8, September 2018

Efforts to stop Congo’s Ebola outbreak yield mixed results ⁰

Health workers trying to control the Ebola outbreak in the city of Beni, in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), have met resistance and hostility from residents who refuse to accept their city has been hit by the virus.

Yet the Health Ministry has identified Beni as the new flashpoint and two people who died in Butembo, just over 50 km from Beni and an important trading hub, have been confirmed Ebola cases.

The Ebola death in Butembo, a city of almost a million on the border with Uganda, dampened hopes that the spread of the disease was close to being brought under control. Butembo straddles a major trading route for consumer goods entering Congo from East Africa and for Congolese exports of artisanal gold, coltan, timber and other materials to East African ports via Uganda.

Taxi drivers plying the Beni-Butembo route have a different opinion about the epidemic, claiming they would have been the ones to have been infected as they always meet and mix with both Beni and Butembo residents.

“We hear people talking about Ebola but we have never seen anyone suffering from it. I am a resident of Beni and I don’t think there is Ebola”, said Moses Tekela, a taxi driver.

Some areas close to the epicentre of the outbreak, which is believed to have killed 89 people since July and infected another 40, have been off-limits to health workers due to their proximity to rebel-controlled territory. Most have been in villages but about 20 cases have been in Beni, a city of several hundred thousand people with close links to Uganda.

Unlike the taxi drivers, teachers in Beni fear the worst and many have stayed away from schools due to start after the summer break this week. Parental concern over possible infection also has stopped some pupils from attending classes at the start of the school year.

The health ministry has advised those in high-risk areas to observe strict hygiene rules such as washing their hands before entering supermarkets, schools and other public places.

Health officials say they have made progress slowing the virus’s spread with experimental vaccines and treatments. But they cannot be sure the situation is under control due to difficulties accessing some areas.

Congo has experienced 10 outbreaks of Ebola since it was discovered in the country’s forested north in 1976. The disease causes haemorrhagic fever and kills about half of the people it infects.

Reuters

8, September 2018

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

8, September 2018

Cameroon Reopens Schools Threatened by Boko Haram ⁰

Children at the Government Primary School Limani dance with joy as they meet each other in class for the first time in several years.

Cameroon has re-opened 40 schools on its northern border with Nigeria that were sealed four years ago because of threats from Boko Haram insurgents. But while students are happy returning, many of their teachers are absent and have been replaced by troops from the Multinational Joint Task Force still fighting the Islamist group.

The children’s school in Limani is one of the forty near northern Cameroon’s border with Nigeria that authorities reopened this week, citing improved security.

Cameroon closed around sixty schools in the area beginning in December 2014 because of the threat from Boko Haram.

The Islamist militant group, whose name roughly translates as “non-Islamic education is a sin,” had launched an all-out assault on villages near the Lake Chad area.

Cameroon says hundreds of Boko Haram fighters attacked and torched schools, including the Limani primary school.

Ibrahim Nassourou was nine years old when the school was shut. He and his parents fled to a neighboring village where Nassourou was unable to attend school.

He says when he was told that their school in Limani had been reopened he shouted with joy because he can now again persue an education.

Cameroon authorities are touting the absense of a major Boko Haram attack for the past year and are urging parents to return their children to the re-opened schools. Troops are protecting the schools, they say.

Photo Gallery:

Cameroon Reopens Schools Threatened by Boko Haram

But parents are reluctant to trust promises of safety. Only about 20 percent of the students have come back.

Teachers are also noticeably absent.

At the Limani Primary School’s Class Five, troops from the Multinational Joint Task Force have traded their weapons for teaching manuals and chalk.

Cameroon-born staff corporal Blaise Fonkon says teaching is part of their social outreach program.

“We have [a] humanitarian line of operation. In that humanitarian line of operation, we have of course the school situation. Through their school, if they actually know what they are supposed to do here, they will be engineers, they will be teachers, they will be doctors and I am sure that they will change this country,” Fonkon said.

Classroom teacher Edison Abunaw says despite assurances of their safety, most of his teaching colleagues do not wish to return.

And between Boko Haram’s attacks and kidnappings, and villagers hiding in fear, he says, the fate of many former students is still not known.

“We used to have about 500 to 600 pupils, but we have about two hundred [now]. Most of the parents, they don’t tell us what happened to their children so we are confronted with situations where we cannot easily explain what happened to the child,” Abunaw said.

Abunaw notes classes only started September 3, so he says it is too early to say if more teachers and students will return.

Cameroon is giving absent teachers two weeks to come back to their jobs.

Mayor of Fotokol town Abouzari Mahamat says the government has promised to rebuild schools that Boko Haram damaged.

He says the engineering corps of the Multinational Joint Task Force, which is fighting Boko Haram, has promised to construct new classes and repair those that were destroyed. Mahamat says, thanks to the presence of the troops, peace is returning and children can now go to school.

But Mahamat acknowledges that reconstruction has been slow because contractors also worry that fighting could return.

VOA

8, September 2018

Biya regime, Ambazonian Interim Gov’t Trade Blame for School Attacks, Kidnappings ⁰

A steady flow of relatives, friends and well-wishers have been visiting Martina Afanwi at her home this week in Bamenda, an English-speaking town in Cameroon’s northwest.

They are encouraging the 40-year-old to have faith that her 11-year-old son, who was abducted Monday from the Presbyterian School of Science and Technology, will be found safe.

But Afanwi is worried because Cameroon authorities have yet to inform her of what they are doing to find her son.

“I feel horrible. My heart is bleeding. It’s not normal. Its horrible,” she says. “The government needs to take measures. I think they have been sleeping. Nothing is being done.”

Afanwi’s son is one of six students missing after gunmen attacked the school on September 3, the first day of Cameroon’s school year. The students are presumed kidnapped as they never returned home and no bodies were found.

The school principal was discovered unconscious with machete wounds and lapsed into a coma after being rushed to the hospital.

Cameroon authorities say a head teacher was murdered the same day in the northwestern village of Bamali.

The commander of government troops in the northwest, General Agha Robinson, blames armed separatists, who are seeking an independent, English-speaking state.

“About 837 weapons have been seized. The principal was shot with one of these weapons,” he tells VOA. “We have deployed our soldiers for patrols, we are securing schools, we have also reinforced security in our borders, where ammunition is being imported.”

In social media posts, the separatists denied responsibility for this week’s attacks and alleged kidnappings, instead blaming unspecified government-created armed groups.

“Let it be said loudly and clearly that our forces did not commit any act and they only arrived at the schools after the crimes were committed,” read one separatist posting. “Our forces were instead there to bring order and chase occupational troops from Cameroon.”

Activists like Yah Gladys Viban are calling on both sides to end the conflict.

“We are not name calling, we are not blaming, we are just saying that if we want to build this nation and if we want peace and prosperity for the generations ahead of us, we need to put all the guns down, sit on the table and talk about it. Nothing else will work,” she says.

Most schools in Cameroon’s restive northwest and southwest have been closed since 2016 because of attacks from the separatists.

In August, separatists said they would allow the schools to re-open but without a security guarantee and at a date of their choosing.

Culled from the VOA

8, September 2018

Yaounde gambling on Seedorf amid African coaching changes ⁰

Former Netherlands star Clarence Seedorf is among more than a dozen coaches who will make Africa Cup of Nations debuts this weekend in 2019 qualifiers.

Despite underperforming in three previous managerial posts, the 42-year-old has been given a four-year contract by reigning African champions Cameroon.

His first match in charge of the ‘Indomitable Lions’ is away to minnows Comoros in Group B on Saturday.

Cameroon are guaranteed a place in the expanded 24-team 2019 Cup of Nations as hosts, but were included in the qualifying competition to give them match practice.

Vastly experienced and widely travelled Swede Sven-Goran Eriksson had been favourite for the Cameroon post after 2017 Cup of Nations-winning coach Hugo Broos was sacked.

Having masterminded a surprise fifth African title, Belgian Broos did not deliver at the 2017 Confederations Cup and failure to qualify for the 2018 World Cup was the final straw.

Seedorf got the nod, with fellow former Dutch star Patrick Kluivert as his assistant, having had brief, unsuccessful spells at AC Milan, Shenzhen and Deportivo la Coruna as manager.

“I feel honoured to be given the opportunity to manage this great country,” Seedorf said when appointed.

The big test for the former Ajax Amsterdam, AC Milan and Real Madrid midfielder will come next June when Cameroon host the biennial African football showpiece.

Only another title will satisfy Cameroonian officials and supporters as the country stages the tournament for the first time since 1972, when it was a mere eight-nation event.

Egypt have appointed Mexican Javier Aguirre, a 59-year-old who has coached his homeland and Japan as well as several Spanish clubs, including Atletico Madrid.

He succeeds Hector Cuper, the Argentine not offered a contract extension after the ‘Pharaohs’ flopped at the World Cup, losing all three group matches.

His first assignment is at home to modest Niger and the main issue would appear to be how many goals Mohamed Salah-inspired Egypt win by.

Aguirre got the job ahead of Bosnian Vahid Halilhodzic, who took Algeria to the last 16 at the 2014 World Cup before quitting over what he considered hostile media coverage.

“I am really honoured to be here,” the Mexican said when introduced to the media. “It is my first job in Africa and a big challenge.”

Cuper was often criticised for overly defensive tactics and much attention will now centre on whether Aguirre opts for a more adventurous approach.

While many of the new coaches are non-Africans, Tanzanian officials tired of a lack of delivery by numerous Europeans have signed former Nigeria star Emmanuel Amuneke.

Amuneke scored the goals that gave Nigeria the 1994 Cup of Nations title and played for Barcelona and Sporting Lisbon.

After coaching success with Nigeria at age-limit level, Tanzania hope he can lift them out of mediocrity with their only previous Cup of Nations appearance 38 years ago.

The Ivory Coast are rebuilding after age caught up with “golden generation” stars like Didier Drogba, Salomon Kalou and Kolo Toure.

Belgian Marc Wilmots disappointed as coach of the ‘Elephants’, failing to qualify for this year’s World Cup and losing at home to Guinea in a 2019 Cup of Nations eliminator.

His successor is local Ibrahim Kamara, who plans a pragmatic “counterattacking” system to stabilise the team and achieve results, starting in Rwanda this Sunday.

AFP

7, September 2018

Prosecutor confirms probe into Italian minister’s treatment of migrants ⁰

Prosecutors in Sicily on Friday confirmed a probe into far-right Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini for illegal confinement after he refused to allow more than 100 rescued migrants off of a coastguard ship for 10 days.

The public prosecutor’s office in Palermo notified Salvini in a letter that the minister opened and read in a video broadcast live on his Facebook page.

“An organ of the state is probing another organ of the state. With the small difference that you (the voters) elected this organ of the state,” Salvini said in the video.

“The others have not been elected by anyone and are not answerable (for their actions) to anyone.

“It is you who asked this minister to control the borders, to control the ports, to limit arrivals, to limit the departure of illegal migrants,” he added.

The migrants on the Diciotti coastguard ship had been stranded at a port in Sicily before Salvini finally allowed them to disembark on August 26 after Ireland, Albania and the Italian Catholic church agreed to take most of them in.

The 10-day blocking of the Diciotti migrants followed a number of similar standoffs in which Italy turned away ships with migrants rescued at sea in a campaign to make EU countries take their share.

The government has also threatened to stop billions of euros of EU funding over the issue, accusing Europe of turning its back as Italy grapples with seemingly endless migrant arrivals.

– Hard line on migrants –

Salvini, who is also deputy prime minister and the leader of the far-right League party, said on Wednesday that 50 of the 144 Diciotti migrants had since disappeared without trace from reception centres.

These migrants “were so in need of protection, a roof and a blanket that they decided to leave and disappear,” he said on Facebook.

“This is the umpteenth confirmation that those who arrive in Italy are not skeletons fleeing war and famine,” he added.

Since Salvini’s League formed a government with the anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S) on June 1, the minister has implemented his party’s hard line on migrants.

Within days of becoming interior minister, he delivered on a campaign promise to close Italian ports to immigrants and asylum-seekers, starting with 600 plucked from the Mediterranean by NGO boat Aquarius, which was instead forced to take them to Valencia in Spain.

That crisis was only resolved after a meeting between Conte and his French President Emmanuel Macron.

Most of those aboard the Diciotti were Eritreans, along with a small number of Somalians, Syrians, Sudanese and Comorans.

Since the start of the year, 3,000 migrants from the former Italian colony of Eritrea have arrived in Italy but less than a thousand have applied for asylum, according to interior ministry figures.

Many Eritreans prefer to continue by land to Germany, Sweden or Britain, despite the heavy controls encountered at the French, Swiss and Austrian borders as well as the EU’s Dublin regulation under which a migrant can only make an asylum claim in the first European country the reach.

AFP

7, September 2018

France accuses Russia of trying to spy on Franco-Italian military satellite ⁰

Russia last year attempted to intercept transmissions from a Franco-Italian satellite used by both nations’ armies for secure communications, French Defence Minister Florence Parly said on Friday, describing the move as an “act of espionage”.

In a speech outlining France’s space policy for the coming years, Parly said Russian satellite Louch-Olymp had approached the Athena-Fidus satellite in 2017. Parly said it came so close “that anyone would have thought it was attempting to intercept our communications”.

“Attempting to listen to your neighbours is not only unfriendly, it’s an act of espionage,” she said. Parly said officials took the “appropriate measures” and continued to monitor the satellite after it left, and observed it manoeuvring near other targets as well, she said.

Last month Washington accused Moscow of developing anti-satellite weapons and cited “very abnormal behaviour” of a “space object” deployed by Russia last October.

“We are well aware that other major players in space are deploying intriguing objects into orbit, experimenting with potential offensive capabilities, conducting maneuvers which leave no doubt as to their aggressive intent,” Parly said.

Next year, French President Emmanuel Macron plans to lay out plans for a “space defence strategy” for France, with an advisory committee expected to make proposals by November. “We’re at risk, our communications, our military maneuvers and our daily operations are at risk if we don’t react,” Parly said.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP, REUTERS)

7, September 2018

Anglican diocese of Cameroon celebrates ten years ⁰

A CELEBRATION of ten years of the Anglican diocese of Cameroon was held in the open air at the largest city in Cameroon, Douala, on 26 August.

The day dawned bright and dry, and 1500 worshippers celebrated a eucharist, accompanied by choral music, and a sermon by the Bishop of Ohaji Egbema, in Nigeria, the Rt Revd Chidi Collins Oparaojiaku.

The eucharist was celebrated by the Bishop of Cameroon, the Rt Revd Dibo Thomas-Babyngton Elango. He also invested 15 Knights — lay members who have contributed spiritually and materially to the development of the Church — during the service.

The Bishop preached in the centre of the quadrangle of open-sided marquees erected to shade the congregation from the sun. He commended the faithfulness of the Anglican Church in Cameroon, and congratulated the diocese on its achievements over the past decade. He reminded listeners that all things were achieved only by the grace of God.

The congregation responded with loud Amens of approval, and joined enthusiastically when he began an unaccompanied rendition of “Great is thy faithfulness”.

Sustained by a packed lunch of chicken and rice, the congregation enjoyed musical contributions from the diocesan choir, which sang an anthem by Handel, and by visiting choirs, which sang traditional African spirituals and modern gospel. The Boys’ Brigade provided percussive interludes. The service was long, and at points chaotic, but always joyful.

The Church of England link diocese of Chichester was represented by Canon Mark Payne, the Rector of St Pancras, Chichester, and Canon of the Cathedral of St Michael and All Angels, Douala.

Anglicanism was brought to Cameroon in the mid-20th century by an expatriate community of West African business owners, who set up churches, including what is now the cathedral. Cameroon was initially a missionary area under the Church of the Province of West Africa (CPWA). It was only in 2008 that it achieved full status as a diocese in the CPWA, and Bishop Elango was ordained and consecrated to the office of Bishop: the first Cameroonian to hold the position.

The diocese has now expanded to 28 churches across nine parishes, served by 16 full-time clergy and eleven catechists. The diocese has an ambitious and largely self-funded building programme of churches, clergy accommodation, schools, and a health clinic. In a country without a welfare state, this contribution to education and health care has a significant impact on the life chances of young people in particular.

The tenth anniversary comes at a time of significant civil unrest in Cameroon, as anger and frustration in Anglophone regions about perceived marginalisation by the Francophone majority spills over into violence. The Anglican Church ministers to both English and French speaking communities.

Culled from Church Times

7, September 2018

Twenty-seven bodies found after French Cameroun army attack in Menchum ⁰

Twenty-seven bodies were found in the Menchum County after the French Cameroun army carried out an onslaught in the Ambazonian constituency precisely in the Yemngeh locality some few kilometers from Zhoa sources have confirmed to Cameroon Intelligence Report, adding to concern about abuse by the Francophone security forces in their fight against Southern Cameroons Restoration Forces.

Our correspondent in Wum, the chief town in the Menchum County reported that the 27 bodies were found in two mass graves. The grim discovery was made after the French Cameroun army said in a statement that it had killed several Southern Cameroon separatist fighters in the area during an operation it carried out on Tuesday night.

Correspondingly, a senior Christian figure in Weh hinted that the first grave had 17 bodies and the second held 10. The regime in Yaounde has always announced an inquiry but regularly denies these accusations of summary executions.

Many innocent Southern Cameroons civilians were reportedly injured during the French Cameroun government attack in the Menchum County and many including women and children have all escaped into the bushes. The army destroyed the bridge linking Weh to Wum during the attacks and several houses were burnt down.

By Rita Akana in Wum

7, September 2018

British Airways website suffers data breach; 380,000 payments affected ⁰

Financial data has been stolen from potentially hundreds of thousands of British Airways customers who made online bookings in recent weeks, extending a run of embarrassing technological mishaps suffered by the UK flag carrier.

The thefts occurred during a data breach that affected bookings made on the airline’s website between Aug. 21 and Sept. 5, parent International Airlines Group said on Thursday.

Around 380,000 card payments were “compromised”, it said. In May 2017, the carrier suffered a massive computer system failure caused by a power supply issue near London’s Heathrow, which stranded 75,000 customers at Europe’s busiest airport over
a holiday weekend.

Its chief executive said at the time it would take steps to ensure such an incident never happened again, but in July it was forced to cancel and delay flights out of the same airport due to problems with a supplier’s IT systems.

IAG said the data breach had been resolved and the website was working normally, and that no travel or passport details were stolen.

It was communicating with affected customers but advised any others who believed they might have been affected to contact their banks or credit card providers.

The airline had launched an investigation and notified police and other relevant authorities.

(Source: Reuters)