The US government has officially shut down after lawmakers in the upper chamber of Congress failed to reach a deal on a short-term budget for funding government operations.

Senators were still negotiating on the Senate floor after the midnight deadline passed, but the White House issued a statement blaming opposition Democrats for the crisis.

Republicans in the Senate fell well short of the 60 votes necessary to pass a temporary spending bill on Friday, which had passed the House of Representatives on Thursday.

The federal government has been operating on a third temporary funding measure since the current fiscal year began in October.

Senate Democrats blocked consideration of the bill to keep the government operating.

The vast majority of Democratic senators have said they would not support the legislation unless it includes protections for hundreds of thousands of young illegal immigrants, but Republicans have so far refused.

The government shutdown began early Saturday morning on the first anniversary of US President Donald Trump’s inauguration.

However, senators from both parties were trying to reach a new deal to reopen the government quickly, possibly just hours after the midnight deadline passed.

Trump admitted Friday that chances were “not looking good” that 11th-hour talks in Congress would break the impasse, blaming Democrats for the deadlock.

A meeting at the White House between Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, a Democrat from New York,  and President Trump failed to break the stalemate on Friday.

The White House was quick to blame Democrats for the shutdown.

“Senate Democrats own the Schumer Shutdown,” the White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, said in a statement. “Tonight, they put politics above our national security, military families, and our country’s ability to serve all Americans.”

Democrats hit back, saying Republicans were responsible for the management of a government in their control.

“A Republican president occupies the White House, and Republicans hold the majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate,” said Representative Nita Lowey, a Democrat from New York.

There have been four government shutdowns since 1990. In the last one in 2013, government funding lapsed for 16 full days and more than 800,000 government workers were put on temporary leave.

Essential institutions like the White House, Congress, military and law enforcement would continue working but with reduced staff. Some agencies would shut altogether. But others in the massive bureaucracy will be sent home without pay.

Source: Presstv

Miriam Metchane Ewang

Cameroon put the internet back on in its English-speaking regions on Wednesday (Jan. 17) after nearly four months.

But it only lasted for 48 hours. It was the latest example of a political strategy by the government to try and have it both ways. This week it switched on the internet ahead of a visit from a Confederation of African Football (CAF) delegation to towns in its troubled South West region. The delegation was there to examine the readiness of stadia and other facilities needed to host next year’s African Cup of Nations, the continent’s most high profile sporting event.

 After the CAF delegation moved out of the city of Limbe on Thursday (Jan.18), the internet left with them. The delegation visited the towns of Buea and Limbe over two days. During their stay in the region, local internet users could access internet normally. But soon after the delegation moved out of the city of Limbe on Thursday (Jan.18), the internet left with it. People in the region said that later in the evening the region still had internet but it was slow to the extent that nothing could be downloaded or uploaded.

Since Jan. 17, 2017, the internet in Cameroon’s South West and North West regions has been completely off or severely slowed down for a total of 206 days as of Jan. 19 this year, according to Internet Sans Frontieres.

The shutdown is part of a wider effort by the Cameroon government to clamp down on local activists in the English-speaking regions who have been protesting against what they say are injustices and economic depravity being imposed by the dominant Francophone government.

Otto Akam of the Buea Silicon Mountain hub of young digital startup owners said they had been expecting the internet to be switched off when the delegation left. He said the same thing happened when the Commonwealth secretary-general, Patricia Scotland, visited the region in December to meet religious, political and traditional leaders to find a way out of the ongoing crisis which has degenerated into an armed conflict. “We had 24 hours of smooth internet connectivity. It was completely switched off when she left. We returned to using other means of bypassing the blockage” he said.

Local journalists in the region, who asked not to be named, confirmed both events. The belief is that the temporary reinstatements are attempts to reassure important international guests like CAF and the Commonwealth that there are no issues with internet connectivity in the troubled region.

The internet was switched off in English-speaking Cameroon, on Oct. 1 when the region self-declared its independence with the formation of an interim government. Since then, citizens in the region have been using virtual private networks (VPN) to access the and bypass the blockage. A message circulated on WhatsApp groups while the internet was on advised internet users in the crisis region not to uninstall VPNs from their mobile devices because the internet reinstatement might last only two days; it did.

Source: Quartz Media

Russia says the United States has been leaking to the media the confidential financial data of the Russian diplomats based in America, thereby violating their privacy and diplomatic immunity.

US media outlet Buzzfeed reported Wednesday that US officials investigating allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election in the US were inspecting newly uncovered financial transactions between the Russian government and people or businesses inside the US.

Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement the following day that the transactions that had been leaked contained nothing except routine payments but that hey were being twisted to make them appear suspicious.

“It’s obvious that this could not have happened without the knowledge of the authorities of that country (the United States),” the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Thursday. “In other words, this intrusion on the sanctity of the accounts of the [Russian] embassy and its staff, who have diplomatic immunity, is the work of Washington officialdom.”

The ministry criticized Washington for “not ensuring the appropriate conditions for the functioning of Russia’s diplomatic missions,” saying the pressure on the diplomats “continues and is growing.”

The ministry demanded that Washington “immediately stop the unlawful distribution of confidential information… and hold responsible those who are to blame, including those who hold relevant posts in the American state administration.”

The US Justice Department’s special counsel, Robert Mueller, has been leading a team of investigators looking into allegations of Russian interference in the presidential election that put Donald Trump into office. Both Moscow and the White House have repeatedly dismissed the allegations.

Investigators are now looking into a number of transactions between the government in Moscow and entities in the US flagged to the Treasury Department as suspicious.

A spokesman for the Russian Embassy, Nikolay Lakhonin, told Buzzfeed on Wednesday that the embassy’s transactions in America were in compliance with the law and said that the leaked activity reports were intended to “discredit Russian official missions.”

Source: Presstv

The last three years were the hottest on record, the United Nations weather agency said Thursday, citing fresh global data underscoring the dramatic warming of the planet.

Consolidated data from five leading international weather agencies shows that “2015, 2016 and 2017 have been confirmed as the three warmest years on record”, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said.

It added that 2016 remains the hottest year ever measured due to the warming effect of El Nino, while 2017 was the warmest non-El Nino year, beating out 2015 by less than one hundredth of a degree.

“The long-term temperature trend is far more important than the ranking of individual years, and that trend is an upward one,” WMO secretary-general Petteri Taalas said in a statement.

The 21st century has so far been a period of the hottest weather, accounting for 17 of the 18 warmest years on record.

“And the degree of warming during the past three years has been exceptional,” Tasslas added.

The WMO also highlighted the intensification of weather and climate related disasters, which hit record levels in the United States last year, while multiple countries were devastated by cyclones, floods and drought.

The WMO findings were based on data provided by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, US space agency NASA, Britain’s Met office, the European Center for medium range weather forecasts and the Japan Meteorological Agency.

Using those inputs, the UN said that the average global surface temperature last year was 1.1 degrees Celsius (1.98 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels.

Reacting to the results, experts warned that the planet was moving closer to a set of red lines laid out in the historic 2015 Paris climate agreement.

That treaty calls for capping global warming at “well under” two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit).

“When even ‘colder’ (non-El Nino) years are rewriting the warmest year record books we know we have a problem,” said Dave Reay, the Carbon Management chair at the University of Edinburgh.

“Global temperatures will continue to bob up and down from year to year, but the climate tide beneath them is rising fast.”

‘Focus’ needed

There is mounting global consensus on the need to slash CO2 and methane emissions, improve energy efficiency, and develop technologies to remove CO2 from the air.

But US President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris accord has rattled the international community and complicated efforts at forging joint action — even though many US state governments insist they remain committed to cut emissions.

Since industrialization took off in the early 19th century, CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere have increased by nearly half, from 280 parts per million to 407 parts per million.

Trump will head to the World Economic Forum in Davos next week, an annual gathering of global elite, where he will confront some of the political and civil society leaders who fought hard for the Paris deal.

“Collaborative efforts” to combat unprecedented shared challenges will be a major theme of meeting, WEF boss Klaus Schwab said this week.

“The record temperature should focus the minds of world leaders, including President Trump, on the scale and urgency of the risks that people, rich and poor, face around the world from climate change,” said Bob Ward, policy director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment and the London School of Economics.

(Source: AFP)

Two weeks after their arrest in Nigeria, Interim Government of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia have alleged that its leaders have been denied access to their lawyers and family members by the head of the DSS Lawal Daura. Ambazonian Secretary for Communication and IT, the Right Honorable Chris Anu, issued the alarm in a statement in Abuja.

The Interim Government hinted that the Buhari administration had no right to arrest their leaders since most of them were on refugee status in Nigeria. The statement noted:“The interim government of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia (the former British Southern Cameroon) notes with dismay the fact that since abducted at gunpoint on January 5, 2018, President Julius Tabe and 10 other members of his cabinet have not been granted access to any lawyers and family members by the Nigerian Government which we are now aware that in complicity with the Cameroon regime in Yaounde, engineered their abduction.

“We condemn vehemently, the fact that the Nigerian Government, more than a week after the abductions has not as much considered a press statement on the abductions even when the majority of those abducted are duly registered refugees in Nigeria. “Nigeria is a signatory to international conventions on human rights and to be acting recklessly as it is doing in this case is a breach of those conventions.”

The Ambazonian leaders – Sikiku Ayuk Tabe, Prof. Che Awasum, Barrister. Nalowa Bih, Dr. Fidelis Che, Dr. Nfor Nfor, Dr. Henry Kimeng, Prof. Che Awasum, Mr Tassang Wilfred, Dr. Ojong Okonghor, Barrister Shufai Berinyuh, Barrister Eyambe Elias and Dr. Cornelius Kwanga – were arrested at Nera hotel by the DSS in Abuja on January 5 while holding a meeting.

By Kinsley Betek with files from the Nigerian Vanguard

The  UN  Deputy Secretary General Amina Mohammed’s  emergency meeting on the arrest of the Interim President of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia, Sisiku Ayuk Tabe and 9 of his top aides in Nigeria showed Abuja “the world is watching” its actions.

Madam Amina Mohammed reportedly called the meeting during her recent trip to Nigeria after acknowledging that the UN was following closely the developments in Anglophone Cameroon. Nigerian President Buhari and members of his administration had privately praised the anti-Ambazonian action carried out by the DSS and had also settled down for an extradition.

But the UN and the African Bar Association and some other interested parties said Africa’s most powerful nation had no business weighing in on the crisis in Southern Cameroons. The leadership of the African Bar Association based in Lagos, Nigeria was quoted as saying that the Nigerian government should applaud the courage of Sisiku Ayuk Tabe and the Interim Government of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia and amplify their message portraying their struggle for self determination as a human rights issue that is spilling slowly but surely over into the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Nigerian elected representatives have complained openly that the Buhari administration was dragging a nation focused on domestic security issues into what they called a foreign matter. Nigerian foreign missions in several other countries have expressed reservations about whether it was right to detain the Ambazonian leaders.

Nigeria is aware that the UN charter empowers the Security Council to “investigate any dispute, or any situation which might lead to international friction,” and the lawyer representing the Ambazonian Interim Government is not alone in thinking the Abuja arrest qualified.

Our West Africa Bureau Chief, Kingsley Betek who contributed to this report said the Buhari administration says it is their responsibility … to assess whether the presence of the Interim Government leaders on Nigerian soil could become a threat to Abuja’s peace and security.

The UN boss was given assurances that Nigeria was designing a preventive measure to avoid further escalation of violence in Southern Cameroons.  Abuja is expected to publicly call on the Francophone dominated government in Yaoundé to set up a process to address any serious human rights violations and hold accountable anyone involved.

At least 755 people have been killed and hundreds arrested amid the anti- French Cameroun government protests and unrest. Up to 42,000 people have fled to Nigeria, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.  The outspoken governor of Cross River State has urged the Nigerian Federal Government to react carefully with all the vigilance required. A legal auditioning of the leaders is expected to begin soon.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

The new US embassy in London has opened its doors to the public for the first time but President Donald Trump failed to attend its inauguration.  

Last week, Trump refused to attend the inauguration over fears he will be greeted with mass protests in the British capital where most of the citizens dislike him due to his divisive polices. He also denounced the new embassy as too expensive and poorly located.

Embassy staff streamed past heavily-armed police as the new building opened for business on Tuesday.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was reportedly scheduled to open the embassy instead of Trump but he also did not attend the inauguration.

In a tweet, Trump criticized former US President Barack Obama for selling the previous embassy to a Qatari government investment fund which is planning to turn it into a luxury hotel, and building a new one.

“I am not a big fan of the Obama administration having sold perhaps the best located and finest embassy in London for ‘peanuts’, only to build a new one in an off location for 1.2 billion dollars,” Trump wrote last week.

“Bad deal. Wanted me to cut ribbon – NO!” The decision to build and relocate the US embassy in London was made during the administration of former US President George W. Bush.

Trump’s plans to visit Britain have met resistance from some politicians and activists who disagree with his policies such as his actions on immigration and climate change.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan, who Trump has repeatedly criticized, had earlier tweeted that he was happy when Trump called off the proposed visit, saying the US president was not welcome in the city and “he’s finally got that message.”

Trump was expected to make his first trip to the UK since entering the White House and had originally been scheduled for a full State Visit including a Royal banquet at Buckingham Palace but this was later downgraded to a “stripped-down” trip that did not involve getting the full “red-carpet” treatment from the Queen.

More than a million people in Britain signed a petition last year calling for the state visit by the US president to be cancelled.

Source: Presstv

Protesters across the United States have staged more anti-racism rallies in response to President Donald Trump’s offensive remarks about immigrants, whom he reportedly berated of coming from “sh*thole countries” like Haiti and South Africa.

In Palm Beach, Florida, Haitian activists showed up in large numbers at the Southern Boulevard bridge on Monday to confront Trump as his motorcade passed through the streets after leaving his luxurious Mar-a-Lago resort for the airport.

“What brings us out today is the statement he made,” said Charlemagne Metayer, a Haitian-born American citizen who moved to the US in 1985.

“Some of us work two or three jobs to make a living,” said Metayer, a father of four. “We are hard working people. We deserve an apology from the president.”

Trump’s supporters tried to counter the protest by gathering on the side of the street. There was heavy police presence at the scene to prevent violent clashes.

On Thursday, Senator Dick Durbin and several other Democratic lawmakers who had attended a White House meeting on immigration maintained that the president used disparaging remarks to refer to a number of nations during the bipartisan session.

The meeting was about reaching a deal over Trump’s border wall with Mexico in exchange for saving DACA, a program that protected some 800,000 child immigrants.

Before leaving Mar-A-Lago, Trump wrote in a tweet that his comments were “totally misrepresented” by the Democrats.

The explanations, however, were not enough to stop protests in his hometown of New York City, as angry protesters packed into Judson Memorial Church, near Washington Square Park, to protest his policies.

The protesters expressed solidarity with immigrants who have been torn away from their families by Trump administration’s anti-immigration agencies.

There were also similar events in several other cities, including Oakland, California.

Ironically, the protests came after Trump marked Martin Luther King Jr. Day by asking Americans to observe the holiday with acts of civic work and community service while he himself broke with the presidential tradition and spent the whole day at Mar-a-Lago.

Source: Presstv

Ambazonian cocoa farmers have been forced to abandon their crops and flee the violence from the Francophone security forces.

Tens of thousands of people from the Southern Cameroons have been forced to flee across the border into Nigeria in the last three months, to escape increasingly brutal violence by Francophone security forces of the country’s despotic Francophone leader, 84-year-old Paul Biya, who has been in power 37 years.

The violence started in 2016, but at the start was almost entirely one-sided violence, with the Francophone security forces violently attacking peaceful Anglophone protesters.

The violence in the Anglophone regions of Cameroons has resulted in a significant split in Cameroon’s Catholic Church, with accusations being launched between Anglophone bishops and Francophone bishops.

Femi Falana, lead counsel for President Sisiku AyukTabe and his top aides abducted in the Nigerian capital city of Abuja has informed the Interim Government of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia that the Nigerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the National Security Adviser have assured Ambazonians that their leaders are still being held in Nigeria, and the Buhari administration would not deliberately violate International Law to extradite their leaders to any other country including La République du Cameroun.

The renowned Barrister Falana will be permitted to visit them any moment from now. Reports of multiple killings are circulating on social media and panic has gripped several schools, including in Buea, the capital of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia and in Muyuka and Tiko.

The United Nations is seeking to expand plans for resettling Ambazonia refugees in Nigeria.

Compiled by Chi Prudence Asong