South African lawmakers formally named wealthy former businessman Cyril Ramaphosa as new president Thursday after scandal-tainted Jacob Zuma resigned under intense pressure from his own party.

Ramaphosa, the only candidate, was approved without a vote by the parliament in Cape Town, chief justice Mogoeng Mogoeng told assembled lawmakers to loud cheers.

Zuma announced his resignation late Wednesday, and aimed barbs at the African National Congress (ANC) party for vowing to oust him via a no-confidence vote in parliament.

In a 30-minute televised address, Zuma said he had “come to the decision to resign as president of the republic with immediate effect”.

“I have only asked my party to articulate my transgressions and the reason for its immediate instruction that I vacate office,” he said.

Zuma, 75, had been embroiled in a divisive power struggle with Ramaphosa, the deputy president.

Ramaphosa won control of the ANC when he was elected as its head in December.

Benchmark South African stocks scored their biggest gains since June 2016 after news that a pro-business reformist would be taking the helm.

The FTSE/JSE Africa All Share Index rose as much as 2.7 percent, while the rand reached its strongest level since February 2015, gaining 0.5 percent at 11.6570 to the dollar in early trade.

Zuma said in a TV interview earlier Wednesday that he had received “very unfair” treatment from the party he joined in 1959 and in which he had fought for decades against apartheid white-minority rule.

He said he was angered over “the manner in which the decision is being implemented… I don’t agree, as there is no evidence of if I have done anything wrong.”

‘We are not celebrating’

The party’s national executive committee had ordered Zuma’s recall from office on Tuesday, after a 13-hour meeting at a hotel outside Pretoria, but he at first refused.

ANC officials then said that if Zuma did not resign, the party’s lawmakers in the Cape Town parliament would vote him out on Thursday.

But, after the resignation, party deputy secretary general Jesse Duarte cautioned: “We are not celebrating.”

“We have had to recall a cadre of the movement that has served this organisation for over 60 years, it’s not a small matter.”

Zuma, who had no formal education, was jailed on Robben Island for 10 years alongside Nelson Mandela under apartheid and rose through the ranks of the ANC to take power in 2009.

But his rule was dominated by graft scandals, economic slowdown and falling popularity for the celebrated liberation party.

In a day of high drama, police early Wednesday raided the Johannesburg home of the Gupta business family, which is accused of overseeing a web of corruption in Zuma’s government.

Police said three unidentified people had been arrested in investigations into “Vrede Farm” — allegations that millions of dollars of public money meant for poor dairy farmers was siphoned off by the Guptas.

Local media reported that Zuma had been pushing for a resignation deal that included his legal fees to fight multiple criminal charges — but he denied the allegations in his resignation speech.

One case against him relates to 783 payments he allegedly received linked to an arms deal before he came to power.

Other graft allegations have centered on the three Gupta brothers, who are accused of unfairly obtaining lucrative government contracts and even hand-picking Zuma’s ministerial appointments.

The political standoff in recent weeks plunged South Africa — the continent’s most developed economy — into confusion over who was running the country, with last Thursday’s annual State of the Nation address cancelled at the last-minute.

Instead, Ramaphosa is to deliver the State of the Nation on Friday.

 Decline of Mandela’s party

Zuma, a Zulu traditionalist with four wives and a proud singing voice, had been scheduled to stand down next year after serving the maximum two terms.

In local polls in 2016, the ANC recorded its worst electoral result since coming to power in 1994 with Mandela at the helm as white-minority rule fell.

Ramaphosa, 65, must revive the economy and crack down on what he has admitted is rampant government corruption if he is to boost the party’s tarnished reputation before a tricky general election next year.

He is a former trade unionist and Mandela ally who led talks to end apartheid in the early 1990s and then became a hugely wealthy businessman before returning to politics.

Zuma’s hold over the ANC was broken in December when his chosen successor — his former wife Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma — narrowly lost to Ramaphosa in a vote for the new party leader.

South Africa’s new president vows to tackle corruption

Ramaphosa, on Thursday, used his first speech in office to vow to fight government corruption, in a direct reference to accusations leveled against his predecessor Jacob Zuma.

“Issues to do with corruption, issues of how we can straighten out our state-owned enterprises and how we deal with ‘state capture’ are issues that are on our radar screen,” he told lawmakers in parliament.

“Those are issues we are going to be addressing and tomorrow we will also have an opportunity to outline some of the steps we are going to be taking,” said Ramaphosa, who got a standing ovation at the end of the speech.

“State capture” refers to alleged corruption of state institutions and state-owned businesses by private individuals seeking illegal profits.

(Source: AFP)

US President Donald Trump’s presidency is a “tragedy,” says former Vice president Joe Biden, accusing the Republican head of state of “shredding” America’s core values.

“I look at the Trump presidency as a tragedy in two acts,” Biden said last week, addressing the House Democrats Issues Conference at the US Capitol, Newsweek reported Monday night.

“The first is to what we stand for as a nation, with the core values and our standing in the world and in many cases, the democracy,” he argued.

The second act of Trump’s presidency, according to Biden, was his behavior that kept members of the US Congress from doing their job.

“This president is doing great damage,” Biden added. “We are so concerned with stopping the attack, as we should be, on American values, on our principles, that we’re having great trouble getting to the point of doing the real work of restoring the middle class and the working class.”

The former VP,  who served under President Barack Obama and is said to be one of the Democratic Party’s hopefuls to confront Trump in the 2020 race for the White House, called on Trump to stop acting like “the neighborhood bully” by using insulting words to refer to others.

Trump has stirred controversy by calling  top Democratic Senator Adam Schiff as “little Adam Schiff” and attacking North Korean leader Kim Jong-un as a “short and fat madman.”

Biden also blasted the president for mixing his act with an “ugly and phony populism” that was putting the “moral fabric” of American society to the test.

“You know what that fabric’s made of. It’s made of decency. Just simple honesty; just the notion that dignity and respect… treat your opponent as well as your friend with respect,” Biden said.

Biden said he had decided not to publicly criticize Trump but could no longer keep quiet after the president’s handling of violent clashes between white supremacists and counter protesters in Charlottesville, last August.

Trump blamed both sides for the violence, which killed a young woman and injured several others.

Back in November, Biden took another shot at Trump, this time calling him a “charlatan” for taking advantage of frustrated middle class voters.

Source: Presstv

Cameroon President Paul Biya has addressed his countrymen, saying tensions in the English-speaking regions that began more than a year ago have abated. Biya also congratulated his military for successfully curbing Boko Haram atrocities.

Cameroon President Paul Biya, in a nationwide message, thanked the country’s youth, saying they have been instrumental in bringing peace and order along the northern border with Nigeria, where Boko Haram has been active, and in the English speaking northwest and southwest regions where complaints by teachers and lawyers about the overbearing influence of the French language degenerated into separatists calls for independence that resulted in armed conflicts with the Cameroon military.

“The situation in the southwest and the northwest is stabilizing. Indeed, the characteristic resilience of the Cameroonian people deserves to be hailed once again. Allow me once again to underscore the heroism of our defense and security forces, mostly young people,” he said.

In his speech, Biya urged Cameroon’s to youth prepare for the decades ahead, when they will be leaders. He said they need to be up for the task and acquire the necessary skills and experience.

Biya acknowledged that economic growth had slowed due to outside factors, but said he would forge ahead in various sectors of development. He said 2018 will mark the completion of his major road and hydro power development projects.

Cabral Libii, a 38-year-old Cameroonian who has announced his intention to run for president and challenge Biya this year, said he had expected Biya to call for reconciliation to solve the long-standing problems his country has been facing but feels that Biya instead gave an impression all was well and launched his campaign for this year’s presidential election.

Libii said Cameroonian youth only have residual roles to play in Cameroon politics and at the same time they face rising unemployment, a questionable education system, and an underperforming health care system. He said a majority of young people are in despair and suffocating under Biya’s regime, which does not want to leave power. Libii said the youth should be ready to sacrifice to stop Biya’s long hold on power.

Cameroon has been enveloped by the Boko Haram insurgency that has claimed thousands of lives on its northern border with Nigeria, displaced hundreds of thousands of people, and pushed 80,000 Nigerian refugees into its territory.

The central African state also is affected by the crisis in neighboring Central African Republic, with regular attacks and kidnappings for ransom in its territory. And, recently, the crisis in the English-speaking regions of the country have led to hundreds of people, including 23 policemen and soldiers, being killed.

In spite of the continuing threats from Boko Haram and the English speaking separatists which opposition political parties say may hamper the organization of elections, the 85-year-old president, who has served for 35 years, insisted that elections will be held this year since peace is returning. Biya has said party supporters have urged him to run again.

“2018 will be an important election year and all youths aged 20 years and above should be able to — or rather should — exercise their right to vote because by voting, they will be performing an act of responsible citizenship and, thus, participating in forging their destiny,” said Biya.

Source: VOA

In a major diplomatic overture to Seoul, North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, invites President Moon Jae-in of the South for a visit after senior officials of the two Koreas held rare top-level talks on the sidelines of Winter Olympics.

A spokesman for the presidential Blue House in Seoul said on Saturday that the invitation, delivered verbally by Kim’s visiting sister Kim Yo-jong, expressed the North Korean leader’s willing to meet Moon “at the earliest date possible.”

The South Korean president made a rare appearance in the North’s official media Saturday, with four pictures of him in the Rodong Sinmun state newspaper, AFP reported.

The announcement came after Moon hosted talks with high-ranking North Korean officials, including Kim Yong-nam, the North’s 90-year-old nominal head of state, and the younger sister of the North’s leader, along with other officials at the presidential Blue House in the South Korean capital of Seoul.

The talks, which took place after the opening ceremony of the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics in South Korea, mark the most significant diplomatic encounter between the two countries in years.

The elderly Kim is technically the highest-level Northern official ever to go to the South and the North Korean leader’s sister is the first member of the ruling Kim family to cross the border into the rival South since the end of the 1950 to 53 Korean War.

Bearing a smile, Moon shook hands with each of the delegates ahead of their talks at the presidential palace and as and television footage showed, the 28-year-old Kim was carrying a blue folder emblazoned with a seal.

The South Korean president and the delegation from the North had their first face-to-face encounter at the Olympics opening ceremony on Friday and they cheered as athletes from the two neighbors entered the arena and marched under a unified peninsula flag.

Seoul hopes to use the games as an opportunity to restore regular communication with Pyongyang and resolve the standoff over its missile and nuclear programs.

Moon’s efforts received a boost when Kim called for improved ties in his New Year’s Day speech.

A delegation of US officials led by Vice President Mike Pence also attended the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics in the South Korean city of Pyeongchang.

Pence, who was seated in the same box, had no interaction with the North Koreans at any point, according to US officials, and the VP did not shake hands with Kim Yong-nam while making a brief appearance at a leaders’ reception ahead of the ceremony.

North Korea’s official KCNA news agency had earlier cited a senior Foreign Ministry official as saying that Pyongyang had “no intention” of meeting with Washington’s officials during the Winter Olympic Games.

The two neighbors have been separated by a heavily-militarized border since the end of Korean War.

The situation on the Korean Peninsula has been tense due to Pyongyang’s development of its nuclear and missile programs, which the North views as a deterrent against potential foreign aggression by the South’s allies, particularly the US.

North Korea has been the target of harsh international sanctions for its military program.

The tensions have seen a sharp rise under US President Donald Trump, who initiated a war of words with the North Korean leader after taking office in January 2017.

Source: Presstv

For over thirty years, Cameroon has been ruled by the Betis, an ethnic group that is mainly found in the centre and south regions of the country and which only accounts for less than 10% of the country’s population. The country’s president, Paul Biya, who many suspect is dead, hails from the south region. Over the last three decades, Mr. Biya has used people from the Beti clan to consolidate his grip on power, something that has attracted a lot of flak from other ethnic groups in the country.

Out of thirty army generals in the country, eighteen are Beti while Anglophones who constitute more than 20% of the country’s population account for just two of the army generals. Out of thirty-four state-owned corporations, Betis head 21 of those corporations while one Anglophone is heading one of the state-own corporations.

Many ministries in Yaoundé are actually being run by Betis even when the minister is not from the Beti ethnic group. Each time a non-Beti is appointed as a minister; there is always a Beti to occupy the post of secretary-General with strict instructions to monitor the minister and his activities. This has given the people of the Centre and South regions a false sense that the country actually belongs to them and that even after Biya, they must continue to rule the country. Our source in Yaoundé pointed out that this is creating a lot of frustration in many ministries and people from other ethnic groups are scared to speak up as they could be dismissed from the civil service.

According to our source in Yaoundé, a Beti himself who disagrees with the way the country has been mismanaged over the last thirty years, the Betis feel that they must continue to govern the country for a long time. He added that since the seat of government is in Yaoundé, the Betis strongly think that they can always manipulate things so as to stay in power.

Their strong desire to head the country even after Biya’s departure has already been manifested a few times through some of their actions. In 1992 when the Social Democratic Front chairman, John Fru Ndi, won the presidential election, the Beti Mafia did all it could to grant the victory to Mr. Biya who has continued to run the country as his personal plantation. He has been using the institutions to his advantage and his method of choice has been the appointment of only those who are loyal to him, regardless of their ages.

Conscious of the fact that Mr. Biya might not be recovering from his illness, the Beti Mafia has resorted to faking Mr. Biya’s signature just to implement its hidden agenda. Over the last three weeks, there have been speculations about the whereabouts of Mr. Biya, who many hold is either bedridden or dead.

Yesterday’s establishment of the constitutional council and the appointment of its members have triggered a wave of speculation and controversy. The presidential decrees establishing the constitutional council provided for in the 1996 constitution and the appointment of members of the said council are in line with the grand scheme that the Beti Mafia has in mind.

It is therefore not an accident that Mr. Clement Atangana, a legal expert of Beti extraction, who has been on retirement for more than ten years, has been  appointed to head the constitutional council. The 77-year-old Atangana was a member of the constitutional court that looked into many election-related disputes in Cameroon since 1992 and he always rejected any appeals made by Cameroon’s opposition parties during his time at the constitutional court.

Mr. Atangana will be the only person who can declare that there is a vacancy at the presidency given his position as the head of the constitutional council; something he will not be doing anytime soon, as the Beti Mafia has him under its thumb.

The Mafia is preparing to keep the news about Mr. Biya’s deteriorating health under wraps until after the March 25 senatorial elections when the current senate president, Marcel Nyat Njifenji, will be out of the picture since his term will no longer be renewed and there are no plans for him to be reappointed by those who are in control of the country’s affairs. The Beti Mafia is hoping that the elections will enable it to have one of its own as the next senate president and someone who will very likely succeed the dying Biya.

Under the country’s current constitution, the constitutional successor is the president of the senate, Marcel Nyat Njifenji, himself 83 years old and a collapsing figure who has been involved in the corruption and mismanagement that have become the country’s hallmark.

Many Cameroonians hold that if the country has to change significantly, figures like the senate president and national assembly speaker have to disappear from the political scene.

The other very old faces that were appointed alongside Mr. Atangana as members of the same council are also members of the ruling party. Ms. Florence Arrey, 69,  the only woman on the Council, has been a senior supreme court judge for years and has for decades been the mistress of Mr. Laurent Esso, the country’s justice minister who is a Biya pawn.

Mr. Esso and Ms. Florence Arrey have three children and Mr. Esso has been protecting Ms. Arrey who is supposed to be on retirement, but is still receiving her civil salary; something which makes many Cameroonians to hold that the country is being ruled by mercenaries and that the ruling CPDM is a crime syndicate.

Ms. Arrey also received her Cameroon civil service salary even when she was working at the International Criminal Tribunal in Arusha, Tanzania, for years and has never been questioned by the government for engaging in such fraudulent activities.  It should be noted that Members of the council are all members of the ruling CPDM and people who are personally loyal to the country’s president and his collaborators.

The appointment of these old and retired Cameroonians underscores the fact that Mr. Biya is not yet ready to give Cameroonian youths a place in today’s Cameroon. Besides marginalizing youths, Mr. Biya is still pursuing his policy of Anglophone marginalization by appointing only Francophones to head major government institutions. It should be underscored, at this point, that all heads of important institutions in Cameroon are Francophones despite the ongoing Anglophone crisis which has been triggered by the government’s marginalization of the country’s English-speaking minority.

But for Southern Cameroonians who are sick and tired of the gimmicks of the Yaounde government, Mr. Biya’s succession is the least of their concerns. Southern Cameroonians are still fighting for their secession and they are hell-bent on quitting a marriage that has brought them more pain than gain. There has been serious fighting in many towns in the Southwest region of the country, with many young men being killed in cold blood by army soldiers. Our sources say some of the young men killed had nothing to do with the rebellion that is unfolding in the English-speaking regions of the country.

It should be recalled that some towns such as Kwakwa in the Southwest region have been erased from the country’s map as army soldiers have burnt all the houses and sent everybody into exile. Currently, Mbonge in the same region is being attacked by army soldiers who are killing and maiming any young men they find in the town.

Despite the killings in Southern Cameroons, the government has decided to be indifferent to the plight of the civilian population and has opted for violent military action as the best way out of the conflict, though results on the ground indicate that dialogue will be a much better option than military action.

The Southern Cameroons crisis has been going on now for more than 15 months and the government do not seem to be disturbed that a section of the country is in crisis. Despite appeals by the international community for a peaceful and negotiated agreement, Mr. Biya has remained adamant.

A source at the presidency has indicated that Mr. Biya only listens to himself, adding that all his collaborators are scared of him and cannot even advise him on the right steps to take. Many of his collaborators, our source stressed, have all compromised themselves one way or the other and are dead scared that any doubts in Mr. Biya’s mind about their loyalty might lead them to the Yaoundé central prison where some of Mr. Biya’s former collaborators are languishing.

It is believed that more than three hundred soldiers have been killed during the military campaign and some five hundred civilians have been killed by army soldiers, most of whom are Betis sent to erase Anglophone towns and villages from the country’s map.

By Kingsley Betek in Yaoundé with intelligence files from Pierre Onana