29, August 2017

EU delivers strong defense of multilateral nuclear deal with Iran ⁰

The European Union (EU) has once again thrown its weight firmly behind a multilateral nuclear deal with Iran, as the United States tries its hand at undermining the agreement.

Addressing the opening session of the 2017 EU Ambassadors Conference in Brussels on Monday, Federica Mogherini said the deal, officially called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), represents “the European way to foreign policy.”

“This was not an agreement between two countries, I have repeated it time and again and I have the impression that we will need to repeat it time and again in the months to come,” she added, apparently referring to the stepped-up American rhetoric and action against the deal.

US President Donald Trump has called the JCPOA — which was negotiated under his predecessor, Barack Obama — “the worst deal ever” and repeatedly threatened to tear it up.

The deal was reached between Iran and the P5+1 countries — namely the US, Russia, China, France, Britain, and Germany — in July 2015 and took effect in January 2016.

Recent reports indicate that the Trump administration is actively seeking a pretext to potentially withdraw from the JCPOA. Among other things, the White House has reportedly been pressuring US intelligence officials to produce intelligence that could be used to declare Iran in violation of the nuclear agreement.

This is while the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which is tasked with monitoring Iranian compliance with the deal, has consistently verified the Islamic Republic’s adherence to its obligations.

Last week, the Trump administration sent US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley to Vienna to lobby with the IAEA to request access to Iranian military sites as part of the deal, a move generally considered an attempt at undermining the JCPOA.

Mogherini said in her Monday’s comments that the JCPOA was “a commitment undertaken by the entire international community on one side and Iran on the other, supported by a resolution of the UN Security Council, and certified regularly by the International Atomic Energy Agency.”

She said “compliance with the deal is certified by the IAEA and by the Joint Commission I chair…, not by one single individual country,” in a thinly-veiled rejection of US attempts to claim an Iranian breach.

The EU’s top diplomat further hailed Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s “personal commitment to continue to implement their part of the deal. This is what is counting the most for us in this moment.” Iran has denounced Washington’s attempts to undermine the JCPOA.

Culled from Presstv

29, August 2017

La Republique: Sebastian Cathedral closed following discovery of blood on Bishop Bala’s tomb ⁰

The judicial police in Bafia have sealed the Sebastian Cathedral following the discovery of blood precisely on the altar, the steps leading to the cathedral, the table that bears the liturgy and the tomb of the late Bishop Jean Marie Benoit Bala. Samples of the discovered blood was taken to Yaoundé for medical examination.

Cameroon Concord News can now confirm that the Roman Catholic Cathedral in Bafia was sealed by the competent authorities on Monday the 28th of August 2017. We also understand that following the closure of the cathedral, masses will now be celebrated at the Saint Paul Center.

According to the Canon Law, the reopening of the cathedral can only be carried out again after a decision from the Holy Father Pope Francis. The late Bishop Jean Benoit Bala was declared missing on the 31st of May 2017 and was found dead three days later in the waters of the Sanaga River. He was buried in the San Sebastian Cathedral of Bafia on the 3rd of August.

By Fru James
Cameroon Concord News

29, August 2017

Consortium: Agbor Balla and Fontem Neba asked to appear in Mfoundi court today ⁰

The application for habeas corpus made by the defense team for the detained leaders of the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium will be examined today, the 29th of August at the Mfoundi High Court in Yaounde.

The two leaders, Felix Nkongho Agbor and Fontem Neba are currently being tried in French Cameroun for hostility against the homeland, outrages on constituted bodies and officials, rebellion, degradation of public property, looting, coercion of acts of terrorism, secession, revolution, insurrection, excitement And propagation of false news.

Dr. Barrister Agbor Balla and Dr. Fontem Neba described recently by CPDM Senator Mbella Moki as men of honour were arrested on January 18 and ever since then, the Southern Cameroons revolution has continued to shake the very foundation of the ruling CPDM party.

At the last hearing, on the 27th of July, defense lawyers pointed out that the detention of their clients was illegal. Because it violates legal proceedings. “They were arrested at the end of January and the pre-trial detention can not exceed six months without being renewed. But it was not in June.”

By Rita Akana
Cameroon Concord News Group

28, August 2017

Russia 2018: Cry the beloved Indomitable Lions ⁰

The coach of the Indomitable Lions, Hugo Broos started preparations for the double confrontation against the Super Eagles of Nigeria today Monday, August 28, 2017 on the grounds of the military stadium in Yaoundé counting for the 2018 World Cup qualifiers with only 10 players.

Cameroon Concord News understands that of the 23 pre-selected players, only ten have so far responded and they include Georges Mandjeck, Adolphe Teikeu, Jules Goda, Castelleto Jean Charles, Fabrice Olinga, Arnaud Djoum, Benjamin Moukandjo, Christian Bassogog, Georges Bokwe and Frantz Pangop- the only local player among the troops.

With this reduced staff, the technical crew carried out a minor training session today Monday pending the arrival tomorrow Tuesday of a large wave of players. Captain Benjamin Moukandjo and his team-mates will hold an intensive practice session tomorrow at the Mont Febe hotel and then to the military stadium.

Our senior football correspondent say the African champions will leave for Nigeria on Thursday, 31 August, 24 hours before the first leg of the double confrontation against the Super Eagles of Nigeria. The return leg is scheduled to take place in Yaoundé on Monday the 4th of September from 18:30 at the Ahmadou Ahidjo stadium.

By Sonne Peter
Cameroon Concord News

28, August 2017

Bafia: Huge amount of blood found on the tomb of late Bishop Jean Marie Bala ⁰

A French Cameroun radio has reported that a huge amount of blood was found in the Saint Sebastian Cathedral in Bafia precisely on the tomb of the late Bishop Jean Marie Benoît Bala in the early hours of Monday the 28th of August 2017.

Radio Balafon emitting from Douala, also observed that the blood was sprayed on the altar of the cathedral and on the steps leading to the area commonly called the Bishop’s chair and on the table that bears the golden book and on the tomb of Bishop Jean Marie Benoit Bala.

A source in Bafia who confirmed the happenings to Cameroon Concord News, further pointed out that security forces and the state Prosecutor were summoned by Roman Catholic authorities to witness the scene. We understand, some samples of the discovered blood were collected and have been taken to Yaoundé for medical examination.

Local residents say it could be a ritual that was done in the night. The vicar of the Bafia Diocese had the blood on the altar cleaned before Eucharistic celebrations this morning. The parish priest on leave was called back urgently on this subject.

Bishop Jean Benoit Bala was declared missing on the 31st of May 2017 and was found dead three days later in the Sanaga River. The circumstances surrounding his death at the age of 58 are being investigated. In addition to this, another investigation is currently being conducted for the death of the rector of the Bafia minor seminary, Armel Djama who was killed 10 days before Bishop Jean Marie Benoit Bala.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai with files from CIN

28, August 2017

Death toll from Sierra Leone mudslides tops 1,000 ⁰

More than 1,000 people have died from the mudslide and flood that hit Sierra Leone’s capital nearly two weeks ago, a local leader and a minister said Sunday during services honoring the disaster’s victims.

The government had earlier put the death toll for the Aug. 14 mudslide at 450 dead, while rescuers and aid groups warned that many of the more than 600 people missing would likely not survive.

“Over 1,000 perished in the mudslide and flood disaster, and we will never know the exact number now,” Elenoroh Jokomie Metzger, the head of the women of Regent, said. Regent is an area on the outskirts of Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown, where the mudslide hit.

Hundreds of burials have taken place, while rescue and recovery efforts have continued through rain that could bring fresh tragedy due to unsafe housing conditions.

Reverend Bishop Emeritus Arnold Temple, Sierra Leone’s Methodist minister, who delivered the Sunday sermon at a Methodist church near Regent, said an accurate count was important for accountability.

Men wait beside empty graves for the coffins of mudslide victims on August 17, 2017 at Waterloo cemetery near Freetown, Sierra Leone. (Photo by AFP)

“It may well be over 1,000 Sierra Leoneans we are mourning now. But why should about 1,000 of our compatriots’ lives end tragically like this?” Temple said. “Who should we really blame? We are bound at a point in the blame game to attribute the blame so that corrective measures can be put in place so that never again should we allow this to happen.”

Thousands of people living in areas at risk during heavy rains have been evacuated. Aid groups are delivering supplies and helping provide clean water to prevent a health crisis.

Some critics accuse Sierra Leone’s government of failing to learn from past disasters in Freetown, where many poor areas are near sea level and lack good drainage. The capital is also plagued by unregulated construction on its hillsides.

(Source: AP)

28, August 2017

Houston devastated by flooding; residents gird for more rains ⁰

Catastrophic flooding triggered by Tropical Storm Harvey inundated Houston on Sunday, forcing residents of the fourth most populous US city to flee their homes in boats or hunker down in anticipation of several more days of “unprecedented” rainfall.

Harvey came ashore late on Friday as the most powerful hurricane to hit Texas in more than 50 years and has killed at least two people. The death toll is expected to rise as the storm triggers additional tidal surges and tornadoes, with parts of the region expected to see a year’s worth of rainfall in the span of a week.

The storm caused chest-deep flooding on some streets in Houston as rivers and channels overflowed their banks. More than 30 inches (76 cm) of rain had fallen in parts of Houston in the past 48 hours, the National Weather Service said on Sunday, with more on the way.

The storm struck at the heart of the country’s oil and gas industry, forcing operators to close several refineries and evacuate and close offshore platforms. The massive flooding knocked out 11 percent of US refining capacity and a quarter of oil production from the US Gulf of Mexico.

“What we’re seeing is the most devastating flood event in Houston’s recorded history. We’re seeing levels of rainfall that are unprecedented,” said Steve Bowen, chief meteorologist at reinsurance firm Aon Benfield.

Total precipitation could reach 50 inches (127 cm) in some coastal areas of Texas by the end of the week, or the average rainfall for an entire year. The center of Harvey was about 105 miles (170 km) from Houston and was forecast to arc slowly toward the city through Wednesday.

People in Houston and other areas of Texas were asked not to leave their homes, even if they flooded, as roads were impassable. President Donald Trump plans to go to Texas on Tuesday to survey damage from the storm, a White House spokeswoman said on Sunday.

Cade Ritter rides through a flooded parking lot on the campus of Rice University afer it was inundated with water from Hurricane Harvey on August 27, 2017 in Houston, Texas. (Photo by AFP)

The Gulf is home to about nearly half of the nation’s refining capacity, and the reduced supply could affect gasoline supplies across the US Southeast and other parts of the country. Shutdowns extended across the coast, including Exxon Mobil’s Baytown refinery, the second largest US refinery.

Gasoline futures rose as much as 7 percent in early trading on Sunday evening, and heating oil futures, a proxy for distillates like diesel fuel, were up as much as 3 percent, as supplies are expected to be curtailed.

The outages will limit the availability of US crude, gasoline and other refined products for global consumers and further push up prices, analysts said.

All Houston port facilities will be closed on Monday because of the weather threat, a port spokeswoman said on Sunday night.

The swift rise of floodwaters surprised authorities, and emergency services told the city’s 2.3 million inhabitants to climb onto the roofs of houses, if necessary.

“The water was right at our door,” said Jasmine Melendez, a 23-year-old Houston mother of three, including a week-old infant. “We were also worried about the kids, especially the baby.”

Melendez was sheltering at the downtown George Brown Convention Center, which was filled with hundreds of people who showed up for water, food and baby supplies. Some people were being brought to the center in city dump trucks.

The Harris County Sheriff’s Office rescued more than 2,000 people in the greater Houston area using vehicles including motorboats, airboats and humvees on Sunday, a spokesman said.

People view the flooded highways in Houston on August 27, 2017 as the city battles with tropical storm Harvey and resulting floods. (Photo by AFP)

Forecasters could only draw on a few analogues to the storm, recalling Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans in 2005 and killed 1,800 people, and Tropical Storm Allison.

The Harris County Flood Control District said Harvey’s impact would rival that of Allison, which dropped more than 40 inches (102 cm) of rain in Texas in June 2001, flooded 70,000 homes and caused $9 billion in damage.

“The breadth and intensity of this rainfall are beyond anything experienced before. Catastrophic flooding is now underway and expected to continue for days,” the National Weather Service said on Twitter.

Harvey hit Texas as a Category 4 hurricane with winds of 130 miles per hour (210 kph), the strongest storm to hit the state since 1961. As of Sunday evening, about 240,000 people were without power, but Centerpoint Energy, which serves Houston, said it could not give an accurate estimate because flooding was preventing crews from reaching customers.

Two deaths were confirmed so far – one in Rockport, 30 miles (48 km) north of Corpus Christi, and in west Houston on Saturday. The Twitter account for Harris County 911 said people should not call if their lives were not threatened.

Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental and William P. Hobby airports canceled all commercial flights on Sunday. The Ben Taub Hospital in Houston’s Medical Center was evacuated on Sunday. An American Red Cross emergency shelter was forced to shut because of flooding and the group opened two more.

A Jetski is used to help people evacuate homes after the area was inundated with flooding from Hurricane Harvey on August 27, 2017 in Houston, Texas. (Photo by AFP)

Houston’s schools were scheduled to close for the week, the school district said on Twitter. ConocoPhillips will close on Monday and Tuesday, the company said.

Trump, facing the first big US natural disaster since he took office in January, signed a disaster proclamation on Friday, triggering federal relief efforts. Texas Governor Greg Abbott said on Sunday that 50 counties had been declared state disaster areas.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency said it had more than 400 rescue personnel in South Texas, and 500 others were in the state and expected to be joining in rescue operations on Sunday evening.

Jose Rengel, a 47-year-old construction worker who lives in Galveston, was helping with rescue efforts in Dickinson, Texas, southeast of Houston, where he saw water cresting the tops of cars.

“I am blessed that not much has happened to me, but these people lost everything. And it keeps raining,” he said.

“The water has nowhere to go.”

(Source: Reuters)

28, August 2017

Iwobi ruled out of Nigeria’s World Cup qualifiers against La Republique ⁰

Nigeria have suffered a blow ahead of their 2018 World Cup qualifier against La Republique du Cameroun in Uyo on Friday, after Arsenal forward Alex Iwobi withdrew from the squad with a thigh muscle strain.

The 21-year-old will also miss the away leg against African champions La Republique in Yaounde on 4 September, according to the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF).

Iwobi was due to join the Super Eagles training camp on Monday after Arsenal’s Premier League game at Liverpool on Sunday.

Iwobi, the nephew of legendary Nigeria star Jay-Jay Okocha, had played in Nigeria’s first two World Cup qualifiers against Zambia and Algeria, scoring in a 2-1 win in Zambia in October last year.

He has been replaced in Nigeria’s squad by CSKA Moscow striker Aaron Samuel, who was placed on standby last week. Samuel made the last of seven international appearances two years ago.

Source: BBC

27, August 2017

Most French voters dissatisfied with Macron ⁰

Most French voters are now dissatisfied with Emmanuel Macron’s performance, a poll shows, a dramatic decline for a president who basked in a landslide election victory less than four months ago. The poll, conducted by Ifop for newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche (JDD), showed Macron’s “dissatisfaction rating” rising to 57 percent, from 43 percent in July.

Forty percent expressed satisfaction with the centrist leader – down 14 points from July. French government spokesman Christophe Castaner said the ruling party was going through a tricky time, but added that displeasing some people was a price worth paying if the government wanted to push through reforms.

“Yes, we are encountering difficulties, but you cannot just spend your time only looking at polls when you’re in government. We are there to transform the country. Our country needs us to take risks, and we are taking risks,” Castaner told BFM TV.

Macron, who is midway through a schedule of official visits to various European capitals, has suffered a number of setbacks since being elected, including tough debates in parliament over labor reform, a standoff with the military and cuts to housing assistance. Social media commentators and political opponents criticized the president after it emerged he spent 26,000 euros ($31,000) on makeup during his first 100 days in office and his office also backed down on plans to give his wife a formal, paid role after a public backlash.

Bernard Sananes, head of French polling company Elabe, said the latest survey could encourage Macron’s political opponents, after his party won a commanding majority in parliament. “It could mean, for the government, that the opposition mobilizes itself again,” Sananes told BFM TV. The Ifop poll showed the cumulative drop in Macron’s popularity ratings since May was bigger than that of previous Socialist president Francois Hollande over the same period. The poll also showed a drop in popularity for Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, with 47 percent expressing satisfaction with him – down 9 points from last month.

Macron, France’s youngest leader since Napoleon, faces a big test next month when the far-left CGT trade union leads a rally to protest against plans to deregulate the jobs market. “Now is the key time, with the labor executive orders to be presented,” said Francois Savary, chief investment officer at Geneva-based investment firm Prime Partners, who has an “underweight” position on French equities.

(Source: Reuters)

27, August 2017

10-day march from Charlottesville to DC to take on white supremacy ⁰

Human rights activist are planning to take part in a 10-day march against white supremacy with a clear demand: Remove US President Donald Trump.

The march will start Monday from Charlottesville, Virginia, where national turmoil began following deadly violence at a white supremacist rally.

“The March to Confront White Supremacy,” is set to start on August 8 and end in Washington, DC, on Wednesday, September 6.

An occupation of Washington, DC, will follow with subsequent peaceful demonstrations set to be held on a daily basis there, according to the organizers.

“This is the time to confront white supremacy in our government and throughout our history. We demand that President Trump to be removed from office for allying himself with this ideology of hate and we demand an agenda that repairs the damage it’s done to our country and its people,” read the website for the march. “This will be a sustained civil disobedience campaign, so bring what you need to stay.”

The president has been under fire due to his failure to immediately condemn the recent tragedy in Charlotesville, in which a driver plowed into demonstrators protesting against white supremacists, killing a young woman and injuring nearly 20 others.

Instead, he has blamed both sides for the clashes that took place on August 13. Heather Heyer, 32, was killed and some 20 others were injured.

A 20-year-old Nazi sympathizer, identified as James Alex Fields Jr, was said to have been behind the wheel. Trump has also faced a raft of resignations from his advisory councils and talks about resignation of other White House officials.

The Charlottesville violence has triggered angry protests across the country against the so-called “alt-right” movement, which has become emboldened under Trump.

The march is being organized by several activist groups such as the Action Group Network, the Women’s March, Working Families Party, Color of Change, and United We Dream among others.

Source: Presstv