News

12, October 2017

Trump threatens to revoke TV network licenses over ‘fake news’ ⁰

US President Donald Trump has threatened to shut down NBC and other American TV networks by revoking their media licenses, claiming they broadcast “fake news” and are “bad” for the country.

“With all of the Fake News coming out of NBC and the Networks, at what point is it appropriate to challenge their License? Bad for country!” Trump said in a tweet on Wednesday.

Trump has repeatedly used the term “fake news” to cast doubt on critical media reports about his administration, often without providing any evidence to support his case that the reports are false.

NBC News has reported on tensions between Trump and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

NBC said last week that Trump sought a dramatic increase in the US nuclear arsenal during a meeting in July with national security advisers in July.

NBC reported Tillerson made his “moron” comment after that meeting and was on the verge of resigning amid mounting policy disputes with the White House.

“Fake @NBCNews made up a story that I wanted a ‘tenfold’ increase in our US nuclear arsenal. Pure fiction, made up to demean. NBC = CNN!,” Trump once again tweeted against the media on Wednesday.

This is not the first time Trump has attacked NBC. Trump wrote on Twitter on October 4 that “NBC news is #FakeNews and more dishonest than even CNN. They are a disgrace to good reporting. No wonder their news ratings are way down!”

Trump’s willingness to potentially challenge the broadcast licenses of a media he disapproves, marks an escalation in Trump’s anti-media rhetoric.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) does not license broadcast networks, but issues them to individual broadcast stations. The agency does not issue similar licenses for cable networks like CNN and MSNBC, or regulate internet news or other websites.

The FCC has said the First Amendment “expressly prohibits the commission from censoring broadcast matter” and that its role “in overseeing program content is very limited.”

As a candidate, Trump had pursued the same anti-media rhetoric threatening to “open up our libel laws so when they write purposely negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money.”

11, October 2017

Arrest warrants issued for Southern Cameroons activists in the UK ⁰

A top French Cameroun judge in Yaounde has issued arrest warrants for the organizers of the massive Southern Cameroons protest that held recently in London precisely at Holland Park. The Biya Francophone regime says Southern Cameroonians in the UK and the USA were responsible for the controversial independence day celebration on October 1 that claimed the lives of dozens of British Southern Cameroons citizens.

A French Cameroun Supreme Court spokesperson told Cameroon Concord News on Wednesday that the warrants had been issued for Barrister Alex Ndive, Kum Engelbert, Tua Fesse Fesse and Kongeh Joseph Wab. We gathered the kangaroo court ruled that the four Southern Cameroonians organized the demonstrations in front of the Cameroon embassy in London in contravention of a ruling by the nation’s higher judicial council which had found the activities of the Southern Cameroons Ambazonia Governing Council unconstitutional and banned its activities.

The Francophone dominated government said on Monday that it has evidence from mobile phone operators that implicates the Cameroon Concord News UK bureau chief, Chi Prudence Asong and Tua Fesse Fesse in the happenings in Buea and Bamenda. The development came a day after 10 Southern Cameroons citizens arrived the Douala International airport from the US and were detained by plain cloth police officers.

The so-called French Cameroun government spokesman and Minister of Communication, Issa Tchiroma Bakary said that the independence day celebration was ruthlessly crushed and severely dealt with by troops loyal to the Biya regime. Human Rights groups including Amnesty International say more than a hundred people were killed.

Sesekou Ayuk Tabe, the head of the Southern Cameroons Governing Council noted that the the October 1 celebration has opened a new chapter in British Southern Cameroons history. During a recent interview in London, Chairman Ayuk Tabe said the Southern Cameroons Governing Council is not seeking confrontation with the French Cameroon government but reiterated the governing council’s position that there was an urgent need for a Southern Cameroons army.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai, CCN

11, October 2017

17 dead, 180 missing as massive wildfires ravage parts of California ⁰

At least 17 people have been killed in California due to wildfires which have so far damaged over 2,000 residences and other buildings, authorities say.

Fires have been raging in multiple counties as of Tuesday, charring more than 115,000 acres of land and forcing nearly 20,000 residents to evacuate.

The biggest fires were reported from Sonoma, Napa and Mendocino counties, where flames were sweeping through the lush, picturesque landscape. Just in Sonoma and Napa, the Tubbs and Atlas fires have burned 52,000 acres of land.

The remains of fire damaged homes after an out of control wildfire moved through the area, October 9, 2017, in Glen Ellen, California. (Getty Images)

In Anaheim, fires schorched an estimated 6,000 acres and wreaked havoc on at least 24 homes and businesses.

At least 183 people have been unaccouted for since Sunday when the fires first broke out, according to one official in Sonoma County where at least 11 people died of fire-related injuries.

St. Joseph Health said nearly 170 patients have been treated for burns and smoke inhalation in Sonoma County.

High winds and dry conditions have exacerbated the situation, and according to Cal Fire, strong winds led to “extreme rates of spread and volatile burning conditions.”

A fuel truck sits in a stag in area as the Nuns Fire burns in the hills behind it on October 10, 2017, in Kenwood, California. (Photo by AFP)

Sonoma County Sgt. Spencer Crum said Tuesday, “The night before this, we had 60 mph winds, which is the reason why you have such devastation here.”

At least 3,000 residents were forced to leave the area in and around Anaheim, with officials saying that over 5,000 structures were being threatened by the flames.

“We always thought the alert system would give us time, but there was no notice, no warning,” said Maureen Grinnell, 77, who lived in the hills north of Napa. “I was watching a movie with my 19-year-old granddaughter and I smelled smoke, and I looked out the window to see flames approaching.”

Officials have been forced to evacuate even some hospitals due to flames which were engulfing certain areas. Also, residents living in surrounding counties, which were under threat, have also been ordered to flee their homes.

Source: Presstv

10, October 2017

President Biya’s health deteriorating ⁰

Cameroon Intelligence Report sources have revealed that 4 heads of state were scheduled to visit Yaoundé in the last eight months and have meetings with President Biya, yet these visits have been perpetually annulled.

Our sources further pointed out that the main reason for the cancellation of these visits was the state of Biya’s health that has been deteriorating. Among the heads of state who decided to cancel their visits to Cameroon were the Ivorian President Ouattara, President Denis Sassou Nguesso of Congo Brazzaville, President Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea and the Head of State of Niger Republic.

Etoudi has also reportedly stopped a lobbying process for a visit by French President Emmanuel Macron to Cameroon. However a number of world leaders have visited Cameroon, mainly African presidents including the head of the Republic of Chad, Idris Deby and the Senegalese President.

Biya also met the CEO of the African Development Bank as well as the Italian Head of State recently in Yaoundé. French Cameroon political commentators have said that Biya’s continued stay in power despite his ailing health is proof that Paris and the Francophone dominated military leadership is working on finding an alternative which would appease all the political parties including Southern Cameroonians.

Biya assumed the presidency on November 6th 1982 and has been re-elected uncountable times following the staging of numerous counterfeit presidential elections and his supporters are preparing for another mandate in the 2018 elections.

Biya has made constitutional amendments that grant him the right to run for successive presidential terms, after the previous text of the Constitution limited the number of covenants to only two.

Biya was last seen at the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York. He remained in a five star Intercontinental Hotel in Swiss from where he is receiving treatment for prostate cancer. We gathered he has lost his ability to speak. The state of his health has prompted some key figures within his ruling CPDM party to demand he step down but these calls have been unanswered.

Source: Cameroon Intelligence Report

10, October 2017

US Army to ‘increase’ missions after losses in Niger, top general says ⁰

The United States Army’s top officer says it is likely to “increase” its train, advise and assist (TAA) missions after the death of four soldiers in Niger by developing a new unit, he describes as “similar to special forces,” that are “not special Forces.”

General Mark Milley made the comments at the Association of the army’s annual meeting in Washington on Monday, not long after four special operations commandos were ambushed to death by militants in the Western African country of Niger.

The army’s chief of staff did not mention who was responsible for the attack although he asserted that the US military does know the group.

“We are training, advising and assisting indigenous armies all over the world,” Milley stated. “And I anticipate and expect that’ll increase, not decrease, in years to come.”

Two other Green Berets were injured on the October 4 ambush near the Nigerien capital Niamey by militants said to be linked with the Daesh Takfiri group in Iraq and Syria.

“It is a dangerous mission, TAA missions around the world. It depends on where you are at,” Milley said, announcing that a new unit is being developed for such missions.

General Mark Milley, the chief of staff of the US Army, speaks at the National Press Club, July 27, 2017 in Washington, DC. (Photo by AFP)

It will be made up of six “Security Force Assistance Brigades,” which will include 500 non-commissioned and senior officers with “Ranger-like standards.”

“They will look and act, in many ways, and be trained similar to Special Forces, but they are not Special Forces,” Milley asserted.

US Special Forces soldiers of the 7th Special Forces Group (Airborne) assault a simulated enemy bunker during pre-deployment training in Nevada, March 2006. (Photo via US Army)

The US Africa Command “is reviewing very closely the security procedures that they are using for these teams that are there in Africa,” he added.

The US military leaders are expanding Washington’s military presence, arguing that they need to be able to act more quickly against purported enemies amid vows by President Donald Trump to defeat the Daesh terrorists.

The US and some of its regional allies are themselves implicated in support for the Takfiri terrorists.

Culled from Presstv

9, October 2017

2 UN peacekeepers killed, 12 injured in DR Congo ⁰

Ugandan rebels have attacked two military bases in the northeast of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), killing two United Nations peacekeepers and injuring a dozen others.

The UN mission in Congo, known as MONUSCO, said the casualties occurred during two simultaneous attacks early on Monday, when soldiers were battling the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) rebel group along the main road leading from North Kivu province’s Beni territory to the Uganda border.

The UN did not specify the nationality of the dead soldiers or the injured.

“This region has seen more than enough violence already,” the mission chief, Maman Sidikou, said in a statement, adding that MONUSCO would “strongly” respond to threats by armed groups.

A Congolese army spokesman in the region, Mak Hazukay, also confirmed the report and later said the bases housed Tanzanian peacekeepers who formed part of an intervention brigade with a mandate to conduct offensive operations against the rebel group.

The assault came a day after the ADF militants killed at least 30 civilians by slitting their throats and took another 19 hostages near the city of Beni.

The recent fighting is a fresh outbreak of violence for a region plagued by ethnic tensions and massacres that killed more than 800 people between 2014 and 2016.

The Allied Democratic Forces-National Army for the Liberation of Uganda (ADF-NALU) rebel group, which was founded in Uganda in 1995 and later moved to Congo, is believed to have roughly 400 members and has been accused of committing serious human rights violations, including recruiting child soldiers and rape.

ADF-NALU and dozens of other armed groups have been active in eastern Congo since the 1996-2003 Congo wars.

The Congolese army, joined by UN troops, is on the offensive against the rebel group which is blamed for more than two decades of violence that has forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee their homes.

Source: Presstv

9, October 2017

Francophone army denies shooting at Southern Cameroons protesters from attack helicopters ⁰

Witnesses and rights groups said troops and attack helicopters opened fire on protesters at the height of separatist rallies in English-speaking areas of Cameroon over the weekend, killing and wounding people. The army dismissed the reports from sources in five towns as “completely false” and said helicopters had only been used for surveillance.

Any use of air attacks would mark a major escalation in a government crackdown on separatist protests that have been rumbling in Anglophone districts of the central African oil producer for almost a year. Reports that the helicopters fired on protesters is completely false. The helicopters were only conducting surveillance.

Thousands took to the streets in towns across the Northwest and Southwest regions on Sunday, Oct. 1, calling for independence from the country’s French-speaking majority. Rights groups said they started to collect reports on ensuing violence in the areas bordering Nigeria as the week progressed.

Eight people in the towns of Bamenda, Buea, Ndu, Tombel and Kumbo told Reuters that police and soldiers moved in to stop the protests and in some areas, low-flying attack helicopters fired tear gas and live rounds on the crowds.

Etienne Ndage, a 31-year-old journalist for Savannah Frontier Radio in the northwest tea-plantation town of Ndu said he saw helicopters firing at around 1 pm local time, killing two protesters as a 1,000-strong march gained momentum.

“They were firing like in a war film,” he told Reuters. Hilary Manjong, private secretary to a local Member of Parliament in Ndu, said witnesses had shared similar accounts with him.

Army spokesman Didier Badjeck dismissed the accounts. “Reports that the helicopters fired on protesters is completely false. The helicopters were only conducting surveillance,” he said. The government earlier this week said about 10 people had died on Sunday including five in a prison fire that may not have been linked to the protests.

The governor of Southwest region, Bernard Okalia Bilai, told the Cameroon Tribune newspaper in an article published on Tuesday that protesters had ambushed soldiers in Kumba, forcing them to open fire in self defense. Amnesty International told Reuters on Thursday that more than 20 people were killed between Oct. 1 and 2.

“THE INNOCENT ONES”

Demonstrations began nearly a year ago when Anglophone lawyers and teachers protested against having to work in French, saying it showed the wider marginalization of the English-speaking minority. The protests gained support and have increasingly called for Cameroon’s five million English speakers to get their own country.

The rallies have also have become a lightning rod for opposition to President Paul Biya’s 35-year rule. Campaigners called more protests on Sunday, the anniversary of Anglophone Cameroon’s independence from Britain. In the southwest town of Tombel, a resident who spoke on condition of anonymity told Reuters that a military helicopter came so low over the town center that the wind gusts threw a man off his motorbike.

First the helicopter fired teargas to disperse the crowd, then it opened fire, the resident said. “Normally they fire rubber bullets, but I could tell from the sound that these were real,” they added. Outside Buea, police on the ground and a helicopter opened fire on protesters who had run into the bush to bypass a military checkpoint, said Louis Anuchem, a 35-year-old taxi driver from Buea.

“The helicopter came close to the ground,” he added. “We heard the gunshots and the bullets coming through the trees,” he told Reuters. After the demonstrations police went door-to-door in some towns, rounding up young men and women, residents said.

“Soldiers came to our neighborhood and broke into homes and carried boys away,” said Lanya Joel, a 21-year-old Kumba resident. “I am scared and will be away until it’s all over.” Rights group the Southern Cameroon’s Public Affairs Committee said in a report that a 12 year-old girl was shot by security forces from a helicopter in the town of Kumbo.

The Bamenda Provincial Episcopal Conference of Anglophone Christian Bishops said in a statement this week that is was disturbed by reports that “some of our Christians were … arrested, some maimed, and some were simply shot to death, some from helicopters.” Helene Mekem said her son was shot dead by security forces outside his home in Kumba on Sunday, even though he was not involved in the protests. “They are killing the innocent ones,” she told Reuters.

Reuters

9, October 2017

Militants kill 30 travelers in northeastern Congo ⁰

Militants ambushed a group of about 30 civilians in northeastern Congo and killed many of them before fighting a fierce battle with the army, politicians said on Sunday.

The attack took place near the city of Beni and, if the deaths are confirmed, would be the first mass-killing this year in that area. It has seen relative peace since more than 800 people were killed in dozens of massacres between 2014 and 2016.

The spate of attacks raised serious questions about the state’s ability to impose order over a region full of ethnic tensions and plagued by pockets of lawlessness where armed groups prey on populations and exploit rich mineral reserves.

In the latest attack, on Saturday, assailants armed with machetes and guns ambushed travelers on the main road linking Beni territory in North Kivu province to neighboring Uganda, Boris Maelezo, a member of parliament from the area, told Reuters.

He said about 30 civilians were riding on motorbikes, with several people on each vehicle, and that most of them could have been killed.

Albert Baliesima Kadukima, another lawmaker from the area, said two women freed by the militants had told local authorities the assailants had slit the throats of more than a dozen people.

Mak Hazukay, a local army spokesman, said Congolese forces were battling the militants and attempting to dislodge them from a section of the road that was several kilometers long.

The two lawmakers and the army spokesman said the militants belonged to the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a Ugandan extremist group active near the border between Congo and Uganda.

Eastern Congo is a tinderbox of ethnic tensions and has been racked by conflict for more than two decades. It is the world’s biggest source of coltan, used in mobile phones and other electronic products.

Various armed groups have committed atrocities around Beni since late 2014 to settle scores and undermine rivals, with attacks sometimes sectarian in nature.

(Source: Reuters)

8, October 2017

AU silent over Southern Cameroons Crisis ⁰

Cameroon has disputed a report that said 100 people died in anti-government protests. The African Union has largely remained quiet as secession sentiments gather steam in the central African nation.

AU Chairperson Moussa Faki (picture-alliance/abaca/M. Wondimu Hailu)

Cameroonian authorities on Thursday rejected a report by a human rights group which said at least 100 people were killed by government forces during last weekend’s protests. Initial reports stated 17 people had been killed.

Didier Badjeck, Cameroon’s army spokesman, also disputed figures released by Amnesty International which put the death toll at 17. Badjeck said they recorded 10 deaths. “A lot of countries in Africa have decided to use heavy handedness to squash opposition,” Christian Ani, an analyst at the Institute for Security Studies in Addis Ababa, told DW. “This is the challenge of lack of foresight within government.”

Violent protests broke out in Cameroon’s Anglophone regions following a symbolic declaration of independence from the rest of the country. President Paul Biya has completely ruled out independence, he also strongly opposes the return to a federal structure, which existed in Cameroon from the time it gained independence in 1961 until 1984, when Biya abolished the federal system for a unified Republic of Cameroon.

Cameroon police drive in van with arrested protesters (Getty Images/AFP/STRINGER)

Cameroon’s security service has been cracking down hard on protesters

English speaking Cameroonians make up 20 percent of Cameroon’s population of 23 million. They have long complained that they are treated like second-class citizens by the predominantly French speaking government in Yaounde. The root of the grievances date back to the end of World War One when the League of Nations decided to split Kamerun, a former German colony, between the allied French and British powers.

AU tight-lipped on Cameroon and Nigeria

The African Union has so far refrained from intervening in the ongoing crisis in Cameroon. Efforts by DW to get the AU’s position on the contentious issue were unsuccessful. “It’s a failure of the African Union and the UN collectively,” Ayo Johnson, Director of Viewpoint Africa and an expert on African politics told DW in an interview. “Nigeria and Cameroon are experiencing separatist calls from unsettled, unhappy, disgruntled parts of the country.”

In Nigeria, Igbo people are calling for a separatist state which they call Biafra. “These two [separatist movements], are pulling their respective countries apart,” Johnson said. “Sequentially, the international community; the African Union and the UN have been unable to take drastic action which is being called for by many people right now.”

External interference in such issues is very sensitive. The Biafran war (1967-1970) was devastating. More than one million people died, most of them through hunger and famine. It also left the Igbo people feeling further marginalized. “They have always thought they are not involved in politics, their voices are not heard, opportunities never come their way and they don’t have access to jobs,” Johnson said.

These are similar sentiments which are being heard locally in the English speaking regions of Cameroon. “But the international community is unable, unwilling and does not have the appetite to take strong measures which could put pressure on President [Muhammadu] Buhari of Nigeria and President Biya of Cameroon, therein lies the problem.” The EU, US and rights group Amnesty International have all spoken out against the violence in Cameroon.

The AU’s intervention options

For Johnson, there are a couple of options at the AU’s disposal. “Sanctions could be one, revoking of membership could be another.” He said, however, that revoking membership is symbolic as it doesn’t really affect the country. “But psychologically it has an impact.” Sanctions on the other hand are different; they could mean travel bans, restrictions on access to services in the international arena. Alternatively, they could be calls for a special rapporteur for the UN and the African Union.

Protesters march in Cameroon (Reuters/J. Kouam)

Pro and anti-government protests in Cameroon have been steadily growing

That type of special envoy could be sent, not necessarily to mediate, but to find out what’s acceptable or unacceptable on the ground; more so for those who are calling for separatism, to find out how those flames could be doused. “Such reports can be tabled at the UN Security Council and further action collectively across the UN and its African Union affiliate would be able to make stronger decisions.”

Source: Deutsche Welle

8, October 2017

Abuja to try 2,300 Boko Haram militants ⁰

Nigeria is going to try more than 2,300 suspected members of the Takfiri Boko Haram militant group in unprecedented mass trials behind closed doors.

The defendants, whose trials are to begin on Monday, have all been picked up and held in detention since the start of Boko Haram militancy eight years ago.

To date, just 13 people have been put on trial and only nine convicted for their links to the Takfiri group, according to official figures.

The most high-profile current case is that of Khalid Al-Barnawi, a leader of Boko Haram offshoot Ansaru, who is charged with the abduction and murder of 10 foreign nationals.

Nigeria’s Justice Ministry announced the start of the trials at the end of last month, saying four judges had been assigned and that defendants would have legal representation.

Some 1,670 detainees at a military base in Kainji, in the central state of Niger, will be tried first and will be followed by 651 others held at the Giwa barracks in the capital of the northeastern state of Borno State, Maiduguri.

The trials are seen as a positive step, as many of the detainees had been held in custody for years, without access to a lawyer or ever having appeared before a judge. Amnesty International said in a June 2015 report that more than 20,000 people had been arbitrarily arrested as part of the fight against Boko Haram.

President Muhammadu Buhari, who was elected in 2015, has promised to look into repeated accusations of human rights violations, including by high-ranking officers.

At least two commissions of inquiry have been established but the army announced in June this year that no action would be taken against top brass accused by Amnesty.

Amnesty believes the mass trials of Boko Haram suspects were the result of international pressure on the Nigerian government.

Source: Presstv