The International Criminal Court (ICC) says it is weighing an investigation into human trafficking and refugee-related crimes in Libya, where the UN says they are being traded in so-called slave markets. Thousands of asylum seekers, including women and children, are being held in detention centers across Libya where “crimes, including killings, rapes and torture, are alleged to be commonplace,” Fatou Bensouda, ICC’s chief prosecutor revealed Monday.

She said that her office was gathering evidence of crimes allegedly committed against the refugees attempting to transit through Libya. I was “dismayed by credible accounts that Libya has become a marketplace for the trafficking of human beings,” Bensouda added.

The Gambian lawyer also said the ICC prosecution is examining the possibility of opening an investigation into refugee-related crimes in Libya provided that they fall under the court’s jurisdiction. Refugees commonly use the western coast of Libya to embark on a risky journey through the Mediterranean Sea toward Europe.

In April, the UN raised alarm over a climbing number of refugees passing through Libya. Refugees are typically traded for as little as $200 to $500, and are held for an average of two to three months and subject to malnutrition and sexual abuses, said the head of the UN migration agency’s Libya mission, Othman Belbeisi.

Source: Presstv

US and European police have shut down the largest global pedophile ring after hacking its website and arresting nearly 900 of its members following a two-year investigation. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Europol made the announcement Friday after a court sentenced Florida-based Steven Chase, founder of the so-called Playpen pedophilia network, to 30 years in prison.

The police are said to have arrested 870 people during the investigation into the group’s members around the globe that began after Chase’s arrest back in 2014. Officials said 368 of those arrested were from Europe. The investigation also identified at least 259 sexually abused children. As part of its investigation, called “Operation Pacifier,” the FBI used a malware to seize the Playpen website and server, which allowed authorities to track and identify Playpen users.

The result of that investigation was the harvesting of IP addresses and other identifiable information of more than 1,300 people who either logged in or registered on the site during that period, FBI and Europol said. Chase was sentenced this week in a federal courtroom in North Carolina on multiple child-pornography and child-exploitation charges.

Two of the founder’s aides, Michael Fluckiger and David Browning, both US citizens – who served as administrators of the site – were each jailed for 20 years. “Those individuals involved in the sexual abuse of children are becoming increasingly forensically aware and are actively using the most advanced forms of anonymisation and encryption to avoid detection,” said Steven Wilson, head of Europol’s Cybercrime Center.

“The internet has no boundaries and does not recognize borders. We need to balance the rights of victims versus the right to privacy. If we operate 19th century legal principles then we are unable to effectively tackle crime at the highest level,” he added.

A recent world classification on press freedom has ranked Cameroon 130th among 180 countries. By this position, the country dominated by French speaking political elites took a downward trend from the 2016 classification. In 2016, Cameroon held the 126th position.

This revelation has rubbished statements made by the so-called government spokesman and Minister of Communication, Issa Tchiroma Bakary that journalists in Cameroon were free and independent. The findings noted that Cameroon is considered a “Not Free Zone”, meaning it is one of the countries with a massive media crackdown.

The International Organization for the Defense of Journalists says media professionals in Cameroon are constantly under police harassment and arbitrary arrest. The Yaounde regime operates a vicious media regulatory board known as the National Communication Council that shuts down independent news organizations. Journalists were arrested during demonstrations in the English-speaking regions where Internet connection was cut off in January 2017 for three months.

Source: Cameroon Intelligence Report

Soldiers representing U.S. Army Africa are currently in Cameroon for exercise Unified Focus 17, the second accord event of the year. The accord series is composed of four major events scheduled to take place intermittently on the African continent through the beginning of August. Exercise Justified Accord 17 was held in Ethiopia last month, and the following exercises, United Accord 17 and Shared Accord 17, will take place in Ghana and South Africa, respectively.

The accord series is a U.S. Africa Command program composed of four annual, combined and joint military exercises that take place in African countries and encourage partnerships between participants from United States, African Union, European and other coalition partner forces and agencies. Although each event addresses a specific peacekeeping or security issue, they all share common objectives: communication and interaction between partners, and mutual readiness training, said Col. Anthony J. Healey, the U.S. Army Africa training, readiness and exercises director.

“The exercises facilitate enhancing information sharing and cooperation on regional security issues, strengthening regional access and freedom of movement, and increasing the participating forces’ abilities to collaborate on common missions and increase their readiness for real-world scenarios,” he said.

Until recently, each exercise was named for its targeted region. The current iterations, however, reflect the specific focus of the event instead, according to Healey. “The exercises were regionally aligned: Southern Accord, Eastern Accord, Central Accord … but when AFRICOM changed (from region-based operations) to lines of effort-based operations, they changed the names to match,” he said.

The accord exercises generally can fall into one of three categories: tabletop, command post and field training. Tabletop exercises often include senior personnel working through the decision-making process they would use in a crisis scenario. These exercises can take place in a classroom environment and include instruction from subject matter experts, Healey said.

Command post exercises are expanded tabletop exercises for commanders and staff. They require increased tactical operations and communications and may be simulation driven. These exercises can be conducted on a garrison or in the field.

Field training exercises simulate realistic combat conditions and integrate the total force, involving combat units, drills and situational training exercises, as well as the personnel required for tabletop and command post exercises. A year or more of planning and smaller events with other U.S., partner and host nation organizations go into each exercise, Healey said, which helps coordinators overcome some of the challenges that arise when multiple agencies and cultures work toward one vision and grapple with logistics.

“You’re bringing multiple agencies together and trying to come up with a singular plan to execute,” he said. “Does everyone agree with it? Can you support this? Where is the money coming from? You have to plan transportation well in advance, contracts have to be letted out … those are some of the challenges we have to work through to get from initiation to execution.”

Despite any difficulties that might accompany USARAF’s participation, there is inherent value in building and strengthening partnerships through the accord exercises, Healey said. “Whenever we go anywhere on the globe these days, it’s going to be with another partner. (Through these exercises), we get that cultural understanding from working with partners, not just American forces. … Ensuring that everyone has a shared understanding of how to solve the issue in the scenario builds confidence between the partner nations and interagencies.”

Culled from Defenseweb

Deadly weekend storms have left at least 14 dead in the Midwestern and Southern United States, according to officials, as eastern regions faced potential damaging winds and isolated tornadoes into Monday. Severe weather devastated homes, overturned cars and felled trees, with the National Weather Service confirming at least four tornadoes in Texas.

The mayor of Canton, Texas — a city some 60 miles (95 kilometers) east of Dallas — said the death toll there stood at four. It is heartbreaking and upsetting to say the least,” Mayor Lou Ann Everett told journalists Sunday.

A spokeswoman for the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management told AFP severe weather had caused at least five fatalities in that state. The Mississippi Emergency Management Agency had confirmed two deaths, one of them a child who was killed by electric shock in floodwater.

Heavy rains also lashed the Midwestern state of Missouri, with at least two reported casualties. According to CNN one of those killed was a 72-year-old woman who was stranded in her car as it was swept away by floodwaters.

In Tennessee, a two-year-old girl was pronounced dead at a hospital in Nashville after she was struck by a heavy metal soccer goal blown over by heavy winds, according to the city’s police department. As of late Sunday the NWS was projecting major flooding to continue in parts of eastern Oklahoma, northern Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois and Indiana.

Authorities warned that severe storms potentially packing heavy winds, large hail and tornadoes could hit parts of the mid-Atlantic and northeastern US by Monday afternoon.

Source: AFP

Syria says it is negotiating with Russia to buy state-of-the-art Russian missile defense systems to help defend the Arab country against Israeli and American aggression. President Bashar al-Assad made the remarks to Venezuelan channel Telesur. A transcript of the interview appeared on the official Syrian Arab News Agency on Thursday.

“It’s natural that we should have such systems,” said the Syrian leader. “Israel has been committing aggression on the Arab states surrounding it since its creation in 1948,”he said. He made the comments Israel struck an area near the International Airport in the Syrian capital, Damascus.

Tel Aviv has conducted many such attacks in the past. The forays, however, have increased in number since the outbreak of the foreign-backed militancy in the Arab country in 2011. On March 18, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu surprisingly admitted to a series of the attacks by the regime, which had hit several targets near the ancient city of Palmyra in the central part of the Arab country the previous day.

He said the attacks had been aimed at targets belonging to the Lebanese resistance movement of Hezbollah, and said Israel would continue hitting the group. Hezbollah has been efficiently assisting Damascus in its anti-terror struggle.

Assad also said, “It is natural for us to negotiate with the Russians now with a view to strengthening (our) systems, whether to face any Israeli threats from the air or the threats of American missiles.” “That has become a real possibility after the recent American aggression on al-Shayrat airbase in Syria,” he added.

The US attack southeast of the western Syria city of Homs in early April saw a barrage of 59 Tomahawk missiles launched against the Shayrat Airfield in the western Syrian province of Homs, causing some 15 fatalities, including civilians. Russia’s military said a day after the attack that Syria’s air defenses would be boosted.

“To protect Syria’s most sensitive infrastructure, a complex of measures will be implemented in the near future to strengthen and improve the effectiveness of the Syrian armed forces’ air defense system,”  said spokesman Igor Konashenkov.

Last Saturday too, Viktor Ozerov, the chairman of the defense committee in the Federation Council, said Moscow would not hesitate to supply Damascus with the air defense missile systems it needs to protect war-ravaged Syria against any future foreign military aggression once a bilateral agreement is reached.

Culled from Presstv

The military court in Yaoundé has sentenced to ten (10) years in prison, the Radio France International Hausa language correspondent in Cameroon. Ahmed Abba, a correspondent for the Africa section of the French State’s international radio media was also ordered to pay the sum of 55 million FCFA by the Yaoundé military court.

The Biya Francophone regime claimed to have arrested him at the end of July 2015 in possession of several identity cards, Ahmed Abba was prosecuted for “complicity in terrorist acts and not for terrorist acts” in a trial, which opened in February 2016, lasted more than a year.

The state prosecutor introduced Ahmed Abba as an accomplice of the Nigerian Islamic sect, Boko Haram in Cameroonian territory. These accusations have always been rejected by our colleague whose employer RFI, via a communiqué sent its dismayed over the court decision.

By Eyong Johnson

The commander of the US Africa Command cites fight with Somalia’s piracy during a visit by the Pentagon chief. US Marine General Thomas Waldhauser made the remarks alongside Defense Secretary Jim Mattis during a press conference in Djibouti, a tiny African country at the southern entrance to the Red Sea, which makes it ideal for US military operations in Somalia as well as Yemen.

Waldhauser made the comments amid reports of an increase in piracy attacks off the coast of Somalia, considered an international threat since the early 2000s. “The bottom line is there have been a half dozen or so (incidents),” Waldhauser.”We’re not ready to say there is a trend there yet but we’ll continue to watch.”

Two ships have been captured this month and a third rescued by Indian and Chinese forces. The attacks peaked to 237 in 2011 but decreased afterwards. Famine and drought in the region is behind the alleged new rise in the attacks, according to the US Africa Command chief.

Over 20 million people from Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen are at risk of death from starvation, according to UN World Food Program. The Pentagon chief said, however, that he did not expect the US forces to respond to piracy rise off the coast of Somalia.

Source: Presstv

The Special Representative of the UN Secretary General has reacted to the Biya decision to order the restoration of internet in Southern Cameroons. A statement from the United Nations Regional Office for Central Africa (UNOCA) said Mr. François Louncény Fall, has learnt of the decision by the 84 year old dictator instructing that internet services be fully restored in West Cameroon.

The Special Representative welcomed the measure and hope that the decision will go a long way to help reduce tension and to create conditions conducive for the resolution of the Anglophone crisis.

The Head of UNOCA called on the Biya Francophone government to continue to promote appeasement and dialogue, and to take all other appropriate measures for a speedy and lasting resolution of the crisis in order to strengthen unity, stability and prosperity in the region.

By Fru James

Cameroon Concord News Group

Former US President George H.W. Bush has been re-admitted to a hospital in Houston, Texas, for a recurrence of a case of pneumonia. Bush, 92, has been at the Methodist Hospital since Friday, his spokesman Jim McGrath said in a statement on Tuesday.

A source close to Bush said he will probably be kept at the hospital for several more days for medical observation. Bush has suffered from poor health in recent years. In January, he spent 16 days at the same hospital in Houston being treated for pneumonia. During that time, he was on a ventilator and was in ICU.

He was also hospitalized in 2015 after falling at his summer home in Kennebunkport, Maine, and breaking a bone in his neck. In 2014, he was hospitalized in Houston for about a week for shortness of breath. He also spent Christmas 2012 in intensive care for a bronchitis-related cough and other issues. Bush has a form of Parkinson’s disease and uses a motorized scooter or a wheelchair for mobility.

The 41st president is also referred to as “Bush 41”, “Bush the Elder” and “George Bush Senior” to distinguish him from his eldest son, George W. Bush, who became the 43rd US president. Bush served as US president from 1989 to 1993, and was vice president from 1981 to 1989 during the 8-year administration of former President Ronald Reagan.

Presstv