Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suspends a deal with the United Nations that would prevent the regime from deporting thousands of African migrants only hours after he announced the agreement.

Netanyahu had said on Monday that Israel and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) had reached an agreement “for the departure of at least 16,250 migrants…to Western nations.”

The rest of the migrants would be resettled across Israel under the deal, which Netanyahu described as “the best possible.”

The UNHCR also confirmed the agreement in a statement, saying, “A joint working group will be set up with a series of objectives and a timetable to implement solutions for some 39,000 people over five years.”

However, under pressure from far-right politicians, Netanyahu took to Facebook later in the day and said he was putting the deal’s implementation on hold until further notice.

“For the time being, I am suspending the agreement,” Netanyahu said, noting that he would meet with Interior Minister Aryeh Deri and residents of south Tel Aviv before reconsidering it, The Times of Israel reported.

Prior to the deal with the UN, Israel had handed notices to nearly 39,000 asylum seekers, mainly Eritreans and Sudanese, notifying them that they would be deported to Uganda and Rwanda.

The migrants say the Israeli regime has already forced them in their thousands to southern Tel Aviv, intentionally making living conditions unbearable to put pressure on them.

The migrants have been staging regular thousands-strong rallies to condemn the prospect of deportation.

The latest protest took place on March 25 gathering around 25,000.

The participants carried signs and chanted slogans such as “There is no difference between our blood and their blood because we are all human beings.”

Source: Presstv

Nomzamo Winifred Madikizela-Mandela‚ a stalwart in the fight against apartheid‚ has died at the age of 81.

Her PA‚ Zodwa Zwane‚ confirmed the struggle veteran’s death on Monday afternoon.

“It is with profound sadness that we inform the public that Mrs Winnie Madikizela-Mandela passed away at the Netcare Milpark Hospital‚ Johannesburg‚ South Africa on Monday April 2‚ 2018.

She died after a long illness‚ for which she had been in and out of hospital since the start of the year. She succumbed peacefully in the early hours of Monday afternoon surrounded by her family and loved ones,” the family said in a statement today.

The family will release details of the memorial and funeral services once these have been finalised.

Born in Bizana in the Eastern Cape in 1936‚ she moved to Johannesburg to study social work after matriculating.

She met lawyer and anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela in 1957 and they were married a year later. They had two children together.

However‚ her marriage life with Mandela was short-lived‚ as he was arrested in 1963 and sentenced to life imprisonment for treason. Mandela was eventually released in 1990.

During Mandela’s time in prison‚ Madikizela-Mandela was not spared the reach of the apartheid forces. She was placed under house arrest and at one time banished to Brandfort‚ a town in the Free State.

In 1969‚ Madikizela-Mandela became one of the first detainees under Section 6 of the notorious Terrorism Act of 1967. She was detained for 18 months in solitary confinement in a condemned cell at Pretoria Central Prison before being charged under the Suppression of Communism Act of 1950.

Controversy

In 1991‚ she was convicted of kidnapping and being an accessory to assault of Stompie Seipei‚ a young activist who was killed by a member of her bodyguards‚ the Mandela United Football Club.

Madikizela-Mandela’s bodyguards had abducted Seipei‚ 14‚ in 1989‚ along with three other youths‚ from the home of Methodist minister Paul Verryn.

Her six-year jail sentence was reduced to a fine and a two-year suspended sentence on appeal.

Her marriage to Mandela began to flounder a few years after his release.

A letter she purportedly wrote to her young lover found its way into the newspapers.

“You’re running around f…ing at the slightest emotional excuse‚” she wrote.

“The fact that I haven’t been speaking to Tata [Nelson Mandela] for five months now over you is no longer your concern. I keep telling you the situation is deteriorating at home. You are not bothered because you are satisfying yourself every night with a woman‚” Madikizela-Mandela reportedly wrote.

In his book Odyssey to Freedom‚ veteran advocate George Bizos described how Mandela would not attend legal consultations Bizos had with Madikizela-Mandela during the Seipei trial.

“He drew the line at attending our consultations‚ primarily because these meetings were also attended by the young lawyer … her lover during the latter part of Nelson’s imprisonment and after he was released‚” Bizos wrote in his book.

The couple divorced in 1996‚ 37 years after their marriage.

After the first democratic election in 1994‚ Madikizela-Mandela became an MP and was appointed deputy minister of arts and culture. She was fired by Mandela after an unauthorised trip to Ghana.

She had been an MP ever since‚ despite limited appearances in Parliament in the past few years.

In 2016‚ she was conferred an Order of Luthuli in Silver during the National Orders Awards ceremony for her excellent contribution to the fight for the liberation of the people of South Africa.

Source: Heraldlive

Namibia President Hage Geingob said China is not colonizing Africa and that growing cooperation between the world’s No. 2 economy and Africa benefits both sides, China’s official Xinhua News Agency reported on Saturday.

The report said Geingob, currently on a state visit to China, said “comments smearing bilateral cooperation” between China and Namibia are “doomed to fail.”

“We are mature, we can choose our friends, we can choose what we want for, and what’s good for us,” Geingob said.

No country in the world has added so much value to our products as China has. China has done a lot of technology transfer and job creation.

Africa has been a region of focus for Beijing’s quest for greater global influence, with billions of dollars being pumped into infrastructure projects in the continent. Some critics have questioned China’s motives, however, accusing it of seeking to secure key raw materials such as oil and minerals.

In March, then-U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson warned African countries should be careful not to forfeit their sovereignty when they accept loans from China. He said at that time that if an African government “gets into trouble” after accepting a Chinese loan they could lose control of its infrastructure or resources through default.

China has repeatedly rejected accusations that it is only interested in Africa for its mineral resources and said its no-strings-attached aid programmes are widely welcomed.

Geingob also told Xinhua that China-Africa cooperation is on equal footing and that China’s investment in his country is not just “digging out resources.”

”No country in the world has added so much value to our products as China has. China has done a lot of technology transfer and job creation,” the Namibian president told Xinhua.

REUTERS

More than 4000 Southern Cameroonians have so far been arrested by troops and security forces loyal to the Biya Francophone Beti Ewondo regime in Yaoundé since French Cameroun declared a war against the English speaking population in West Cameroon.

Biya’s surprise war declaration came after more than a year of anti- French Cameroun government protests and increasing divisions in the once United Republic of Cameroon. The ruling CPDM crime syndicate has for the first time picked a Southern Cameroonian, Paul Atanga Nji, to be its new operations manager overseeing the genocide currently going on in Southern Cameroons.

He was sworn in as Minister of Territorial Administration and has toured the breakaway Federal Republic of Ambazonia with a dubious message calling for “inclusive dialogue”.  Human rights groups have said approximately 4000 Southern Cameroonians have been detained ever since the Anglophone uprising started last year and over a thousand have been killed.

The Francophone dominated army has been killing peaceful civilians including Anglophone security forces still serving in La Republique du Cameroun, setting villages and Southern Cameroons financial institutions ablaze. The French Cameroun army is also involved in the illicit movement of firearms, destroying Southern Cameroons monuments and public institutions (and) blocking roads.

Cameroon under the 85 year-old President Biya spiraled into crisis more than a year ago when the country’s English speaking communities began protesting a diabolic harsh ploy to destroy their Anglo-Saxon heritage.  The regime in Yaoundé responded with force hoping to quell the unrest. The arrests under the latest crackdown have been mainly in the rural areas in the Southern and Northern zones.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

A top official with the United Nations Refugee Agency, UNHCR, has bemoaned the deplorable conditions under which Cameroonians fleeing the Anglophone crisis are living in Nigeria.

Antonio Canhandula, a Programme / Operation Manager and UNHCRrepresentative made his reservations via his twitter handle after visiting some of the refugees in Nigeria’s Cross River and Benue States earlier this week. Other refugees are living in the Akwa Ibom and Taraba States.

One tweet disclosed how some women said they had so little food to feed their families that they had to carry bricks to earn money to supplement what relief agencies provided.

Accompanying a photo of young children lined up in a school he wrote: “Beautiful Cameroon refugee students. Children do not deserve the unfortunate situation of a refugee. This is freedom and human growth arrested. Robbing children of a future. An urgent solution is called for. Ikom.”

 “Children need to continue with their learning. I teach them outside here to make sure they can learn something” Odi Geraldine, trained teacher #Cameroonian #refugees in Ikom, #CrossRiver state. #CameroonRefugees

 Then there was the story of how a expectant mother who fled the crisis back home had delivered a day before the UNHCR visited. Ernestine Etioe, 23, gave birth at a clinic located in Cross River State.

The UNHCR’s records indicate that 20,000 plus Cameroonians have fled the country’s North West and South West regions due to what has become known as the Anglophone crisis.

Canhandula’s reservations are the same as those of the agency he represents. The UNHCR aside pushing that a political solution be found to the crisis holds that it does not have enough funds to cater for the growing number of refugees.

Secessionist elements pushing for independence under the so-called Ambazonia Republic have often clashed with state security agencies. They had earlier used guerilla style attacks to kill over twenty security forces.

The recent leg is armed exchanges and the use of kidnappings. So far, two government officials are in their custody. The Catholic Church’s relief wing in Nigeria has said the refugee influx also hurts Nigerians as it deepens their own poverty situations.

Dialogue has been advanced as a key solution to the crisis that started in October last year. Interior Minister Paul Atanga Nji is on record to have said the government will only dialogue with persons who believe in the unity of Nigeria.

 Beautiful Cameroon refugee students. Children do not deserve the unfortunate situation of a refugee. This is freedom and human growth arrested. Robbing children of a future. An urgent solution is called for. Ikom.

 Ernestine Etioe, 23 year old #CameroonRefugee delivered a baby girl on 28 March 2018, a day before UNHCR visited.  We handed over a care package to our new baby!  A proud moment @ Obudu Ranch clinic, Cross River State. The girl needs protection & a future & that is not in exile!

Cameroon refugees in Agbande, Benue, cooking elephant grass for food. These women tell me that SEMA provided food 8 times since November. Food lasts 2 to 3 days and we work for the local community to get food, such as carrying their bricks for construction. 20 naira per brick!

Two members of the US-led coalition in Syria, one British and another one American, have been killed in an improvised explosive device attack, according to official statements.

The attack, which took place on Thursday near the Syrian city of Manbij, injured five other troops too.

“Two coalition personnel were killed and five were wounded by an improvised explosive device in Syria” at around midnight (2100 GMT), the coalition said in a statement.

The British Defense Ministry also confirmed that the one of them was from within its ranks.

“The individual was embedded with US forces on a counter-Daesh operation when the incident occurred,” the ministry stated.

The US and its allies have been bombarding what they call Daesh positions inside Syria since September 2014 without any authorization from the Damascus government or a UN mandate.

The strikes, however, have on many occasions resulted in civilian casualties and failed to fulfill their declared aim of countering terrorism.

Since the beginning of the conflict in Syria in early 2011, more than 350,000 people have been killed, according to the United Nations’ estimates.

Syria has, for several times, written to the UN to complain that the US was flagrantly violating its sovereignty. The US supports militants fighting to topple President Bashar al-Assad and has repeatedly attacked Syrian army positions.

Source: Presstv

The United Kingdom has issued a travel alert for Cameroon warning nationals to totally avoid travel to within 40km of the country’s borders with Nigeria, Chad and Central African Republic.

Source: Africa News