Presidents of Cameroon and Somalia have made official comments on the occasion of World Press Freedom Day. Both leaders used their social media handles to make their views known.

For his part, Cameroon’s Paul Biya spoke about the effect of fake news. “Disinformation, slander and lies for selfish gains, have eclipsed the dissemination of real news,” he said in a tweet.

On his part, Somalia’s Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo lauded the efforts of journalists across the country promising to protect the constitutional right of freedom of expression.

“Many praise to the Somali media as we mark the World Press Freedom Day. You’ve shown resilience and commitment to your work, even under tough circumstances.

“My administration is committed to protecting the freedom of expression, a right enshrined in our Provisional Constitution,” he said. Incidentally, the two countries are noted for gross rights abuse against journalists in the line of their work. Somali journalists have often been shot dead by militants operating in parts of the Horn of Africa nation. Arrest and detention of journalists also happens from time to time.

In Cameroon, international rights groups have reported that the government employs an atmosphere of fear and restrictions that force journalists to self-censor their work for fear of detention and high fines.

Some journalists in the country’s Anglophone regions have also been arrested in the line of their work. The country’s communications minister, however, pegs press freedom to the number of media houses operating in the Central African nation.

About World Press Freedom Day

World Press Freedom Day was proclaimed by the UN General Assembly in December 1993, following the recommendation of UNESCO’s General Conference. Since then, 3 May, the anniversary of the Declaration of Windhoek is celebrated worldwide as World Press Freedom Day.

It is an opportunity to: celebrate the fundamental principles of press freedom; assess the state of press freedom throughout the world; defend the media from attacks on their independence and pay tribute to journalists who have lost their lives in the line of duty.

The 2018 Theme is: ‘Keeping Power in Check: Media, Justice and The Rule of Law.’ According to the U.N., the theme of the 2018 celebration highlights the importance of an enabling legal environment for press freedom, and gives special attention to the role of an independent judiciary in ensuring legal guarantees for press freedom and the prosecution of crimes against journalists.

At the same time, the theme addresses the role of the media in sustainable development, especially during elections – as a watchdog fostering transparency, accountability and the rule of law.

The theme also aims to explore legislative gaps with regard to freedom of expression and information online, and the risks of regulating online speech.

Source: Africa News

US President Donald Trump is reportedly hiring Bill Clinton’s impeachment lawyer, Emmet Flood, as White House lawyer Ty Cobb quits.

“For several weeks Ty Cobb has been discussing his retirement and last week he let Chief of Staff [John] Kelly know he would retire at the end of this month,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement. On Wednesday.

Cobb (pictured below) was the main figure in the Trump team to defend the administration against of allegations of collusion with Russia.

Flood, a veteran Washington lawyer, would be joining the team “to represent the president and the administration against the Russia witch hunt.”

In an interview with ABC News, Cobb said a presidential interview with special counsel Robert Mueller is still being considered.

“It’s certainly not off the table and people are working hard to make decisions and work towards an interview,” Cobb said.

Trump added attorneys Joseph DiGenova and Victoria Toensing to his team of outside lawyers in March.

The investigation, known as the Russia probe, seeks to find out whether the Russian government coordinated with Trump’s aides after the intelligence community’s conclusion that the Kremlin helped with the New York billionaire’s campaign effort ahead of winning the White House, an allegation dismissed both by Moscow and the president.

Source: Presstv

Fresh violence in northwestern Cameroon has forced hundreds of teachers and students from their classrooms. Separatist rebels are targeting schools for not observing calls to strike.

Heavy rains fall as we arrive at Saint Bedes school in the English-speaking town of Ashing.

Dozens of students are carrying boxes out of the school. 17-year-old student Ambe John is leaving.

“I am going home due to what happened in school and for the sake of my principal. I need to go home so he can be rescued,” said Ambe John.

Armed men attacked the school on Monday, abducting the principal and the school chaplain. Government officials told VOA for the two men were targeted by anglophone separatists for violating instructions to remain closed in support of the Ambazonian independence movement.

The chaplain was later released but the principal has not been found.

Godlove Nformi left his home in the nearby French-speaking town of Bafoussam to pick up his son when he got news of the attack.

“The matron gave us the information that we should come and take our children home,” he said. “I am feeling too bad because I think that with everything children should have been going to school at least to see that their future is guaranteed.”

Schools in Cameroon’s two English-speaking regions — the northwest and the southwest — were shuttered for nearly a year starting in November 2016. Teachers and lawyers were on strike demanding reforms to address what they say is the marginalization of Anglophones in mostly French-speaking country.

Some schools reopened last October, but the crisis has intensified. Late in November, President Paul Biya declared a state of war in the Anglophone regions.

The government says at least 30 schools have been attacked this year, with at least a dozen teachers either killed or wounded in the northwest and southwest regions. Hundreds more have fled.

Johnson Itoh, the most senior education official in the northwest region, says they have been pleading with the teachers to return since the government has deployed the military to protect them.

“We are having personnel of secondary education especially school heads shot at in the northwest here. The going is tough, the tough must get going. So what we are trying to do is to raise up the morale of those in the field,” said Itoh.

Adolph Deben Tchoffo, governor of the northwest region of Cameroon, has been visiting the villages to encourage parents to send children to school.

The governor says he has come on behalf of President Biya to call on the population to seal a pact of collaboration with the military and administrative authorities so that the rebels, which the government has deemed terrorists, can be defeated. He says all village heads and traditional rulers should create self-defense groups to ward off infiltration.

Since early 2017, the government has responded forcefully to the unrest in the Anglophone regions. Rights group say the crackdown, which has included the detention of hundreds of people and at one point a three-month internet blackout, inflamed tensions, making dialogue more difficult.

The conflict has killed dozens on both sides this year and displaced at least 20,000 people.

Source: VOA

French Cameroun spies are operating a front organization in Calabar and Ikom to exert political pressure on the Buhari government to arrest other Southern Cameroons leaders, Cameroon Intelligence Report has learned. Details of the organization emerged as two alleged spies openly disagreed over the sharing of money in a hotel in Calabar and failing to disclose their affiliation with the Biya regime when questioned by Ambazonian intelligence officers operating in the Cross River State of Nigeria.

The spies who all hail from Manyu Division are accused of secretly promoting French Cameroun interests in the long-running conflict between the Federal Republic of Ambazonia and La Republique du Cameroun using millions of francs CFA of covert funding provided by Yaoundé.

The Southern Cameroons security services recently identified Minister Mengot and the Municipal Administrator for Mamfe, Ayuk John Takunchong as the principal architects of the French Cameroun spying scheme and CIR understands the Acting President of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia, Dr. Samuel Ikome Sako is under pressure to order the arrest of these Manyu traitors as relations between the Southern Cameroons and French Cameroun under Biya continue to deteriorate in the wake of the killing of many Southern Cameroons civilians.

According to a document sent to the Acting President, Minister Mengot has reportedly sponsored many missions to Calabar, the latest being that of the Mayor of Mamfe to help the Nigeria security to identify and arrest innocent Southern Cameroonians who fled into the Cross River State of Nigeria. The Manyu CPDM spying network describes itself in educational materials as a “none profit organization dedicated to raising the level of knowledge in Nigeria about the Anglophone problem and to help the Southern Cameroons refugees return home.”

But Southern Cameroons sources have revealed that the Manyu CPDM initiative is actually one of the many French Cameroun killer networks that are run by elements of the Biya government, including French Cameroun’s military intelligence service. The other ones are in Lagos and Taraba.

The Cameroon embassy in Abuja and its Consulate in Calabar have been given an open cheque with one purpose – to hide Biya regime’s involvement in the killing of thousands of Southern Cameroonians and to influence the Nigerian government’s position on Ambazonia.

President Buhari’s handlers in Yaoundé have allegedly funneled millions of dollars through the Cameroon embassy to contribute to APC elected officials, fund high-profile conferences on the Cameroon Anglophone problem, and pay for other efforts that promotes Buhari’s continued stay in power in the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Source: www.cameroonintelligencereport

Amid the worsening crackdown by the army of 36-year Cameroon president Paul Biya in the country’s Anglophone areas, a video has circulated depicting soldiers burning down homes. The Cameroon government army had blue helmet of the type used by UN peacekeepers. On April 30 Inner City Press asked UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres’ spokesman Stephane Dujarric about the video, the day after publishing a story about it, in Google News. Dujarric said he hadn’t seen the video but militaries should not use UN equipment or colors, presumably when burning civilians homes down.

Inner City Press: a video emerged over the weekend from Cameroon showing or depicting soldiers burning people’s homes in the Anglophone areas, and what… what a lot of people focused on is that one of them, at least, is wearing a blue helmet.  I don’t think it means the UN is doing it, but I do wonder, what are the rules?  I wanted to ask you, what are the rules if people have served in UN peacekeeping missions… have you seen the video?

Spokesman:  “I haven’t seen that particular video, so I can’t comment on the particular helmet, whether it was just blue or a UN helmet.  We have seen, in different parts of the world, various security forces and army… we’ve seen reports of them using equipment that they own, which had been painted white or blue and reused domestically.  It is a responsibility to ensure that no equipment that has UN markings is ever used in any domestic operation.  But, again, I’m not… that’s a matter… that’s an issue of principle.  I haven’t… I can’t comment on that specific report.” Hours later, still nothing.

The lack of confidence in the UN in these areas, and on this issue, was inflamed as UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres in October 2017 stopped by Yaounde on his way from the Central African Republic (where the UN pays Biya’s government for peacekeepers who have been charged with sexual abuse). Guterres did not meet with any opposition figures, and accepted a golden statue from Biya.

Guterres’ envoy Francois Lounceny Fall has publicly said that secessionist are extremists, the word used by Biya to justify the scorched earth strategy exemplified by the video. Inner City Press asked UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Prince Zaid why his Office hasn’t updated the death figures and he claimed it was because the UN has no access.

Guterres’ humanitarian Assistant Secretary General Ursula Mueller visited Cameroon, but not the Anglophone areas. Human Rights Watch didn’t even include Cameroon in its 2018 “World Report,” and told Inner City Press this is because it does not view it as among the 90 most serious problems in the world.

Guterres’ Deputy Secretary General Amina J. Mohammed was in Abuja in her native Nigeria when 47 Cameroonians were illegally sent back by the Buhari government. Buhari was in Washington on April 30 and a protest of Ambazonians planned. Earlier in April, Inner City Press asked the US State Department about the refoulement to Cameroon and received a day later a statement. But what will happen on this video, and on the underlying issues?

Culled from Inner City Press

US president Donald Trump praised Nigeria’s efforts in the fight against terrorism, pledging to help Buhari’s government solve the deadly violence between Christian farmers and Fulani herdsmen. Trump was addressing a press conference with Nigeria’s president Muhammadu Buhari after the latter’s historic visit to the White House.

“Nigeria was one of the first African countries to join the coalition to defeat the Islamic state group and Nigerian forces are leading regional efforts against EI in West Africa,” he said, also mentioning the fight against Boko Haram “another ruthless jihadist group.

We will work on this problem because we cannot accept such a situation. Nigeria enters its 9th year of struggle against Boko Haram, who devastated the northeast of the country. The conflict has killed more than 20,000 people and displaced hundreds of thousands.

Trump also praised Buhari’s determination to fight corruption and secure the people of his country. The US president then pledged to help Buhari address the issue of ‘Christians who are being killed, murdered in Nigeria’.

“We will work on this problem because we cannot accept such a situation,” he said. The Middle Belt of Nigeria, a meeting point between a predominantly Muslim North and a predominantly Christian South, is regularly the scene of intense inter-community tensions.

For months now, the region has been experiencing renewed tensions between Christian farmers and Muslim nomadic herders. Legislators have called for the sacking of security chiefs over failure to contain the communal violence while catholic bishops have asked Buhari to resign.

Muhammadu Buhari became, in 2015, the first Nigerian opposition leader to beat an incumbent president in an election considered free and fair. He has expressed his desire to seek reelection in next year’s elections.

Buhari used the occasion to trace the cause of communal violence in Nigeria to commend the United States for the physical and financial commitment to the fight against terror.

“The commitment of the United States to get rid of terrorism across the world, we have firsthand experience of that and we are very grateful for it,’‘ Buhari said.

“On security, I am very grateful to the United States for agreeing to sell to us the aircraft we asked for and the spare parts.’‘

Shithole or not?

The two leaders also took on the controversial storm that was raised when remarks attributed to Trump allegedly labeled several African countries as ‘shitholes’.

Asked about this episode which had provoked strong protests on the continent, Buhari preferred to stay out of the controversy. “I’m not sure how accurate this is, so the best thing for me is to keep quiet,” he simply replied.

Trump was less diplomatic.

‘‘There are countries that are in very poor condition and where living conditions are very difficult,” he said. Cooperation between the two countries has improved in substance over the past year.

Shortly after coming to power in 2015, Buhari accused President Barack Obama of refusing to sell arms to Nigeria to fight Boko Haram. But the Trump administration has changed its position by allowing the sale to Nigeria of $500 million worth of Super Tucano surveillance and tactical support aircraft, to be delivered in 2020.

Source: Africa News

A Southern Cameroons Committee is spearheading a fundraising drive to bring help to Ambazonian refugee families and internally displaced persons in West Cameroon and the Federal Republic of Nigeria.  Committee member Lylian Fotabong says the goal is “No matter how small every little cent helps”. In an effort to hit their fundraising target, the committee has organized a fundraising gala, to be held in the Glen Abbey Complex, Belgard Road, Cookstown, Dublin 24 on the 2^nd of June 2018.

The program, which includes a speech by representatives of the Southern Cameroons resistance in Ireland, begins at 8 p.m and will be directed and animated by DJ Valdoval and DJ Pozo. Tickets are 10 Euro per person.

Speaking to our Cameroon politics expert, a representative of the Southern Cameroons Community in Ireland who sued for anonymity, said the money raised would be used to help the Interim Government of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia cover relocation expenses for families in Nigeria, those that have migrated to French Cameroun including the families that are in the forest.

“As Southern Cameroonians, we sense the call to be living instruments of our new born nation in saving even one Ambazonian family. “All the while these families languish in Nigeria which is not their ancestral own – or on occasion are forcefully sent back into the war zone by the Fulani leader in Abuja. Life shouldn’t be a horror movie,” he added.

Lylian Fotabong the host of the June 2^nd event was quoted as saying that first, Southern Cameroonians in Ireland have to obtain the money. Then they’ll contact the Acting President of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia, Dr. Samuel Sako to say they’re ready to help Southern Cameroonian families fleeing the conflict because they have sufficient funds to do so.

Recently in London, Ambazonia’s Communication Secretary, Hon. Chris Anu observed that the huge obstacle right now is raising sufficient funds to keep the self-defense groups operating in their respective counties. A Southern Cameroons leader in Belfast opined during an Ambazonian forum that “We’re finding that people are generous, but they’re probably holding on a little more than they used to in the past due to the activities of a criminal gang headed by one Cho Ayaba.”

By Sessekou Asu Isong

Cameroon Concord News Group

UK/Northern Ireland

US President Donald Trump says he will shut down the federal government in September unless Congress provides more funding for a wall he has promised to build on the border with Mexico.

“That wall has started, we have 1.6 billion (dollars),” Trump said on Saturday at a campaign rally in Washington, Michigan.

“We come up again on September 28th and if we don’t get border security we will have no choice, we will close down the country because we need border security.”

Trump’s proposal for the construction of a 2,000-mile wall has been met with strong criticism both at home and abroad.

The construction work began on April 9, with US Customs and Border Protection officials gathering to mark the groundbreaking of the $73-million project at Santa Teresa near New Mexico’s state line with Texas.

In March, Trump made a similar threat to push for changes in immigration law to help prevent criminals from entering the US.

A $1.3 trillion spending bill, which Trump signed last month to keep the government funded through the end of September, authorized only $1.6 billion for fencing, surveillance technology and other measures related to the wall, although the president originally wanted as much as $25 billion for the project.

The government briefly shut down in January over immigration, but another shutdown ahead of the November mid-elections, on the other hand, is unlikely to be supported by his fellow Republicans who are anxious to keep their control of Congress.

Trump, who had pledged to crack down on immigrants to the US, cited the hundreds of Central American migrants traveling in a “caravan” as one of the reasons he has called for stronger border security.

“Watch the caravan, watch how sad and terrible it is, including for those people and the crime that they inflict on themselves and that others inflict on them,” he said on Saturday.

“It’s a horrible dangerous journey for them and they come up because they know once they can get here they can walk right into our country.”

Immigrants, who include women and children, say they had to flee their homes in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras due to death threats from gangs, the murder of family members or political persecution.
Source: Presstv

United Nations investigators have discovered five probable mass grave sites in eastern Congo’s Ituri province where an outbreak of ethnic violence has killed at least 263 people, a UN peacekeeping mission said.

The report from the mission provides the most comprehensive portrait to date of the human cost of months of violence between Lendu pastoralists and Hema herders since December that has caused one of Africa’s most serious refugee crises.

Violence across eastern Congo’s borderlands with Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi has spiked since President Joseph Kabila refused to step aside at the end of his mandate in 2016, eroding state authority and emboldening armed groups.

The mostly Lendu-led attacks have forced more than 60,000 people to flee across Lake Albert into Uganda, and the UN refugee agency expects 200,000 refugees to reach Uganda this year. Tens of thousands of others have fled to other towns inside Congo.

The investigators did not provide details about the suspected mass graves, but said that about 120 towns and villages were pillaged and destroyed between December and mid-March.

According to Hema refugees Reuters interviewed last month in Uganda, Lendu groups typically attack Hema villages shortly after dusk with guns, machetes, axes and bows and arrows.

The precise motives for the attacks are difficult to pin down but tensions between the two communities have long been stoked by disagreements over cattle grazing rights, crops, gold mining and political representation.

Open warfare between the two communities from 1999-2007 is estimated to have killed some 50,000 people in one of the bloodiest chapters of a civil war in eastern Congo that left millions dead from conflict, hunger and disease.

Aid agencies say the crisis is a “mega-disaster” and are trying to raise over $2 billion to respond but Congo’s government has accused them of exaggerating the situation and boycotted a recent donor conference.

(Source: Reuters)

French President Emmanuel Macron says his country will not leave the Iran nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), amid US efforts to persuade European parties to the agreement to withdraw from it.    

Speaking at the US Congress Wednesday on the final day of a three-day state visit, Macron said the JCPOA was not addressing what he called “all concerns” but stressed that the deal could not be ditched.

“We signed it, both the United States and France.”

“We should not abandon it without having something substantial and more substantial instead. That’s why France will not leave the JCPOA, because we signed it,” he said.

He also vowed that Iran will “never” be allowed to develop atomic weapons.

“Our objective is clear. Iran shall never possess any nuclear weapons. Not now. Not in five years. Not in 10 years. Never,” Macron said.

Trump has often vowed to pull the United States out of the 2015 nuclear pact between Iran and the P5+1 group of countries, which was negotiated under his predecessor, Barack Obama.

Back in January, Trump said it was the last time he was extending the sanctions relief for Iran as part of the nuclear agreement, giving the European signatories a May 12 deadline to fix what he claimed to be the “flaws” in the agreement or he would refuse to waive those bans.

Iran has repeatedly warned that any failure to respect the multinational agreement would have grave consequences, stressing that there is no alternative to the nuclear accord.

‘Trade war’

Elsewhere in his remarks, the French president also warned against a trade “war” between allies and asked for a free and fair global trade.

“We need a free and fair trade, for sure,” Macron said. “A commercial war opposing allies is not consistent with our mission, with our history, with our current commitments for global security.”

Macron’s remarks came as US trade sanctions on European steel and aluminum will enter into force in coming weeks unless Trump agrees to sign a waiver.

Paris climate agreement

On climate, Macron told US lawmakers there was “no Planet B,” acknowledging a disagreement with Trump, who pulled his country from the landmark Paris accord on climate change.

“Let us face it. There is no Planet B,” Macron said.

“We have disagreements between the United States and France. It may happen, like in all families,” he said but added that such differences would be short-term. “We’re just citizens of the same planet,” Macron said.

He said he was confident the United States “would come back and join the Paris agreement.”

Trump said last year that his country would withdraw from the accord, which aims to reduce damaging emissions and was signed by almost 200 countries.

Culled from Presstv