Politics

8, September 2018

Angola’s former president steps down as party chief after 4-decade rule ⁰

Angola’s former President Jose Eduardo dos Santos has handed his position as the leader of the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (PMLA) party to incumbent President Joao Lourenco after more than four decades of political rule.

Dos Santos handed the PMLA leading position to Lourenco in an official ceremony at the party headquarters in the Angolan capital of Luanda on Saturday.

The 76-year-old veteran politician marked the ceremony by addressing the crowd, “Today, with my head up, I leave and pass on the baton to comrade Joao Lourenco,” marking the two men’s long-lived party affiliation.

The PMLA was born fighting against the Portuguese colonial rule over the country, gaining Angolan independence in 1975. The party dominated the Angolan political scene ever since, defeating other rival anti-colonial parties over the course of a bloody and prolonged civil war that lasted for over 26 years.

President Lourenco had served as defense minister under dos Santos’ presidency.

The announcement of dos Santos stepping down as party leader was not unprecedented. The former president had declared his intent to do so many times before, ultimately declaring in 2016 that he would resign in two years.

After dos Santos’ presidential tenure ended in 2017, the PMLA chief handpicked Lourenco as president, ending speculation on his successor. Many observers had speculated that the outgoing president was seeking to appoint a puppet, one that would preserve the lucrative business and political monopoly dos Santos had built up for his family.

The incumbent president has, however, shown himself as an independent leader, depriving many of the previous president’s affiliates of their positions, hoping to stifle corruption and ensure economic stability for foreign investors.

“Lourenco is already entirely autonomous as shown by his sacking of the dos Santos children, all of the country’s sectors have been purged,” said Benjamin Auge, an analyst with the French Institute for International Relations.

The firing of the former president’s daughter Isabel dos Santos from heading the state-owned oil company Sonangol by Lourenco is among the most important instances of the new president reining in on dos Santos’ economic monopoly.

The dos Santos resignation as PMLA leader signals a smooth handover of power in the country, leaving Lourenco in full power of state institutions.

Angola, a member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), is Africa’s second largest oil exporter after Nigeria. The country’s economy fell into recession in 2016 with the unemployment rate reaching 25 percent. Despite being one of Africa’s richest states per capita, Angola remains one of the world’s most unequal countries with much of its population living in poverty.

Source: Presstv

8, September 2018

Obama attacks Trump, Republicans over ‘abuses of power’ ⁰

Former US President Barack Obama has assailed his successor Donald Trump and Republican lawmakers ahead of the upcoming mid-term congressional elections, urging Democrats to curtail the administration’s “abuses of power” and restore a sense of sanity to US politics by voting in November.

In an unusually blistering attack on Trump, Obama said Friday that Americans were living in dangerous times and accused the president and other Republicans of threatening US democracy, dividing the country and undermining Washington’s global alliances.

“In two months we have the chance, not the certainty, but the chance to restore some semblance of sanity to our politics,” he said in a speech at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “There is actually only one check on bad policy and abuses of power, and that’s you and your vote.”

Obama also mocked Trump for taking credit for the recent economic growth that began under Obama’s administration, and said Trump was exploiting economic anger and cultural fears that have grown in recent years amid societal upheavals.

“In the end, the threat to our democracy doesn’t just come from Donald Trump or the current batch of Republicans in Congress,” he said. “The biggest threat to our democracy is indifference. The biggest threat to our democracy is cynicism.”

Trump was dismissive of Obama’s speech. “I’m sorry, I watched it but I fell asleep,” he said during a fundraiser in Fargo, North Dakota. “I found that he’s very, very good for sleeping.”

Other Republicans also shrugged off Obama’s criticism. “In 2016, voters rejected President Obama’s policies and his dismissiveness towards half the country. Doubling down on that strategy won’t work in 2018 either,” said Republican National Committee spokesman Michael Ahrens.

Both major political parties are urging their supporters to vote in the November 6 midterm elections, when Democrats need to gain 23 seats in the House of Representatives and two seats in the Senate to gain majorities in both chambers of Congress and frustrate Trump’s agenda.

The November elections have been seen as a referendum on Trump, who faces a widening federal investigation over alleged Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election and growing questions about his fitness for office, even by some within his own administration.

The White House has been shaken by an explosive, anonymous article on The New York Times that has plunged Trump’s presidency into its worst crisis yet.

The unsigned article published Wednesday, claimed that senior US officials were quietly working within the Trump administration to frustrate the president’s “worst inclinations.”

Trump has slammed the “gutless coward” who wrote the article and suggested he might take action against the newspaper.

6, September 2018

Trump staff says US officials working against ‘amoral’ president ⁰

Many senior members of US President Donald Trump’s administration are so alarmed by his “erratic” and “amoral” behavior that they are actively working to undermine him and protect the country from his worst impulses, according to an anonymous “senior official” in the White House.

“President Trump is facing a test to his presidency unlike any faced by a modern American leader,” the official wrote in The New York Times Wednesday.

“The dilemma — which he does not fully grasp — is that many of the senior officials in his own administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations,” the official wrote in an op-ed article entitled “I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration.”

“The root of the problem is the president’s amorality,” the official said.

In the piece, the official described “early whispers” among members of Trump’s cabinet to take steps to remove him as president, but added they decided against it to avoid a constitutional crisis.

The official wrote that the root of the problem was that Trump is amoral and not moored to any discernible principles that guide his decision-making.

Asked about the column during a White House event, Trump called it a “gutless editorial,” bashed the New York Times as “failing,” and ticked off economic achievements that he said were proof of his leadership.

The unsigned piece appeared to reinforce the claims made in a new book by journalist Bob Woodward, excerpts of which were made public Tuesday, that describes a virtual cabal of high-minded White House and cabinet officials scheming to prevent Trump from taking decisions damaging to the US economy and national security.

The Washington Post, which obtained an advance copy of the book by the veteran chronicler of modern presidents, reported Tuesday that Woodward describes Trump manically pressing his staff for actions that could lead to major conflict — leaving them little choice but to disregard his orders.

The White House has condemned Woodward’s book as “nothing more than fabricated stories,” and Trump called it “a work of fiction.”

But the Times op-ed suggests that dissent and resistance inside Trump’s White House are even deeper than Woodward described.

5, September 2018

Chaos engulfs Senate hearing for Trump’s Supreme Court pick Kavanaugh ⁰

The US Senate confirmation hearing for Brett Kavanaugh, President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court pick, has turned into utter chaos as angry protests erupted and Democrats criticized Republicans for withholding documents about Kavanaugh’s past service at the White House.

It took the nominee over seven hours to be able to deliver his opening statement during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday as shouting protesters were arrested in droves.

US Capitol Police arrest a protestor during the US Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing for Judge Brett Kavanaugh to be an Associate Justice on the US Supreme Court, on Capitol Hill, in Washington, DC, September 4, 2018. (Photo by AFP)

According to US Capitol police, 61 protesters were removed from the room and charged with disorderly conduct, along with nine more outside the hearing. The protesters, mostly women, were shouting slogans like “This is a travesty of justice”, “Our democracy is broken” and “Vote no on Kavanaugh.”

Meanwhile, Democratic senators repeatedly interrupted the committee’s Republican chairman Chuck Grassley at the outset of the hearing, quickly turning the session into a ruckus.

They condemned the withholding of the documents and tried to have the proceedings adjourned, as Grassley struggled to maintain order.

Democratic Senator Cory Booker said the withholding of the documents has left lawmakers unable to properly vet Kavanaugh.

Protesters hold up signs during a rally near Capitol Hill against the confirmation hearing for Judge Brett Kavanaugh to be an Associate Justice on the US Supreme Court in Washington, DC, on September 4, 2018. (Photo by AFP)

“We cannot possibly move forward. We have not had an opportunity to have a meaningful hearing,” Democratic Senator Kamala Harris said.

“This is the first confirmation for a Supreme Court justice I’ve seen, basically, according to mob rule,” Republican Senator John Cornyn said, a characterization Democrats rejected.

In response, Democratic Senator Dick Durbin said, “What we’ve heard is the noise of democracy.”

Grassley described the Democrats’ request to halt the hearing “out of order,” accusing them of obstruction.

Republicans, who hold a slim Senate majority, can confirm 53-year-old Kavanaugh if they stay united. There were no signs of Republican defections.

If confirmed, Kavanaugh is expected to move the court, with an already conservative majority, further to the right. Senate Democratic leaders, however, have pledged a fierce fight to try to block his confirmation.

On Twitter, Trump reacted angrily, saying the hearing was “truly a display of how mean, angry and despicable the other side is.”

He accused Democrats of “looking to inflict pain and embarrassment” on Kavanaugh.

Source: Presstv

4, September 2018

Biya should NOT bid for a 7th term ⁰

The African Union Commission should for Africa’s sake; its dignity and self-respect do everything to stop President Paul Biya of Cameroon from his intended extension of his autocratic rule in October. The idea of a seventh term for Biya, another seven-year tenure, is abominable, tyrannical and reflects the helplessness of the people of Cameroon in the face of this tyrant to whom nothing else counts than power. It is obvious he has lost all regard for his people, so he can foist on them his medieval kind of rule.

Paul Biya is 85 years old. He came to power in 1982 when his predecessor, Ahmadou Ahidjo, who had been president since Independence in 1960, eventually decided to quit owing to failing health. When Ahidjo left, he extorted from the people of Cameroon incredible, scandalous rewards which shocked the world’s diplomatic and intelligence circles at the time.

Cameroonians had thought that Ahidjo stayed too long. If President Biya awards himself a 7th term, he would have spent nearly double the tenure of Ahidjo. He would have nearly matched Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi’s 44 years. He would have been in power for 43 years, nearly one half of a century.

It is of little use enlisting the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) to help dissuade President Biya from seeking a 7th term. The 11 countries seem to have a disdain for term limits. Central Africa holds the world’s largest collection of gerontocrats. Their attitude to democracy encourages men like Paul Biya. Jose Eduardo dos Santos, for instance, quit being President of Angola last year. He ruled the country for 38 years and left his two children controlling the commanding heights of the Angolan economy. His daughter, Isabel dos Santos, is the undisputed richest woman in Africa. Hundreds of Burundians had been killed and hundreds of thousands had fled the country in the last three years because of President Nkurunziza’s determination to serve a third term in office contrary to the constitution. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, it took the Catholic Church many months of protests from the pulpit and in the streets to persuade President Joseph Kabila to reconsider his ambition to seek a third term in office.

We do not know what else actuates President Biya to seek a seventh term other than ambition. He is a man with precarious health, which necessitates his taking regular trips abroad for treatment, so frequently that he is sometimes referred to as the “absentee president.” People close to him say he suffers from prostate cancer in addition to heart ailments. It is said that in the years 2006 and 2009, he spent one third of the years abroad.

There can be no doubt that the current political upheavals in Cameroon were the result of the misrule of President Biya. The Northwest and the Southwest Anglophone provinces eventually declared the sovereign state of Ambazonia because President Biya was unable to administer those territories with fairness and justice and, worse, he failed to persuade the secessionists to see a rosy future in Cameroon as presently constituted. Indeed, one of their conditions for a peaceful negotiation of the crisis is that Mr. Biya must quit office. President Biya, apparently in defiance of the agitators, is seeking a 7th term.

The Nigerian government must review its policy toward Cameroon to take into consideration Biya’s extended stay which now constitutes part of the problem and his high-handed tactics in dealing with the agitators, which complicates the resolution of the conflict. The surrender of the leaders of the Ambazonia state, who were taking refuge in Nigeria, to the Biya government by Nigeria is a poor policy choice, which has turned tragic in its consequences. Our good neighbourly policy has always been good as a strategic position, but the crisis in Cameroon is the kind Nigeria ought to be able to mediate successfully before it degenerates.

We appeal to the international community to persuade Paul Biya not to seek a 7th term because it would inflame the delicate situation in the country and make a resolution more difficult. The teeming thousands of Cameroonians in Cross River State, in Benue and Taraba States have overwhelmed those Nigerian states already. And that is just a tip of the iceberg. If a civil war actually breaks out, and all the auguries are present, we think it is a lot cheaper to persuade President Biya to handover to a younger generation of leaders capable of dousing the flames than to risk a civil war which Biya’s 7th term would certainly provoke.

Culled from The Sunnews online

4, September 2018

Congo’s Top Court Excludes Opposition Leader Bemba From Presidential Election ⁰

Democratic Republic of Congo’s top court on Monday definitively excluded opposition leader Jean-Pierre Bemba from December’s presidential election because of a witness tampering conviction at the International Criminal Court.

Bemba, a popular former vice president, was tipped as one of the leading candidates to replace outgoing President Joseph Kabila. His exclusion from the race could spark a violent reaction by his supporters.

His defeat to Kabila in the 2006 election touched off deadly clashes in the capital Kinshasa between his supporters and state troops. He then spent a decade in prison in The Hague before his war crimes convictions for murders and rapes committed by his militia in Central African Republic were quashed in May.

In a judgment broadcast on national television, the constitutional court said the election commission had rightly invalidated Bemba’s candidacy last month, finding that witness tampering is a form of corruption as stipulated in the electoral law.

The Dec. 23 election is due to usher in Congo’s first democratic transition of power after Kabila agreed last month to respect constitutional term limits and step aside in favor of close loyalist Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary’s candidacy.

That announcement has calmed tensions that exploded into deadly street protests when Kabila refused to step aside at the end of his constitutional mandate in December 2016.

But fears persist of further violence with Kabila’s opponents accusing him of trying to rig the vote to ensure Ramazani’s victory.

“Congo has fallen very low!” the secretary-general of Bemba’s MLC party wrote on Twitter after the judgment.

Kabila’s camp denies that it is improperly trying to influence the election.

Besides Bemba, opposition leader Moise Katumbi was barred from re-entering Congo last month to register his candidacy after two years in exile.

Katumbi placed joint first in a rare public opinion poll in July with 19 percent of the vote. Another opposition leader, Felix Tshisekedi, also received 19 percent, while Bemba placed third with 17 percent.

Ramazani did not receive enough votes to be included in the results.

The constitutional court also on Monday upheld the invalidation of former prime minister Adolphe Muzito’s candidacy but reinstated another former prime minister Samy Badibanga as a candidate.

Reuters

4, September 2018

Trump blasts Jeff Sessions for undermining Republicans ⁰

US President Donald Trump has taken yet another swipe at his Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who heads the powerful Justice Department, for not blocking two damaging investigations that undermined two Republican candidates ahead of the mid-term congressional elections.

On August 8, Representative Christopher Collins, who was the first member of Congress to endorse Donald Trump for president, was indicted for alleged insider trading, wire fraud, conspiracy and lying to the FBI.

According to the indictment, the New York lawmaker was allegedly involved to a scheme to gain insider information about Innate Immunotherapeutics Limited, a biotechnology company headquartered in Sydney, Australia.

His son, Cameron Collins, and the father of his son’s fiancée, Stephen Zarsky, were also arrested on the same charges. Two weeks later, Representative Duncan Hunter and his wife were indicted by a federal grand jury for spending some $250,000 of campaign funds for family vacations and other personal expenses over a period of seven years.

Just like Collins, the San Diego Republican has remained defiant in face of the charges, accusing prosecutors of having political motives. Both Collins and Hunter are campaigning for re-election in November.

The Trump team is worried that the indictments would help Democrats to score a decisive victory in the House of Representatives and launch their much-anticipated attempt to impeach the Republican president.

This is not the first time that Trump is lashing out at Sessions. The president has regularly taken jabs at Sessions for recusing himself from overseeing a high-profile probe into the Trump campaign’s ties with Russia, which allowed DOJ’s Special Counsel Robert Mueller to dig deep into in the hope of finding any hints of a possible “collusion.”

In late August, Sessions finally hit back at his boss, saying he will not allow political pressure to influence the work being done at the department.

2, September 2018

British PM Theresa May says she will not ‘compromise’ on Brexit deal ⁰

British Prime Minister Theresa May said she would not compromise with Brussels over her plans for Brexit as a media report said rivals in her party were set to publish their own proposal calling for a cleaner break with the European Union.

With under two months before Britain and the EU want to agree a deal to end over 40 years of union, May is struggling to sell what she calls her business-friendly Brexit to her own party and across a divided country.

The EU has tentatively welcomed what has become known as the Chequers plan which is designed to protect cross-border trade, but difficult negotiations lie ahead. “I will not be pushed into accepting compromises on the Chequers proposals that are not in our national interest,” May wrote in the Sunday Telegraph newspaper.

“The coming months will be critical in shaping the future of our country and I am clear about my mission.”

The plan would keep Britain in a free trade zone with the EU for manufactured and agricultural goods. But some Brexit supporters have said that would mean parts of the British economy would still be subject to rules set in Brussels.

Two of May’s most senior lawmakers – Boris Johnson and David Davis – quit as foreign secretary and Brexit secretary respectively in July in protest at May’s plan, saying it did not go far enough and would let down the millions of people who voted to leave the EU in the 2016 referendum.

According to a report in the Sunday Times newspaper, leading Brexiteer lawmakers in May’s party are ready to publish their own plan for Brexit ahead of the party’s annual conference which begins at the end of September.

That would be designed to heap pressure on May who needs to get any deal with Brussels through parliamentary votes in Westminster before Britain is due to leave the EU on March 29 next year. May reiterated that Britain would be ready to leave the EU without a deal if the two sides cannot agree on the divorce terms.

(REUTERS)

1, September 2018

Trump slams poll finding support for his impeachment ⁰

US President Donald Trump has shrugged off the findings of a new poll that shows nearly half of Americans now support his impeachment.

Trump questioned the accuracy of the ABC News/Washington Post poll in a tweet without mentioning the survey’s latest finding on the question of impeachment.

“The ABC/Washington Post Poll was by far the least accurate one 2 weeks out from the 2016 Election,” he posted on Twitter Friday evening.

“I call it a suppression poll – but by Election Day they brought us, out of shame, to about even. They will never learn!”

The survey, released on Friday, has found that 49 percent of Americans believe Congress should begin impeachment proceedings against Trump. That is more than the percentage of voters – 46 percent — who do not support impeachment.

The poll also showed that 60 percent of voters disapprove of the job Trump is doing as president, a new low.

In the previous ABC News/Washington Post poll in April, Trump’s approval rating stood at 40 percent and his disapproval rating was 56 percent.

Several Democratic Party lawmakers have publicly supported bringing impeachment proceedings against Trump since his longtime attorney Michael Cohen pleaded guilty last week to charges of bank fraud, tax fraud and violations of election campaign finance laws.

Cohen’s campaign finance law violations stem from hush money payments the lawyer arranged during the 2016 US presidential campaign to women who allegedly had affairs with Trump. Trump is also under growing pressure after a guilty verdict for his former campaign manager Paul Manafort.

The Republican president has been dismissive of congressional efforts to impeach him. In an White House interview with Bloomberg News on Thursday, Trump argued that Dmeocrats would not be able to impeach him because he is “doing a great job.”

“I don’t think they can impeach somebody that’s doing a great job. You look at the economy, you look at jobs, you look at foreign, what’s going on with other countries. You look at trade deals. I’m doing a great job,” he said.

Trump had previously made a similar argument in an interview with Fox News. He has also said that the market would crash and Americans would be “very poor” if he were to be impeached.

Vice President Pence acknowledged that Democrats would l try to impeach President Trump if they regain the House of Representatives in November’s midterm elections.

“They’re all talking about it, and so I take them at their word, even though some of them have decided to not talk about that quite so much,” Pence told the Christian Broadcasting Network in an interview published Wednesday.

Source: Presstv

1, September 2018

Barrister Akere Muna says ‘We have a corrupt system’ in Cameroon ⁰

The lawyer and chairman of the International Anti-Corruption Conference council says it is time for a change of government and that there must be a zero tolerance policy towards corruption.

Cameroonian lawyer Akere Muna (picture-alliance/dpa/MAXPPP/J. P. Kepseu)

On October 18, Cameroonians will head to the polls to vote in the first presidential election since 2011. Lawyer Akere Muna wants to see an end to the 36-year-rule of incumbent President Paul Biya, He spoke to DW about his desire to bring to an end rampant corruption with which he says the present government is riddled.

DW: What makes you so sure you can become the president of Cameroon?

Akere Muna: Because I think I know what irks this country. I know the misery they’re in. I know that this is a country where 40 percent of the people are below the poverty line. I know what’s been happening in the north and south-west — because I’m from there. I know exactly what it is to be an Anglophone in this country. But I’m saying that we don’t want to change the country, we want to change the government. And that’s my message. We have a huge governance problem linked to corruption and all that goes with it for the past 25 years.

But if the system remains as it is, how will you become president?

Under my government, there will be zero tolerance for corruption. Absolutely zero tolerance. This country is tailor made for any kind of corrupt practice. The World Bank report on public expenses in Cameroon says so. The report says that Cameroonian civil servants don’t live off their salaries. They live from a system where they have put toll gates everywhere and they collect money. So we have a corrupt system that must be fixed.

How will you fix it if the system is so corrupt?

The system is well implanted because the government’s system of fighting corruption is to expect the fish to fry themselves. It doesn’t work. You cannot get people who are thieves to watch over thieves. Cameroon has been ‘zombiefied’. Cameroonians arrest a minister and he produces 1.7 billion CFA (€2,6 million, $2.9 million). Nobody is scandalized. We have all been zombiefied to the point where we are numb. We think everything is normal. That is the saddest fact. Government action should be to benefit Cameroonians, not to punish them, not to allow them to languish in misery.

Your critics think that you are talking a lot but you could have done more because you have worked in organizations outside Cameroon where you could have helped Cameroonians.

The first thing I did when I decided to work for Cameroon was to start the chapter of Transparency International. You know what it cost me? I was styled as [a member of] the opposition, somebody who was not patriotic and the clients from abroad who came to work with me were told that I was an opposition lawyer and they left. I lost 80 percent of my work because of that. When I was the head of the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) I pushed for us to start the process; we are members since 2004, founding members, but we hadn’t even started the first stage of the review process. It has to do only with governance. So what do you want me to do? We have a government which closes its eyes so it cannot hear and closes its ears so it cannot see. And that’s a crazy way to behave.

What about all the money that is stashed in foreign banks. If you are elected president, how will you go about getting this money back?

For the past five years I have been in a committee chaired by Thabo Mbeki on illicit financial flows. And I made a proposal which was adopted by the heads of state of the African Union (AU). I proposed that all the money which is found in foreign banks which is frozen should be transferred to the African Development Bank (AfDB). Because those banks that are keeping that money are complicit with the kleptocrats who stole the money from Africa, because they knew that they would take this money illegally and they took it. So they’re handling stolen goods. So my proposal was that we should fight to ensure that all that money is put into a holding account so that when they decide whose money it is, it is sent back. That was my proposal and the AU adopted it. In this country, I did everything wi th Transparency International for us to have a framework law that covers everything about corruption so we can fight corruption with the law. All they did was make a court, but the law is still not clear in different areas. CONAC (Cameroon’s National Anti-Corruption Commission) should be more powerful and be able to investigate and prosecute. They cannot just write a report to the presidency, which gives a political twist to the process.

So what is your mission and objective?

Government action must have the interests of the people at its heart. In this country we must have justice for all, health for all and education for all.

Akere Muna is a Cameroonian lawyer and the current chairman of the International Anti-Corruption Conference council

Culled from DeutcheWelle