Over 3,000 refugees have died crossing the Mediterranean in a desperate bid to reach Europe’s shores since the start of the year, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) says.

William Lacy Swing, the IOM director general, said in a statement in the Swiss city of Geneva on Tuesday that the 3,033 deaths happened across three main sea routes in the Mediterranean.

“That mark (was) probably passed sometime over last weekend,” when more than 30 migrants died off the coast of Libya, the official added.

“We’ve been saying this for years and we’ll keep on saying it: It’s no longer enough to simply count these tragic statistics. We must also act.”

The latest figure so far represents a 40-percent drop compared to last year’s record of 5,000 drownings.

The number of refugees who have arrived in Europe this year is less than half of last year’s total of 348,000.

The flow has been stemmed by controversial deals between the European Union, Turkey and Libya. The 28-nation bloc has been desperate to slow the refugee influx via these two main routes,

The United Nations has, however, denounced as “inhuman” the EU’s cooperation with Libya.

The refugees are being held in “horrific” prisons and have even been auctioned off as slaves across the North African country.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has recently said that the reported auctions of African refugees in Libya as slaves amount to “crimes against humanity.”

In October, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) warned that thousands of Libyan refugees were living in dire conditions in a hub to the west of the capital Tripoli, saying they could be exposed to abuse on a shocking scale.

Libya, gripped by chaos and lawlessness since the fall of dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, was the main embarkation point for mostly African refugees seeking to head to Europe until recently.

Europe is facing an influx of refugees, who are fleeing conflict-ridden zones in North Africa and the Middle East, particularly Syria. More than 1.5 million people have reached Europe since 2015.

Many blame major European powers for the unprecedented exodus, saying their policies have led to a surge in terrorism and war in those regions, forcing more people to flee their homes.

Source: Presstv

Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta has been sworn in for a second five-year term amid continuing post-election tensions.

Kenyatta’s swearing-in ceremony was held in Kenya’s largest stadium, Kasarani, in Nairobi on Tuesday amid heavy security as opposition supporter were due to protest.

Kenyatta garnered 98.2 percent of the votes in a repeat presidential election on October 26, in which almost 39 percent the 19.6 million registered voters turned out to vote.

The leading opposition group, the National Super Alliance, called on its supporters to gather to commemorate the opposition supporters killed during recent clashes with security forces.

“A return to the political backwardness of our past is more than unacceptable. It is intolerable… This divide cannot be bridged by dialog and compromise,” the alliance said in a statement.

 

At least 70 people have been killed in four months of violence over Kenya’s presidential race between Kenyatta and opposition leader Raila Odinga. Rights groups say most of those killed by police were the supporters of Odinga, who challenged the results of the first round of the election in August.

That round was annulled by the Supreme Court over irregularities. Odinga then boycotted the re-run last month.

Meanwhile, police had to use tear gas to prevent Kenyatta’s supporters trying to force their way into the stadium, which was filled to its 60,000 capacity on Tuesday morning.

Many fear Kenyatta’s inauguration could trigger renewed unrest in Kenya, a major ally of the West in the Horn of Africa region.

Source: Presstv

We hereby announce the nominees for the 2017 Cameroon Concord News Man of the Year.

Our panel of experts have argued long and loud about the merits of those on the long list and have now whittled those names down to a shortlist of seven. From here on, democracy reigns. It is up to you. Cast your vote at the bottom of the post.

Tassang Wilfred (The Consortium)

He is principally remembered now for empowering the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium by shutting down all academic establishments in British Southern Cameroons. But this is only one element of what was a glorious contribution to the Southern Cameroons struggle.

For a start, he demonstrated a true West Cameroon’s humility in his description of the plight of Anglophones in La Republique du Cameroun. To the casual observer, it looked like the hard work had been done by Tassang himself when he slalomed through Paul Mingo Ghogomu in Bamenda, lifted the Southern Cameroons debate over Prime Minister Yang Philemon and swiped the baton of command into the hands of Sisiku Ayuk Tabe.

But according to Tassang, the hard work had in fact been done by the dismissal of the “Show Boy” Barrister Agbor Balla from the Consortium’, a verdict which saw him crowned as the patron saint of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia.

Hon. Joseph Wirba

The Southern Cameroons National anthem is how many Ambazonians now refer to him. Politicians in power have a proud tradition of achievement in the Cameroon Concord News Man of the Year award. Wirba is not one of them.

As Southern Cameroonians were responding to calls for civil disobedience campaigns, blissfully unaware that they were about to witness a historic change in their history, the camera zoomed in one man who was belting out the sufferings of the people of Southern Cameroons with greater solemnity and ferocity than anyone else in his vicinity. Swept up in the moment, he gave the passing lens a hearty salute with these words: “No one can take the Name West Cameroon from the mouths of the Anglophones again”

The People of Southern Cameroons and their powerful Diaspora

Opinion in our editorial desk was initially divided as to whether a group could be classified for the Cameroon Concord News Man of the Year Award.  In our snap poll, the verdict came back loud and clear to us from one of our readers, Polycarp Kansamga.

The resilience demonstrated by the people of Southern Cameroons particularly in the afterglow of the famous victory on October 1, took on a new significance. It’s impossible to witness it now and not feel that Southern Cameroonians both at home and abroad deserve to be honored.

Philemon Yang (French Cameroun Prime Minister and Head of Government)

After a harrowing 2016 in which he suffered with depression and poor health with numerous quarrels with Ama Tutu Muna,  Philemon Yang emerged from the darkness to lead a Francophone dominated government that had only him as a minister with portfolio. An inspirational tale.

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His sister Ama – the 2015-16 Anglophone cabinet minister of the year – functioned as a virtual bodyguard during those bright days before the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium came into existence. With tears in his eyes today, Yang has been caught up in the pangs of a monster he helped in creating. Ever since the beginning of the Southern Cameroons uprising, Prime Minister Philemon is either committing the same errors or falling into spectacular new ones.  He has said stuff that really hit home. He said that if I do what Anglophones expect me to do, you’re not just going to kill yourself, you’re going to kill your parents, and you’re going to kill me. It is not nice to be listening to him and seeing the tears flowing down his eyes inside his bedroom.

Professor Messanga Nyamding (French Cameroun CPDM Central Committee Member)

The French Cameroun University lecturer, Professor Messanga Nyamding has been speaking from his heart since the Southern Cameroons crisis started. He blamed the crisis on the so-called collaborators of President Biya. According to him, the staff of the Head of State are divided into two clans namely, the administrative staff he calls bureaucrats and worthless and the collaborators whom he claims have imprisoned Cameroon in a war of networks forming a mystical resilience.

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Professor Messanga Nyamding told the world that it is the mystical resilience that is at the root of the Southern Cameroons crisis. He stood firmly for the release of all Anglophone detainees and argued that the same Biya regime had pardoned men like Niat Njifenji, Ahmidou Marafa Yaya, Dakole Daissala who participated in the 1984 April 6th coup.

Prof. Messanga Nyamding recently said that President Biya’s collaborators were staging a comedy show in government. “They tar the roads, repair the bridges, paint the buildings only when it is announced that Biya will be passing in that area. Yet the reality is quite different. It is this CPDM comedy that has angered Anglophones for decades.”

Bibixy Mancho

The Southern Cameroons radio host Bibixy Mancho was always destined to one day contend for the Cameroon Concord News Man of the Year Award. His performance at public demonstrations in the Bamenda County gave the Anglophone struggle the impetus that was needed.

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He proceeded to score major political victories during his trial at the Yaoundé Military Tribunal.  Unfortunately, the Biya Francophone regime is still keeping him at the Kondengui High Security prison in Yaoundé. This year, Bibixy Mancho painted a picture that the world will never forget on the plight of Southern Cameroonians when he appeared during one of his hearings at the Kangaroo court in Yaoundé.

He has remained defiant and is his face is now the symbol of the Southern Cameroons struggle. When Bibixy Mancho appeared in front of a French Cameroun judge recently, he pleaded that the Francophone regime should release all the teenagers arrested in Bamenda.  He did not stop there!! He told the judge to sentence him to death.  At the time, many thought it took quite an amount of cheek to turn around and claim the death penalty in these circumstances.

Sisiku Ayuk Tabe (Interim Head of State Federal Republic of Ambazonia)

He has firmly established himself as the Southern Cameroons favorite leader ever since the history of the struggle.  Any man who can rename the Southern Cameroons territory as the Federal Republic of Ambazonia and it is accepted by all is clearly the author of great deeds.

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Sisiku Ayuk Tabe emerged as the chosen one in the Southern Cameroons quest for independence. He has provided responsible leadership and continues to do so. It is his performance as the interim head of state that has elevated Southern Cameroons to the status of international treasure, but we were more enthralled by his efforts in the 4^th Conclave that held in Nigeria.

It was there that he elevated the unglamorous and oft-derided skill of ‘holding the leadership up and managing the Milan Affair diplomatically.  His composure, the nimble brainwork, the magnificent use of one’s arse – were all present and correct.

By Chi Prudence Asong

VOTING IS NOW UNDERWAY. HAVE YOUR SAY ON WHO SHOULD BE MAN OF THE YEAR BELOW

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has received over 200,000 background check requests from gun dealers across America on Black Friday, the highest demand for guns on a single day since 1998.

Overall there were 203,086 requests were submitted to the bureau, a sizable increase over single-day highs from past years such as 185,713 in 2016, and 185,345 in 2015.

The real number of the guns purchased on Friday is likely higher as multiple firearms can be purchased in just one transaction.

The checks, conducted by the FBI when a gun is purchased from a federally licensed dealer, reveal a person’s record of arrest on the National Instant Criminal Background Check system (NICS).

However, pro-gun activists claim it fails to specify whether an arrest was dismissed or resulted in a conviction.

According to the NICS, five of the top 10 single-day highs have occurred on a Black Friday over the last five years.

The report comes amid heated debates over the need for a more effective background check system following several high-profile mass killings across the US over the past weeks.

In early October, a heavily armed gunman killed 59 and injured more than 500 people at a music concert in Las Vegas, Nevada, which has some of the most lax gun laws in the country.

The shooter, Stephen Paddock, purchased 33 automatic weapons in the last year. Police found a total of 47 guns in the hotel room and house of 64-year-old, who rained down a barrage of bullets from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel towards an open-air concert.

In early November, Devin Patrick Kelley, a former US airman, attacked a small church outside San Antonio, Texas, killing 26 people.

The US Air Force admitted later on that it had failed to enter Kelley’s criminal record into the NICS.

According to a new study published in the journal Health Affairs, more than 100,000 Americans were shot each year from 2006 to 2014, as a result of assaults, accidental shootings or suicide.

Trump’s 2016 election campaign was heavily funded by the NRA. In response, the billionaire had pledged to protect the American gun owners’ right to keep and bear arms, assuring them that they now have a “true friend” in the White House.

Source: Presstv

Thousands of protesters have taken to the streets in different European capitals for a second day to express anger at the practice of slavery in Libya.

People in the Swedish capital of, Stockholm, gathered in Sergels Torg Square on Saturday to demand an immediate end to slavery, holding signs reading “Stop the slavery, now, now, now” and “Human rights for all,” as they chanted slogans.

More than 50 people were arrested during similar protests in Brussels, the Belgian capital. Violence erupted in that protest when a group of protesters broke away and attacked police, also ransacking shops and hurling projectiles at police, who responded by using water cannon.

Meanwhile, hundreds of members of the African community in the German capital of Berlin rallied outside the Libyan Embassy to express their anger. The demonstrators demanded an end to the enslavement, torture, rape, and murder of black people in the North African country.

An Ethiopian demonstrator, Gizaw, said, “To stop this situation German [sic] has to intervene, EU has to intervene, England, Britain has to intervene and stop financing these criminals in Libya.”

The protests came a day after demonstrators in Paris and Rome held rallies in front of the Libyan embassies in those cities.

The French demonstrators denounced their country’s military role in the Libyan uprising in 2011, when the then-French president Nicolas Sarkozy pushed for military strikes in Libya.

The protests was prompted by a CNN video report, released last week, which showed sub-Saharan Africans being sold at slave auctions for as little as $400.

After widespread outrage, Libyan Deputy Prime Minister Ahmed Metig vowed, in a statement posted on Facebook, that his UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) would investigate the “slave market” allegations in the North African country.

Libya has faced a power vacuum since a NATO military intervention resulted in the downfall of its longtime dictator, Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. Since then, the country has been grappling with chaos and the emergence of numerous militant groups, including the Daesh terrorist group.

(Source: Agencies)