Politics

La Republique: National Assembly ends session amid confusing declarations by House Speaker

12, April 2017

La Republique: National Assembly ends session amid confusing declarations by House Speaker 0

The March session of the Upper and Lower Houses of Parliament in La Republique du Cameroun have officially ended. The closing ritual at the Lower House took place on Tuesday the 11th of April 2017 in Yaoundé amid confusing declarations from National Assembly Speaker, Cavaye Djibril.

Speaking during the closing ceremony at the National Assembly, the Speaker of the House, Cavaye Yegieu Djibril appealed to the Biya government to be proactive in handling the socio- political issues in the country. Hon. Cavaye stressed on the need to avoid situations that can push the country into an endless cycle of professional demands that cannot be handled.  The Speaker then made a u-turn at the tail-end of his speech and saluted what he described as the different measures taken by President Biya to improve on the working conditions of Cameroonians.

A beaming Cavaye emphasized the need for dialogue and a climate of peace to be maintained hoping the situations in the North West and South West Regions returns to normal. Present during the closing ceremony were Members of the Supreme Court, the Diplomatic Corps, Members of Government led by the Prime Minister Philemon Yang and the Senate President Marcel Niat Njifenji.

It is vital to include in this report that the March session did not deliberate on the current Southern Cameroons crisis which has culminated to numerous rapes, extra judicial killings and massive arrests including many abductions in West Cameroon.

By Rita Akana

Iran says Jordan king’s “Iran-Daesh analogy” ridiculous

9, April 2017

Iran says Jordan king’s “Iran-Daesh analogy” ridiculous 0

Iran has dismissed as “ridiculous” the Jordanian monarch’s juxtaposition of the Islamic Republic with the Takfiri Daesh group in a recent interview with The Washington Post. Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi was reacting to King Abdullah’s arguement that Israeli settlements were playing into the hands of Iran and Daesh which has the second or third biggest number of its members from Jordan.

“These issues give ammunition to the Iranians, to [Daesh ringleader Abu Bakr] al-Baghdadi and ISIS (Daesh),” the Jordanian king said in the interview published on Thursday.  Qassemi said, “Making baseless and ridiculous comparisons between Iran and the ringleaders of terrorist groups, and this being done by the king of an Arab and Muslim country, is unfortunately indicative of the complicated and pathetic situation, which the region is in.” “It seems the Jordanian king is strategically and fundamentally mistaken in his definition of terrorism and his interpretations simply reflect the poor and shallow nature of his perspective regarding the regional developments,” he added.

According to the data from the US House Homeland Security Committee, Jordan exports one of biggest number of Daesh members to Syria and Iraq along with Tunisia and Saudi Arabia.  Last year, The Telegraph said more than 2,000 Jordanians had joined the Takfiri group which follows the extremist Wahhabi ideology preached on Jordan’s doorsteps in key ally, Saudi Arabia.

“It is advisable that the Jordanian king has a passing look first at the statistics released about the Jordanian terrorists joining Daesh and other blood-spilling and ignorant groups and then makes an opinion on Iran which is on the frontline of the fight against terrorism and extremism and striving for reinforcing security in the region,” Qassemi said.

Iran a has been lending military advisory support to the Syrian army and the Iraqis in their battle against foreign-backed terrorist groups.  Qassemi also denounced the Jordanian king’s call on Arab countries to unite with Israel against Iran, reminding him of “endless problems which the fabrication of the illegitimate Zionist regime has created for the Muslim world and the regional states.”

In his interview with the Post, Abdullah said, “There are some strategic problems that Iran is involved in in our area. But here, again, is an opportunity: bringing Israel and the Arabs closer together. Because of the Iranian regime’s potential threat to the region, Israel wants to have a relationship with the Arabs.”

“Without a doubt, much of the existing situation in the region is the result of the misguided attitude of certain countries’ politicians toward political developments and the wrong and destructive policies which they have adopted which could push the entire region to the abyss of insecurity and instability,” Qassemi said. “To contribute to regional security, stability and unity, the Jordanian king is advised to take a short time off to study logic, history and geography of the region,” he added.

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Biya Francophone regime announces another fake measure to ease tension in Southern Cameroons

7, April 2017

Biya Francophone regime announces another fake measure to ease tension in Southern Cameroons 1

Having failed in the fulfillment of its many promises, the Biya Francophone government has again announced another move to ease the tension in Southern Cameroons. In a statement issued yesterday Thursday (April 06, 2017), the Minister of Civil Service and Administrative Reform made public the launching of a special recruitment of Anglophones in to serve in the courts in the South West and North West.

As it is always the case with a dubious regime, the date of this special operation was not specified.  The Francophone Minister, Michel Ange Angouing simply indicated in his press release that the recruitment will take place from 2017 to 2020 through an ad hoc committee made up of several representatives of administrations.

These massive enrollments and those earlier revealed by the Francophone Justice Minister, Laurent Esso are part of the fake measures taken by the Francophone government to induce Southern Cameroon lawyers to put an end to their strike action that has lasted for over six months.

Southern Cameroon lawyers have boycotted court sessions in the Buea and Bamenda provinces ever since they launched their strike to denounce their poor condition and marginalization by the essentially francophone central government.

By Sonne Peter

DR Congo: Head of State to name new prime minister

6, April 2017

DR Congo: Head of State to name new prime minister 0

Democratic Republic of Congo’s President Joseph Kabila on Wednesday pledged to appoint a new prime minister in the next two days, in line with a stalled December peace deal struck with the opposition. “The prime minister will absolutely have to be named within 48 hours,” Kabila said in a much-awaited speech to MPs and senators on the state of a December 31 power-sharing agreement, yet to be implemented. The deal brokered by the influential Catholic Church aimed to avoid a full-blown crisis in the vast restive nation following Kabila’s failure to step down at the end of his second and final mandate mid-December. It enabled Kabila to remain in office pending elections in late 2017 in tandem with a transitional body and a new premier, to be chosen within opposition ranks.

But putting the deal in place hit a major hurdle in early February with the death of veteran opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi, who had gathered together the opposition in a coalition. In his speech in the capital, Kinshasa, Kabila urged the opposition group “to overcome its internal squabbles” and to hand him a list of candidates for the post of prime minister. Kabila has run one of the world’s least developed countries since the 2001 assassination of his father Laurent. Violence has flared across the country of 71 million people in recent months however, amid fears of a continued delay in this year’s promised elections.

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“The Exit Door to the Southern Cameroons Political Crisis is not in East Cameroun”

5, April 2017

“The Exit Door to the Southern Cameroons Political Crisis is not in East Cameroun” 1

The Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium has rejected the fake policy of appeasement presented by the Biya Francophone regime and has announced the intensification of the civil disobedience campaign if the detained leaders and the hundreds of Southern Cameroon youths arrested are not freed.

Inside sources within the Consortium hinted Cameroon Concord News that the exit door to the Southern Cameroons political crisis is not in East Cameroun. Recently, a gang of Francophone cabinet members headed by the Minister of Justice, Laurent Esso in a scantily attended press conference made public measures which they claimed had been taken by the 84 year-old Francophone dictator, Paul Biya to address the concerns of Southern Cameroon lawyers.

The Francophone ministers said the decision included the creation of a Commission to accelerate the promotion of bilingualism and multiculturalism, the publication of the English version by OHADA of its treaty and other texts, the creation of a Common Law Section at the Supreme Court which will hold its sessions in English in accordance with the Common Law and handle all cases from the Courts of ‘Appeal in the Anglophone regions, the creation of a Common Law Section at ENAM and the creation of the departments of English Law in the Universities of Douala, Maroua, Ngaoundere and Dschang. Biya as Head of State has not committed to any of the above stipulations.

The Biya Francophone regime has also been making a mockery of the General Certificate of Education, GCE, by postponing the deadline for enrollment in the examinations. The Francophone ministers responsible for Secondary and Basic Education have been regularly announcing funny adjustments in the Southern Cameroons school calendar.

Biya and his French speaking political elites are still trading with the idea of federalism which is no longer a demand of the Consortium.  The Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium has reached a point of no return and have grafted the immediate and unconditional release of their leaders whose trial is held at the Yaoundé military tribunal.

Barrister Nkongho Felix Agbor Balla and Dr. Fontem Afortekaa Neba, the leaders of the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium, abbreviated CACSC, whose trial opened on February 13 at the Yaoundé military court, are prosecuted for acts of terrorism, hostility against the fatherland, secession, revolution, insurrection, outrage to the 84 year old evil butcher of Yaoundé, insult to organized bodies and civil servants, group rebellion, civil war and propagation of false news.

The regime in Yaoundé has told the world that the detained leaders of the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium risk the death penalty if they are convicted of acts of terrorism in accordance with article 2 of Law No. 2014/028 of 23 December 2014 on the punishment of acts of terrorism. Yet, day by day, the Francophone leadership keeps accepting what the Consortium and the detained leaders had earlier said. Ghost towns will continue, schools will remain closed and an economic embargo will be placed soon on Francophone businesses operating in Southern Cameroons.

A Rita Akana Production powered by Camcordnews

Ouagadougou 2017: Biya’s continued stay in power on the agenda

4, April 2017

Ouagadougou 2017: Biya’s continued stay in power on the agenda 0

The Forum of the Francophone Cameroun Diaspora to be held in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, from the 25th  to 27th of May 2017 initiated by French speaking Cameroonians living outside the national borders, will address the issue of Biya’s continued stay in power and political succession in Cameroon.

Francophone Cameroonians abroad have chosen to reflect on strategies that will lead to a lasting solution to the current socio-political situation in Cameroon. Cameroon Concord News gathered that the main objective of the Burkina Faso forum will be to identify grievances in relation to the socio-political situation in Cameroon and to plan viable therapeutics for a new Cameroon.

The participants in this forum are mainly academics, artists, journalists, businessmen, political leaders, members of the civil society, men of culture and a group calling itself “Friends of Cameroon”. The organizers of the Diaspora forum hope that this year’s meeting will provide recommendations and resolutions that will bring political change in Cameroon. Cameroonians from inside and outside are unanimous: It is time to think of a patriotic start for real change in Cameroon.

By Fru James

Congo-Kinshasa: Ghost town affects main cities

4, April 2017

Congo-Kinshasa: Ghost town affects main cities 0

A general strike called by the opposition to force Congolese President Joseph Kabila to share power has slowed business activities in the country’s four biggest cities. “We’ve followed the call … because we are suffering greatly. Let him (Kabila) quit power, he has finished his mandate, we want no more of him,” Mamie Biamba, a resident of the capital Kinshasa, told AFP on Monday.

The central square — Place Victoria — in the usually teeming city of more than 10 million people was almost empty in early morning, with police posted on key arteries. The strike also hit the Democratic Republic of Congo’s second city, Lubumbashi, as well as eastern Goma and the central cities of Mbuji-Mayi and Kananga. But it was business as usual in Kisangani in the northeast and Mbandaka in the northwest.

An umbrella alliance of parties, known as the Rassemblement (Movement), had urged people to stop work in protest at Kabila’s failure to implement a power-sharing deal signed on December 31 and to appoint a prime minister from the opposition. The president’s constitutional mandate expired last year at the end of his second five-year term. His unwillingness to enable elections and step down led to protests in September that left some 50 people dead.

At 8:00 am (0700 GMT), shops and service stations remained closed in Kinshasa and public transport was scarce, with people walking from their homes in eastern working-class districts to their workplaces in the city center. The situation was similar in distant Lubumbashi, according to witnesses in the country’s mining capital, about 1,570 kilometers southeast of Kinshasa.

“One shop in five is open,” a resident told AFP, while a bank manager stated that work had slowed down and several of his staff had failed to show up. “I was almost alone on the roads and I charged high fares,” taxi driver Nyembo Muyumba said in Lubumbashi. But some people voiced indifference to the strike call, which followed pressure on Kabila by the United Nations, the African Union and the European Union to abide by the December deal.

“We’re not concerned by appeals from politicians. Our problem is to find something to feed our children, send them to school,” said Albertine Bulanga, who sells maize in a Kingasani market. “Life has become unbearable for the little people like us while they (the politicians) have cushy lives.

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Prof. Maurice Kamto says the Anglophone Crisis needs quick solutions for a “soothed united Cameroon”

4, April 2017

Prof. Maurice Kamto says the Anglophone Crisis needs quick solutions for a “soothed united Cameroon” 0

Prof. Maurice Kamto, leader of the MRC party has said that the peaceful resolution of the Southern Cameroons problem is a political test for living together in Cameroon. The former cabinet minister added that the Anglophone problem is one of the urgent political problems demanding quick solutions for a soothed united Cameroon.

Speaking on Monday in Yaoundé, the much respected Francophone political elite revealed that there was the existence of a “black cabinet” created by the Yaoundé regime to neutralize him. “Since my departure from the cabinet and my accession, for the first time in my life, to a political party, the MRC, there is at the heart of power a Black Cabinet that works with determination for my exclusion from political competition by all means. I say by all means! “.

Maurice Kamto continued “This black cabinet has long searched, but in vain, in my management of public affairs and embarked on a scandalous affair on my scientific reputation and has mounted and maintained in public opinion a smoky public procurement case worth 14 billion CFA francs.”

During the Monday press conference, Maurice Kamto strongly criticized the international community, which, according to him, “does not care of the fate of the Anglophone Cameroonians being many of whom have been raped and killed and hundreds abducted and detained in Francophone jails.”

“Cameroonians no longer trust the international community with its electoral observers who have never helped the establishment of the electoral truth in Cameroon and whose conclusions are known in advance, because they are always the same: the elections were generally satisfactory, we are told each time, “says Kamto.

The MRC leader pointed out that the method applied by the Biya Francophone Beti Ewondo government in the management of the Anglophone crisis – made up of repression, mass arrests and arbitrary detention, militarization of disputed areas, the use of unbridled anti-terrorist law against unarmed citizens – is a “break-in” and a general rehearsal of what will be implemented in 2018 presidential elections.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

South Africa: Zuma may face another no-confidence vote

3, April 2017

South Africa: Zuma may face another no-confidence vote 0

South African President Jacob Zuma may face another impeachment as the country’s parliament speaker says she would consider requests from opposition parties to hold a new no-confidence vote against the embattled leader. Parliament Speaker Baleka Mbete said Sunday after cutting short a trip abroad that an impeachment may be held against Zuma following his decision last week to sack South Africa’s popular finance minister.

Mbete said in televised remarks that the request for the no-confidence vote was submitted to her by the centrist Democratic Alliance (DA) and the ultra-left Economic Freedom Fighters Party (EFF). The two parties have asked the speaker to reconvene the parliament and hold an urgent sitting on the issue. Mbete is also the national chairperson of the ruling African National Congress (ANC). Her new announcement shows how she and senior members of the ANC disagree with Zuma’s removal of Pravin Gordhan.

Gordhan attended a memorial for an anti-apartheid activist on Saturday and called on the ANC supporters to mobilize against Zuma. Previous no-confidence votes against Zuma have failed as his ANC party, which has ruled South Africa since the end of apartheid in the 1990s, dominates the parliament.

However, Gordhan’s removal, which badly affected the markets, seems to have clearly undermined Zuma’s leadership in the ANC. More elements within the party are joining the opposition in calling for Zuma’s removal from power.

Even Zuma’s deputy, Cyril Ramaphosa, has said that he disagreed with the decision to sack Gordhan, arguing that the move could downgrade South Africa’s credit ratings. The Communist Party, a key ally of ANC, also said Friday that “Zuma must now resign.” Zuma has lost a great deal of his popularity over the past years over a string of missteps and scandals.

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Trump administration stacked with millionaires, who’s combined net worth exceeds $12 billion

2, April 2017

Trump administration stacked with millionaires, who’s combined net worth exceeds $12 billion 0

Households in 86 percent of entire counties across the US that voted for President Donald Trump last year earn less income annually than the combined worth of 27 staffers that work for the Trump administration, a report has revealed. Financial reports released by the Trump administration indicate that 27 staffers who currently work for the US president are worth a combined $2.3 billion in properties, investments and huge salaries, The Washington Post reported Saturday.

How much is $2.3 billion, the report explains: “Here’s one way to look at it. Consider the amount of money earned in any county in the country in a year — the number of households in each county times the average household income in the county. In 80 percent of the counties in America, every household combined earns less than $2.3 billion per year.”

In counties that voted for Trump, however, that figure is even higher, the report adds, explaining that “in 86 percent of Trump counties, the total amount of income earned in a year is less than $2.3 billion.” The report further notes that based on 2011 to 2015 five-year estimates from the US Census Bureau, the average annual income in the aforementioned counties stood at $2.1 billion.

Only 8 percent of Trump-voting counties have a cumulative annual income greater than the $3.9 billion Trump himself in worth, as estimated by the financial Forbes magazine, and only two percent earn more annually than the $10 billion Trump claims to be worth. Most counties have small populations — which further explain why, cumulatively, they do not earn as much in income annually. The counties that tend to beat the $2.3 billion in annual income, tend to be the ones that include large cities.

Consequently, a map of where incomes beat the Trump staff’s net worth looks like an electoral map: “Swaths of counties that earn less each year than those 27 people are worth and a few pockets, mostly on the coasts, that are exceptions,” according to the report. It adds that the data – in a broader sense – “reinforces the disconnect between the Trump team and the voters Trump likes to highlight.” A lot of very wealthy people work in the White House. A lot of other houses scattered across the US are relying on those millionaires to boost their own incomes.

Meanwhile, financial disclosures from dozens of top White House officials released Friday night also reveal an administration stacked with millionaires, who’s combined net worth exceeds $12 billion. The filings shed new light on the business webs and conflicts held by a number of Trump’s top aides and advisers when they entered government.

Among the wealthiest members of Trump’s White House are his son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, the heir to a vast real estate business, and his top economic adviser, Gary Cohn, the former president of Goldman Sachs. The filings detail the investments, salaries and assets of Trump’s senior staff, opening the personal finances of as many as 180 administration officials to public scrutiny. Trump himself, whose personal wealth is believed to be in the billions, is not included in the releases.

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