and close friends.

Thousands of Argentines lined the roads as the procession passed on the hour-long journey from the presidential palace in central Buenos Aires, where Maradona had lain in state during the day.

Earlier, there were clashes between police and fans and a febrile atmosphere more akin to a rowdy football game than a wake, with fans clambering up the palace gates to get as close as possible to their hero.

In Italy, crowds tied hundreds of blue and white scarfs to the railings outside his former club Napoli, while in France, sports paper L’Equipe’s front page blared out: “God is dead”.

In Argentina, three days of national mourning were called for the player who led the country to a 1986 World Cup win and is revered with cult-like status. Tens of thousands took to the streets, not all wearing masks, despite fears over the COVID-19 pandemic. Some left flowers and messages at his childhood home.

“Maradona for me is the greatest thing that happened to me in life. I love him as much as my father and it’s like my old man died,” Cristian Montelli, 22, a supporter of the star’s former club Boca Juniors said with tears in his eyes after he had filed past the coffin.

“If I die young, hopefully upstairs I can play ball and watch a Boca game with him,” added Montelli, who had a tattoo of Maradona’s face on his leg.

Mile-long lines

During the day, Maradona’s body lay in state in a closed casket at the Casa Rosada presidential palace on the central Plaza de Mayo. It was covered with the blue and white national flag and an Argentina football jersey with the number 10 that had been part of his nickname “D10S” – a play on “dios”, the Spanish word for God.

Starting at dawn on Thursday, thousands of fans had formed a snaking line estimated at over a mile (1.6 km) long through the streets of Buenos Aires near the plaza, after a night of mourning and reminiscing.

Fans who got inside the palace – many missed out – threw football shirts, flowers and other items towards the casket.

“He was someone who touched the sky with his hands but never took his feet off the ground,” President Alberto Fernandez said. He visited the casket on Thursday.

As authorities started to close down access to the central square on Thursday afternoon, scuffles broke out, with police using rubber bullets and water cannon to disperse the unruly crowds.

The tensions eased after Maradona’s body was transferred to the cemetery, surrounded by a huge procession of police and others on motorbikes and cars.

In Naples, meanwhile, fans laid out flowers, children’s pictures, candles and even a bottle of wine in a rapidly expanding, makeshift shrine.

“Diego belongs to the people”

Major athletes and world leaders, including Argentina-born Pope Francis, have paid their own tributes.

“Diego belongs to the people, Diego belongs to Argentina, Diego belongs to the country,” said Dario Lozano, waiting in line to view the casket.

Beloved in his homeland after leading Argentina to World Cup glory in 1986 and adored in Italy for taking Napoli to two Serie A titles, Maradona was a uniquely gifted player who rose from the tough streets of Buenos Aires to reach the pinnacle of his sport.

The 1986 World Cup included a quarter-final game against England where Maradona scored two of the tournament’s best-known goals ever – an illicit “Hand of God” goal and one that followed an incredible swerving, dribble.

Maradona also battled various health problems over the years as a result of his addictions. Earlier this month, he was hospitalised for symptoms including anemia and dehydration and underwent emergency surgery for a subdural hematoma – a blood clot in the brain.

On Thursday, Maradona’s lawyer, Matías Morla, said he would ask for a full investigation into the circumstances of the death, and criticised what he said was a slow response by emergency services.

In Italy, Massimo Vignati, owner of a Maradona museum in Naples, said the player had become almost like family.

“My mother was the Neapolitan mother of Maradona. He was our twelfth brother,” he told Reuters, surrounded my memorabilia of the player. “We must remember him with his smile as always. He made his last dribble and left us suddenly.”

(FRANCE 24 with REUTERS)

27, November 2020

US: Trump says he will leave White House if Electoral College votes for Biden ⁰

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday he will leave the White House if the Electoral College votes for President-elect Joe Biden, the closest he has come to conceding the Nov. 3 election, even as he reiterated his unfounded claims of massive voter fraud.

Speaking to reporters on the Thanksgiving holiday, Republican Trump said if Democrat Biden – who is due to be sworn in on Jan. 20 – is certified the election winner by the Electoral College, he will depart the White House.

But Trump said it would be hard for him to concede under the current circumstances and declined to say whether he would attend Biden’s inauguration. The electors are scheduled to meet on Dec. 14.

“This election was a fraud,” Trump insisted, while offering no concrete evidence of such voting irregularities.

Biden and Trump both stayed close to home to celebrate Thanksgiving on Thursday as the coronavirus pandemic raged across the country.

Biden spent the holiday in the small seaside town of Rehoboth, Delaware, where he and his wife Jill have a vacation home. The Bidens are hosting daughter Ashley Biden and her husband Dr. Howard Krein for the holiday meal.

The former vice president, appearing with his wife in a video message posted to his Twitter account on Thanksgiving, said his family typically holds a large gathering on the island of Nantucket off Massachusetts, but would remain in Delaware this year “with just a small group around our dinner table” because of the pandemic.

In the presidential-style address to a nation that has lost more than 260,000 lives to the coronavirus, the Democratic president-elect said Americans were making a “shared sacrifice for the whole country” and a “statement of common purpose” by staying at home with their immediate families.

“I know this isn’t the way many of us hoped we’d spend our holiday. We know that a small act of staying home is a gift to our fellow Americans,” said Biden. “I know better days are coming.”

Republican President Trump often likes to celebrate holidays at his Mar-a-Largo resort in Florida. But on Thursday he remained in the Washington area, spending part of the morning at his Trump National Golf Club in Virginia where he played a round of golf.

It was a far cry from last year when he made a surprise visit to Afghanistan, where he served turkey to U.S. troops before sitting down to eat Thanksgiving dinner with them.

This time, Trump spoke by video link from the White House to members of the military.

Source: REUTERS

27, November 2020

Yaoundé: HIV/AIDS Patients Shirk Hospitals for Fear of COVID-19 ⁰

Cameroon’s Ministry of Health says tens of thousands of people living with HIV and AIDS are refusing to enter hospitals for fear of catching the coronavirus.  Health workers say if those patients do not get the antiretroviral drugs the need, they put themselves at risk.  Ahead of World AIDS Day on December 1, Cameroon’s medics are urging HIV-positive patients to take their medicine.

At Yaoundé’s Baptist Hospital Etugebe, about 30 people with AIDS listen to speakers and health workers talk about HIV.

19-year-old Nyako Cinthia Njiti, who for five years has been living with AIDS, said it has been nine months since they last held a meeting.

“We always have monthly meetings, we sit together, share ideas, encourage others, people share their success stories. And due to the fact that people cannot meet, it disturbs children from coming together and having the fun they always have. And also, when they come for drugs, we always have counseling sessions with them. They play with toys. Those things are not more happening,” said Njiti.

More disturbingly, Cameroon’s health ministry reports that of the 300,000 HIV-positive people in the country who need antiretrovirals, about 60 percent refuse to visit hospitals because of COVID-19.

Sintieh Ngek is with the Cameroon Baptist Convention health services. He said failure to take anti-retroviral drugs can weaken the immune systems of people with AIDS.

“When the immune system is that weak, every disease that comes to the body is going to infect the body, so you have frequent diarrheas, weight loss, diseases like cryptococcal meningitis and tuberculosis. These are very common opportunistic infections,” said Ngek.

Gilbert Tene of the Cameroon Medical Council said to fill the gap, medics are going to AIDS patients in their homes and giving them a one-month supply of anti-retrovirals.

“We need those patients at the hospitals to keep on counseling, to provide them with drugs and provide them with any other support. That is why we have come up with what is called differentiated service delivery which has made us to go out to the community to assist those who cannot come to the hospital,” said Tene.

Health worker Awa Fany said some hospitals in Cameroon are running short on funds for AIDS patients because of the pandemic.

“Funding has become limited. Funders are now paying more attention to COVID-19 and so we are asking ourselves how can we ensure that we distribute resources in an even manner such that we still care for children who are HIV positive while taking care of those who are COVID-19 positive,” said Fany.

Even before the pandemic, Cameroon health officials struggled to get AIDS patients to hospitals for treatment.

Cameroon’s Ministry of Health says in 2019, 75% of AIDS-infected children died in their first five years.

The government blames parents who fail to follow up on treatment for their children while many parents cannot afford transport fees to get them to city hospitals.

Source: VOA

27, November 2020

CPDM Crime Syndicate: Ngute targets creation of 500,000 jobs next year ⁰

Cameroonian Prime Minister Joseph Dion Ngute said Wednesday the government plans to create 500,000 jobs in 2021.

Cameroon will adopt new pro-employment measures and enhance its support for key groups of job-seekers, Ngute said in the capital Yaounde while presenting the 2021 government plan of action to the National Assembly.

He said that access to vocational training will be improved by diversifying sectors and increasing training in new centers while making efforts to support market entities and create jobs.

Cameroon will improve its healthcare and educational systems, revamp its economy and agriculture and enhance the security of its territory and citizens, Ngute added.

He stressed that the success of the action plan will “largely depend on the behaviour of COVID-19 pandemic” that has so far slowed down economic growth.

Upon discussion and adoption of the action plan by the parliament, the Cameroonian government will approve detailed measures for meeting the strategic goals, which will be implemented through field-based development plans and programs for local governments, as well as public, private and third sector organizations.

Source: Xinhuanet

26, November 2020

Southern Cameroons Crisis: The death penalty still stands ⁰

Since the Southern Cameroons crisis moved from the streets to the trenches and bushes of Southern Cameroons, a lot has changed especially the region’s political landscape.

Political campaigns are no longer conducted in the open like it was before the crisis which put the country in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons, including the military brutality and the human suffering that could be seen all over the place.

Southern Cameroons has changed for good though the old CPDM crime syndicate’s hawks and crooks like Peter Mafany Musonge, Yang Philemon and Dion Ngute are still in denial.

Over the last week, Musonge and Yang Philemon have been testing the water to see if Southern Cameroonians can take their poisonous bait.

They have been on the ground campaigning for their party which has been outlawed in the two English-speaking regions of the country.

They only know their people when elections are in the offing. For more than three years, thousands of Southern Cameroonians have been slaughtered by the Yaoundé government in plain sight, but to these “power hungry vultures” the mowing down of fellow Southern Cameroonians is not an issue to them.

Regional elections are on the horizon and these “fairweather elites” are back with old promises, thinking that an angry and a hungry people will buy into their lies and vain promises.

In a message sent to the Cameroon Concord News Group’s Global Headquarters in the United Kingdom, the separatists still hold that all those who have collaborated with the enemy should be punished and the death sentence hanging over the heads of people like Yang Philemon, Atanga Nji, Peter Mafany Musonge, George Tabetando, etc still stands.

“It will be hard to pardon these people who have been eating, drinking and dancing with the enemy. Many of our people have been killed by the Yaoundé government which has been enabled by some of our own people,” the message said.

“I hope while Yang and Musonge are peddling heresy in the name of elections, they also know that a death sentence is hanging over their heads like the Sword of Damocles,” the message stressed.

“Many families are still mourning their loved ones and thousands of families have been left homeless. Our people are all over East Cameroon begging for food and accommodation because the government burnt their homes and chased them away from their towns. We will never forget this and we must make those enablers among us to pay for their crime,” the message underscored.

“These elections are a non-event and any councilors who participate in that charade will be viewed as enemies and will be dealt with accordingly,” the message said.

“We are keeping our eyes on everybody. Those who betray us will have themselves to blame. The government has not yielded an inch of its authority and it wants us to down our guns. This is not going to happen,” the message underscored.

“We had thought that the national dialogue held in 2018 was designed to change a lot of things but the government’s scam is continuing. The government had hastily granted the two English-speaking regions a special status but we have only seen more people killed by government troops after their so-called special status. We now know that the only thing special in that status is the total extermination of the indigenous people of Southern Cameroons,” the message continued.

“It is hard to trust this government. The ruling party is a crime syndicate that should never be trusted. Its diaper wearing, corrupt and old members are hell-bent on destroying the youths of this country before they die. If our French-speaking colleagues have accepted their slave status, we will not accept that. It is now easy to pick up guns and we will do that until the marginalization that has been our fate ends,” the message stressed.

“We cannot drop our guns when our leaders are still in the dungeons of East Cameroon. Some are abroad and are doing their best to provide much-needed support. Though there are some disagreements among our leaders, we hold that the gaps can be bridged. These leaders should understand that we still have much to deal with. The Yaoundé government is still killing our people. We cannot let it do as it wishes. We must keep on fighting until the government listens,” the message concluded.

From every indication, Cameroon is not yet out of the woods. The days ahead are bleak and if the government does not end its charade, many more people will still die and the death sentence on the so-called elites will continue to be a millstone on their necks.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Group Chairman/ Editor-In-Chief

26, November 2020

US: Biden urges a cautious Thanksgiving as Trump rages on over election loss ⁰

On a day of grace and grievance, President-elect Joe Biden summoned Americans on Wednesday to join in common purpose against the coronavirus pandemic and their political divisions while the man he will replace stoked the fading embers of his campaign to “turn the election over.”

Biden, in a Thanksgiving-eve address to the nation, put the surging pandemic front and center, pledging to tap the “vast powers” of the federal government and to “change the course of the disease” once in office. But for that to work, he said, Americans must step up for their own safety and that of their fellow citizens.

“This is the moment when we need to steel our spines, redouble our efforts and recommit ourselves to this fight,” Biden said. “Each of us has a responsibility in our own lives to do what we can to slow the virus.”

President Donald Trump, who has scarcely mentioned the pandemic in recent days even as it has achieved record heights, remained fixated on his election defeat.

He sent his lawyer Rudy Giuliani and other members of his legal team to meet Pennsylvania Republican state senators in Gettysburg. Inside a hotel near the hallowed battlefields of civil war, they again aired complaints about the election and repeated allegations of Democratic malfeasance that have already disintegrated under examination by courts.

“We have to turn the election over,” Trump said from the Oval Office, where he joined the meeting by speakerphone.

“This was an election that we won easily,” he said. “We won it by a lot.” In fact, the election gave Biden a clear mandate, and no systemic fraud has been uncovered. Judge after judge has dismissed the Trump campaign’s accusations as baseless, and the transition to Biden’s presidency is fully underway.

Nevertheless, Trump repeated: “This election has to be turned around.”

Trump had been expected to appear in person in Gettysburg, but did not after another member of his legal team tested positive for the coronavirus. Few at the meeting wore masks.

Altogether, the forum heard — and cheered — yet another declaration from a U.S. president seeking to reverse a democratic election and the voters’ will because he wants to stay in power. The setting was about a mile from the scene of Pickett’s Charge, where Union troops repelled a desperate Confederate attack in July 1863 and helped turn the tide of the Civil War.

The president followed up by pardoning former national security adviser Michael Flynn, the second Trump associate convicted in the Russia probe to be granted clemency by Trump.

The pardon was part of a broader effort to undo the results of an investigation that for years has shadowed Trump’s administration and yielded criminal charges against a half dozen associates. The pardon voids the criminal case against Flynn just as a federal judge was deciding whether to grant a Justice Department request to dismiss the prosecution despite Flynn’s own guilty plea to lying to the FBI about his Russia contacts.

For his part, Biden has largely projected serenity as the necessary elements of a presidential transition — money, access to office space and more — were held at bay for nearly three weeks by Trump’s machinations and a delayed ascertainment by the General Services Administration that he had won the election. On Wednesday, he addressed Trump’s raw tactics only in passing.

“Our democracy was tested this year,” Biden said, “but the people of this nation are up to the task.”

“In America, we have full and fair and free elections, and then we honor the results,” he said. “The people of this nation and the laws of the land won’t stand for anything else.”

And he offered an optimistic vision, calling on Americans to “dream again” and predicting that “the 21st century is going to be an American century.”

Biden pledged more virus testing, more protective gear and clearer guidance for businesses and schools to reopen when he becomes president. Until vaccines are distributed, he said, masks, social distancing and limits in the size of gatherings “are our most effective tools to combat the virus.”

Biden’s remarks came as COVID-19 cases are surging nationwide. Hospitalizations, deaths and the testing positivity rate were also up sharply as the nation headed into Thanksgiving, and public health experts have warned that the large family gatherings expected for the holiday are likely to extend and exacerbate the surge.

He has formed a coronavirus advisory board of scientists, doctors and public health experts, and plans to establish a COVID-19 coordinator in the White House to lead his administration’s response.

This week, however, Biden focused beyond the crisis stateside and unveiled his national security team on Tuesday, including his nominees for secretary of state, director of national intelligence and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Drawing implicit contrasts with Trump, Biden said the team “reflects the fact that America is back, ready to lead the world, not retreat from it.” He’s also expected to name Janet Yellen as treasury secretary in the coming weeks.

In urging Americans to be vigilant in their Thanksgiving plans, Biden said Wednesday he was taking precautions of his own, eschewing his traditional large family gathering and spending the holiday instead with just his wife, daughter and son-in-law.

He’s traveling with his wife, Jill, to Rehoboth Beach, the small Delaware beach town where the two have a vacation home. That’s where they’ll host their family for Thanksgiving dinner. Biden is expected to stay through the weekend in Rehoboth before returning to Wilmington for further work on the transition.

Trump will forgo his usual plans to celebrate Thanksgiving at his private club in Florida and will instead remain at the White House.

Source: AP

26, November 2020

Bamileke Chiefs intensifies call for President Biya to step down ⁰

Some French Cameroun traditional rulers are now calling for constitutional reform and consultation among opinion leaders that will herald a smooth political transition in Yaoundé.

Constitutional reform, political transition, the war in Southern Cameroons, the revision of the electoral code, and inclusive dialogue among Cameroonian opinion leaders including the diaspora are among the topics of discussion that preoccupied traditional leaders in the western region of French Cameroun this week.

The chiefs of the Bamileke constituencies whose subjects secretly financed the genocide campaign currently going on in Southern Cameroons unanimously opined that they want to help the CPDM crime syndicate in seeking solutions to the numerous political crises facing the two Cameroons.

In a statement made public recently, the Bamileke chiefs observed that “The so-called NoSo war is sinking into an unbearable barbarity with the main victims being civilians and even children who just wanted to get an education. Assassinations, beheadings, summary executions, kidnappings and humiliations of all kinds are multiplying and becoming commonplace, thus seriously undermining human rights and dignity in our country,”

Regarding the political transition in Yaounde, the Bamileke traditional leaders, suggested a constitutional reform that will ensure stability and get a new figure to run government business in Yaoundé.

Some French Cameroun political commentators have expressed scepticism about getting a political transition in Cameroon before the end of President Biya’s term.

With age openly telling on the president, Paul Biya, 87 years old, has been in power for 38 years. The dictator claimed he was re-elected to a seventh term of 7 years at the end of the election of October 7, 2018.

The declaration of the traditional chiefs of the West comes at a time when many see no solution in sight following the acceptance by the collapsing regime to stage first regional elections on December 6.

Cameroon Concord News understands that at the end of these elections, 900 regional councillors will be elected. There will be 90 councillors in each region, including 70 representatives from government departments and 20 from various chiefdoms. The elections are being boycotted by two of the largest opposition parties, the MRC and the SDF.

By Rita Akana in Yaounde

25, November 2020

Yaoundé: Southern Cameroons massacre trial set for December 17 ⁰

Cameroon’s army said Wednesday that three soldiers accused in the massacre of civilians in a troubled anglophone region, a case that triggered an international outcry, would go on trial on December 17.

The killing took place on February 14 in the village of Ntumbaw, in the Northwest Region, where anglophone separatists and security forces are embroiled in a bloody three-year-old conflict.

According to the government, 10 children and three women died, while the UN has put the toll at more than 23 dead, including nine children aged under five and two pregnant women.

“Three soldiers will appear in Yaounde military court for murder, arson and destruction of property, violence against a pregnant woman and disregard for orders,” army spokesman Colonel Cyrille Atonfack told AFP.

The trial will start on December 17, he confirmed.

The Cameroon authorities denied for two months that its security forces were to blame for any deaths at Ntumbaw.

It said the fatalities had resulted from an “unfortunate accident” when fuel was set ablaze during a gunfight between troops and separatists after a patrol came under fire.

But Human Rights Watch (HRW), in its own investigation, said civilians had been slaughtered by government forces and an auxiliary militia drawn from the ethnic Fulani community.

It based this on interviews with 25 people, including three witnesses to killings and seven relatives of victims, and on satellite imagery taken before and after the attack.

In April, as international pressure mounted, President Paul Biya’s office acknowledged responsibility by the security forces, saying three soldiers and a self-defence group had “attacked” a separatist base.

“After exchanges of fire in which five terrorists were shot dead,” they “discovered that three women and 10 children had died as a result of their actions,” it said.

HRW’s Cameroon specialist, Ilaria Allegrozzi, said the watchdog group was “pleased” that a date had been set for the trial.

“We have gone from complete denial to investigation, a presidential statement and now a trial,” she said, but cautioned that “senior individuals in the chain of command” also had to be prosecuted.

English speakers account for nearly a fifth of Cameroon’s population of 24 million, who are majority French-speaking.

Most of this minority live in two western regions called the Northwest and Southwest, which were once part of British colonies in West Africa.

Decades of grievances at perceived discrimination brewed into a declaration of independence in October 2017, which was followed by a government crackdown.

More than 3,000 people have died and at least 700,000 have fled their homes. Rights monitors say abuses have been committed by both sides.

Source: AFP

25, November 2020

Diego Maradona: Argentina legend dies aged 60 ⁰

The former Argentina attacking midfielder and manager had successful surgery on a brain blood clot earlier in November.

It was then announced he was to be treated for alcohol dependency.

One of the greatest players of all time, Maradona was captain when Argentina won the 1986 World Cup, producing a series of sublime individual performances.

He played for Barcelona and Napoli during his club career, winning two Serie A titles with the Italian side.

Maradona scored 34 goals in 91 appearances for Argentina, representing them in four World Cups.

He led his country to the 1990 final in Italy, where they were beaten by West Germany, before captaining them again in the United States in 1994, but was sent home after failing a drugs test for ephedrine.

During the second half of his career, Maradona struggled with cocaine addiction and was banned for 15 months after testing positive for the drug in 1991.

He retired from professional football in 1997, on his 37th birthday, during his second stint at Argentine giants Boca Juniors.

Having briefly managed two sides in Argentina during his playing career, Maradona was appointed head coach of the national team in 2008 and left after the 2010 World Cup, where his side were beaten by Germany in the quarter-finals.

He subsequently managed teams in the United Arab Emirates and Mexico and was in charge of Gimnasia y Esgrima in Argentina’s top flight at the time of his death.

Source: BBC

25, November 2020

African Union special envoy to Mali, the Sahel quits ⁰

The special envoy of the African Union to Mali and the Sahel, Pierre Buyoya has resigned from his post.

The former Burundian simply confirmed to the AFP that he had submitted his resignation, without further details or reason for the resignation.

Buyoya was sentenced to life imprisonment in his country in October for the 1993 assassination of his predecessor Melchior Ndadaye.

He denounces a “political trial” and said he would appeal the ruling.

A senior AU official told AFP on condition of anonymity that ‘Mr. Buyoya resigned because he wants to “devote all his time and energy to his defense and wants to avoid a situation in the AU that would become embarrassing for a member state.’’

Another senior official who also spoke on condition of anonymity added that Buyoya’s resignation “was accepted with gratitude for the excellent work done in Mali on behalf of the AU.”

The African Union has not made any comment on Buyoya’s conviction since the verdict was announced on October 20 in Bujumbura.

The Burundian judiciary convicted Mr. Buyoya, along with about twenty of his relatives, for “attacking the head of state, attacking the authority of the state, and attack tending to bring about massacre and devastation”.

Mr. Buyoya’s name had already been mentioned in connection with the assassination of President Ndadaye, without any proof being provided.

Source: Africa News