Russia has carried out a number of ballistic missile test-launches from “land, air and sea” as part of massive military drills that also involve Russia’s strategic forces, the country’s Defense Ministry says.

According to a statement released by the Russian Defense Ministry on Thursday, a Topol-type ballistic missile, one of the country’s most sophisticated weapons, was fired earlier in the day from the Plesetsk testing ground in the northwest of the country and hit a designated target on the Kura testing grounds in Kamchatka Peninsula, in Russia’s northwest.

It added that two of its nuclear missile submarines (SSBNs) had also launched three ballistic missiles — two from the Pacific Fleet stationed in the Okhotsk Sea, north of Japan, and one from the Northern Fleet deployed in the Barents Sea, in the Arctic Ocean.

The missiles from the Pacific Fleet hit targets in the Chizha testing range in the northwestern region of Arkhangelsk, and the missile from the Pacific Fleet struck a target on the Kura testing grounds, the statement added.

The ministry further said Russia’s strategic Tupolec-160, Tupolev-85MS and Tupolev-22MZ bombers were also deployed in the drills to demonstrate their power as they launched air-based cruise missiles at ground targets in the Kura and Pemboi testing ranges, and one in Russian military terrain in Kazakhstan.

“All objectives of the training have been successfully completed,” the statement added. Last month, Russia successfully test-launched a Topol missile equipped with a new advanced warhead. It was designed to penetrate the missile defenses of a potential enemy more effectively.

Culled from Presstv

A new report by the International Crisis Group (ICG) published a day after the suspension of the Institution’s activities in Cameroon by the Biya regime has reportedly rocked Yaounde. The Belgian Non Governmental Organization (NGO) continues to fire bullets at the Francophone dominated government . In its latest report released Wednesday, October 25, 2017, ICG reported that some barons of the ruling CPDM crime syndicate in the Mayo Sava Division had requested help from the Nigerian Islamic sect, Boko Haram to dislodge President Paul Biya from power.

“Some in the Mayo Sava have said that Boko Haram should come and deliver them from Kafir (disbeliever) who is in Etoudi (the Presidency of the Republic of Cameroon), “said the report while indicating that the sect tried from the onset of its abuses not to attack Muslims.

The authoritative organization also accused Biya and his gang of not communicating enough about the war they have been waging since May 2014 against the Nigerian sect. “The Cameroonian government does not communicate about the funds allocated for the war against Boko Haram. However, the budgets of the Ministry of Defense and the Delegation for National Security have increased from $ 305 to $ 420 million and from $ 130 to $ 145 million, respectively. Over the four years of conflict, security spending has increased by more than $ 500 million, “says ICG.

The report entitled “Far North of Cameroon: The Puzzle of Reconstruction in times of Conflict” noted that the fight against Boko Haram in the Far North which is the poorest region in the country, has exacerbated the already precarious economic situation and upset socio-economic roles. The  International Crisis Group stressed that Cameroon’s war against Boko Haram since May 2014 has only worsened the already precarious economic situation of the four million inhabitants” of the Far North region.

Despite the economic difficulties experienced in the Far North, “the populations have shown a great capacity for adaptation and resilience that offers the Cameroonian government and international partners the opportunity to implement development policies that integrate diversity and fluidity of the economic traditions of this border region between Nigeria and Chad “.

The report says Cameroonians had a crush of 2 billion CFA to help the 22,000 displaced in the Far North. “But these mechanisms of solidarity quickly showed their limit: indeed, the helping populations are breathless and have become as vulnerable as the displaced populations,” regretted ICG.

International Crisis Group observed that “the government has favoured a military response and few concrete measures have been taken for economic recovery” in the Far North region. ICG revealed that the Northern Development Emergency Plan announced in June 2014 has “only” 78.8 billion CFA francs and is “well below the development needs of the area, evaluated at least 1 600 billion CFA francs (2.86 billion dollars) by the northern elites “.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai with files from Cameroon Info.Net

The administration of US President Donald Trump is reportedly speeding up plans to use armed drone to attack militants in Niger, in the wake of a deadly ambush that killed four American troops in the African country.

The US is already using unarmed Reaper drones to gather intelligence in purported terrorist positions inside Niger but American military commanders want to be able to arms the aircraft like the French can, NBC News reported Wednesday, citing unnamed US military officials.

The officials said Washington has been pressing the government of Niger more aggressively to allow armed drones at the US bases there following the deadly October 4 ambush by Daesh terrorists near the country’s border with Mali.

The Pentagon revealed new details about the attack on Monday night but details of what happened remain murky more than two weeks after the incident.

According to General Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, the American troops were on their way back to their base when they were ambushed by some 50 Daesh militants.

It took the US troops an hour to request backup, Dunford said, noting that armed French Mirage fighter jets arrived on scene two hours after the ambush began. Apparently, the pilots did not fire at the militants because they could not distinguish them from friendly forces.

However, US officials say an unarmed Reaper drone rushed to the site of the attack within minutes of the team’s call for help.

Expanding US drone strikes to Niger would amount to a significant escalation in the global American drone campaign. While the US military has conducted occasional drone strikes in Libya and Somalia, most of Africa has not been excluded from the drone war which is focused on Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Iraq and Syria.

Colonel Rob Manning, a Pentagon spokesman, said refused to talk about “possible initiatives by the administration,” but said “the Department of Defense will always ensure our forces are properly equipped and have the necessary capabilities to accomplish their mission and defeat any threat.”

Pentagon officials say US forces in Niger do not currently have a combat role and are rather gathering intelligence that could come in handy once the Trump administration authorizes lethal operations there.

Presstv

Nkwelle Ekaney is no longer Cameroon’s High Commissioner to Great Britain and Northern Ireland. In a letter dated October 19, President Paul Biya instructed the Minister of External Relations, Lejeune MBELLA MBELLA, to recall urgently and definitively to Cameroon, the High Commissioner of Cameroon in Great Britain and Ireland, Nkwelle Ekaney.

The Biya letter noted that the British authorities will be informed of a possible replacement of the disgraced diplomat.

According to a source close to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a meeting was held last week between Minister Lejeune MBELLA MBELLA and Nkwelle Ekaney on the decision of the Head of State Paul Biya. No official information is currently available on the reasons for the Biya action.
By Chi Prudence Asong, CCN

Some senators are saying they didn’t know the US had troops in Niger as questions swirl about the raid that killed four US servicemen there earlier this month. The Pentagon, however, said Monday it has kept Congress informed of the operation. Military investigators are looking into the exact circumstances of the October 4 raid, including how Sgt. La David Johnson was separated from the 12-member team as it was ambushed by 50 ISIS fighters.

“I did not,” Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pennsylvania, responded to CNN’s Chris Cuomo on “New Day” Monday whether he knew there were troops in Niger. “When you consider what happened here, the four sergeants lost their lives, I think there’s a lot of work that both parties and both branches of government need to do. Not only to stay more informed but to focus on why we’re there and what happened to get to the bottom of this.”

Several other leading senators also said they were in the dark about the operation in the western Africa nation. “I didn’t know there was 1,000 troops in Niger,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, told NBC’s Chuck Todd on “Meet the Press” Sunday. “They are going to brief us next week as to why they were there and what they were doing.”

He continued: “I got a little insight on why they were there and what they were doing. I can say this to the families: They were there to defend America. They were there to help allies. They were there to prevent another platform to attack America and our allies.”

Graham also said during the interview that his longtime friend and colleague in the Senate, Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, is frustrated, “rightly so.”

“We don’t know exactly where we’re at in the world, militarily, and what we’re doing. So John McCain is going to try to create a new system to make sure that we can answer the question (about) why we were there,” he said. “We’ll know how many soldiers are there, and if somebody gets killed there, that we won’t find out about it in the paper.”

When Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer was asked later on “Meet the Press” about knowing whether there were troops in Niger, he responded, “No, I did not.”

The Pentagon told CNN it keeps Congress regularly informed on the movements within the agency. And the White House said Monday it notified congressional leaders in June about 965 troops conducting counterterrorism duties in Niger and Cameroon.

Several Republican House members told CNN on Monday they were aware of the operation. “With respect to Niger, I serve on the appropriations committee. I oversee military construction projects,” Rep. Charlie Dent, R-Pennsylvania, told Cuomo. “We have a presence there. Not just there, but within that whole Lake Chad region, supporting local troops to support fight Boko Haram, support operations in West Africa and the operation in Mali. So we have all sorts of people in that region fighting a very dangerous foe, and ISIS in West Africa, especially.”

And Oklahoma Republican Rep. Steve Russell, a member of the government oversight and reform committee, also told CNN he knew about the troops. “It’s not new, and lawmakers that seem to be aghast at these missions going on are simply not well-read,” Dent told CNN’s John Berman and Poppy Harlow.

Culled from CNN

The World Health Organization (WHO) has overturned it controversial decision, made quite recently, in appointing Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe as its “goodwill ambassador” to Africa following international outrage.

The director-general of the United Nations organization, Tedros Adhanom, made the announcement on Sunday, four days after he appointed the 93-year-old Zimbabwean president at a high-level meeting on non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in Uruguay.

“Over the last few days, I have reflected on my appointment of H.E. President Robert Mugabe as WHO Goodwill Ambassador for NCDs in Africa. As a result I have decided to rescind the appointment,” Tedros said in a statement published on the WHO official website.

On Wednesday, Tedros, an Ethiopian politician, academic, and public-health authority, who assumed power as the eighth head of the WHO in July, had praised Zimbabwe as a country which had managed to place “universal health coverage and health promotion at the center of its policies to provide health care to all.”

The unexpected decision, however, faced criticism from the beginning and sparked outrage among key WHO member states, the United States in particular, and other critics of Mugabe’s decades-long long rule. Tedros’ decision was described by critics as the result of “poor judgment” and “miscalculation.”

Critics say that Zimbabwe, under Mugabe, has seen a significant reduction in life expectancy, dropping from 61 in 1985 to 44 in 2003, largely due to the nation’s ailing economy and widespread poverty.

Mugabe is also under fire for the longevity of his role as the leader of the African country. He served as the prime minister of Zimbabwe from 1980 to 1987. In December 1987, the country’s parliament amended the constitution and declared Mugabe to be the executive president, a new position that lasted until now and gave him much more power.

However, Mugabe, who is suffering from several health scares, has pledged never to give up the presidency.

“I will be there until God says come, but as long as I am alive I will head the country, forward ever, backwards never,” he told the African Union last year.

As the goodwill ambassador, he was supposed to co-ordinate the WHO’s battle against heart disease, cancer and diabetes across Africa.

“I have listened carefully to all who have expressed their concerns, and heard the different issues that they have raised. I have also consulted with the Government of Zimbabwe and we have concluded that this decision is in the best interests of the World Health Organization,” further said Tedros, whose election as the first African leader of the UN organization was billed as a pivotal moment for the continent, where much of the organization’s work is based.

UN agencies often name high-profile personalities as goodwill ambassadors to draw attention and highlight their tasks in the eyes of the global community and to garner support for the cause. Tedros’ contentious decision, however, has raised doubts regarding his leadership just four months into his tenure.

Source: Presstv

North Korea has threatened to launch an “unimaginable” strike on the United States as massive joint US-South Korean naval drills are underway off the Korean Peninsula, involving colossal American aircraft carrier the USS Ronald Reagan.

“The US is running amok by introducing under our nose the targets we have set as primary ones. The US should expect it would face [an] unimaginable strike at an unimaginable time,” said a government statement carried by the North’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on Thursday.

What Pyongyang referred to as the “primary” target is the 100,000-ton nuclear powered aircraft carrier, which is patrolling some 160 kilometers to the east of the peninsula and launched almost 90 F-18 Super Hornet sorties from its deck.

The military exercises, regarded by Pyongyang as highly provocative, began on Monday and will run through October 26. They involve 40 warships deployed in a line stretching from the Yellow Sea west of the peninsula into the Sea of Japan.

The North has already denounced Seoul and Washington’s war games, condemning the move as a “rehearsal for war.”

Washington’s military maneuvers with its close ally, the South, come ahead of US President Donald Trump’s visit to Japan and South Korea scheduled to start on November 5.

Trump has taken a tough stance against Pyongyang, threatening to “totally destroy” North Korea if necessary and calling North Korean leader Kim Jong-un names. Kim has responded with threats, vowing to take the “highest-level” measures against the US.

Meanwhile, the South Korean military threatened that it would be quick to totally destroy North Korea’s front-line artillery systems in the event of a war on the peninsula.

The US and the North have been at loggerheads over Pyongyang’s weapons and nuclear programs. However, tensions on the Korean Peninsula have recently risen sharply following a series of weapons tests by Pyongyang, including its sixth and most powerful nuclear test on September 3 and two missiles launched over Japan. Back in July, the North also claimed that it had fired two intercontinental ballistic missiles.

North Korea is under mounting international pressure over its missile and military nuclear programs and has been subjected to an array of sanctions by the United Nations. However, Pyongyang says it needs to continue and develop the programs as a deterrent against hostility by the US and its regional allies, including South Korea and Japan.

Source: Presstv

Cameroon must urgently rethink a policy of “murderous repression” in its restive English-speaking regions or risk the crisis spiralling into an armed uprising, the International Crisis Group (ICG) warned Thursday. In a report on the political crisis in the west African nation, the NGO said the government’s crackdown on the anglophone minority had failed and had only served to fuel a clamour for independence.

French-speaking Cameroon has a large anglophone minority which comprises around a fifth of its population of 22 million. Gathered mainly in two regions, many English-speakers say the suffer inequality and discrimination.

Simmering resentment has fuelled a breakaway movement that on October 1 issued a symbolic declaration of independence for the putative state of Ambazonia, prompting a crackdown by a government firmly opposed to secession.

In the face of mounting protests in the runup to the declaration, the security forces “responded with disproportionate force, leading to at least 40 deaths and over 100 injured protesters between September 28 and 2 October,” the ICG said.

It pointed to the use of live rounds and excessive use of teargas. “Due to such murderous repression, secessionist ranks are growing by the day, and some are more firmly evoking the idea of an armed struggle or ‘self defence’,” it said.

Cameroon’s President Paul Biya, 84, must act swiftly to find a serious political solution to the crisis, and it was also crucial that the international community speak out firmly against such state violence, the ICG said.

“If he hopes to avoid an armed uprising in Anglophone regions, which would without doubt have an impact in the Francophone zone, the Cameroonian president must go beyond superficial measures and take responsibility in order to find political solutions to the crisis.”

The report was published three days after Prime Minister Philemon Yang began a visit to the Northwest Region, one of the two troubled anglophone areas, as part of what he termed a “dialogue” with the English-speaking minority.

Yang travelled to Bamenda, the main regional town, where he met the heads of trade unions in the transport, education and shopping sectors, as well as with bankers and other business figures, Cameroon Radio Television (CrTV) said.

He delivered “a message of peace and living in harmony” while those who met him put forward proposals “for a definitive way out of the crisis,” it said, without giving further details.

Source: The Guardian

US President Donald Trump has made insensitive remarks to the pregnant widow of a soldier killed in an ambush in North Africa on October 4.

Trump, in a phone call, told the widow of Army Sgt. La David Johnson, one of the four US Special Operations soldiers killed in Niger, that her husband “knew what he signed up for… but when it happens it hurts anyway.”

On Tuesday, Democratic Rep. Frederica Wilson told multiple news outlets that she overheard Trump making such remarks while she was in the car with the “distraught” woman to meet the body in Miami when the president called her.

“They were astonished,” Wilson said of their reaction. “It was almost like saying, ‘You signed up to do this, and if you didn’t want to die, shouldn’t have signed up’.” She said that Myeshia’s only words during the five-minute conversation were “thank you” at the end of their talk.

Wilson said she tried to talk to Trump and “curse him out,” but the family refused to give her the phone. Myeshia, who has already two young children, is also six months pregnant with a third child.

A White House official later reacted by saying that Trump’s “conversations with the families of American heroes were private.”

Trump called the families of the fallen soldiers nearly two weeks after the incident. The US Department of Defense is still conducting a review into the ambush, the details of the mission, however, remain unclear and there is no final results yet.

Source: Presstv

US President Donald Trump has finally offered condolence to the families of four special operations soldiers recently ambushed to death in uranium-rich Niger, where the United States is not formally at war.

“President Trump spoke to all four of the families of those who were killed in action in Niger,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement on Tuesday.

The US president has been under fire over remaining silent after the incident for around 12 days.

“He offered condolences on behalf of a grateful nation and assured them their family’s extraordinary sacrifice to the country will never be forgotten,” she said.

Two other Green Berets were also 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.

The American troops were supposedly on an advisory and training mission in the African country, along with 40 Nigerien troops, when the attack was launched.

Trump finally spoke about them on Monday, while taking the chance to attack former President Barack Obama.

“So the traditional way, if you look at President Obama and other presidents, most of them, didn’t make calls, a lot of them didn’t make calls. I like to call when it’s appropriate, when I think I’m able to do it,” he said.

He further complained about how “tough” it is to call the families of the fallen soldiers.

“The toughest calls I have to make are the calls where this happens — soldiers are killed,” Trump said. “It’s a very difficult thing. Now it gets to a point where you make four or five of them in one day, it’s a very, very tough day. For me that’s by far the toughest.”

As the Monday presser continued, Trump was pressed on his claims, making him to back down a bit.

“I don’t know if he did. I was told that he didn’t often, and a lot of presidents don’t, they write letters. I do a combination of both,” said the US president. “President Obama, I think probably did [call] sometimes and maybe sometimes he didn’t, I don’t know, that’s what I was told… all I can do is ask my generals.”

Later on that day, the White House press secretary appeared to do some crisis management.

“The president wasn’t criticizing predecessors, but stating a fact… When Americans make the ultimate sacrifice, presidents pay their respects. Sometimes they call, sometimes they sent a letter, other times they have the opportunity to meet family members in person,” Sanders said. “This president, like his predecessors, has done each of these. Individuals claiming former presidents, such as their bosses, called each family of the fallen, are mistaken.”

Source: Presstv