The Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Cameroon Concord News Group has reacted to the decision by President Paul Biya releasing the leaders of the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium including Lord Justice Ayah Paul Abine and the hundreds of other Southern Cameroons activists detained in Yaounde ever since the Southern Cameroons revolution started.

The Right Honourable Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai told CAMCORDNEWS Chi Prudence Asong that “You must have noticed that Biya in his press release did not for the first time talk about Cameroun being one and indivisible. People like Chief TabeTando, Minister Atanga Nji, Mafany Musonge, Laurent Esso, Fame Ndongo and my great friend, Ngole Ngole Elvis are licking their wounds now. The Revolution will sweep away traitors like them as it will sweep Paul Biya himself.

His decision will not resuscitate hundreds of Southern Cameroons lives that have been exterminated in the genocide against them these 56 years. It will not resuscitate the economy plundered or the cultural values bastardised.

Without a total pull out of it’s army of occupation and it’s administration out of the Southern Cameroons to the International boundaries inherited at independence, nothing will change in our opposition and resistance.

Liberating those captives his army did not massacre without redressing the fundamental question of annexation and Colonial occupation will not dampen our resistance. He has ordered the captives released but the system that imprisoned them is still in place. We will resist until we attain our liberation.

The Southern Cameroons liberation revolution for which thousands have lost their lives to the brutality and bestiality of colonial rule over 56 years was never about abducting and holding some of our people hostage only. That is only part of our grievances. It was and is about a Criminal policy and Criminal institutions imposed on our territory which holds all of us hostages. Freeing the captives without scraping the Criminal system and vacating our territory will only strengthen our resolve to free ourselves and our territory which renewed intensity.”

We will bring you details of this interview soonest

Hurricane Harvey has so far claimed the lives of at least 30 people in the United States with reports showing the storm will make another landfall in hours.

Local officials announced Tuesday that the death toll did not include the number of unconfirmed flood-related deaths as water was still rising in most of the affected areas.

Forecasters predicted that the tropical storm will make another landfall near the Texas-Louisiana state line sometime shortly after midnight central time.

Texas officials said an estimated 30,000 people could be evacuated due to flooding and over 725,000 people were already under a mandatory evacuation order.

Harvey has set a new rainfall record for the US, dumping 51.88 inches (132 centimeters) of rain in Cedar Bayou, which a salt water channel on the Texas coast, officials said.

“This reading is higher than the previous record of 48 inches set during tropical cyclone Amelia of 1978 at Medina, Texas,” the National Weather Service said.

Jeffrey Lindner, a meteorologist for the Harris County Flood Control District, said water flooded 25 to 30 percent of Harris County’s 1,800 square miles of land.

On Tuesday, President Donald Trump visited the disaster zone in Texas, four days after Harvey slammed onshore as a Category Four hurricane, turning roads into rivers and neighborhoods into lakes.

Trump, who sought to project an image of leadership in America’s first big natural disaster since he took office in January, toured the coastal city of Corpus Christi, where he praised the work of state and federal officials.

“We want to be looked at in five years, in 10 years from now as, this is the way to do it,” he said.

“We love you, you are special, we are here to take care of you,” the president said. “It’s historic, its epic, but I tell you, it happened in Texas — and Texas can handle anything.”

In Houston, Mayor Sylvester Turner ordered a curfew late Tuesday from midnight to 5 am local time in to help prevent crime and keep the roads clear for first responders.

“We have thousands of people who are out of their homes, in shelters, waiting for water to subside,” Turner told a press conference earlier.

Culled from Presstv

Catastrophic flooding triggered by Tropical Storm Harvey inundated Houston on Sunday, forcing residents of the fourth most populous US city to flee their homes in boats or hunker down in anticipation of several more days of “unprecedented” rainfall.

Harvey came ashore late on Friday as the most powerful hurricane to hit Texas in more than 50 years and has killed at least two people. The death toll is expected to rise as the storm triggers additional tidal surges and tornadoes, with parts of the region expected to see a year’s worth of rainfall in the span of a week.

The storm caused chest-deep flooding on some streets in Houston as rivers and channels overflowed their banks. More than 30 inches (76 cm) of rain had fallen in parts of Houston in the past 48 hours, the National Weather Service said on Sunday, with more on the way.

The storm struck at the heart of the country’s oil and gas industry, forcing operators to close several refineries and evacuate and close offshore platforms. The massive flooding knocked out 11 percent of US refining capacity and a quarter of oil production from the US Gulf of Mexico.

“What we’re seeing is the most devastating flood event in Houston’s recorded history. We’re seeing levels of rainfall that are unprecedented,” said Steve Bowen, chief meteorologist at reinsurance firm Aon Benfield.

Total precipitation could reach 50 inches (127 cm) in some coastal areas of Texas by the end of the week, or the average rainfall for an entire year. The center of Harvey was about 105 miles (170 km) from Houston and was forecast to arc slowly toward the city through Wednesday.

People in Houston and other areas of Texas were asked not to leave their homes, even if they flooded, as roads were impassable. President Donald Trump plans to go to Texas on Tuesday to survey damage from the storm, a White House spokeswoman said on Sunday.

The Gulf is home to about nearly half of the nation’s refining capacity, and the reduced supply could affect gasoline supplies across the US Southeast and other parts of the country. Shutdowns extended across the coast, including Exxon Mobil’s Baytown refinery, the second largest US refinery.

Gasoline futures rose as much as 7 percent in early trading on Sunday evening, and heating oil futures, a proxy for distillates like diesel fuel, were up as much as 3 percent, as supplies are expected to be curtailed.

The outages will limit the availability of US crude, gasoline and other refined products for global consumers and further push up prices, analysts said.

All Houston port facilities will be closed on Monday because of the weather threat, a port spokeswoman said on Sunday night.

The swift rise of floodwaters surprised authorities, and emergency services told the city’s 2.3 million inhabitants to climb onto the roofs of houses, if necessary.

“The water was right at our door,” said Jasmine Melendez, a 23-year-old Houston mother of three, including a week-old infant. “We were also worried about the kids, especially the baby.”

Melendez was sheltering at the downtown George Brown Convention Center, which was filled with hundreds of people who showed up for water, food and baby supplies. Some people were being brought to the center in city dump trucks.

The Harris County Sheriff’s Office rescued more than 2,000 people in the greater Houston area using vehicles including motorboats, airboats and humvees on Sunday, a spokesman said.

Forecasters could only draw on a few analogues to the storm, recalling Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans in 2005 and killed 1,800 people, and Tropical Storm Allison.

The Harris County Flood Control District said Harvey’s impact would rival that of Allison, which dropped more than 40 inches (102 cm) of rain in Texas in June 2001, flooded 70,000 homes and caused $9 billion in damage.

“The breadth and intensity of this rainfall are beyond anything experienced before. Catastrophic flooding is now underway and expected to continue for days,” the National Weather Service said on Twitter.

Harvey hit Texas as a Category 4 hurricane with winds of 130 miles per hour (210 kph), the strongest storm to hit the state since 1961. As of Sunday evening, about 240,000 people were without power, but Centerpoint Energy, which serves Houston, said it could not give an accurate estimate because flooding was preventing crews from reaching customers.

Two deaths were confirmed so far – one in Rockport, 30 miles (48 km) north of Corpus Christi, and in west Houston on Saturday. The Twitter account for Harris County 911 said people should not call if their lives were not threatened.

Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental and William P. Hobby airports canceled all commercial flights on Sunday. The Ben Taub Hospital in Houston’s Medical Center was evacuated on Sunday. An American Red Cross emergency shelter was forced to shut because of flooding and the group opened two more.

Houston’s schools were scheduled to close for the week, the school district said on Twitter. ConocoPhillips will close on Monday and Tuesday, the company said.

Trump, facing the first big US natural disaster since he took office in January, signed a disaster proclamation on Friday, triggering federal relief efforts. Texas Governor Greg Abbott said on Sunday that 50 counties had been declared state disaster areas.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency said it had more than 400 rescue personnel in South Texas, and 500 others were in the state and expected to be joining in rescue operations on Sunday evening.

Jose Rengel, a 47-year-old construction worker who lives in Galveston, was helping with rescue efforts in Dickinson, Texas, southeast of Houston, where he saw water cresting the tops of cars.

“I am blessed that not much has happened to me, but these people lost everything. And it keeps raining,” he said.

“The water has nowhere to go.”

(Source: Reuters)

Human rights activist are planning to take part in a 10-day march against white supremacy with a clear demand: Remove US President Donald Trump.

The march will start Monday from Charlottesville, Virginia, where national turmoil began following deadly violence at a white supremacist rally.

“The March to Confront White Supremacy,” is set to start on August 8 and end in Washington, DC, on Wednesday, September 6.

An occupation of Washington, DC, will follow with subsequent peaceful demonstrations set to be held on a daily basis there, according to the organizers.

“This is the time to confront white supremacy in our government and throughout our history. We demand that President Trump to be removed from office for allying himself with this ideology of hate and we demand an agenda that repairs the damage it’s done to our country and its people,” read the website for the march. “This will be a sustained civil disobedience campaign, so bring what you need to stay.”

The president has been under fire due to his failure to immediately condemn the recent tragedy in Charlotesville, in which a driver plowed into demonstrators protesting against white supremacists, killing a young woman and injuring nearly 20 others.

Instead, he has blamed both sides for the clashes that took place on August 13. Heather Heyer, 32, was killed and some 20 others were injured.

A 20-year-old Nazi sympathizer, identified as James Alex Fields Jr, was said to have been behind the wheel. Trump has also faced a raft of resignations from his advisory councils and talks about resignation of other White House officials.

The Charlottesville violence has triggered angry protests across the country against the so-called “alt-right” movement, which has become emboldened under Trump.

The march is being organized by several activist groups such as the Action Group Network, the Women’s March, Working Families Party, Color of Change, and United We Dream among others.

Source: Presstv