US President Donald Trump has reportedly told Russian President Vladimir Putin that if Washington and Moscow reignite the arms race, the United States would win it.

Putin’s revelation of new nuclear-capable Russian weapons that can reach the United States “really got under the president’s skin,” one official told NBC News on Thursday.

“If you want to have an arms race we can do that, but I’ll win,” Trump reportedly told his Russian counterpart during a phone call last week.

Delivering his annual state of the nation speech in Moscow earlier this month, Putin expressed concerns about the new US nuclear posture which he said has lowered the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons.

The new American policy allows the use of nuclear weapons “in response to a conventional attack or even a cyberthreat,” the Russian president said, adding, “Russia reserves the right to use nuclear weapons only in response to a nuclear attack or an attack with other weapons of mass destruction against her or her allies, or a conventional attack against us that threatens the very existence of the state.”

Putin also said that Russia had tested a number of new advanced strategic weapons, which could not be intercepted, saying they would render US-made defense missile systems “useless.”  He also said that the West has ignored Russia but should “listen to us now.”

In last week’s phone call, Trump also congratulated Putin for his recent victory in Russia’s presidential election.

Following the phone call, Trump said that the two men had “a very good call” and that he was planning to meet with the Russian leader in the near future.

Tensions between Russia and the US have heightened in recent weeks, following the alleged nerve-agent poisoning of a former Russian double agent in Britain.

Western officials have blamed that attack on Moscow, though the Russian government has denied any role in it. Some analysts have said that the poisoning Sergei Skripal is a false flag operation orchestrated by MI5 with the complicity of the British press in order to demonize Russia.

The US has ordered the expulsion of 60 Russian diplomats in response to the poisoning. Up to 17 EU countries and Australia have also announced that they will expel dozens of Russian diplomats.

It was the biggest such expulsion since the height of the Cold War era, a term that describes the tense relationship between the US and the Soviet Union from 1945 to 1989.

There are now fears of a serious diplomatic crisis and a freezing in relations between Moscow and the West, which has raised the specter of the Cold War once again.

American officials said the expulsions meant to send a message to Putin about the “unacceptably high” number of Russian intelligence operatives in America.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement that “powerful forces” in the US and Britain were behind the nerve agent attack against Skripal that the British government has blamed on Moscow.

Meanwhile, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has warned of a return to the Cold War-like tensions between the United States and Russia in the wake of recent developments.

“I think we are coming to a situation that is similar, to a large extent, to what we lived during the Cold War,” Guterres told reporters at the UN headquarters in New York on Thursday.

He then called on Washington and Moscow to re-establish lines of communication in a bid to avoid any escalation of tensions.

Source: Presstv

A well-placed source in Yaoundé has hinted Cameroon Intelligence Report that the Interim President of the Federal Republic of Southern Cameroons/Ambazonia who was abducted alongside members of his government in Nigeria and forcefully extradited to French Cameroun, Sisisku Ayuk Tabe has no intention of giving up his struggle for the independence of Southern Cameroons.

Sisiku Ayuk Tabe is currently being held in a presidential bunker in Yaoundé and has been refused contacts with legal representation hired by the Interim Government. Our source indicated that the Ambazonian chief executive has been questioned by French Cameroun Secret Service officials a couple of times but he would never surrender in the face of pressure on him to give up his push for independence of Southern Cameroons.

We gathered that the Sisiku was recently allocated 15 minutes daily by the Biya regime to sit outside and get some sun shine. Our informant further pointed out that “he looks like a man who will continue fighting and is aware that this is going to be a long fight but it will be a fight that Southern Cameroonians will win.”

The Yaoundé regime is preparing a case against the former Minister of Transport, Edgard Alain Mebo Ngo’o and other CIR sources have revealed that documents are being concocted to paint a political link between the former baron of the ruling CPDM crime syndicate and President Ayuk Julius Tabe.

Moderates within the Biya government are reportedly saying that the war on the people of Southern Cameroons was ill-advised and that Southern Cameroonians have the right to express their willingness for independence and a republic in West Cameroon.

Lawyers representing the abducted leaders in the Federal Republic of Nigeria received an objection from the Cameroun embassy in Abuja to travel to Yaoundé and meet their clients who were extradited without any legal process.

President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe was abducted in Abuja, Nigeria by a joint French Cameroun and Nigeria operation after the French Cameroun army launched a sweeping crackdown to block his declaration of independence for Southern Cameroons.  He has mostly been based in Nigeria and has managed to get re-elected in snap elections staged by the various legitimate groups fighting for the independence of Southern Cameroons/Ambazonia. Yaoundé is expected to charge him, along 46 others for sedition and rebellion. We also got intelligence that 20 of the young Southern Cameroonians arrested in Taraba in Nigeria and sent back to French Cameroun were killed recently.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been rushed to hospital, say Israeli media sources.

According to several media sources on Tuesday, Netanyahu was transported to Haddassah Hospital in Jerusalem al-Quds after suffering from a high fever and severe coughing.

His personal physician has said that Netanyahu is suffering from lack of rest following an illness he contracted around two weeks ago.

“The prime minister is suffering from a high fever and is coughing,” confirmed his spokesman.

Source: Presstv

Soldiers from La Republique du Cameroun regular army, its elite Rapid Intervention Battalion (Bataillon d’Intervention Rapide, BIR) have burned St. Benedict’s Comprehensive College (SABECC) alongside a nearby Government Technical School in the territory of Ambazoania on Monday, 26 March 2018, sources close the school administration have confirmed.

His Grace, Mgr. Archbishop Cornelius Fontem Esua, Bamenda Archdiocese is the proprietor of St. Benedict Comprehensive College, within the St. Mathias parish in Widikum Local Government Area, Momo County, Northern Zone of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia.

Since February, BIR soldiers were using the campus and classrooms as their military base from where they planned attacks, kidnapped unarmed civilians, confined civilians in dark rooms doe days without food, ferried many blindfolded civilians to Yaounde under the cover of darkness and released others after payment of ransom ranging from 500,000 – 1,000,000 Frs CFA.

In the early hours of Tuesday, Ambazonia self-defence forces in Widikum carried out operation “flush out” of the campus that resulted on the dead of fifteen (15) BIR soldiers. During the exchange of fire power, unfortunately, we lost one student who was in the custody of the BIR soldiers. The surviving few BIR soldiers burned the campus and their whereabout is still unknown.

By the Communications Secretary

Federal Republic of Ambazonia

The French government has declared Cameroon’s Anglophone regions a ‘no-go’ area for its nationals resident in the Central African country.

In its latest travel advisory dated March 22, the government also warned against all but essential travel to areas like the far north region notorious for Boko Haram attacks and the area along the border with Central African Republic and Chad.

French Ambassador to Cameroon, Gilles Thibault, on Monday tweeted that travel to the Northwest and Southwest (Anglophone regions) is now discouraged for travelers, except for imperative reasons.

His tweet included a link to the French government’s Foreign Ministry website which had a detailed security alert on Cameroon. Except the southern border with Gabon and Congo republic, all other borders were classified no-go areas.

The Anglophone regions of the country have been volatile since October 2017 following a secessionist plan to declare independence under the so-called Ambazonia Republic.

The separatist group under the Ambazonia Defence Force (ADF) has launched guerilla style attacks on members of the security forces killing over twenty of them – soldiers, police, gendarmes.

The government has increased its security operations in the region including the recent creation of a military region to be based in the capital of the northwest region, Bamenda.

The separatists have also adopted the use of kidnappings in recent past. They have kidnapped a soldier and another top government official. Countries like the United States and Britain have all issued travel advisories in the past with respect to the two regions.

Despite multiple calls for dialogue to end the clashes, there has yet to be concrete efforts in that regard. Meanwhile Cameroonians continue to flee the region into neighbouring Nigeria. At the last count, the UN said over 20,000 Cameroonians had sought asylum in Nigeria.

Source: Africa News

Britain’s defense secretary says that Russian President Vladimir Putin is trying to divide the UK from its allies, yet the world stands united behind the British in a “powerful message to the Kremlin.”

“The world’s patience is rather wearing thin with President Putin and his actions, and the fact that right across the NATO alliance, right across the European Union, nations have stood up in support of the United Kingdom… I actually think that is the very best response that we could have,” Gavin Williamson, who is in Tallinn, Estonia, said on Monday.

Willamson’s remarks come amid escalating tensions between Europe and Russia over the poisoning of former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal, 66, and his 33-year-old daughter, Yulia, in a British town.

London claims the Soviet-designed Novichok nerve agent has been used to poison the pair and points the finger at Russia.

Moscow has rejected the claims as “absurd,” saying the substance used in the attack could have originated from the countries studying it, including Britain itself. It has offered cooperation with London in probing the case.

Williamson arrived in the Estonian capital on Sunday for a two-day visit to see British troops who are based there as part of a NATO mission in the Baltic states to deter “Russian aggression.”

Last week, EU leaders issued a statement in Brussels, saying it was “highly likely Russia is responsible” for poisoning the Soviet-era spy.

Earlier this month Williamson said, “Russia should go away and shut up” when asked how the Kremlin should respond to 23 of its diplomats, thought to be spies, being expelled from the UK over the poisoning.

In retaliation for London’s “provocative” measures over the alleged poisoning, Russia also said that it would expel 23 British diplomats.

Skripal was found guilty by a Russian tribunal of selling classified information to Britain’s spy agency MI6 and was imprisoned in Russia in 2006. He was exchanged in a spy swap in 2010.

Source: Presstv

Police have questioned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the second time in a corruption case involving Israel’s largest telecommunication company, Bezeq, as he is embroiled in two other cases.

Police assert that Bezeq owner Shaul Elovitch had instructed the Walla news website, which is fully owned by the telecom company, to provide favorable coverage of Netanyahu and his wife in return for favors from communications regulators.

According to Israeli media, Netanyahu’s spouse and son would be interrogated separately in the telecoms investigation over their relationship with Bezeq’s owner and his spouse.

Police, who have yet to make a recommendation about charges in the case, reportedly questioned the prime minister in his official residence in Jerusalem al-Quds.

Shlomo Filber, the former director general of the Communications Ministry, and Nir Hefetz, a former spokesman of Netanyahu, have agreed to serve as the regime’s witnesses in the case.

Israeli police investigators have also been grilling Netanyahu for corruption over his involvement in cases 1000 and 2000. The final decision about whether to prosecute him rests with the Israeli attorney general, which could take months.

Case 1000 revolves around alleged illicit gifts given to Netanyahu and his family by different businessmen, most notably the Israeli-born Hollywood producer Arnon Milchan.

The Israeli prime minister and his wife, Sara, claim that the value of the items was significantly lower than reported, and that they were only “trifles” exchanged between close friends.

Case 2000 focuses on an alleged clandestine deal made between Netanyahu and Yedioth Ahronoth publisher and owner Arnon “Noni” Mozes, in which the 68-year-old chairman of the Likud party promised Mozes he would support a bill to reduce the circulation of Yedioth’s main commercial rival, the Hebrew-language freebie Israel Hayom, in exchange for favorable coverage of himself in Yedioth.

The political survival of Netanyahu’s four-term prime minister is greatly at risk over the corruption and bribery probes.

Source: Presstv

Senate elections took place in Cameroon Sunday, as tensions continued to soar in the French-majority country’s anglophone regions where separatist rebels have been fighting government forces for several months.

Senate elections do not take place by universal suffrage in the West African nation. Some 10,000 municipal councillors across Cameroon are voting for 70 members of the upper house for a duration of five years.

Appointees to the 30 remaining seats will be named later by President Paul Biya.

His party, the Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (RDPC), already holds a large majority in the Senate and is the clear frontrunner in the ballot. The main opposition, the Social Democratic Front (SDF) only has candidates in five of the 10 provinces.

The president of the Senate may act as an interim head of state but the chamber only plays a marginal role primarily focused on examining the second reading of draft laws.

Authorities closely monitored the ballot in the Northwest and the Southwest provinces, two English-speaking territories that became part of the French-majority country after independence in 1960.

Tensions have been flaring in these parts — accounting for about a fifth of the 23-million-strong population — since separatists proclaimed the autonomous republic of “Ambazonia” in October last year.

The country has had a tortuous colonial history that saw it pass from German rule to French and British hands, and the anglophone minority complain of having long been marginalised by the French-speaking elite.

The conflict between rebels and the army has become increasingly serious, as separatists urge the armed forces and government officials to leave the territory.

New separatist groups are emerging, while the Yaounde authorities have reduced their communications about the conflict to a minimum.

The unrest in the anglophone regions has prompted around 33,000 people to flee to neighbouring Nigeria.

AFP

Journalists in the central African country of Cameroon are in a quandary about how to fight a government ban on political reporting in the run-up to the March 25 senatorial elections.

Some, like private media outlets Galaxy FM and Magic FM, are defying the edict.

“We won’t accept limiting freedom of speech when Cameroon wants to be fully democratic,” Galaxy FM presenter Jean Jacques Ola Bebe told Deutsche Welle (DW) earlier this month.  Despite the ban, Magic FM recently featured a member of Social Democratic Front, the chief opposition party, as a studio guest taking calls from listeners.

According to reports, however; these are the exceptions.

Many media professionals agonize over how to fulfill their watchdog role without triggering the wrath of the powerful National Communication Council (NCC), the media regulatory body. The government’s track record provides reason to worry.

The NCC has banned newspapers, levied exorbitant fines against media critical of the government and put journalists in jail.

Last year, the NCC suspended the licenses of at least 40 media outlets for violating the country’s terrorism laws. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) documented the abuses in a report, “Journalists are NOT Terrorists: In Cameroon, anti-terror legislation is used to silence critics and suppress dissent.”

Reporter Ahmed Abbas is a prime example. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison for “complicity in acts of terrorism” and “failure to denounce acts of terrorism.” He won the prestigious CPJ International Press Freedom Award in 2017 and was released in December after 879 days in prison.

The NCC itself is suspect. Journalists argue that President Peter Biya created the council to punish media outlets that oppose his government and portray him unfavorably. Biya has been in power since 1982 and is Africa’s longest reigning leader, according to Deutsche Welle.

Freedom House designates Cameroon’s media “not free.” Reporters Without Borders’ press freedom index ranks Cameroon 130 out of 180 countries. A Freedom House report noted, “Some independent outlets continue to operate, sometimes in defiance of government sanctions, but frequently self-censor in order to avoid reprisals.”

To gain insight into how Cameroon’s press corps is handling the recent ban, IJNet turned to Comfort Mussa, an award-winning journalist and founder of the Sisterspeak237 blog that “advocates for our rights, shares news, opinions and analysis of women’s obstacles and victories, setbacks and head starts.” Mussa also writes a weekly column Comfort Zone for The Sun newspaper.

IJNet: How are private media outlets in Cameroon reacting to the government ban on political debates? Are many defying the order?

Mussa: Reactions have been varied. The regulations on “political programs” have given rise to a new debate among journalists in Cameroon about what a clear definition of “political program” really is. A report or debate about the state of roads or public health policies can be tagged as political. However, many journalists interpret [the government ban] to mean political debates headed into the 2018 elections.

How do you see media outlets responding?

Most political programs on local radio and TV stations continue to air, albeit with a lot of caution on the part of the journalists. “Cameroon Calling,” a flagship program that often features political debates on the [government-controlled] radio station, CRTV, did not air last Sunday.

There is a certain degree of self-censorship from many journalists, especially those from private stations. It is worth noting that over 100 of the private radio stations in Cameroon operate under “administrative tolerance” without formal licenses.

How has the ban affected your reporting?

Whether on Comfort Zone or Sisterspeak237, I am constantly aware of the environment in which I operate and this makes me cautious and more diligent about how I report and the topics I choose to write about. In the different networks that I am part of, we have been brainstorming about ways in which journalists can get around this. However, so far, it is still business as usual.

Comfort Mussa added this: “There is a shift in the questions that journalists are discussing these days, concerning the future of journalism in Cameroon. I am proud of the conversations that journalists are having now and how they are exploring different formats and innovative ways of practicing journalism.”

Among NCC rules published for covering the upcoming elections:

• Suspension of all political programs throughout the period of electoral campaigns

• Prohibition of candidates from taking part in programs other than those authorized within the framework of the campaign

• Need for media organs to plan equal coverage of all political parties taking part in the election

• Need for media reports to favor social cohesion, peace, national unity and integration, democracy and human rights

• Need for media content to reflect the present administrative and political disposition and not favor conflict of any kind

A final note: The NCC president promised to distribute an election guide and warned that any media that go against the established principles would be punished.

Source: IJnet.org