Headline News

9, May 2020

Biya is no longer in control of his CPDM government ⁰

A prominent baron of the political bureau of the ruling CPDM crime syndicate has told Cameroon Intelligence Report that President Biya 88 is no longer in charge of his government.

Speaking to our chief political correspondent Rita Akana in Yaoundé, the French Cameroun political elite who sued for anonymity claimed President Biya knows only 4 of his sea of ministers. Our source furthered that Biya only talks to Gregoire Owona, Laurent Esso, Atanga Nji and Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh.

“President Biya does not know the people he has been appointing as most of the several members of government came into cabinet through private connections with some close family relatives to Biya” he added.

According to another well-placed source in Yaoundé, Biya’s lack of control over his government is now a major concern among his Beti Ewondo supporters. A lot of people who had access to him in the yesteryears are now being prevented from informing him on the poor state of the country by a selected few.

Biya recently betrayed his ignorance when he questioned the actions of the Minister for National Education. We gathered that he wondered aloud why Dr Dorothy Njeuma was not coming out strong on the fight against COVID-19 in schools and colleges but was reminded that it was Prof Nalova who was now at the head not Njeuma.

By Fon Lawrence in Yaoundé

9, May 2020

France-Afrique: Macron running out of patience with Biya ⁰

French Cameroun dictator, Paul Biya whose last two public appearances at Etoudi were on March 11, and April 16^th 2020 with the United States Ambassador, Peter Henri Barlerin and the French Ambassador Christophe Guilhou has been told by his French masters in Paris to end his COVID-19 self isolation and get back to Yaoundé, Cameroon Intelligence Report has gathered from reliable sources in the French capital.

The Coronavirus pandemic is wreaking havoc throughout the country and ever since the announcement of Cameroon’s first case on March 6, 2020, the 88 year old Monarch has still not expressed himself in a televised message as several of his counterparts the world over have done.

Our source in Paris also hinted that French President Macron compelled the dictator to come out of his confinement when rumors about the bill of his health started gaining grounds in Yaoundé.

A retired French diplomat was quoted recently by newspapers in French Cameroun as saying that Macron was running out of patience with the frail leader and has again directed Biya to seek a lasting solution to the crisis in Southern Cameroons.

Biya is expected to travel back to Yaoundé this coming week amid pressure exerted surreptitiously by French President Macron and opposition leader Prof. Maurice Kamto.

By Oke Akombi Ayukepi Akap in Glasgow

8, May 2020

Yaounde to do “robust, large scale” COVID-19 testing ⁰

Cameroon is poised to do “robust and large scale” COVID-19 testing, Minister of Public Health Manaouda Malachie said on Friday.

“We will now test more people rapidly,” Manaouda told reporters in the capital Yaounde, “this will significantly accelerate our battle on the field, especially at the airports.”

Manaouda made the remarks after the country’s president Paul Biya recently donated to the government 5,000 rapid test kits.

According to Africa CDC, Cameroon has registered a total of 2,265 confirmed COVID-19 cases from 10,268 tests.

Source: Xinhuanet

8, May 2020

How does the coronavirus infect children? And should they be in school? ⁰

With parents and policymakers agonising over when to reopen schools as lockdowns ease, scientists are still struggling to find out how the new coronavirus affects children.

While youngsters can become infected with the new coronavirus, very few have died or contracted serious symptoms. But could they still spread contagion?

Here is what we know so far.

– Are children at risk? –

This is one of the few questions where there is broad agreement. Only a tiny proportion of children appear to have become seriously ill with COVID-19.

“There are three key questions: How much do children get COVID-19; how badly does it affect them; and do they spread it to others?” said Russell Viner, President of Britain’s Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health.

“We only have good data about the second of these.”

Specialists writing for the British pediatric website Don’t Forget The Bubbles (DFTB) said in a recent roundup of international research that only around one percent of critical cases involved children, while “deaths remain extremely rare”.

– Do they get infected? –

The short answer is yes.

“Research indicates that children and adolescents are just as likely to become infected as any other age group and can spread the disease,” says the World Health Organization.

But this is not reflected in global official data about the virus, with many countries largely focusing their COVID-19 testing on those who have gone to hospital with severe symptoms.

France’s health agency, which has amalgamated data from a host of international studies, said pediatric cases represent between one and five percent of all officially-documented global infections.

It said this is because children catch the virus, but generally exhibit only “mild” symptoms — or no symptoms at all — meaning they go uncounted.

But other experts believe that children, especially those under the age of 10, might not be getting infected as much in the first place.

“It appears fairly convincing that children are less likely to acquire the infection than adults, by a significant amount,” said specialists Alasdair Munro and Damian Roland of DFTB.

Their conclusions were based on several international contact tracing studies that looked at how the disease spread and to whom.

They also assessed data from places that have carried out mass community-wide testing — South Korea, Iceland and the Italian principality of Vo — all of which found that the proportion of infected children was far smaller than adults.

– But are they silent vectors? –

This is the area of greatest uncertainty.

Initially researchers believed they could be spreading the disease, drawing comparisons with other viruses like the flu where children help accelerate infections.

But recent studies on the new coronavirus suggest that they are less likely to transmit the virus.

In one incident, a nine-year-old was among 12 people infected in a super-spreading event at a chalet in the Haute-Savoie region of France, after a British man returned from Singapore and went on a ski holiday.

A study of the incident — one of the first major clusters of infection in France — showed that the child, who only displayed mild symptoms, came into contact with 172 people while sick.

None of them contracted COVID-19, not even the youngster’s two siblings. But the child did transmit other winter viruses, including the flu.

Children could be less infectious because they do not have as many symptoms and do not cough, French expert Arnaud Fontanet told a parliamentary hearing last week.

But a German study last month led by virologist Christian Drosten, an adviser to Angela Merkel, concluded that children had a viral load comparable to that of adults.

They “could be as contagious”, it added.

Other scientists, including Munro, have disputed both the methodology of that study and its conclusion. Re-analysing the data they said it might even be possible to draw the opposite conclusion — that age and viral load are correlated.

Even so, we cannot say for sure that a higher viral load makes a person more infectious.

– A new threat? –

In recent weeks, a spate of cases of children affected by an inflammatory illness resembling a rare condition called Kawasaki disease has caused alarm.

Symptoms are high fever, abdominal pain, rash and swollen glands. If untreated, patients can suffer heart failure, but those who are given medical care respond well.

A few dozen cases have been reported in New York, France, Britain, Italy and Spain and while no link has been formally established to the new coronavirus, scientists believe it could be connected.

In an article published this week in the medical journal The Lancet, British doctors describing eight cases observed in London said it could be “a new phenomenon” affecting previously-asymptomatic children with the coronavirus “manifesting as a hyperinflammatory syndrome”.

Reports of the illness came just as several countries in Europe were mulling reopening schools, kindling fears among parents. But experts say the cases are too rare to affect policy decisions.

– Should the schools open? –

On this there is much disagreement.

Authorities in Italy, which has the oldest teachers of OECD nations with almost 60 percent aged over 50, have expressed concern that reopening schools would risk infecting staff and reigniting the epidemic.

But many other countries, including Germany, Denmark and France, have prioritised reopening schools as they unwind lockdown measures.

In France, scientific estimates that it would be better to keep schools shut until September were outweighed by concerns about other social issues, particularly those facing children from troubled families.

“School can be a haven of peace,” explained Jean-Francois Delfraissy, who leads the scientific committee advising the government.

Other experts argue that the benefits of continuing education far outweigh the risks.

In a column published this week in the journal Archives of Disease in Childhood, Munro and British infectious disease specialist Saul Faust called on governments to allow children to resume lessons, regardless of underlying health conditions, and conduct detailed surveillance to monitor safety.

“Children are not COVID-19 super-spreaders: time to go back to school,” they said.

Source: AFP

8, May 2020

White man, son in US state of Georgia charged with murder of unarmed black jogger ⁰

A white former police officer and his son were arrested on Thursday in Georgia and charged with murder in the shooting death of an unarmed black man, an incident that touched off a furor in the community and among civil rights activists nationwide.

Gregory McMichael, 64, and his son Travis, 34, were taken into custody by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and charged with aggravated assault as well as murder in the killing of Ahmaud Arbery in the town of Brunswick, the agency said in a statement.

The Feb. 23 shooting death of Arbery, 25, as he ran unarmed through the small town was captured on video by an unnamed witness in a vehicle near the scene. The video’s wide broadcast in recent days ignited outrage among activists, politicians and celebrities who saw the incident as the latest case of white perpetrators killing a black man and going unpunished.

It was not immediately clear on Thursday if the two men had retained attorneys.

A district attorney appointed to handle the high-profile case after two other prosecutors recused themselves said on Wednesday he would ask a county grand jury to decide if the two men should face charges.

The men’s arrest by the GBI, one day after the agency opened an investigation into the case, appears to have sidelined any grand jury probe.

Three shots

The video footage shows Arbery jogging down a narrow two-lane road and around the McMichaels’ white pickup truck, which had stopped in the right lane with its driver’s door open.

As Arbery crosses back in front of the truck, a gunshot is fired. Arbery is then seen struggling with a man holding a long gun as a second man stands in the bed of the truck brandishing a revolver. Two more shots are heard before Arbery stumbles and falls face down onto the asphalt.

The GBI said it was Travis McMichael who fired the fatal round.

According to a police report obtained by the New York Times, Gregory McMichael, a former Glynn County police officer and district attorney’s investigator, told detectives the incident began when he spotted Arbery from his front yard “hauling ass” down the street.

McMichael told police that, because he suspected Arbery in a string of recent neighborhood break-ins, he and his son gave chase in the truck, with Gregory McMichael carrying a .357 Magnum revolver and Travis armed with a shotgun.

Gregory McMichael said Arbery began to “violently attack” his son, fighting him for the shotgun, prompting Travis to open fire.

According to a letter obtained by the Times, the prosecutor in Brunswick argued there was not probable cause to arrest the McMichaels because they were legally carrying firearms, had a right to pursue a burglary suspect and use deadly force to protect themselves.

Source: REUTERS

8, May 2020

China, US agree to move forward with trade deal despite Covid-19 blame game ⁰

Chinese and US trade representatives agreed Friday to “create favourable conditions” for the phase one trade deal signed in January, Beijing officials said, despite recent tensions over the coronavirus pandemic.

China’s Vice Premier Liu He, who had led Beijing’s negotiations, held a call on Friday morning with US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, according to a notice from the Ministry of Commerce.

“Both sides said they should strengthen macroeconomic and public health cooperation, strive to create a favourable atmosphere and conditions for the implementation of the phase one US-China economic and trade agreement, promoting positive results,” the notice said.

The countries have also agreed to maintain communication and coordination.

The exchange took place after both nations recently traded barbs over the deadly virus.

Last week, US President Donald Trump threatened new tariffs against China after claiming there was evidence linking COVID-19 to a top-security lab in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, where the pathogen first emerged late last year.

In January, Beijing agreed to import an additional $200 billion in US products over two years, above the levels purchased in 2017, marking a truce in a bruising trade war.

Source: AFP

7, May 2020

Barrister Agbor Balla, UNIBU, Federalism and FECAFOOT: Going, going, gone ⁰

The contract of Barrister Nkongho Felix Agbor alias Agbor Balla, Instructor at the English Law Department of the University of Buea, UB, has been terminated on grounds that he breached university guidelines when he set an exam question on the socio-political situation in Cameroon’s North West and South West Regions.

Decision No. 2020/0326/UB/DVC/TIC/AcA/AA to terminate the contract of Agbor Balla is dated Wednesday, May 6, 2020 and signed by the university’s Vice-Chancellor, Professor Ngomo Horace Manga.

Members of a disciplinary panel set up through service note no. 2020/071/UB/VC/DVC/TIC/AcA/TTSD/AA on April 3, 2020 are said to have unanimously agreed that Agbor Balla’s contract be terminated at the end of a Disciplinary Hearing Wednesday, May 6, 2020 at the Board Room of the Central Administrative Block despite Agbor Nkongho’s “boycott”.

The rights activist is said to have breached professional obligations when he set an exam question on the Anglophone Crisis in a first semester level one course titled “Political and Constitutional History of Cameroon”. The question read: “The Anglophone crisis since 2016 was caused by lawyers’ and teachers’ strikes. Assess the validity of this statement. (40 marks).”

The Disciplinary Panel resolved that the question violates Article 40 and 42 (paragraph 1) of decree no. 93/027 of 19 January 1993, modified and completed by decree no. 2005/342 of 10 September 2005, to define provisions common to all university institutions.

Expected to enter appearance in defense, Agbor Balla rather sought the services of Sheriff-Bailiff Tapa Justin Lebrin to serve the Vice-Chancellor his “Appearance Under Protest”. The four-page document was received on behalf of the Vice-Chancellor by his private secretary early Wednesday morning. In the “protest”, Agbor Balla picked holes in the disciplinary hearing, positing that it fell short of due process.

Based on the outcome of the Disciplinary Panel, Vice-Chancellor Professor Ngomo Horace Manga decided to terminate with immediate effect the Contract of Mr. Felix Nkongho Agbor Balla recruited as Instructor in the Department of Law through decision No. 2015/0514/UB/AcA/TTSD/TSS of June 2, 2015.

“The Deputy Vice-Chancellor in charge of Teaching, Professionalization and Development of Information and Communication Technologies, the Registrar, the Director of Academic Affairs, the Director Of Finance, the Dean of the Faculty of Laws and Political Science, each in their areas of competence, are charged with the implementation of this decision, which shall be registered and communicated wherever necessary,” said Professor Ngomo.

Agbor Balla took to Facebook and Twitter Wednesday night with the following words: “They celebrated when I was arrested; wished me death whilst I was in jail; prayed that I should never leave jail; jubilated when the minister wrote to the university; rejoiced when I was summoned but unfortunately for them they are not God. I have forgiven all of them.”

It would be recalled that the Minister of State for Higher Education and Chancellor of Academic Orders, Professor Jacques Fame Ndongo had on April 20, 2020 instructed the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Buea ,Professor Horace Ngomo Manga to put a definite end to all on-campus activities of Agbor Balla which breach the “ethics and deontology” of the University. Sources at UB say the Minister of State’s letter followed complaints from parents sent to his office.

Cameroon-Info.Net recalls that when the crisis in the North West and South West regions started in October 2016 with the Lawyers’ and later Teachers’ strike, Agbor Balla was President of the Fako Lawyer’s Association (FAKLA) as well as President of the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium, CACSC.

When pressure came to bear on government, the CACSC was banned on January 17, 2017 and Agbor Balla arrested same day along with Dr. Fontem Neba who served as Secretary General of the Consortium.

Brought before the Yaoundé military court for promoting terrorism among other charges that carry the maximum sentence, Agbor Balla was freed when President Biya ordered the discontinuance of proceedings against him and others on August 30, 2017.

Human Rights Lawyer Agbor Balla’s trouble at the University of Buea may not be unconnected to his civil society activities and his recent indictment of government for the February 14, 2020 killings in Ngarbuh, pundits say.

Source: Cameroon-Info.Net

7, May 2020

Surviving single motherhood in Cameroon ⁰

The death of a husband often means hardship for many single mothers in Central Africa. Often, they show incredible resilience to rise above such difficult circumstances to break the cycle of stigma. Assanatou is just one mother.

She felt desperate after her husband died from a long-term illness. Left alone to care for her teenage son, Malick*, and two nine-year-old twin daughters, Mariama* and Maimouna*, she wondered how she could make ends meet on her own.

“Some women like me were married very young without going to school or having the chance to do certain trainings,” says 37-year-old Assanatou. “Coming back to square one after losing a husband, with no one to support you with the children is tough.”

Despite the difficult circumstances, Assanatou did not give up. “I had to be there for my children,” she says. “Other single mothers like me turn to prostitution to provide for their children. I didn’t want to go down that path.”

High-rate of underemployment

In Cameroon, 39% of the population lives below the poverty line, a rate that rises to 51.1% for women alone, according to UN figures. Like Assanatou, nearly 80% are underemployed.

The reality for widows can be more difficult, as they can find themselves distant from family. A 2016 study on widowhood and women’s rights in Cameroon by Dr. Ngambouk Vitalis Pemunta of the University of Gothenburg stated that “while the family has absolute ownership of land, women and widows are considered as non-family members by both their natal groups and the kinship group into which they get married.” Legal gaps in Cameroon negatively impact women’ rights, the study found.

Fighting forward

Unable to pay the rent on her home, Assanatou and her children moved to her family’s crumbling house in Nkong-si, an underserved community located on the outskirts of Mbalmayo, a city in Cameroon’s Centre province. Their new home was one of many ramshackle houses along a dusty road.

Although she struggled to send her children to school, Assanatou endured and found work where she could. Relying on her brother and sister who were already living with their families in the family house, Assanatou was able to kick-start her own little business growing small crops of cassava, corn, okra and sweet potatoes in the yard. This was not much, but it kept her going and allowed her to cover the transport of her children to school and their lunch.

“When I had a bit of money, I would prepare the meals and when I didn’t, my brother’s wife was there,” says Assanatou. “When it came to food, we would first feed the children even if that meant that at times some adults would not eat. We worked things out with the little we had.”

Assanatou joined the SOS Children’s Villages Family Strengthening program in 2016 and has come a long way since then. She set up a boutique in front of her house and makes a living selling household items and firewood, as well as bread and coffee in the morning. She is also the president of a nine-member strong village loans and savings association called “innovation” and recently convinced three members to invest in a chicken farm. So far, they have 15 chicks but have big plans to expand.

“Assanatou is a very resourceful and positive mother,” says SOS community worker Louis Doussam who has been following her family in the past few years.

Most importantly, Assanatou has become a better mother and a member of Nkong-si’s child protection committee that teaches caregivers and families about children’s rights and on the impact of emotional and physical violence against children.

“I learned a lot through the trainings I received from SOS and was particularly interested in the ones on children’s rights as I realized there were things, I would do in the past that were not right. I made many mistakes as a parent,” she confesses. “I would tell myself that since I am the mother of my children, this entitles me to do whatever I want. I could not have been more wrong,” she admits.

“In my community people look at me in a different way today,” says Assanatou. “Now, I feel like I can make a difference”.

*Names changed to protect the privacy of the children

Culled SOS Children Villages Canada

7, May 2020

7 killed, 15 injured in Douala-Bafoussam highway road accident ⁰

A road accident in Cameroon’s eastern region killed 7 people and injured 15 others on Wednesday, according to local police.

The accident occurred Wednesday along the Douala-Bafoussam highway in the country’s Littoral region, the police said.

Witnesses said a truck collided head-on with a bus carrying 22 passengers. The 15 survivors have been sent to hospital, said the police.

Local authorities have ordered an immediate investigation into the accident.

Source: Xinhuanet

7, May 2020

Cameroonian among refugees taking Germany to court over mobile phone data checks ⁰

Three refugees from Syria, Afghanistan and Cameroon are suing the German state for accessing personal data on their mobile phones, arguing it was an unnecessary invasion of privacy, their lawyer said on Tuesday.

German authorities can examine the mobile phones of asylum seekers who do not have valid identity documents under a law passed in 2017 at the height of the migrant crisis in Europe to prevent asylum fraud.

But the Berlin-based Society for Civil Rights (GFF), which filed the lawsuits on behalf of the three refugees, argues that this violates their human rights.

“The BAMF (Germany’s ministry for migration and refugees) is disregarding the strict constitutional rules by which the state must abide when accessing personal data,” said Lea Beckmann, a lawyer at the GFF.

A spokesman for the ministry said it was aware that checking mobile data was an intrusion and every case was determined by strict rules.

“A mobile phone is often the only, or a very important, source to establish the identity and nationality of people entering Germany without a passport or identification documents,” he said.

The GFF argues that the method is applied too quickly in the asylum-seeking process, unnecessarily infringing asylum seekers’ privacy rights.

Refugee rights groups have also raised concerns. The World Refugee Council has warned that consent for data collection is rarely sought and refugees often do not know how their data is used.

One of the three claimants, a 29-year-old identified only as Mohammad A. from Syria, said his asylum application was approved in 2015, but that he had to hand over his mobile phone when his status was reassessed last year.

“I didn’t know what exactly was happening, nobody had explained anything. But I was afraid to be deported, so I gave the mobile. It was as if I was handing over my whole life,” he said in a statement released by the GFF.

His case was filed at a local court in the northwestern city of Hanover, GFF said. The case of an Afghan woman aged about 37 was lodged in Berlin and that of a 25-year-old woman from Cameroon, in the southwestern city of Stuttgart.

Source: Reuters