Headline News

13, May 2020

President Paul Biya’s daughter, Brenda Biya hit back haters for her big eyes ⁰

President of Cameroon, Paul Biya’s daughter, Anastasia Brenda Biya Eyenga also know as Brenda Biya has hit back to the internet users who were repeatedly making fun of her big eyes.

Given the extent that taking those teasing, the young woman has decided to respond to its critics.

“I don’t want the disease Graves ‘ disease to a person. But I think sometimes, I would like you to understand,” she said in her story Instagram.

“You make fun of someone who has a defect due to a disease! It shows the blackness of your souls, and jealousy in your heart, “she added.

Brenda Biya is suffering from a disease that is due to a disorder that causes hyperthyroidism in which thyroid hormones are produced in excess. This explains the size of the eye of Brenda Biya for years already.

It has to result in changes in vision, eye irritation, or exophthalmos-protrusion-important eyes due to the swelling of the tissues in the orbital around the eyes. The swelling of the eyes, a symptom found in it is a part.

There is no cure for the disease. But, there are treatments available to reduce the severity and frequency of symptoms. The first solution is the taking of medications antithyroid drugs to block the production of thyroid hormones.

Recently, Brenda had launched her own brand ‘Bree Culture’. She made the announcement on her official Facebook account.

She had announced the creation of her company called ‘Bree Culture Inc Shopping’. This company will specialize in the sale of wigs and craft shows.

Culled from DEVDISCOURSE

12, May 2020

Indomitable Lions: Former coach Philippe Redon dies at 69 ⁰

The former coach of Cameroon’s Indomitable Lions Philippe Redon has died at the age of 69.

The information was made public by his boyhood club Stade Rennais were he was also a member of staff for the French outfit.

Philippe Redon took charge of Cameroon between 1991 and 1992. He drew goalless at home during his first game in charge against Mali on October 1990 and reignited the Lions winning spark during the return leg game securing his first win (2-0) in emphatic fashion.

The former French footballer guided the five time African champions to the semi final of the 1992 African Cup of Nations in Senegal.

Philippe Redon also coached Liberia in 2000. He has also had spells in club football with RC Lens and US Creteil.

Philippe Redon holds a pharmacy diploma and a DEPF (Professional Football Coaching Diploma), and has also worked as a FIFA instructor

Source: 2020 kick442.com

12, May 2020

Top French Cameroun figure says Yaounde bears blame for the killing of the Mayor of Mamfe ⁰

Dieudonné Essomba, a senior French Cameroun economist and consultant for Vision4 TV, has reacted to the recent murder of the Mayor of Mamfe, Ashu Prinsley Ojong, last Saturday by armed Ambazonia Restoration Forces. The former cadre at the Ministry of Economy, Planning and Land Management accused the Biya regime of helping the Ambazonian Interim Government to achieve its goal of an independent state for West Cameroonians.

“They denied the existence of an English-speaking problem in Cameroon and they still think they can force these people into accepting their so-called unitary state alternative for a way out of the crisis” he observed.

“The Ambaboys are convinced that they’re fighting a war of liberation which will be bloody, they’ve internationalized it and we’ve known it since the days as recorded in the Bible’s Maccabees, people convinced to liberate their country from colonization never give in,” Essomba warned.

He also revealed that the Southern Cameroons war, which has already lasted four years, is not about to fade as long as the power in Yaoundé does not agree to make concessions.

“The Anglophone Secession issue has been around for 40-years, a new generation has taken over the struggle and things will only move from bad to worse” he concluded.

By Oke Akombi Ayukepi Akap in Glasgow with files from CIN

12, May 2020

Recent discussion with French ambassador indicates Biya is losing his mind ⁰

President Paul Biya 88 reportedly displayed senile dementia during his recent meeting with the French ambassador to Cameroon Christophe Guilhou. Ambassador Guilhou said that his meeting on Thursday 14 April was intensive and productive.

“We had a very long discussion,” he added in a brief statement after leaving the presidential palace, during which he also brought up issues relating to French-Cameroonian cooperation, the focus of his conversation with Biya.

Biya hailed his government’s efforts at combating the COVID-19 pandemic in a nation where the virus is still circulating and which according to French Cameroun Minister of Public Health Manaouda Malachie has now recorded 2579 positive cases of the virus since the outbreak of the pandemic on March 6 with approximately 114 deaths.

Prof Maurice Kamto, the leading French Cameroun opposition leader denounced his stumbling, hesitant performance in front of the French ambassador saying that Mr Paul Biya had finally lost any grasp of Cameroonian reality.

The burning of more than 300 towns and villages in Southern Cameroons by Cameroon government army soldiers has now led to 5,000 Southern Cameroonians being arrested and 500,000 left homeless.

Over the last month since the Coronavirus showed up on the country’s shores, the government has been slaughtering Southern Cameroons citizens where Ambazonian fighters are protecting their positions.

Biya does not seem to comply with the terms and conditions of a ceasefire negotiated by the United Nations.

Over the last four years, the Yaoundé government has diminished the population of Southern Cameroons by spraying bullets all over the place, in total disregard for calls by the international community for a negotiated settlement.

Yet there has been no stirring of protest or resistance inside French Cameroun signaling glaring failure by the French Cameroun opposition to stand up to the regime.

This has allowed President Biya and his ruling CPDM crime syndicate to escape any pressure from the international community over his reckless handling of the crisis in Southern Cameroons.

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Biya rode unmolested from Mvomeka’a to Yaoundé in a gleaming Mercedes Benz once used by the late President Ahmadou Ahidjo.

Biya told the French diplomat that Cameroon was making great strides towards improving relations with Paris after President Macron’s shocking pronouncement during a surprise meeting with a French Cameroun activist in Paris.

In reality, Cameroon is suffering the worst inflation in the CEMAC region and more than half of its economy has been wiped out in the last four years by the crisis in Southern Cameroons.

Biya’s statements to the French ambassador reflect his senile dementia. Any decent doctor will tell you that once you are in your eighties, you lose your memory, you lose your grasp of reality and you have no grip of time or space. That’s what is happening with the old man in Yaoundé.

By Asu Isong in London

12, May 2020

Coronavirus pandemic politics costing lives in Brazil ⁰

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro keeps saying coronavirus fears are overblown. Other officials at the federal, state and local levels insist the danger is all too real.

Brazil is torn by a deep political divide over how to respond to the pandemic, and it is taking a heavy human toll.

On Saturday, even as the death toll in Brazil crossed the threshold of 10,000, Bolsonaro continued pressing to get the country back to work.

“The army of unemployed keeps growing,” he tweeted.

“Is chaos coming?” added the far-right leader, who has compared the virus to a “little flu” and condemned the “hysteria” surrounding it.

Some argue the “chaos” is already here — at least as far as the Brazilian government’s response goes.

Bolsonaro’s criticism of stay-at-home measures to fight the virus has put him at odds with state and local authorities across Brazil, not to mention his own former health minister.

The president sacked the latter, Luiz Henrique Mandetta, last month after a long series of public spats.

Meanwhile, Brazil has emerged as the epicenter of the pandemic in Latin America, with 11,519 deaths so far.

Experts say under-testing means the real figure is likely far higher, and that things stand to get a lot worse.

“We know from history that anytime there’s such a cacophony in a situation like this, such huge disagreement on public policy among leaders, tragedy ensues,” said Brazilian historian Sidney Chalhoub, a professor at Harvard University.

As an example, he cited the last major cholera outbreak in Europe, in the late 19th century, that killed more than 10,000 people in Hamburg, Germany.

“It was largely caused by divisions between the local political elite and dominant economic interests, which trumped public health concerns. And the result was an even bigger economic catastrophe,” he said.

– Polarizing disease –

Bolsonaro supporters have held a series of anti-confinement protests in recent weeks.

Sometimes the president himself has joined in, hitting the street, shaking hands and giving fiery speeches, all while refusing to wear a face mask.

The protests have included virulent attacks on Congress and the Supreme Court, which have moved to counter Bolsonaro’s anti-confinement measures.

At times, they have erupted into violence, including against journalists and even nurses.

But a recent poll by the Datafolha institute found that 67 percent of Brazilians believe stay-at-home measures are needed to contain the virus, even if they hurt the economy.

Even in his own camp, Bolsonaro’s support is far from universal.

Another poll found that while 56 percent of those who call themselves right-wing or center-right supported the president’s handling of the pandemic, 40 percent did not.

“The more closely related people are to someone who has been infected or died, the more they distance themselves from Bolsonaro,” said political scientist Carlos Pereira of the Getulio Vargas Foundation, who conducted the latter poll.

– ‘Anti-knowledge’ –

Like his US counterpart Donald Trump, whom he admires, Bolsonaro has touted the medication chloroquine as a wonder drug against COVID-19.

Scientists at Brazil’s leading public health research institute, Fiocruz, have stated that preliminary studies do not indicate chloroquine is an effective treatment for the disease.

Perceived to be attacking the president, they have received threats on social media in response.

“We’re talking about a far-right, anti-democratic government,” some of whose supporters have “fascist” tendencies, said sociologist Debora Messenberg, of the University of Brasilia.

“We can’t even talk about society being ‘polarized’ in the usual sense. It’s not a democratic polarization. Right now, the debate is between democracy and authoritarianism,” she said.

Brazil, like the United States, is facing the pandemic “with a government that is anti-knowledge,” said Chalhoub.

The Bolsonaro administration “is depicting this as a public health catastrophe versus an economic catastrophe. But that’s a harmful view that will drive us toward both,” he said.

Source: AFP

12, May 2020

Russia to begin easing Covid-19 lockdown today ⁰

President Vladimir Putin said that Russia would start gradually easing coronavirus-related lockdown measures from Tuesday, but that individual regions would need to tailor their approach to varying local conditions.

“Starting from tomorrow, May 12, the national period of non-working days will be over for all sectors of the economy,” Putin said.

The president’s announcement comes after Russia registered a record number of daily cases Monday, with more than 11,000 people testing positive over the last 24 hours.

Health officials have recorded a total of 221,344 coronavirus infections and 2009 deaths.

Putin said that Russia had used the self-isolation period to prepare its healthcare system, increasing the amount of hospital beds and saving “many thousands of lives.”

This “allows us to begin a gradual lifting of restrictions”, he said.

“It is in the interest of all of us for the economy to return to normal quickly.”

Construction, agriculture and energy should be restarted first, he added.

“The epidemic and associated restrictions have had a strong impact on the economy and hurt millions of our citizens,” he said.

As people begin going back to work, mass events are still suspended and “strict sanitation demands” must be observed, Putin said.

He added that Russia’s regions will be able to keep in place any necessary anti-virus measures.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP and REUTERS)

12, May 2020

US: Trump shrugs off concern about Covid-19 spreading in White House ⁰

US President Donald Trump on Monday dismissed concerns over the possible spread of coronavirus in the White House but said he may limit contact with Vice President Mike Pence.

Trump, speaking to masked reporters in the White House Rose Garden, suggested that Pence was in quarantine after his press secretary tested positive, though he did not say it outright.

Katie Miller, the spokeswoman for Pence, who heads the White House’s coronavirus task force, tested positive for coronavirus last week along with a personal valet to Trump.

Three members of the task force have since gone into quarantine – infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci, Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Stephen Hahn, head of the Food and Drug Administration.

A Pence spokesman denied over the weekend that the vice president was also in quarantine but Trump suggested he was when asked on Monday whether he had considered limiting his contact with him.

“I would say that he and I will be talking about that,” Trump said at an occasionally testy press conference.

“During this quarantine period, we’ll probably talk,” Trump said. “I have not seen him since then.”

“We can talk on the phone,” he said of Pence. “He tested negative, so we have to understand that, but he comes into contact with a lot of people.”

‘No vulnerability whatsoever’

Trump sought to play down any concerns about an outbreak of the virus in the cramped quarters of the West Wing, where the president works out of the Oval Office.

“We want to keep our country running so we have a lot of people coming in and out (of the White House) and many of those people, most of those people, are tested,” he said.

“Everybody coming into the president’s office gets tested, and I’ve felt no vulnerability whatsoever,” he said.

Trump, who is desperately seeking to reboot the economy ahead of the November election, said the US was making “tremendous strides” in ramping up testing and the number of virus infections is “coming down very rapidly.”

He said it was essential to get the country reopened.

“The people want our country open,” the president said.

“Some states could be moving more quickly,” he said. “People are dying in the lockdown position too.”

Trump abruptly ended the press conference after an exchange with a CBS News reporter who asked him why when Americans were losing their lives did he keep insisting that the US was doing better than other countries when it came to testing.

“Well, they’re losing their lives everywhere in the world,” Trump said. “And maybe that’s a question you should ask China. Don’t ask me, ask China that question, OK?”

The CBS reporter, Weijia Jiang, who is of Chinese-American origin, than asked Trump “Sir, why are you saying that to me specifically?”

“I’m telling. I’m saying it to anybody who would ask a nasty question like that,” Trump replied before abruptly ending the press conference.

‘Scary to go to work’

Though it may appear spacious in movies and TV shows, the West Wing is actually rather cramped, making social distancing difficult.

It houses not just the president’s office but also those of some of his closest advisers, the press briefing room and the desks of White House correspondents, who work elbow to elbow.

Kevin Hassett, a senior economic advisor to the president, told CBS over the weekend that it is “scary to go to work.”

“I would be safer sitting at home in my house than going into a West Wing that with even all the testing in the world and the best medical team on Earth, is a relatively crammed place,” Hassett told another network, CNN.

In a memo issued on Monday, the White House instructed all staff to wear a mask when inside the West Wing, except when at their desks.

Unlike a number of other world leaders, the 73-year-old Trump has not been wearing a mask in public.

He said Monday that Americans have “learned about face masks.”

“The good and the bad, by the way,” he said.

“It’s not a one-sided thing, believe it or not,” Trump said without elaborating.

The United States is the country the hardest-hit by the virus with more than 80,000 deaths and 1.3 million infections.

(AFP)

11, May 2020

Researchers concerned mutations in some strains may help coronavirus spread ⁰

Scientists have found evidence for mutations in some strains of the coronavirus that suggest the pathogen may be adapting to humans after spilling over from bats.

The analysis of more than 5,300 coronavirus genomes from 62 countries shows that while the virus is fairly stable, some have gained mutations, including two genetic changes that alter the critical “spike protein” the virus uses to infect human cells.

Researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine stress that it is unclear how the mutations affects the virus, but since the changes arose independently in different countries they may help the virus spread more easily.

The spike mutations are rare at the moment but Martin Hibberd, professor of emerging infectious diseases and a senior author on the study, said their emergence highlights the need for global surveillance of the virus so that more worrying changes are picked up fast.

“This is exactly what we need to look out for,” Hibberd said. “People are making vaccines and other therapies against this spike protein because it seems a very good target. We need to keep an eye on it and make sure that any mutations don’t invalidate any of these approaches.”

Studies of the virus revealed early on that the shape of its spike protein allowed it to bind to human cells more efficiently than Sars, a related virus that sparked an outbreak in 2002. The difference may have helped the latest coronavirus infect more people and spread rapidly around the world.

Scientists will be concerned if more extensive mutations in the spike protein arise, not only because they may alter how the virus behaves. The spike protein is the main target of leading vaccines around the world, and if it changes too much those vaccines may no longer work. Other potential therapies, such as synthetic antibodies that home in on the spike protein, could be less effective, too.

“This is an early warning,” Hibberd said. “Even if these mutations are not important for vaccines, other mutations might be and we need to maintain our surveillance so we are not caught out by deploying a vaccine that only works against some strains.”

The scientists analysed 5,349 coronavirus genomes that have been uploaded to two major genetics databases since the outbreak began. By studying the genetic makeup of the viruses, the scientists worked out how it has diversified into different strains and looked for signs that it was adapting to its human host.

In an unpublished study that has yet to be peer reviewed, the researchers identified two broad groups of coronavirus that have now spread globally. Of the two spike mutations, one was found in 788 viruses around the world, with the other present in only 32.

The study shows that, until January, one group of coronaviruses in China escaped detection because they had a mutation in the genetic region that early tests relied on. More recent tests detect all of the known types of the virus.

Last month, an international team of scientists used genetic analyses to show that the coronavirus likely originated in bats and was not made in a lab as some conspiracy theorists have claimed.

(Source: The Guardian)

11, May 2020

Cameroon Coronavirus: 2579 Cases and 114 Deaths ⁰

The Francophone dominated government in Yaoundé confirmed on Sunday that the nation has now recorded 2579 positive cases of Coronavirus since the outbreak of the pandemic on March 6. According to the health authorities some 1467 people have recovered from the illness and 114 people have died from Covid-19.

Archbishop Samuel Kleda, Archbishop of the Douala metropolis, claimed that 600 patients who contracted the coronavirus have been cured by his herbal treatment.

“No patient has died with our treatment,” Archbishop Samuel Kleda said. The health authorities who only communicate using the French language are asking Cameroonians not to rejoice too soon.

“The virus is still circulating,” said the youthful French Cameroun Minister of Public Health Manaouda Malachie. Elsewhere, 139 Cameroonians stranded in the United Arab Emirates (out of 152 registered) due to border closures because of the Covid-19 pandemic have returned to Cameroon by special flight chartered by the Cameroonian government. They arrived in Yaoundé on Sunday, the Minister of External Relations announced on state radio and television.

By Rita Akana

11, May 2020

Pope, UN chief press for solution to the Ambazonia crisis as deadly fighting rages on ⁰

Pope Francis and UN Secretary General António Guterres have renewed pressure on the Cameroon government to find lasting solutions to the Anglophone problem in the western African nation.

According to a top government official who asked not to be named, Francis and the UN boss recently asked Cameroon’s “President for Life,” Paul Biya, to declare a ceasefire and to open a space for peaceful discussions.

The official told Crux that he took part in a meeting convened by the country’s Prime Minister, Joseph Dion Ngute, on May 7 to discuss the issue.

“In the days ahead, we will be going to the field to examine the possibilities of a ceasefire,” the official said.

“I think it is going to be relatively easy because the separatists have been reduced to an embattled core,” he said.

Separatists in Cameroon’s two English-speaking regions for nearly four years now have been fighting for what they call “the restoration of the statehood of the Southern Cameroons.” It’s the part of Cameroon colonized by Britain, but which, at independence, voted in a plebiscite to reunite with the part of the country colonized by France.

The two entities then formed a Federal Republic of two theoretically co-equal parts. That federation was scrapped in a controversial 1972 referendum and replaced with a united republic. Ever since, the minority English-speakers have always felt marginalized.

Pent-up frustrations burst to the open in 2017, when teachers and lawyers’ strikes over perceived attempts by the Francophone-dominated administration to wipe out the Common Law educational systems practiced in Anglophone Cameroon.

The military responded with lethal force. Rising anger crystallized into political demands, with the growth of separatists asking that Anglophones should carve out a separate state called Ambazonia.

The fighting, now in its fourth year, has left a minimum of 3000 people dead and over a million forced from their homes.

Resolving the Anglophone problem and restoring peace to the troubled country has become a major concern in the Francis Papacy.

On September 29, just one day before what authorities in Cameroon said was a ‘Major National Dialogue’ to resolve the Anglophone problem, Pope Francis asked worshippers at St. Peters’ Square to pray for a successful dialogue.

The Supreme Pontiff expressed his closeness to “the sufferings and the hopes of the beloved Cameroonian people,” and expressed the wish that the dialogue “might be fruitful and lead to peaceful, just and lasting solutions, to everyone’s benefit”.

During his traditional Easter Urbi et Orbi address last year, Francis again raised the issue of the Cameroon conflict when he prayed for conflict zones all over the world, calling on citizens of the world to be “builders of bridges, not walls” and to end “the roar of arms,” in conflict zones and the rest of the world.

Specifically citing Mali, Nigeria, Niger as well as Cameroon, the pope complained that Africa was “rife with social tensions, conflicts and at times violent forms of extremism that leave in their wake insecurity, destruction and death.”

In February and March 2019, the Vatican offered to broker dialogue in the conflict. In February, the Secretary for Relations with States of the Holy See, British Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, met with Cameroon’s External Relations Minister, LeJeunne Mbella Mbella, and said he was prepared to mediate on behalf of the Holy See.

On March 18, 2019, Monseigneur Julio Murat, the Apostolic Nuncio to Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea, brought a special message from Francis to Biya which bore on the Anglophone crisis.

“The Supreme Pontiff assures His Excellency the President of the Republic about his prayers for Cameroon, and expresses his desire for a just and peaceful solution to the crisis in the north west and south west of the country,” Murat said shortly after the meeting.

He said the Catholic Church was willing to “contribute to the promotion of the common good and to peace in Cameroon.”

Many observers believe the Church could make a contribution. According to the International Crisis Group, the Cathoic Church that represents nearly a third of Cameroon’s 24 million people is uniquely placed to arbitrate.

“The Catholic Church could help break this dangerous stalemate. Present in all ten of Cameroon’s regions, the Church is one of the country’s strongest institutions. Almost a third of Cameroonians are Catholic, and the Church operates a dense network of schools and hospitals. Cameroonians take its views seriously,” the group stated in a 2017 report.

“Other than the Catholic clergy, there are few prospective peacemakers. If no one fills that role, the separatist sentiment already voiced by many Anglophones will continue to grow, fueling further violence and exacerbating the ongoing insurgency in the Anglophone regions.”

Catholic clerics already have been involved in the search for solutions.

In November last year, the government entrusted Catholic prelates with leading two “peace caravans” to inform people of the English-speaking regions of the resolutions of an Oct. 29-Nov. 4 “Major National Dialogue,” aimed at ending the secessionist rebellion.

The two prelates came back with reassuring messages that there could be a return to peace, but those signs of hope have been dashed by continued fighting.

Guterres is pushing for a ceasefire amid the coronavirus pandemic.

“The fury of the virus illustrates the folly of war,” Gutterez said.

“That is why … I am calling for an immediate global ceasefire in all corners of the world,” he said.

This isn’t the first time the head of the global Catholic church and the UN chief have teamed up. Francis and Guterres met in the Vatican in December 2019, recording a joint video message appeal for an end to armed conflicts. Guterres hailed the pope for carrying a “clear moral voice.” “You are a messenger for hope and humanity – for reducing human suffering and promoting human dignity,” he said.

Biya may be especially receptive to a papal initiative, given that he’s a former seminarian with the Spiritan fathers. When Pope Benedict XVI visited Cameroon in 2009, Biya went out of his way to express fondness for the pope, even having billboards erected in the capital city in the run-up to the papal visit with a Photoshopped image of him and Benedict XVI together, despite the fact that, at that stage, the two men had never met.

Later Biya would also meet Pope Francis in the Vatican in March 2017.

However, despite efforts by the international community to obtain a ceasefire in Cameroon, the country’s two English-speaking regions are still witnessing extreme violence, with most of it orchestrated by the government.

Over the last month since the Coronavirus showed up on the country’s shores, the government has been slaughtering its citizens, especially in the North West region where Ambazonian fighters are protecting their positions.

The government does not seem to comply with the terms and conditions of a ceasefire negotiated by the United Nations.

Over the last four years, the Yaounde government has diminished the population of the two English-speaking regions by spraying bullets all over the place, in total disregard for calls by the international community for a negotiated settlement.

In many cities across the two English-speaking regions of Cameroon, government officials have been chased away and many of them are facing death sentences for conspiring with the enemy to kill innocent women and children.

Even the people’s representatives such as senators, parliamentarians and other elected officers live in fear as armed gunmen could always spring surprises.

This was what actually happened on Sunday, May 10, 2020, in Mamfe, a border town in the Southwest region where the town’s mayor, Presley Ojong, was brought down by gunmen executing an order from their commanders.

Reported by Crux and Cameroon Concord News Group