News

France braces for protests as Macron slams ‘unforgivable’ police shooting of teen driver

28, June 2023

France braces for protests as Macron slams ‘unforgivable’ police shooting of teen driver 0

France braced for more angry protests Wednesday after the killing of a teenager by police during a traffic stop that President Emmanuel Macron called “unforgivable”.

The government said it would deploy 2,000 riot police to deal with any unrest, a day after a 17-year-old was shot in the chest by a police officer who then appeared to lie about the circumstances of the killing.

The shooting had already sparked unrest in several Paris suburbs overnight.

Celebrities and politicians expressed outrage and grief at the death of the teenager, with Macron calling it “inexplicable” and “unforgivable”.

The teenager, named only as Nael M., was pulled over by two policemen on Tuesday for breaking traffic rules, prosecutors said.

Police initially reported that one officer shot at the teenager because he was driving his car at him, but this version of events was contradicted by a video circulating on social media and authenticated by AFP.

The footage shows the two policemen actually standing by the side of the stationary car, with one pointing a weapon at the driver. A voice is heard saying “You are going to get a bullet in the head.”

The police officer then appears to fire point blank as the car abruptly drives off.

The car moved a few dozen metres before crashing. The driver died shortly after.

His death sparked immediate protests in Nanterre, a western Paris suburb.

Bins were set alight and a fire broke out at a music school, while police tried to disperse the protesters with tear gas.

Protests then broke out in some neighbouring suburbs.

Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said Wednesday that 31 people had been arrested overnight, 24 police slightly injured and around 40 cars torched.

Darmanin added that 2,000 police would be deployed to deal with any further violence later Wednesday.

‘Revolt for my son’

Government spokesman Olivier Veran told reporters that Macron had expressed “emotion” at the shooting during Wednesday’s weekly cabinet meeting, and called for “calm” on behalf of the government.

Source: AFP

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Extrajudicial killings by Francophone soldiers growing

27, June 2023

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Extrajudicial killings by Francophone soldiers growing 0

Women in the Belo subdivision of the northwestern part of Cameroon say they have been burying young boys executed by military officials between June 10 – 19. The latest batch of burials was of five bodies picked up from the bushes. They had been allegedly suspected of aiding separatists.

Cameroon military forces are fighting Separatist fighters who want to build the country of Ambazonia from the two English-speaking regions of the country. Many extrajudicial killings have been recorded in this process.

Rose, whose brother Terence was killed during the latest operation, said her brother had merely visited the village to see his sick father.

“They passed a military checkpoint and soldiers didn’t stop them. It was on his way back that they shot him,” she said.

With over six years of armed conflict in the English-speaking part of Cameroon, there have been reports of people being arrested and killed by armed forces without passing through regular court trials. 

More cases

A joint military front raided Big Babanki on June 16, killing at least six persons. Locals say both separatist fighters and civilians were targeted. Some of them were arrested, interrogated, and later killed. The military operation came a few weeks after separatist terrorists abducted and released some 50 women. These women were kidnapped for staging a protest against them. In response, the military went on a “cleansing” mission.

In most cases where the military seized separatist fighters in the two English-speaking regions of Cameroon, few were sent to prison. Many were instantly killed while others were kept for days in the cell and later executed.

Human  Rights Watch in its 2023 report revealed that soldiers from the 53rd Motorized Infantry Battalion killed nine people, including four women and an 18-month-old girl, in Missong village in the northwestern region, in an operation against a community suspected of harbouring separatist fighters.

Reprisal operations last week in Bamenda have seen the killing of over 10 persons. Like in all other past military raids, those arrested sometimes plead for mercy and are transferred to prisons in Yaoundé and Douala. However, only a few get pardoned or taken to jail.

When Tiffang Eric, a business operator, was arrested two years ago while playing Chess with his three friends, he was interrogated and instantly executed.

An eyewitness said military officials saw a big scar on his leg and considered him a separatist fighter who got shot during a previous exchange with them.

“He pleaded and even cried but one of the officers kept calling him Ambazonian,” said an eyewitness.

Eric was shot and his corpse abandoned in a bush. The others were allowed to go after they convinced the soldiers they had family in the military. To date, his friends are yet to recover from the shocking scene.

Accountability

The killings of two women and three children by the military were captured on a video circulated in 2018. Four soldiers were sentenced to 10 years for their roles in the shooting. This is one of few cases where erring soldiers are held accountable for their crimes.

Two years later in Feb. 2020, three Cameroonian soldiers were charged with murder after killing three women and 10 children during a raid in Ngarbuh, Northwest Cameroon. The case is getting cold, however, and the victims are yet to get justice.

The government has maintained silence in most military raids and reprisals in the conflict-hit regions. Human rights activist and Archbishop Andrew Nkea said in April Cameroon has reached an alarming level in extrajudicial killings.

Source: Human angle media

Biya is in Paris

22, June 2023

Biya is in Paris 0

Paul Biya is in the French capital, Paris this Thursday 22 June 2023 to attend the opening ceremony of the summit for new global financial pact at the Palais Brongniart in Paris. The 90-year-old Cameroonian dictator was received at the summit venue by Madam Catherine Colonna, the French Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs.

Speaking at the opening ceremony, French President Emmanuel Macron welcomed all participants and praised their determination to fight against poverty and to safe planet earth. Macron highlighted the efforts of youths and civil society organisations in the preparation and orientation of the summit.

For his part, the Secretary General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, said the global financial architecture is outdated, dysfunctional and unjust. He urged participants at the summit for a new global financial pact to take action to meet the urgent needs of developing countries.

Work at the summit is divided into six workshops such as rethinking the multilateral banking model to meet new challenges, adopting a new method/partnerships for green growth or showing solidarity to break free from the debt trap, etc. The conclusions will be presented at the closing session of the summit tomorrow.

Mr. BIYA and his wife Chantal will later this evening attend a working dinner offered by French President Emmanuel Macron at the Elysee Palace.

Culled from the PRC

French Cameroun: World Bank Approves $330M for Rehabilitation of the Maroua-Kousseri Road

22, June 2023

French Cameroun: World Bank Approves $330M for Rehabilitation of the Maroua-Kousseri Road 0

The World Bank approved financing of $330 million (CFA198.2 billion) for the rehabilitation of the Maroua-Kousseri road in Cameroon’s Far North region. “More than 920,000 people, including refugees and internally displaced persons, will benefit from the restoration of the Mora-Kousseri section (205 kilometers) on national road 1 (RN1), which will improve access to schools, health facilities, and markets,” said the Bretton Woods institution in an official statement.

The financing includes a credit of $280 million (CFA168.2 billion) from the International Development Association (IDA), World Bank’s concessional window, and a grant of $50 million (CFA30 billion) from the IDA window for host communities and refugees (WHR).

This is the second time the World Bank is funding the road’s rehabilitation. The first time, the works were hindered by structural delays and Boko Haram’s incursions in the Far North.

Military Engineering

Shortly after launching, the first attempt to repair the road was halted on May 16, 2014, after the Nigerian group of terrorists attacked the base life of Sinohydro, the then-contractor of the project. At the time, 10 of the Chinese firm’s staff members were kidnapped. Yaoundé, however, was able to have them released after tough negotiations.

Subsequently, Sinohydro promised on multiple occasions to return to the project but gave up. The government then trusted the project to the army, with the World Bank’s approval. Resumed in March 2018, the project was scheduled to be completed within 24 months but was delayed until early 2020. To speed up things, the Military Engineering team hired three subcontractors who especially worked on the 175 km long Mora-Dabanga-Kousseri section of the road.

Still, the project was not completed on the due date set by the World Bank–June 30, 2020. It was the date by which the Bank had set to close the line of credit it opened for the previous decade.

Source: Business in Cameroon

Ocean gate: More ships join search for missing Titanic sub amid fears of dwindling oxygen supply

22, June 2023

Ocean gate: More ships join search for missing Titanic sub amid fears of dwindling oxygen supply 0

The race against time to find a submersible that disappeared on its way to the Titanic wreckage site entered a new phase of desperation on Thursday morning as the final hours of oxygen possibly left on board the tiny vessel ticked off the clock.

Rescuers have rushed more ships and vessels to the site of the disappearance, hoping underwater sounds they detected for a second straight day might help narrow their search in the urgent, international mission. But the crew had only a four-day oxygen supply when the vessel, called the Titan, set off around 6 a.m. Sunday.

Even those who expressed optimism warned that many obstacles remain: from pinpointing the vessel’s location, to reaching it with rescue equipment, to bringing it to the surface — assuming it’s still intact. And all that has to happen before the passengers’ oxygen supply runs out.

The full area being searched was twice the size of Connecticut in waters as deep as 13,200 feet (4,020 meters). Captain Jamie Frederick of the First Coast Guard District said authorities were still holding out hope of saving the five passengers onboard.

“This is a search and rescue mission, 100%,” he said Wednesday.

The area of the North Atlantic where the Titan vanished Sunday is also prone to fog and stormy conditions, making it an extremely challenging environment to conduct a search-and-rescue mission, said Donald Murphy, an oceanographer who served as chief scientist of the Coast Guard’s International Ice Patrol.

Meanwhile, newly uncovered allegations suggest there had been significant warnings made about vessel safety during the submersible’s development.

Frederick said while the sounds that have been detected offered a chance to narrow the search, their exact location and source hadn’t yet been determined.

“We don’t know what they are, to be frank,” he said.

Retired Navy Capt. Carl Hartsfield, now the director of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Systems Laboratory, said the sounds have been described as “banging noises,” but he warned that search crews “have to put the whole picture together in context and they have to eliminate potential manmade sources other than the Titan.”

The report was encouraging to some experts because submarine crews unable to communicate with the surface are taught to bang on their submersible’s hull to be detected by sonar.

Ninety-six hour oxygen supply

The U.S. Navy said in a statement Wednesday that it was sending a specialized salvage system that’s capable of hoisting “large, bulky and heavy undersea objects such as aircraft or small vessels.”

The Titan weighs 20,000 pounds (9,071 kilograms). The U.S. Navy’s Flyaway Deep Ocean Salvage System is designed to lift up to 60,000 pounds (27,216 kilograms), the Navy said on its website.

Lost aboard the vessel are pilot Stockton Rush, the CEO of the company leading the expedition. His passengers are a British adventurer, two members of a Pakistani business family and a Titanic expert. OceanGate Expeditions oversaw the mission.

Authorities reported the 22-foot (6.7-meter) carbon-fiber vessel overdue Sunday night, setting off the search in waters about 435 miles (700 kilometers) south of St. John’s.

Officials have said the vessel had a 96-hour oxygen supply, giving them a deadline of early Thursday morning to find and raise the Titan.

Frank Owen, a submarine search and rescue expert, said the estimated oxygen supply is a useful “target” for searchers, but is only based on a “nominal amount of consumption.” Owen said the diver on board the Titan would likely be advising passengers to “do anything to reduce your metabolic levels so that you can actually extend this.”

At least 46 people successfully traveled on OceanGate’s submersible to the Titanic wreck site in 2021 and 2022, according to letters the company filed with a U.S. District Court in Norfolk, Virginia, that oversees matters involving the Titanic shipwreck.  

One of the company’s first customers characterized a dive he made to the site two years ago as a “kamikaze operation.”

“Imagine a metal tube a few meters long with a sheet of metal for a floor. You can’t stand. You can’t kneel. Everyone is sitting close to or on top of each other,” said Arthur Loibl, a retired businessman and adventurer from Germany. “You can’t be claustrophobic.”

During the 2.5-hour descent and ascent, the lights were turned off to conserve energy, he said, with the only illumination coming from a fluorescent glow stick.

The dive was repeatedly delayed to fix a problem with the battery and the balancing weights. In total, the voyage took 10.5 hours.

‘Like being in a snow cave’

OceanGate has been criticized for the use of a simple commercially available video game controller to steer the Titan. But the company has said that many of the vessel’s parts are off-the-shelf because they have proved to be dependable.

“It’s meant for a 16-year-old to throw it around,” and is “super durable,” Rush told the CBC in an interview last year while he demonstrated by throwing the controller around the Titan’s tiny cabin. He said a couple of spares are kept on board “just in case.”

The submersible had seven backup systems to return to the surface, including sandbags and lead pipes that drop off and an inflatable balloon.

Jeff Karson, a professor emeritus of earth and environmental sciences at Syracuse University, said the temperature is just above freezing, and the vessel is too deep for human divers to get to it. The best chance to reach the submersible could be to use a remotely operated robot on a fiber optic cable, he said.

“I am sure it is horrible down there,” Karson said. “It is like being in a snow cave and hypothermia is a real danger.”

Documents show that OceanGate had been warned there might be catastrophic safety problems posed by the way the experimental vessel was developed.

David Lochridge, OceanGate’s director of marine operations, said in a 2018 lawsuit that the company’s testing and certification was insufficient and would “subject passengers to potential extreme danger in an experimental submersible.”

The company insisted that Lochridge was “not an engineer and was not hired or asked to perform engineering services on the Titan.” The firm also says the vessel under development was a prototype, not the now-missing Titan.

The Marine Technology Society, which describes itself as “a professional group of ocean engineers, technologists, policy-makers, and educators,” also expressed concern that year in a letter to Rush, OceanGate’s chief executive. The society said it was critical that the company submit its prototype to tests overseen by an expert third party before launching in order to safeguard passengers. The New York Times first reported on those documents.

The passengers lost on the Titan are British adventurer Hamish Harding; Pakistani nationals Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman, whose eponymous firm invests across the country; and French explorer and Titanic expert Paul-Henry Nargeolet.

Retired Navy Vice Admiral Robert Murrett, who is now deputy director of the Institute for Security Policy and Law at Syracuse University, said the disappearance underscores the dangers associated with operating in deep water and the recreational exploration of the sea and space.

“I think some people believe that because modern technology is so good, that you can do things like this and not have accidents, but that’s just not the case,” he said.

Source: AP

Kondengui Ambazonia Revolt: Biya regime to be brought to its knees

22, June 2023

Kondengui Ambazonia Revolt: Biya regime to be brought to its knees 0

The exiled leader of the Ambazonia Interim Government has praised the sacrifices made by Southern Cameroons detainees in the Kondengui Maximum Security Prison in Yaoundé, saying French Cameroun detention centers is one area where La Republique du Cameroun will be brought to its knees.

Dabney Yerima made the remarks in a meeting with the Southern Cameroons war cabinet late last night in Holland. Yerima told Southern Cameroons leaders that the Ambazonia revolt took place deep within the Kondengui Central Prison and that the leader of the Ambazonian people, President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe was safe and sound at KPPY.

Vice President Dabney Yerima commended the strong sense of solidarity among all Southern Cameroons detainees and prisoners of conscience for their individual and collective struggle against French Cameroun occupation.

He emphasized that French Cameroun political and military institutions are crumbling at catastrophic rapidity and a new era including a bright future with complete victory is near.

Dabney Yerima also pointed to the noticeable changes in Ground Zero over the past couple of months, particularly increased in attacks against French Cameroun army soldiers and gendarmerie posts.

Vice President Dabney Yerima highlighted the importance of enhanced unity and coordination among all Southern Cameroons resistance groups and called on the Southern Cameroons diaspora to concentrate more on the issue of unity and coordination and tread this right path with strength.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

World leaders headed to Paris summit in push for global debt, climate reform

19, June 2023

World leaders headed to Paris summit in push for global debt, climate reform 0

World leaders will gather in Paris this week with ambitions to reimagine global financing for a new era shaped by climate change, as a cascade of crises swamps debt-burdened countries.

French President Emmanuel Macron has said the Summit for a New Global Financial Pact is aimed at building a “new consensus” to meet the interlinked global targets of tackling poverty, curbing planet-heating emissions and protecting nature.

Ideas on the table range from taxation on shipping, fossil fuels or financial transactions, to innovations in lending and a structural rethink of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank.

France says the two-day summit, which begins on Thursday and will bring together some 50 heads of state and government, was more of a platform for ideas sharing ahead of a cluster of major economic and climate meetings in the coming months.

In particular, the French Presidency said on Friday it wanted to give “political impetus” to the idea of an international tax on carbon emissions from shipping, with hopes of a breakthrough at a meeting of the International Maritime Organization later in June.

With trust in short supply over broken climate financing promises from richer countries, developing nations are looking for tangible progress.

The V20 group of countries on the climate frontlines, which now includes 58 member nations, has said restructuring the global financial system to align with climate targets must be completed by 2030.

“It’s great we are talking about the international financial architecture, but we have to see timelines and we have not seen those timelines,” Sarah Jane Ahmed, V20 global lead and finance adviser, told AFP.

“If we’re starting to do this stuff in the 2030s, it’s going to be so much more expensive and the trade-offs are going to be far steeper.”

Leaders arriving in Paris to champion that message include Kenyan President William Ruto and Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo, as well as Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley, who has become a powerful advocate for reform and will speak at the summit opening on Thursday.

Other attendees include Chinese Premier Li Qiang, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and European Commission head Ursula von der Leyen.

Ajay Banga is also expected in Paris, in his first international meeting since taking the helm of the World Bank, promising to embrace change.

With fewer leaders from wealthier countries attending, Friederike Roder of Global Citizen said the conference could fall short of hopes for a show of unity. 

“We need everyone coming together,” she told AFP, stressing that major economies are needed to agree reforms.

‘Failed’

Economies have been battered by successive shocks in recent years, including Covid-19, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, spiking inflation and the increasingly expensive impacts of weather disasters intensified by global warming.

United Nations chief Antonio Guterres has said the pandemic and its aftermath amounted to a “stress test” for a financial system that was set up nearly eight decades ago.

“It largely failed,” he said earlier this month, adding that 52 developing countries are in, or near, debt distress.

The World Bank plans to increase its lending capacity by $50 billion over 10 years.

Last week it also called for drastic reform to rechannel trillions of dollars in harmful and unnecessary subsidies for fossil fuels, agriculture and fishing into action on climate and nature.

Currently the world is far off track in its aims to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperatures, risking enormous costs for nature, human societies and the global economy.

Last year, a UN experts committee said developing countries other than China will need to spend more than $2 trillion a year by 2030 on development and to respond to the climate and biodiversity crises.

Ambition ‘gap’

Roder said one key signal from the Paris summit would be for richer nations to show they can fulfil existing promises, like the still-unmet pledge of $100 billion annually by 2020 to help developing nations cut emissions and boost climate resilience.

Increasing the money available — potentially using hundreds of billions of the IMF’s liquidity-boosting “special drawing rights” — is among the calls from emerging economies, as well as a new lending strategy.

One idea championed by Barbados is a disaster clause so loan repayments can be paused for two years in the wake of a climate disaster or pandemic.

Another key point of debate is the scale of existing debts.

That will also focus attention on China, which has become a significant lender to African countries, but has been reluctant to participate in the common framework for debt restructuring.

The Paris summit can bring a lot of issues “out of their niche”, said Louis-Nicolas Jandeaux of Oxfam, noting, however, “a gap between the initial stated ambition of the summit and the reality”.

Source: AFP

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Francophone soldiers kill 10 in Big Babanki

19, June 2023

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Francophone soldiers kill 10 in Big Babanki 0

At least ten Southern Cameroonians were killed in an offensive by the Francophone dominated Cameroon government military in Big Babanki in the North West region.

The attack on Big Babanki was carried out late on Friday night to the early hours of Saturday.

Yaoundé said those killed were armed separatists who abducted, tortured and later released dozens of women in the locality last month.

A source with strong ties to the Ambazonia Interim Government contacted by Cameroon Concord News denied the allegations and revealed that the deceased were all civilians.

Hundreds of people in Big Babanki fled to the bush as the offensive unfolded.

Southern Cameroons Self Defense Forces, who have been in conflict with the Yaoundé government since 2017, hope to establish an independent nation in the two English-speaking regions known as the Federal Republic of Ambazonia.

By Fon Lawrence in  Bamenda

South Africa president urges Russia and Ukraine to de-escalate

16, June 2023

South Africa president urges Russia and Ukraine to de-escalate 0

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Friday called on Ukraine and Russia to de-escalate their conflict, as he arrived in the war-torn country on a mission to broker peace.

Ramaphosa is one of a group of African leaders that arrived in the Ukrainian capital earlier on Friday as air raid sirens sounded and explosions were reported in the city.

“This war must be settled and there should be peace through negotiations,” he told reporters after talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

“We argue that there must be de-escalation on both sides.”

Culled from France 24

Simon Ngonja killing: Pet dog or Star Building action?

16, June 2023

Simon Ngonja killing: Pet dog or Star Building action? 0

According to reports on social media in the nation’s capital Yaoundé, Simon Ngonja, a senior aide to Prime Minister Joseph Dion Ngute lost his life days after been attacked by his pet dog.

The Prime Minister’s Office has maintained a kind of deliberate silence ever since the incident was made public.

Cameroonians are being fed stories that Simon Ngonja was attacked by his German shepherd dog when he returned from a trip on Sunday, June 11, 2023.

Pro Biya regime social media outlets revealed that Simon Ngonga’s dog had pounced forcefully on him after he opened the gate of his house with some suggesting that he fought fiercely with the dog for his life but couldn’t save himself as the dog kept attacking him over and over again.

However, Cameroon Intelligence Report Yaoundé City Correspondent has hinted that Simon Ngonga’s killer was inside his residence moments before the so-called pet dog operation and that Ngonga himself knew something was up in the Star Building.

Mr Simon Ngonga, who is thought to have been on the phone to his brother when he approached his house, had reportedly told some colleagues that he was very worried about his time at the prime minister’s office.

This item is still developing in Yaoundé!

By Rita Akana with Intel files

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