Politics

13, December 2017

Democrat Jones wins Alabama vote after sex assault claims against Moore ⁰

Republican Roy Moore, an accused child molester running for the US Senate from the deeply conservative state of Alabama, has lost to his Democratic contender Doug Jones.

With 92 percent of precincts reporting, Jones secured 49.5 percent of the vote compared to Moore’s 48.8 percent, according to CNN and other news outlets.

The vote was the most high-stakes election of 2017 and the upset victory by Jones will trim the Republican Senate majority to just 51 seats in the 100-member chamber.

Jones, a former prosecutor, became the first Democrat to win a Senate seat in the state since 1992.

The result also delivered a personal blow to President Donald Trump, who has officially endorsed Moore amid the national debate about sexual misconduct.

However, the Jones win may provide some resemblance of relief to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and other Republicans, who turned against Moore following allegations that he pursued teenage girls decades ago.

Source: Presstv

11, December 2017

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Nigeria denies any implication in tensions ⁰

Paul Biya, Cameroon’s president received on December 7, 2017 Lawan Abba Gashagar, high commissioner of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to Cameroon and special envoy of the Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari, According to the Cameroonian presidency, Lawan Abba Gashagar delivered a message, from the Nigerian president, related to the two countries’ cooperation to Paul Biya.

The Nigerian diplomat denied any implication of his country in the climate of violence that has been reigning for over a year now in the North West and South West regions of Cameroon which forms the country’s English-speaking regions. He explained that Nigeria supports in no way the secessionists which demand the independence of those regions they baptized “Ambazonia”. Quite the opposite actually, the Nigerian government wishes a rapid return of peace in Cameroon and the preservation of its territorial integrity.

The Nigerian emissary also explained the presence of some secessionists’ leaders in Nigeria. Indeed, he said that the Cameroonians residing in Nigeria are actually favored by some clauses of the bilateral accord between the two parties which allow citizens of the two countries to stay in the other country for three months without a visa. This regulation compels the visitor to scrupulously respect the laws and regulations of the host country. The law also prohibits activities which can destabilize the visitor’s home country.

Source: Business in Cameroon

11, December 2017

How the Ambazonian Resistance is Rising and Forging a new Cameroon ⁰

The world is witnessing the birth of new powerful nation-the Federal Republic of Ambazonia. Yes, but not in the sense the French government and French Cameroun political elites had hoped. The people of Southern Cameroons have moved away from La Republique du Cameroun in the midst of a fierce war between Southern Cameroons armed militants and forces loyal to the regime in Yaoundé.

Instead of disempowering the people of Southern Cameroons and its sponsor, the Diaspora, the war declared by President Paul Biya has only augmented the strength and prestige of what is known as the “Interim Government,” a power bloc that includes Southern Cameroonian groups in Southern Africa, East and Western Europe, Asia, the Arab world, USA and Canada including the Scandinavian countries.

But the Biya war declaration is only one in a series of developments that significantly transformed the geopolitical structure in Southern Cameroons—from the banning of the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium, which first opened the door to greater Anglophone unity, to shutting down of internet services in West Cameroon which led to the proliferation and empowerment of Ambazonians . These Biya regime actions have prompted a fundamental reconfiguration of the contemporary Cameroon order. Needless to mention the brutal killings of hundreds of Southern Cameroonians by the French Cameroun army.

Francophone political elites, grappling with the consequences of an eroding French Cameroun state system, poor governance, and excessive use of military force enabled Southern Cameroonians and its powerful Diaspora to build a new political and security architecture from the ground up. With the current onslaught on the people of Southern Cameroons by the Francophone dominated army, Southern Cameroons armed movements are slowly but surely creating a transnational, multi-ethnic, and cross-confessional political and security network that will make the Ambazonian resistance more muscular and effective than ever before.

The most important issue that the new French Cameroun administration after Biya will face will be the rise of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia and given the deterioration of the regional security order and presidential elections in Cameroun, Nigeria including Equatorial Guinea not far away, the question is what to do about it. So far, policy discussions have focused on keeping Biya in power which may end up in a full scale civil war. Engaging the Interim Government of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia and discuss the terms of separation is the wise thing to do by whosoever in running the think tank in Yaoundé.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

11, December 2017

Yaounde: MP injured by flying debris in parliament amid anglophone crisis ⁰

A politician was hurt by an object thrown by another MP during chaotic scenes in Cameroon’s parliament in which vuvuzela horns were blown to drown out a budget debate, sources said on Saturday.

It comes against a backdrop of unrest in the country’s English-speaking regions which led to independence protests that turned fatal in October and the detention this week of US literary professor Patrice Nganang for criticising the government’s handling of the issue.

Government spokesman Issa Tchiroma said Nganang’s arrest on Wednesday in Douala followed the posting on Facebook of a death threat against the head of state.

He repeated the pledge of President Paul Biya, who has been in charge of the francophone nation since 1982, to rid the country of what he calls secessionists among the English-speaking minority, which has complained about discrimination.

Resentment among anglophones has fed a spiral of political demands and also a government crackdown, leading to calls for secession.

In Saturday’s incident, Hermine Patricia Ndam Njoya of the opposition Democratic Union of Cameroon “hurled into the air” parts of her desk to protest against the assembly speaker’s refusal to allow her party’s legislators to speak, the party’s communications officer Amadou Mongwat claimed.

Mongwat said the object landed on the head of a member of the ruling Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement, causing a head injury. It is not clear from video of the alleged incident where the object lands or what is thrown. Other reports have suggested a shoe was hurled.

The speaker ended the session with the announcement that the budget had been adopted without further discussion.

Last month four Cameroonian soldiers were killed by suspected separatists in the south-west of the country, while international monitors say at least 20 people have been killed since late September. The president of the senate has since promised to have a commission investigate the anglophone issue.

The detained writer Nganang, who has a home in New Jersey and has been teaching in the US since 2000, was said to be in good spirits and has met a lawyer, a colleague at New York’s Stony Brook University said.

Karin Deutsch Karlekar at advocacy group PEN America said: “Detaining an important independent voice like Patrice Nganang, who has used his writing to investigate the consequences of violence, is indicative of a movement by the government to silence all political criticism and dismantle the right to free expression.”

US professor Patrice Nganang, who has been detained in Cameroon after writing an article criticising the government’s handling of the anglophone crisis. Photograph: AP

Farhan Haq, a spokesman for the UN secretary general, António Guterres, said at a briefing on Thursday he hoped Nganang was safe but did not say whether the UN was aware of the detention or whether it would intervene. “We certainly hope and expect that this particular person will be found, and we’re hopeful that nothing untoward has happened,” he said.

Nganang has published 12 books, scholarly essays, novels and books of poetry.

Culled from The Guardian

9, December 2017

President Trump says US political system is rigged and sick from inside ⁰

US President Donald Trump has said the American political system is rigged and sick from inside.

Trump made the comments during a rally in Pensacola, Florida on Friday night where his supporters also chanted “lock her up” after he mentioned his former Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton’s name.

During the 2016 election campaign, Trump’s supporters used to chant “lock her up” at his rallies throughout the presidential election.

“It’s being proven we have a rigged system. Doesn’t happen so easy,” Trump said. “But this system – gonna be a lot of changes. This is a rigged system.”

“This is a sick system from the inside. And there’s no country like our country, but we have a lot of sickness in some of our institutions,” he added.

“We’re working very hard, we’ve got a lot of them straightened out, but we do have, we really do, we have a rigged system in this country and we have to change it,” he continued.

Before the crowd began its chants of “lock her up,” Trump mocked the Democratic movement known as “the resistance.”

“They are resisting progress,” Trump said. “They’re resisting change. Because the only thing they really care about is protecting what they have been able to do, which is really control the country and not to your benefit.”

According to WikiLeaks, Trump won the November 8, 2016 US presidential election because Democrats rigged the system to have Clinton beat Bernie Sanders.

Independent Senator Sanders, who sought the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination, could have won the election but the Democratic National Committee (DNC) stopped him from doing so by pushing him out from the primary race, the whistleblowing agency suggested in a statement issued a day after the election.

WikiLeaks claimed that the Democratic Party establishment conspired to ensure Clinton win the party’s presidential nomination. In doing so it chose a weaker candidate who lost the election against Trump, the agency suggested.

Last month, Trump invited Clinton to try again in 2020. “Crooked Hillary Clinton is the worst (and biggest) loser of all time. She just can’t stop, which is so good for the Republican Party. Hillary, get on with your life and give it another try in three years!” he tweeted.

Clinton had been leading Trump throughout the campaign in most of the polls except for the last week of the election when she lost ground to Trump, who stunned the world by defeating her.

In her recent interviews, Clinton has admitted that she is not entirely done with the election and still wonders why she lost to Trump.

Clinton has, on numerous occasions, blamed Russia for losing the election to Trump, claiming that Moscow had colluded with her rival. The allegations, however, have been repeatedly denied by both Trump and Russia.

Source: Presstv

9, December 2017

UN chief slams killing of peacekeepers in Congo, calls carnage ‘war crime’ ⁰

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has strongly denounced a deadly attack, allegedly carried out by a Ugandan-based rebel group, against the world body’s peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), which claimed the lives of over a dozen UN troops in the African country.

“These deliberate attacks against UN peacekeepers are unacceptable and constitute a war crime,” said Guterres in a statement on Friday, adding, “I condemn this attack unequivocally.”

Late on Thursday, suspected members of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) rebel group attacked the Company Operating Base, run by the MONUSCO (the UN Stabilization Mission in the DRC), at Semuliki in Beni territory, and engaged in a three-hour-long fierce gun battle with the peacekeepers at the base, killing at least 14 blue helmets and wounding more than 50 others, a number of them critically.

Most of the slain peacekeepers were from Tanzania while at least five of them were Congolese.

“These brave women and men are putting their lives on the line every day across the world to serve peace and to protect civilians,” Guterres added, extending condolences to the families and loved ones of those killed and wishing the injured a speedy recovery.

He also called on the DRC authorities to launch a probe into the brutal attack, which he described as the “worst attack” on UN peacekeepers in recent history, to swiftly bring the perpetrators to justice. “There must be no impunity for such assaults, here or anywhere else,” Guterres added.

The restive North Kivu region, situated in eastern Congo, has experienced a number of attacks on UN peacekeeping troops. Back in October, two UN blue helmets were killed and 18 others sustained injuries when their base was attacked by the ADF armed group.

The DRC had one of the most brutal colonial rules before undergoing decades of corrupt dictatorship and back-to-back civil wars that left the mineral-rich country poor and politically unstable.

In 2006, the UN mission helped carry out Congo’s first free and fair elections in 46 years, paving the way for President Joseph Kabila to be elected for a five-year term. Kabila, however, refused to step down after his second elected term officially expired on December 20, 2016, prompting deadly violence across the African state.

Source: Presstv

8, December 2017

UK and EU reach historic deal on Brexit divorce terms ⁰

Britain and the EU reached a historic deal on Friday on the terms of the Brexit divorce after Prime Minister Theresa May rushed to Brussels for early morning talks.

The European Commission said it “recommends sufficient progress” had been made by Britain on separation issues including the Irish border, Britain’s divorce bill, and citizens rights.

The agreement paves the way for EU leaders at a summit on December 14-15 to open the second phase of Brexit negotiations, covering trade talks and a transition period.

Britain voted in June 2016 to become the first state to leave the EU, after more than four decades of membership, but the talks have been slow moving and often acrimonious so far.

“The Commission is satisfied that sufficient progress has been achieved in each of the three priority areas,” the European Commission said in a statement.

Negotiators worked through the night to seal an agreement on the terms of Britain’s departure from the bloc.

The EU had set a deadline of Sunday after the last talks on Monday broke down when May’s Northern Irish allies objected to terms for future arrangements for the Irish border.

Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker’s chief of staff Martin Selmayr tweeted a picture of white smoke — the sign used by the Vatican to signify the election of a new pope — shortly after May’s arrival.

Juncker spoke first with Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar then with May on Thursday night in a bid to break a deadlock over the wording of a deal on future arrangements for the Irish border.

Border quandary

Britain agreed to pay a divorce settlement amounting to between 45 and 55 billion euros and to protect the rights of some three million European citizens living there after Brexit as part of the deal.

But Ireland’s demands that Brexit should not lead to the return of checkpoints on the border with Northern Ireland, which it said could jeopardise the peace process in the north, proved the biggest stumbling block at the end.

“In Northern Ireland we guarantee there will be no hard border,” May told a press conference with Juncker.

The pro-British DUP party which props up May’s government refused Monday’s draft deal over a phrase suggesting there would be “regulatory alignment” with the EU after Brexit — effectively putting Northern Ireland under EU law.

DUP leader Arlene Foster told Sky News there had now been changes following talks with May.

“We’re pleased to see those changes because for me it means there’s no red line down the Irish Sea and we have the very clear confirmation that the entirety of the United Kingdom is leaving the European union, leaving the single market, leaving the customs union,” she said.

On Thursday, EU Commission spokesman Margaritis Schinas had dismissed British newspaper reports that the Sunday deadline could be extended into next week as “not correct”.

‘Totally and utterly incompetent’

Scotland’s nationalist leader showed little patience, accusing the British government of being “totally and utterly incompetent” on Brexit.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said “the real lesson” of the past week was that Scotland “will always be at the mercy of reckless decisions taken by Tory governments at Westminster” unless it becomes independent.

“The sooner we are in control over our own future here in Scotland the better, and this week has proved it,” she added.

Eurogroup chief Jeroen Dijsselbloem offered some calming words, saying Britain’s City of London financial hub “will not fall apart” after Brexit even if it loses the right to allow banks to trade freely across the bloc.

Dijsselbloem, the Netherlands finance minister who chairs meetings of his counterparts in the 19-country eurozone, said that some businesses would nevertheless have to relocate.

“I don’t believe that the City will fall apart and that everyone will flee. I don’t think that’s how it’s going to work,” he told a European Parliament committee.

His reassurances come at a time when Britain’s finance sector is anxious about losing the “passporting” rights which allow large international banks to trade throughout the EU while being based in Britain.

(Source: AFP)

5, December 2017

Spain withdraws arrest warrants issued for Catalan leaders ⁰

A judge in the Spanish Supreme Court has withdrawn European and international arrest warrants issued for leaders of an independence movement in northeastern Catalonia region.

A Supreme Court spokesman said Tuesday that former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont and four members of his former cabinet will no longer need to fight extradition in Belgium, where they have stayed since a crackdown began in Catalonia against the region’s push for independence late in October.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the five were still subject to domestic warrants and they would be arrested if they return to Spain to contest a fresh regional election slated for December 21.

Supreme Court magistrate Pablo Llarena said that new evidence had been found suggesting that alleged crimes of rebellion by Puigdemont and allies were a group action, leading to the withdrawal of individual warrants issued against them.

Llarena said the domestic warrants stayed because the five had to still face rebellion, sedition and embezzlement among other charges. He added that diminished charges would be a “distortion” for other suspects already facing the probe in Spain.

Puigdemont, the main engineer of a controversial referendum of independence in Catalonia in early October, read an independence declaration on October 27 only to give Madrid the pretext to sack his government and launch a sweeping crackdown on those involved in the secession push.

There has been no indication that he will return to Spain from Belgium, where judges had been reviewing his extradition request.

“For the moment he stays in Belgium,” his lawyer Paul Bekaert said, adding that the new statement by Spain’s Supreme Court could mean that the extradition process against the five would be ended in Belgium.

Belgian prosecutor’s office, which had announced December 14 for a decision on the case, said it was assessing the new situation.

Source: Presstv

4, December 2017

After the Manyu SDO Order, Is there a role for traditional rulers? ⁰

Dear Editor,

I read on Friday the communique from the SDO of Manyu division asking inhabitants of many villages in his division to ‘relocate to safe neighbourhoods’ with repugnance and fury. When he was informed that his press release could land the despot of Etoudi in The Hague, the communique was withdrawn speedily and fittingly.

As he gave that interview on the Catholic Radio station in Mamfe withdrawing the Press Release, my mind took me back thirty years when I was growing up in Mamfe. I started asking myself about the role of the modern day chief in Manyu. As the seconds ticked by, my mind wondered about greats like Chief Mbeng Besong of Mamfe and Chief Arrey of Ossing just to name this two. I recalled the early days when Chiefs use to go to Etoudi for meetings. I recollected when it was breaking news that the Southwest Chiefs were holding a conference. This was because the Chiefs exerted power. They were esteemed and men who governed with authority and tradition.

Whilst hindsight is a great teacher, one thing I can safely say is that under the auspices of men like Chief Mbeng Besong or Chief Arrey, such an idiotic Press Release wouldn’t have been conversed. How on the face of this earth would a rascal from ENAM with such a pathetic understanding of the people he is administering come out with such absurdity? The SDO in the old days had a duty to meet and establish a great relationship with the Chiefs so the governing of the area was peaceful and lawful.

Traditional chiefs play an important role in rural communities. They are leaders or heads of groups especially of a clan or a tribe. Chiefs are involved in decision making on many aspects in the day to day affairs of villages. This CPDM regime clearly demonstrates scorn and insolence and a blatant disrespect for the norms and rights of the natives.

As if his actions and disdain were not bad enough, the public silence from the Chiefs of these villages have been very loud. This loud silence from the Chiefs leads me to one question- are the Chiefs a dying breed? If not, would they stand and be counted?

Nso John Bessong, Barcelona

Spain

2, December 2017

French Cameroun Military Operation: Biya has by this misadventure put a pistol on his own head ⁰

The military operation ordered by Paul Biya is an escalation of the genocide campaign that has been ongoing since French Cameroun invaded Southern Cameroon fifty six years ago and commenced a military campaign of terror and genocide that has claimed millions of Southern Cameroon lives and devastated the economy and way of life of the people.

With the public declaration of the escalation of the genocide campaign, targeting all Southern Cameroonians, Ambazonians must now declare the right to self defense and declare that any French Cameroon soldier, administrator or whosoever aids in its war effort or administration to vacate the Southern Cameroon. The Federal Republic of Amabazonia will protect all civilians and civilian targets and abide by the laws and customs of war in prosecuting this war of self defense.

French Cameroun soldiers who lay down their arms and refuse to kill Southern Cameroonians will not be hurt so also their families. Those who kill Southern Cameroonians or obey the criminal orders of Paul Biya will be hit even in their own territory and homes. They will have nowhere to hide. Ambazonia will win this last limp of the fifty six years war against its people.

No soldier of fortune of French Cameroun deployed to commit genocide, rape, maim and loot will return alive. With international law and justice on the side of Ambazonia, the enemy will soon learn the hard reality of history which the reckless ambitions of Adolf Hitler Paul Biya have brought unto the free world.

Like his mentors Hitler, Biya has by this misadventure put a pistol on his own head and that of his country French Cameroun. Ambazonia by the end of this campaign will prevail by totally liberating itself while helping Biya to terminate his satanic misadventure.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai