Politics

25, August 2020

Mali talks on-going as junta denies plans for three-year military rule ⁰

West African envoys resumed talks with Mali’s new military rulers on Monday as the junta denied it had decided on a three-year blueprint for restoring civilian rule.

Colonel Ismael Wague, spokesman for the rebel officers who seized power last Tuesday, insisted that the transition remained undecided as the third day of talks with the regional bloc ECOWAS got underway.

“I want to make clear at this stage of discussions with the ECOWAS mediation team that nothing has been decided,” he said at the defence ministry in Bamako.

“At no point have we talked about military-majority government,” he said.

“Any decision relating to the scale of the transition, the transition president, the formation of the government will be done among Malians” and be followed by “mass consultation,” he said.

ECOWAS flew a high-level mission to Bamako on Saturday led by former Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan, four days after mutinying troops seized power and detained 75-year-old President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita.

The coup sent shockwaves among Mali’s neighbours, which fear that the country – already beset by a jihadist insurgency and moribund economy – could spiral into chaos.

A source in the visiting delegation on Sunday said the junta “has affirmed that it wants a three-year transition to review the foundations of the Malian state. This transition will be directed by a body led by a soldier, who will also be head of state.

“The government will also be predominantly composed of soldiers” under the proposal, the source said on condition of anonymity.

Additionally, a junta official confirmed to AFP that “the three-year transition would have a military president and a government mostly composed of soldiers.”

ECOWAS reaction

This timeframe contrasts with the junta’s vow, within hours of taking over on August 18, that elections would be held within a “reasonable” timeframe.

Many Malians took to social media on Monday to attack the transition scheme.

It also compares starkly with demands by the 15-nation ECOWAS – the Economic Community of West African States – for the “immediate return of constitutional order.”

The bloc’s leaders are to confer in a virtual summit on Wednesday as to how to proceed, mindful of Mali’s last coup in 2012, which led to a regional revolt that metastasised into a jihadist insurgency.

They have already decided to close Mali’s borders and issued threats to impose sanctions against the coup leaders.

The bloc has already intervened in several crises in West Africa, including The Gambia, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Keita was elected in 2013 after running a campaign in which he pitched himself as a unifying force in a fractured country.

He was re-elected for a second term in 2018 but failed to make headway against the jihadists, and the ethnic unrest they ignited in the centre of the country further damaged an already sickly economy.

An outcry over the results of long-delayed legislative elections in April cemented his unpopular reputation, and in June a protest movement was born aimed at forcing him to resign.

ECOWAS has stood by Keita and called for him to be restored to office, although this demand has been eclipsed since the start of the talks by the issue of his detention.

Jonathan met Keita on Saturday and said he seemed “very fine”.

The ECOWAS and junta sources said on Monday that Mali’s new rulers had agreed to free the ousted president and that he would be able to return to his home in Bamako.

The coup leaders say they are holding 17 leaders at a barracks about 15 kilometres (nine miles) from the city after releasing two others last week.

Source: AFP

25, August 2020

Republican party formally nominates Donald Trump as presidential candidate ⁰

President Donald Trump adopted a grim tone in remarks to Republicans who formally backed his bid for a second term on Monday, warning without evidence that he could face a “rigged election” in November.

Trump repeated his claim that voting by mail, a longstanding feature of American elections that is expected to be far more common during the coronavirus pandemic, could lead to an increase in fraud. Independent election security experts say voter fraud is quite rare in the United States.

Trump spoke in an unscheduled appearance on the first day of the sharply scaled-back Republican National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, after he received enough votes to formally win the nomination to take on his Democratic rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, in the Nov. 3 election.

“The only way they can take this election away from us is if this is a rigged election,” Trump said. “We’re going to win this election.”

Party members are meeting amid a coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 176,000 Americans, erased millions of jobs and eroded the president’s standing among voters.

As he has done repeatedly, Trump described states’ responses to infections of Covid-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus, in starkly partisan terms, casting lockdowns and other steps recommended by public health officials as attempts to influence voting in November.

“What they’re doing is using Covid to steal an election,” Trump said. “They’re using Covid to defraud the American people – all of our people – of a fair and free election.”

The in-person proceedings, a far smaller meeting than originally planned, still marked a contrast with Democrats, who opted for an almost entirely virtual format instead of gathering in the election battleground state of Wisconsin. That change was intended to reduce the risk of the virus being spread at the political event.

“We did this out of respect for your state,” said Trump, targeting his message at the people of North Carolina, which is expected to be competitive in the November election.

Trump earlier this year moved the convention to Florida, his newly adopted home state, to avoid restrictions on gatherings in North Carolina due to the coronavirus, then abandoned that plan when infection rates soared in Florida.

Donald Trump says 2020 Presidential election ‘most important in the history of the US’ during GOP convention

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Republicans said their convention would offer a more hopeful message, with an emphasis on “law and order,” gun rights, tax cuts and the “forgotten” men and women of America.

The party opted not to vote on a traditional platform document detailing its policy goals, instead saying that it supports what Trump is doing. Trump’s campaign released a series of bullet-point goals, including a promise to “create 10 million new jobs in 10 months.”

In another contrast with the Democratic event, which featured all three living former Democratic presidents, and prior nominees, the Republican event will not include speeches from that party’s past living president or candidates.

Neither former President George W. Bush nor 2012 Republican presidential nominee Senator Mitt Romney, who voted to convict Trump at the president’s impeachment trial, plan to speak. Also absent from the schedule are several Republicans facing close elections in November, including Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina.

Break with Tradition

With the pandemic not yet under control, good news has been in short supply for Trump. His performance as president was sharply criticized by Biden and former President Barack Obama at the Democratic convention.

Biden’s campaign said Trump would attempt to change the subject, delivering “more desperate, wild-eyed lies and toxic division, in vain attempts to distract from his mismanagement,” according to spokesman Andrew Bates.

“What they won’t hear is what American families have urgently needed and been forced to go without for over seven consecutive months: any coherent strategy for defeating the pandemic.”

The president, a former reality television star, plans to hold several live events with in-person audiences, in contrast to Democrats, who showed pre-taped segments or delivered speeches in mostly empty venues.

Trump’s planned daily speeches are a break with the tradition of the nominee keeping a low profile before an acceptance speech on the convention’s final night.

Overnight, demonstrators and law enforcement clashed for a third straight night near the Charlotte Convention Center with police using pepper spray on the crowd. The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department said in a statement that officers arrested five people late on Sunday.

On Tuesday, Trump’s wife, Melania, will give a speech from the White House, while Pence follows on Wednesday from Baltimore’s Fort McHenry historic site.

Trump will accept his party’s nomination on Thursday night before a crowd on the White House South Lawn. Democrats have criticized the move as a partisan use of public property.

“Trump has four days to make two cases: One is ‘we know what we are doing and have done a great job, obviously interrupted by the virus,'” said Constantin Querard, president of Grassroots Partners, an Arizona-based conservative political consultancy.

“And then you have to knock the Democratic ticket for being as far-left as they are,” he said.

Source: REUTERS

23, August 2020

US: Needing election boost, Trump prepares to dominate party convention ⁰

President Donald Trump will seek to revive his re-election hopes this week at the Republican Party’s largely online convention, battered by the coronavirus pandemic, economic troubles, racial unrest and polls pointing to an uphill fight.

Trump and his top aides strived over the weekend to put an optimistic spin on the convention as he prepares to head Monday to North Carolina to formally launch the four-day event.

“I think we’re going to see something that is going to be very uplifting and positive, that’s what I’d like it to be,” the president told Fox News.

He sought to draw a sharp contrast to the just-ended Democratic convention, which he has called the “darkest, angriest and gloomiest” in history.

Republicans, facing polls that give Democrat Joe Biden an eight to 10-point lead, were also hoping for a boost from a planned Trump announcement Sunday on an advance in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic, which has claimed more than 175,000 lives across the country.

– Provocative lineup –

The coming convention appears to be a highly Trump-centric affair — with the president appearing, unusually, on each of the four days — and with some speakers seen as intentionally provocative.

The scheduled includes a Missouri couple who pointed guns at anti-racist protesters marching past their mansion in June — an image that quickly went viral.

And Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is set to deliver a speech Tuesday in support of Trump during an official visit to Israel.

Such a directly political intervention by the nation’s top diplomat while abroad would be highly unusual.

Moreover, the president plans to deliver his acceptance speech Thursday from the lawn of the White House, shrugging off criticism over the use of the presidential residence for campaign purposes.

– Dealing with the virus –

Charlotte, North Carolina is where the party originally planned to hold its convention before the pandemic intervened, forcing first a shift to Florida and then a quick reimagining of the event as mostly virtual.

A few hundred Republican supporters are slated to gather in Charlotte to hear Trump speak on Monday, but Republican chairwoman Ronna McDaniel insisted that the gathering was being handled safely.

“We tested everybody before they came to Charlotte. We have been testing people on-site,” she told NBC.

Convention speakers includes former ambassador Nikki Haley and Donald Trump Jr. on Monday; First Lady Melania Trump and Pompeo on Tuesday; and Vice President Mike Pence on Wednesday.

While Democrats heard from all living former Democratic presidents as well as former presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and John Kerry, former Republican president George W. Bush is not expected to appear. Bush has been a critic of Trump’s.

– Help from ‘The Apprentice’ –

The event comes only four days after the Democrats — in a history-making all-virtual convention of their own — formally crowned former vice president Biden as the party’s presidential candidate.

Trump, whose rise from New York real estate mogul to political prominence was boosted by his reality TV show “The Apprentice,” has turned to two of the program’s producers to help with convention planning, according to reports.

The Republicans’ effort is expected to incorporate more live broadcasting — an approach holding both opportunity and risk — than the Democratic event.

Republicans are expanding also the nightly program from the two hours presented by Democrats to two and a half hours, with TV networks committed to broadcast the final hour.

Trump is expected to try to impart the best possible spin on his efforts to battle the coronavirus, but polls show most Americans trust Biden far more than him to deal with it.

The president faced further criticism over the weekend from someone uncomfortably close: his sister Maryanne Trump Barry, heard on secretly recorded tapes provided to the Washington Post describing him as cruel, a liar and a man of “no principles.”

Jason Miller, Trump’s senior campaign advisor, responded angrily on NBC, saying, “It’s shameful that the Washington Post came and ran the story yesterday, literally the day after the funeral services for (the president’s brother) Robert Trump.”

Miller joined other Republican aides in dismissing the Democrats’ convention, calling it a “massive grievance-fest” from a party with no “vision for the future.”

The candidates are scheduled to hold three debates, the first on September 29, before Americans cast their ballots on November 3.

Source: AFP

23, August 2020

Ivory Coast: Ruling party approves Ouattara’s re-election bid ⁰

Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara was formally chosen by his party Saturday to run for a third term in an October election, despite opposition charges it is unconstitutional. The decision came a day after election authorities rejected the candidacies of the former president, Laurent Gbagbo, and ex-rebel leader Guillaume Soro.

Ouattara, who has been in power since 2010, said in March that he would not stand again but changed his position after the death of prime minister Amadou Gon Coulibaly — seen as his anointed successor — in July.

The announcement came a day after the country’s election authorities rejected appeals by Ivory Coast’s former president Laurent Gbagbo and former rebel leader Guillaume Soro to be allowed to run in the country’s October election.

Outtara’s decision to contest a third term in October has already triggered outrage among opposition and civil society groups, who labelled it a “coup” that risked triggering chaos.

The constitution limits presidents to two terms, but 78-year-old Ouattara — who has served two five-year terms since 2010 — and his supporters argue that a 2016 constitutional tweak reset the clock.

His ruling Houphouetist Rally for Democracy and Peace (RHDP) party said Ouattara was nominated as its candidate at an event attended by 100,000 people in an Abidjan stadium.

“We remain focused on the election, with a record to defend and a project to propose to Ivorians,” party spokesman Mamadou Touré told AFP, branding the street demonstrations against Ouattara’s candidacy a “dismal failure”.

Rival candidates rejected

On Friday, the country’s Independent Electoral Commission (CEI) rejected appeals by Gbagbo and Soro to run in the October election.

“The decisions have been posted since the 18th, the CEI has not granted their requests,” Inza Kigbafori, the CEI communications manager, told AFP.

The shock news heightened tensions before October 31 vote, which takes place in the shadow cast by violence following 2010’s election that killed around 3,000 people.

Ivory Coast, one of the world’s biggest producers of coffee and cocoa, is still traumatised by the post-electoral violence after the 2010 vote, when Gbagbo refused to cede to the victor, Ouattara.

Gbagbo was freed conditionally by the International Criminal Court (ICC) after he was cleared in 2019 of crimes against humanity.

His return to Ivory Coast would be sensitive before the presidential election. His Ivorian Popular Front (FPI) party urged him to throw his hat in the electoral ring.

Soro, a former rebel leader, has been forced into self-imposed exile in France in the face of a long list of legal problems at home.

He was a leader in a 2002 revolt that sliced the former French colony into the rebel-held north and the government-controlled south and triggered years of unrest.

He was once an ally of Ouattara, helping him to power during the post-election crisis in 2010. The two eventually fell out.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)

23, August 2020

French Cameroun: CPDM rival factions clash over every government initiative as end of Biya’s reign looms ⁰

Rival factions of the ruling CPDM crime syndicate are clashing over every government initiative as end of Biya’s reign looms.

A recent U-turn on management of the Ebo forest is only the latest incident in unending clan warfare that is tearing Cameroon’s government apart, reports Africa Intelligence

22, August 2020

Traditional rulers meeting with Minister Atanga Nji: Treacherous stab in the back of Ambazonian people ⁰

The Vice President of the Southern Cameroons Interim Government Dabney Yerima has censured the recent meeting between French Cameroun Minister of Territorial of Administration Paul Atanga Nji and some Southern Cameroons traditional rulers describing the meeting as a treacherous stab in the back of the Ambazonian nation.

Cat calls greeted the said meeting with thousands of Southern Cameroonians around the world stating that all the Fons and Chiefs who took part in the forum be dethroned.

“They have betrayed their people and are all considered traitors to the people of Southern Cameroons and the revolution. It is a treacherous stab in the back of the Ambazonian people” Vice President Yerima said in conversation with Cameroon Concord News Group Germany Bureau Chief late on Friday.

Vice President Dabney Yerima pointed out that some illusions pushed the Southern Cameroons traditional leaders to seek the meeting with the Biya French Cameroun regime.

The first illusion the Ambazonian exiled leader said is that the Fons and the Chiefs think the Federal Republic of Ambazonia is in a state of defeat, and they are viewing Biya and French Cameroun as victorious. “The reality however is that the Ambazonian nation has not been defeated and the Southern Cameroons people will not stopped their struggle until French Cameroun occupying forces leave their homeland” Yerima noted.

Vice President Dabney Yerima revealed that the second illusion is that because of the poverty culture, some Southern Cameroons traditional rulers believe their political legitimacy is achieved through support from the Biya Francophone regime, the French Cameroun army, the French Cameroun National Gendarmerie rather than their own people’s backing.

Comrade Yerima concluded that the third illusion that prompted some Southern Cameroons native authorities to attend the Paul Atanga Nji meeting is that they believe that Biya and French Cameroun are seeking peace and coexistence with the people of Southern Cameroons, but the French Cameroun regime is in fact an occupying regime founded on brutality and violence and its only conflict resolution tool is the gun.

By Isong Asu in London

21, August 2020

Emergency ECOWAS summit calls for reinstatement of Mali’s president Keita ⁰

An emergency summit of the West African bloc ECOWAS called Thursday for the reinstatement of Ibrahim Boubacar Keita as Mali’s president after he was deposed in a military coup on Tuesday. West African leaders said they would soon head to the country amid growing concerns about regional stability.

West African presidents plan to fly to Mali as regional powers escalate efforts to block a coup-driven regime change, two sources said, after an opposition coalition there joined the junta in rejecting foreign interference.

Leaders of the 15-nation Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) convened over the crisis on Thursday, after it suspended Mali, shut off borders and halted financial flows in response to Tuesday’s overthrow of President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita.

The bloc plans to send a delegation of presidents including the leaders of Niger, Senegal and Ghana to Mali’s capital, Bamako, to seek a resolution to the crisis, a regional diplomat and a senior official told Reuters.

It was not immediately possible to confirm the information.

The coup, which has rocked a country already in the grip of a jihadist insurgency and civil unrest, has been met with almost universal condemnation abroad.

Within Mali, the M5-RFP coalition of opposition groups said it was working with the mutineers. It labelled ECOWAS’s initial response to the coup over-reaction stemming from some regional leaders’ fears that it could set off unrest in their countries.

“(The leaders) are on an all-out drive to set ECOWAS against Mali,” said M5-RFP spokesman Nouhoum Togo.

The capital Bamako was calm for the second straight day on Thursday, a Reuters reporter said, as people appeared to heed earlier calls from junta spokesman Colonel Ismael Wague to return to work and go about their daily lives.

Marc-Andre Boisvert, an independent researcher on the Malian security forces, said the senior mutineers were all respected army colonels.

“It was a coup led by combat-experienced, not personality-driven  officers,” he said “I expect they were selected to be the image of the coup as they are respected and close to the (ordinary) soldiers.”

ECOWAS is expected to release a statement outlining its next steps later on Thursday.

In July, an ECOWAS delegation failed to broker an agreement between Keita and the opposition, who were leading large-scale protests against the government.

Leaders attending the bloc’s virtual summit said the political upheaval in Mali could destabilise the entire region.

“The events in Mali (have).. grave consequences for the peace and security of West Africa,” Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari tweeted.

The coup has fuelled concerns it could disrupt a military campaign against jihadists linked to al Qaeda and Islamic State operating in northern and central Mali and West Africa’s wider Sahel region.

France will continue its Mali-based military operations against Islamist fighters, its armed forces minister said on Thursday.

Landlocked Mali has struggled to regain stability since a Tuareg uprising in 2012 which was hijacked by al Qaeda-linked militants, and a subsequent coup in the capital plunged the country into chaos.

(REUTERS)

20, August 2020

African Union suspends Mali’s membership as international community condemns coup ⁰

Military coup leaders in Mali faced a barrage of condemnation on Wednesday from international powers, with the African Union suspending the country’s membership a day after mutinying soldiers detained President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita following months of protests against his rule.

The chorus of disapproval included statements from the African Union (AU), the European Union and the United States demanding that the military leaders release Keita, Prime Minister Boubou Cisse and other officials detained on Tuesday.

Keita – under pressure from months of protests over economic stagnation, corruption and a continuing Islamist insurgency – said in a televised address hours after he was detained that coup leaders had given him no choice but to resign.

Jubilant crowds cheered the rebels as they arrived in central Bamako on Tuesday. Tens of thousands of protesters have taken to the streets of Bamako since June calling for Keita to resign over what they say are his failures to address security and economic woes.

Mali coup ‘diplomatic nightmare for France’

The mutinous soldiers who staged the coup, who have called themselves the National Committee for the Salvation of the People, have promised a transition to civil political rule with elections to be held in a “reasonable amount of time”. In the meantime they have closed the country’s borders and announced a curfew.

A spokesman for the junta, Ismael Wague, said France’s anti-jihadist Barkhane force and the UN peacekeeping mission in Mali as well as forces from neighbouring countries were “partners for stability and restoring security”.

However, France and other international powers as well as the AU have denounced the mutiny, fearful that the fall of Keita could further destabilise the former French colony and West Africa’s entire Sahel region.

The AU has suspended Mali’s membership in response to the military’s seizure of power and the detention of the president, the bloc announced in a tweet on Wednesday. The suspension will last until constitutional order is restored, it said, demanding the release of the deposed president and other senior officials.

The current chairman of the AU, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, called for the “immediate return to civilian rule”.

An emergency meeting of the UN Security Council convened on Wednesday condemned the mutiny and urged the soldiers to release all detained government officials without delay. The 15 members “underlined the urgent need to restore rule of law and to move towards the return to constitutional order”, according to a statement.

‘Unconstitutional’

The influential West African regional bloc ECOWAS said it was sending a high-level delegation to “ensure the immediate return to constitutional order”. The 15-nation bloc – which includes Mali – also said that it would suspend the country from its internal decision-making bodies.

French President Emmanuel Macron said on Wednesday that “the fight against terrorist groups and the defence of democracy and the rule of law are inseparable”, referring to the situation in Mali.

“To leave is to provoke instability and to weaken our fight. It is not acceptable,” the French president wrote on Twitter, calling for power to be “returned to civilians,” for “milestones (to be) laid for a return to constitutional order” and for the Malian president and his prime minister to be freed.

French troops have been fighting in the country since 2013, after Mali asked it to help regain territory seized by Islamist extremists who had hijacked a Touareg rebellion in the country’s northern desert regions the previous year.

The French military succeeded in this initial task – but the jihadist insurgency has since spread throughout Mali and across the border to Niger and Burkina Faso.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo denounced Keita’s overthrow in a statement on Wednesday. “The United States strongly condemns the August 18 mutiny in Mali as we would condemn any forcible seizure of power,” he said. “The freedom and safety of detained government officials and their families must be ensured.”

The EU condemned the events in Mali as “unconstitutional”.

“The European Union condemns the attempted coup d’état under way in Mali and rejects all unconstitutional change,” the bloc’s diplomatic chief, Josep Borrell, said in a statement Tuesday.

Neighbouring Algeria has also rejected the coup. “Algeria reiterates its firm rejection of any anti-constitutional change of government,” the foreign ministry said in a statement on Wednesday. It said Algeria was following with “concern” developments in Mali, with which it shares an almost 1,400-kilometre (850-mile) border.

Morocco also reacted to the coup on Wednesday, stressing the need for “stability” in Mali, calling for “responsible dialogue, respect for constitutional order and the preservation of democratic gains.”

In a statement shortly after the coup Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged Malians to protect their democratic institutions and called for the “immediate and unconditional release” of Mali’s president.

The UN Security Council will hold an emergency meeting on the events later on Wednesday.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and REUTERS)

20, August 2020

US Politics: Kamala Harris accepts VP nomination ⁰

US Senator Kamala Harris accepted the Democratic nomination for vice president on Wednesday, imploring the country to elect Joe Biden president and accusing Donald Trump of failed leadership that had cost lives and livelihoods.

The first Black woman and Asian-American on a major US presidential ticket, Harris summarized her life story as emblematic of the American dream on the third day of the Democratic National Convention.

“Donald Trump’s failure of leadership has cost lives and livelihoods,” Harris said.

Former US President Barack Obama told the convention Trump’s failures as his successor had led to 170,000 people dead from the coronavirus, millions of lost jobs and America’s reputation badly diminished in the world.

The evening featured a crush of women headliners, moderators and speakers, with Harris pressing the case against Trump, speaking directly to millions of women, young Americans and voters of color, constituencies Democrats need if Biden is to defeat the Republican Trump.

“The constant chaos leaves us adrift, the incompetence makes us feel afraid, the callousness makes us feel alone. It’s a lot. And here’s the thing: we can do better and deserve so much more,” she said.

“Right now, we have a president who turns our tragedies into political weapons. Joe will be a president who turns our challenges into purpose,” she said, speaking from an austere hotel ballroom in Biden’s hometown of Wilmington, Delaware.

Biden ahead in polls

Biden leads Trump in opinion polls ahead of the Nov. 3 election, bolstered by a big lead among women voters. Throughout the convention, Democrats have appealed directly to those women voters, highlighting Biden’s co-sponsorship of the landmark Violence Against Woman Act of 1994 and his proposals to bolster childcare and protect family healthcare provisions.

Obama, whose vice president was Biden from 2009-2017, said he had hoped that Trump would take the job seriously, come to feel the weight of the office, and discover a reverence for American democracy.

“Donald Trump hasn’t grown into the job because he can’t. And the consequences of that failure are severe,” Obama said in unusually blunt criticism from an ex-president.

“Millions of jobs gone. Our worst impulses unleashed, our proud reputation around the world badly diminished, and our democratic institutions threatened like never before,” Obama said.

The choice of a running mate has added significance for Biden, 77, who would be the oldest person to become president if he is elected. His age has led to speculation he will serve only one term, making Harris a potential top contender for the nomination in 2024.

Biden named Harris, 55, as his running mate last week to face incumbents Trump, 74, and Vice President Mike Pence, 61.

Former first lady and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee who lost to Trump, told the convention she constantly hears from voters who regret backing Trump or not voting at all.

“This can’t be another woulda coulda shoulda election.” Clinton said. “No matter what, vote. Vote like our lives and livelihoods are on the line, because they are.”

Clinton, who won the popular vote against Trump but lost in the Electoral College, said Biden needs to win overwhelmingly, warning he could win the popular vote but still lose the White House.

“Joe and Kamala can win by 3 million votes and still lose,” Clinton said. “Take it from me. So we need numbers overwhelming so Trump can’t sneak or steal his way to victory.”

Democrats have been alarmed by Trump’s frequent criticism of mail-in voting, and by cost-cutting changes at the US Postal Service instituted by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a Trump supporter, that could delay mail during the election crunch. DeJoy said recently he would delay those changes until after the election.

Democrats also broadcast videos highlighting Trump’s crackdown on immigration, opposition to gun restrictions and his decision to pull out of the Paris climate accord.

‘Disrespect’ for facts, for women

Nancy Pelosi, the first woman Speaker of the US House of Representatives, told the convention she had seen firsthand Trump’s “disrespect for facts, for working families, and for women in particular – disrespect written into his policies toward our health and our rights, not just his conduct. But we know what he doesn’t: that when women succeed, America succeeds.”

US Senator Elizabeth Warren, a leading progressive who ran against Biden in the 2020 primary, spoke to the convention from a childcare center in Massachusetts and cited Biden’s proposal to make childcare more affordable as a vital part of his agenda to help working Americans.

“It’s time to recognize that childcare is part of the basic infrastructure of this nation — it’s infrastructure for families,” she said. “Joe and Kamala will make high-quality childcare affordable for every family, make preschool universal, and raise the wages for every childcare worker.”

In her speech later, Harris will have an opportunity to outline her background as a child of immigrants from India and Jamaica who as a district attorney, state attorney general, US senator from California and now vice-presidential candidate shattered gender and racial barriers.

She gained prominence in the Senate for her exacting interrogations of Trump nominees, Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Attorney General Bill Barr.

The Republican National Convention, also largely virtual, takes place next week.

Source: REUTERS

19, August 2020

It will be in Biya’s best interest and legacy to talk to Sisiku Ayuk Tabe ⁰

A senior Southern Cameroons elite based in South Africa, Dr Patrick Ayuk has criticized the French Cameroun regime of President Paul Biya for sponsoring the arrest and forced extradition of the Ambazonian leader President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe and his top aides from the Nigerian capital Abuja to Yaoundé saying it is in Paul Biya’s best interest to talk to the Southern Cameroons chief executive.

During a Cameroon Concord News Group event on Tuesday, Dr Patrick Ayuk opined on how the UN should intervene in the Ambazonia crisis and assist the two Cameroons move forward with several domestic and international issues, among them the terms of separation.

Dr Patrick Ayuk said the French Cameroun regime in Yaoundé could have tried to fix what it viewed as the Anglophone problem with the Federal Republic of Nigeria as a mediator instead of wasting millions of US dollars in staging an action now described by international actors as state terrorism.

One consequence of the Biya-Buhari Abuja blunder was the internationalization of the Southern Cameroons crisis, Dr Patrick Ayuk noted.

The Southern Cameroons academic who holds a PhD in Management and leadership from the North West University highlighted the devastating effect of the 4 year old war that is showing no signs of ending blaming it on failed and irresponsible leadership in French Cameroun and pointed out that only a UN Security Council resolution will be able to bring to a very important conclusion the crisis in Southern Cameroons-Ambazonia.

The researcher at North West University and Founder and CEO of Global Leadership and Development Nexus also said the United Nations should thus return to the Milner-Simon Agreement as a means of restricting the casualties and preventing further conflict between the two Cameroons.

“I think it would be in Mr. Paul Biya’s best interest and his legacy to start talking to President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe and to stop the senseless war that has radicalized thousands of Southern Cameroonians” Dr Patrick Ayuk added.

He, however, cast doubt on whether the Southern Cameroons Interim Government and its leadership would be receptive to that saying, “I think after Yaounde ignored the recommendations of the so-called Grand National Dialogue, President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe and the Ambazonia Interim Government may have moved on and adopted a tough position.”

Vice President Dabney Yerima of the Southern Cameroons Interim Government has increasingly signaled that he wants the United Nations to send a fact finding mission to the Federal Republic of Ambazonia.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai