Headline News

11, August 2019

Car bomb kills 2 UN staffers in Libya’s Benghazi ⁰

A car bomb explosion in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi has left two UN staffers dead and several others wounded.

The blast occurred in a shopping area of the al-Hawari district as a UN convoy was passing through on Saturday.

There has been no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast so far.

Ahmed Mismari, the eastern-based Libyan National Army (LNA) spokesman, told reporters the two victims were with the United Nations Libya mission (UNSMIL). He added that ten people had been wounded, among them children.

Around the time of the blast, LNA commander Khalifa Haftar, announced a halt to military operations during the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday, which lasts from Saturday until Tuesday, according to a statement from his forces in Benghazi.

The UN is trying to broker a truce in the capital Tripoli, where the LNA launched a surprise attack in April.

Heading a group of militias, Haftar launched an offensive on Tripoli on April 4 to wrest control of the capital, but his armed groups failed to breach the southern defenses of the city.

Since then, the fighting has left at least 1,100 people dead, more than 5,750 wounded, and over 100,000 people displaced, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

Haftar’s offensive has upended UN-led plans to stabilize Libya after years of conflict that has left the oil-rich nation divided and caused living standards to plummet.

The renegade general has defied a truce call by the UN, ordering his militia not to relent in their offensive.

Libya plunged into chaos in 2011, when a popular uprising and a NATO intervention led to the ouster of long-time dictator Muammar Gaddafi and his execution by unruly fighters.

His ouster created a huge power vacuum, leading to chaos and the emergence of numerous militant outfits, including the Daesh terrorist group.

Source: Presstv

11, August 2019

Ambazonians fleeing Francophone army atrocities helped push Mexican asylum wait list to 10,000 ⁰

Beltran Ngi, 33, goes to the Tijuana border crossing to hear someone tick names off the waiting list on a bullhorn around 8 a.m., even though there are more than 8,000 names ahead of him. He is suspicious of asylum seekers who are escorted separately to a waiting Mexican immigration van without having their names called. On a recent Friday, about half of 40 spots were for people whose names weren’t called.

Ngi, who hopes to use his English to work at a Tijuana call center even though his 20-day transit permit through Mexico expired, shared a two-bedroom apartment with seven others but couldn’t afford his roughly $50 share of monthly rent. He moved to a migrant shelter to sleep and eat for free. He said he fled Cameroon after five days imprisoned in a cell with 40 people who shared one pail as a toilet.

Before he was imprisoned, he was visiting an uncle in a neighboring village when soldiers beat his father and set his house on fire. Ngi, who hopes to join family in North Dakota, followed a route favored by Cameroonians: flying to Ecuador due to loose restrictions on accepting visitors from the African nation and traveling through eight countries. He was famished on his 11-day walk through Panama but reminded himself it was better than Cameroon. “It’s better to die in the jungle than to die of bullets,” he told himself.

He is among the Cameroonian men who share 10 mattresses on the floor of a third-floor apartment above a barber shop walk every morning to the busiest U.S. border crossing with Mexico, hoping against all odds that it will be their lucky day to claim asylum in the United States. Their unlikely bet is that a sympathetic Mexican official will somehow find a spot for them.

English-speaking Cameroonians fleeing atrocities of their French-speaking government helped push Tijuana’s asylum wait list to 10,000 on Sunday, up from 4,800 just three months earlier. At the same time, the U.S. is returning more Central Americans to Mexico to wait for dates in U.S. immigration court, putting asylum seekers in an unexpected, prolonged period of uncertainty.

Based on Mexican government figures and reporting by The Associated Press, at least 40,000 migrants who have reached the U.S. border with Mexico are on a waiting list for an initial attempt to seek asylum or waiting for a court hearing in the U.S. after being sent back.

The figure represents a dramatic increase from earlier in the year. It is unknown how many have entered the U.S. illegally, decided to settle in Mexico or gone back to Central America. The long waits are testing the patience of some asylum seekers and residents in border cities.

More than 100 Cameroonians blocked the path of the government immigration vans last month, demanding more transparency about who gets accepted from the wait list to request asylum. It came after several days on which the U.S. accepted no claims. People getting called now have been in Tijuana about 3½ months, but the wait is expected to lengthen.

Turning Mexico into a waiting room for U.S. asylum seekers may be the Trump administration’s most forceful response yet to a surge of migrants seeking humanitarian protection, many of them Central American families. The effort is part of a broader crackdown on immigration, subject of a polarizing debate that became even more pitched after the discovery of an anti-immigrant screed tied to a man charged with killing 22 people in El Paso, Texas, Saturday.

Source: The Yeshiva World

11, August 2019

Ambazonia Crisis Pushes Muslims To Go for Substitutes As Sacrificial Sheep are Scarce ⁰

Cameroon Muslims are looking for alternatives for the sacrifice as recommended by prophet Muhammad on the day of the Eid al-Adha feast. Sheep, traditionally slaughtered, have become very scarce as a result of the Boko Haram conflict and separatist war in the country’s main production areas.

Hundreds of Muslims are buying food stuffs from the popular market called “Marche Huitieme” in Cameroon’s capital Yaounde in preparation for the feast of sacrifice.

In Cameroon, large numbers of sacrificial animals, especially sheep, are slaughtered and their meat distributed to the poor as a religious tradition in Islam.

41-year old Abdoul Aziz says for the first time in 20 years, he will not have a sheep to sacrifice.

He says with the scarcity of sheep, he has decided to buy either a she or he goat. He says he does not want to miss a religious rite just because prices of the few sheep he has seen have increased drastically. He says the prices of goats are also increasing.

Aziz said because of the scarcity, some families are buying chickens, leading to arguments on whether the substitution is religiously correct.

Mohaman Aboubakar, assistant Imam of Yaounde’s central Mosque says Islam allows people to adjust with the changing times.

Imam Aboubakar says their religion finds nothing wrong if Cameroon Muslims who can not find the sheep they traditionally bought to slaughter in honor of Abraham’s willingness to slay his son Ishmael at Allah’s request, turn to goats and fowls today. He says the scarcity that started so many years ago with camels is now affecting cows and sheep.

Most of the sheep sold in Cameroon towns comes from the area around the central African state’s northern border with Nigeria that has been suffering Boko Haram atrocities, or from the English speaking Northwest and Southwest regions where separatists have been fighting to create an English speaking state, or neighboring Chad.

Issa Tchiroma, Cameroon minister of employment and vocational training, and a Muslim, says the crises the country is facing has had negative impacts on livestock production.

He says many people have escaped from ranches in the far north region of Cameroon due to Boko Haram terrorism, and from the English speaking north west region because of the war against separatist groups. He says on Cameroon’s border with Nigeria alone, close to five five thousand cattle and an unknown number of sheep have been stolen by Boko Haram terrorists.

In 2016, the World Bank approved a $100 million fund to help Cameroon improve the productivity and competitiveness of livestock production over six years. It said besides replenishing what had been lost as a result of the Boko Haram conflict, the program would help build resilience to climate change and improve the nutrition status of vulnerable populations.

Last July, Cameroon began distributing 60,000 goats and sheep to young people in villages along the border with Nigeria to provide livestock for a basic income, and replenish what has been lost in order to stop the Islamist militant group from recruiting the youths.

More than a thousand Mbororos, who are indigenous people in Cameroon have also fled their cattle ranches following repeated attacks and seizure of their cattle by separatists fighting for the creation of an English speaking state. The Mbororos say they are victimized and killed because they refuse to join the fight.

Source: VOA

10, August 2019

Tanzania: Tanker blast kills 60 as crowd siphons fuel ⁰

A fuel tanker exploded in eastern Tanzania on Saturday killing at least 60 people, authorities said, as flames ripped through a crowd that had gathered to siphon petrol from it.

Video clips circulating on social media showed the charred remains of dozens of young men and burnt motorbikes. In footage from before the explosion, a large crowd was collecting liquid from puddles in yellow jerry cans.

“The fire was huge and it was challenging to rescue victims. I have seen about 65 to 70 people being rescued because the fire was fast spreading across the accident area,” witness Daniel Ngogo told Reuters.

“…The situation is really bad. Many people died, here even those who were not stealing fuel because this is a busy place.”

Government spokesman Hassan Abbasi said at least 60 people died and 70 were injured in the blast, which occurred in Morogoro, a town around 200 km (120 miles) west of the commercial capital Dar es Salaam.

The government was helping coordinate the salvage operation “to ensure we bury the bodies… relatives identify the bodies of their loved ones, and those injured get proper treatment,” he added, in comments broadcast live by a state TV channel.

President John Magufuli was “shocked and saddened” by the accident, his office said in a statement.

(Source: Reuters)

10, August 2019

Southern Cameroons leaders end hunger strike ⁰

Jailed Southern Cameroons leaders have ended a hunger strike that started ten days ago to denounce French Cameroun’s malicious treatment and killing of several Ambazonia detainees. President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia and his senior aides reportedly announced an indefinite hunger strike last week immediately after the Kondengui and Buea prison riots.

With the trial against pro-independence leaders due to continue on August the 19th in the Yaoundé Military Court, a statement by Barrister Eyambe Elias Ebai said that the leaders have suspended the strike and urged other Southern Cameroonians all over the globe who had joined the hunger strikers to stop the protest in order to save their strength for the proceedings on August the 19^th.

Ambazonia Vice President Dabney Yerima who had earlier urged the jailed leaders to put an end to the hunger strike observed that the “NERA 10 are amazingly brave and the world is feeling anxious about them.” Dabney Yerima further pointed out that Ambazonian goals have been accomplished explaining the reasons for ending the protest to Cameroon Concord News Group.

The hunger strike by the Ambazonian jailed leaders was widely reported by international media including SCBC, the Southern Cameroons Broadcasting Cooperation. On day 8 of the hunger strike, Dr Nde Che Fidelis was attended to by penitentiary infirmary nurses in court, although a French Cameroun military doctor deemed his condition “stable.”

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

10, August 2019

Trump defends immigration raids as ‘good deterrent’ ⁰

US President Donald Trump has defended his administration’s unprecedented immigration sweeping operations that led to the arrest of nearly 700 undocumented migrants in the southeastern United States.

Speaking to reporters on Friday, Trump said, “I want people to know if they’re coming into the US illegally, they’re getting out,” noting, “And this serves as a very good deterrent.”

On Wednesday, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said in a statement the agency had detained 680 people who were working illegally at seven food processing plants across the southern state of Mississippi.

About 600 ICE agents spread across the plants operated by five companies, surrounding the perimeters to prevent workers from fleeing.

Trump said when “people see what they saw (Wednesday), like they will see for a long time, they know that they’re not staying here.”

Meanwhile, Mississippi Attorney General Mike Hurst, who was in charge of the operation, also defended the raids, but said officers made sure that the children could reconnect with their parents.

“We are unaware of any child presently w/o (without) a parent as a result of this operation,” he tweeted on Thursday.

Many of those detained have been transported to an ICE facility in Jena, Louisiana, according to the US Attorney’s Office of the Southern District of Mississippi.

Some of them have been released for “humanitarian reasons” but required to appear in US immigration court.

Bill Chandler, executive director of the Mississippi Immigrant Rights Alliance, called the “terrible” raids “another effort to drive Latinos out of Mississippi,” blaming Trump for fanning racism with his past incendiary comments about immigrants.

“This is the same thing that Trump is doing at the border with the Border Patrol,” he said, referring to the increased crackdown on migrants coming into the US.

On Thursday, former vice president and the frontrunner in the Democratic presidential primary race Joe Biden criticized the raids too, saying the operation was “simply wrong.”

“What are we doing?” he asked during a meeting with Latinos and Asians as part of his campaign in Iowa.

“There are US-born children wondering whether or not they’ll ever see their parents again.”

The raids, planned months ago, happened just hours before Trump visited El Paso, Texas, a majority-Hispanic city near the US-Mexico border where a man linked to a white supremacist group was charged with fatally shooting 22 people.

Source: Presstv

10, August 2019

Final Days: Signs of Biya regime’s impending demise ⁰

Is President Paul Biya’s regime on the verge of crumbling? Happenings over the past three months suggest it is. First are the obvious signs: the reemergence of Boko Haram attacks in the Far North region demanding immediate deployment of more troops, a long standing ally President Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea now set to build a wall to prevent Cameroonians from entering his country, the Southern Cameroons war that has become more intractable, the security situation in the East region that is deteriorating at catastrophic rapidity and the curious fact that the man himself is suffering from cancer. But there are some equally intriguing bits of circumstantial evidence.

The first emerged recently, when Biya signed a decree informing Cameroonians that the Secretary General at the Presidency, Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh will henceforth deputize for him. Many within the Francophone regime responded privately by stating that such a move has no constitutional backing. The arrest of former Defense Minister Edgar Alain Mebo Ngo’o had long signaled that Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh was already in charge and the ailing Biya and his ruling Beti Ewondo clan were attempting to prevent a major break deep inside the government. And would Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh have so crudely ridiculed Mebo Ngo’o—and, by extension, the Francophone dominated Beti Ewondo military, which has favoured the Biya regime if he did not realize the end was near?

Recently, the Biya government has been kicking international human rights groups and their representatives out of the country. The International Crisis Group was forced to leave as there was fear that the renowned body was helping the world to witness the impending collapse of the Biya regime.

In August alone, the regime has invested hundreds of millions of FCFA (money that it does not even have) on a campaign to get Southern Cameroons parents to send their children back to school. The whole exercise seems to have failed. Few will fail to notice that the local population in Southern Cameroons now feels that the Ambazonia Restoration Forces have booted the French Cameroun army out of town. Every Southern Cameroonian now believes it is safe to come out against Biya.

Also, the West has placed the regime in some kind of economic sanctions. German Chancellor Dr Angela Merkel recently stopped all military cooperation with Yaoundé. The Americans took a more radical approach by not only ending a very lucrative military deal with Biya but also pulled out all US servicemen and women from the North region that were stationed there to help in combating the Nigerian Islamic sect Boko Haram.

For their part, the Swiss ordered President Biya to leave their country and they are now in support of regime change as a goal towards ending the numerous crises that have rocked the Cameroonian nation. The Dutch and the Belgians have all withdrawn financial aid to the Yaoundé regime. Our senior political correspondent in Paris, France noted that the French are hoping that the Biya regime will collapse as soon as possible.

Again, these events prove nothing definitive. They are, at most, signs, signals, tokens of shifts in the game of perceptions and the correlation of forces. For, if the signs do point to a real trend, and not just random coincidence, they might indicate that Biya’s regime will implode very soon.

Surely with Biya’s acolytes dying like flies name them: Martin Belinga Eboutou, Sadou Hayatou, General James Tataw and his allies shifting into neutral, neutrals relishing his downfall, and local foes moving into open opposition mean something. These shifts, along with divisions in the military, might be enough to convince Biya or those around him that the game is up, that there’s no way out, and that their best-case scenario is for Mister Paul Biya to resign.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

9, August 2019

After Biya: Another Cameroonian man expelled from Switzerland ⁰

Recently, a court in the canton of Bern confirmed the expulsion of a Cameroonian man who has failed to integrate, according to the newspaper Le Matin.

The man, who arrived in Switzerland 10 years ago, had his first scrape with the law in 2015 when he was convicted of robbery. Since then he has been convicted of several other crimes.

In addition, he has received over CHF 200,000 in welfare and is deeply in debt.

The head of police and military affairs asked the court to authorize the man’s expulsion. The court agreed the man’s risk to public security was more important than his private interest in remaining in Switzerland.

In addition, it noted that the man had family in Cameroon, spoke the local language and had lived there during his formative years.

Furthermore, the court decided that the region the man comes from no longer presents a risk to him, and the psychiatric treatment he has been receiving in Switzerland could be continued there.

Source: Le News

9, August 2019

Biya and his gang have spent at least $940,027 on lobbying in US since the start of 2017 ⁰

President Paul Biya’s government has hired Clout Public Affairs, a firm organised by former aides to Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, to lobby President Donald Trump and US Congress for $55,000 a month.

The contract signed in July will be in four-month increments until it is cancelled, according to public disclosure filings with the U.S. Justice Department.

Foreign Policy magazine reported that the firm, according to the contract, will provide public relations services to help cultivate a “favourable image” for Cameroon’s government, to include “placing targeted op eds in conservative-oriented outlets in order to foster a robust and growing partnership narrative into the future.”

The Clout spokesperson said it is an important time to strengthen ties between the U.S. and Cameroonian governments as the country faces growing instability and threats from terrorism. The lobbying contract does not mention work beyond PR and communications.

But it has drawn sharp criticism from human rights activists, especially after it hired U.S. President Donald Trump’s former acting attorney general, Matthew Whitaker, as its managing director.

Whitaker, who is joining Clout Public Affairs as managing director, will not be working directly on the contract with the government of Cameroon and will not be filing as a lobbyist, a Clout Public Affairs spokesperson told Foreign Policy.

Cameroon’s government has spent at least $940,027 on lobbying and PR work in the United States since the start of 2017, according to Anna Massoglia, a researcher who works on the Foreign Lobby Watch project at the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP).

Cameroon also maintains a lobbying agreement with the global law firm Squire Patton Boggs.) Tracking public disclosure filings under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA),

Massoglia estimates that this puts Cameroon 10th among African countries when it comes to expenditures to U.S. PR firms during that window.

Cameroon’s lobbying contract also represents the latest in a growing list of African governments pouring money into lobbying firms to carve out more influence in Washington under Trump, whose surrogates and campaign affiliates have cashed in on lobbying for foreign governments, catching the attention of human rights advocates and public transparency watchdogs.

“Over the past several years, there has been a hugely significant increase in the number of U.S. lobbyists representing foreign nationals, many of them connected to the Trump administration,” said Jeffrey Smith, the executive director of Vanguard Africa, which supports democracy movements in the region.

“Many of Trump’s fundraisers and supporters have struck it rich in this sector, often working on behalf of the world’s worst human rights abusers,” said Smith, who has done work on behalf of Cameroonian opposition figures. He cited Zimbabwe, which hired the Trump-linked lobbying group Ballard Partners in a bid to scrap long-standing U.S. sanctions, as well as Clout’s work for Cameroon.

Liberia outspent its next closest rival more than seven times over, with FARA records indicating that the country has spent more than $72 million in foreign influence work.

Niger’s spending in the same period totalled just $6,000, according to CRP data.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo has funneled more than $10 million into lobbyists, while a powerful military figure in Sudan’s ruling military junta, Gen. Mohamed “Hemeti” Hamdan Dagalo, hired a Canadian lobbying firm for $6 million to promote his interests with the U.S., Russian, and wealthy Persian Gulf governments.

South Sudan’s government, also implicated in war crimes and widespread corruption, has drawn criticism for hiring former U.S. diplomats to lobby on its behalf for $3.7 million to boost ties with the Trump administration.

Source: Foreign Policy

9, August 2019

Yaounde-Malabo Tension: Ailing Biya orders army to be on the alert ⁰

Cameroon has instructed its military to be on the alert as Equatorial Guinea says it is building a border wall to stop Cameroonians and West Africans from illegally entering its territory. Equatorial Guinea’s announcement comes as officials of the Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC) regional economic bloc, of which Equatorial Guinea is a member, are encouraging the free movement of people and goods to boost economic growth in the region.

Thirty-two-year old Cameroonian merchant Kome Pascal imports wine from Equatorial Guinea. He also exports cement, roofing sheets and farm produce from Cameroon to the neighboring nation.

“I feel very bad because goods will not come again into Cameroon and farmers who sell in Equatorial Guinea, what do they expect them to do with their goods,” he told VOA. “Building that particular wall is not going to permit Cameroonians to sell their goods.”

When Equatorial Guinea said it was building the wall and erected milestones on the border near the Cameroon town of Kye-Ossi, Cameroon army chief Lieutenant General Rene Claude Meka visited the border. Meka said he was told the neighboring state was not respecting territorial limits and was encroaching on Cameroon land. He said the Cameroonian army would not tolerate any unlawful intrusion.

Anastasio Asumu Mum Munoz, Equatorial Guinea ambassador to Cameroon, was called up by Cameroon’s minister of external relations on Thursday to explain his country’s plans for the border.

Ambassador Munoz said his country plans to build a wall, but that reports that the its military had installed milestones in Cameroon territory are misleading.

Equatorial Guinea has always accused Cameroon of letting its citizens and West Africans enter its territory illegally.

More than 100 migrants from Togo, Burkina Faso, Nigeria and Benin on their way to Equatorial Guinea and Gabon are currently stranded in Cameroon after they were rescued from their capsizing vessel in the Atlantic Ocean.

Cameroonian-born Christian Mbock, visiting lecturer of international relations at the National University of Equatorial Guinea, said the wall will stop illegal migrants and secure Equatorial Guinea.

“There was a problem in Equatorial Guinea because there was a coup there, then the government had to protect itself and said that the government was suspending the implementation of [CEMAC’s decision for free movement],” he said. “It is a complex situation.”

Equatorial Guinea has often sealed its border with Cameroon, complaining of security threats posed by illegal immigration.

In December 2017, Equatorial Guinea said it had arrested 30 foreign armed men from Chad, the Central African Republic and Sudan on the border. The report said they possessed rocket launchers, rifles and a stockpile of ammunition to destabilize the government of President Theodoro Obiang, who has led oil-rich Equatorial Guinea since 1979.

Cameroon said it also arrested 40 heavily-armed men on the 290-kilometer boundary.

Both countries are members of the CEMAC, which in 2017 said it had reached a milestone when heads of state meeting in Chad lifted visa requirements for their 45 million citizens traveling within the six-member nation economic bloc.

Source: VOA