Back-to-School: Southern Cameroons lockdown campaign is raging against Yaoundé

16, September 2022

Back-to-School: Southern Cameroons lockdown campaign is raging against Yaoundé 0

The entire Southern Cameroons territory has been shutdown ever since the government in Yaoundé announced its so-called back-to-school policy. Businesses and government offices remained close as Ambazonians continue to reject the current political status quo with French Cameroun.

An estimated three million Southern Cameroonians have stayed indoors in numerous towns and villages throughout Southern Cameroons and amid a brutal crackdown by Cameroon government army soldiers, the back-to-school lockdown has resulted in the deaths of several people.

“The Ambazonian Interim Government and the people of Southern Cameroons are proving that they have the will to resist and experience in developing networks and taking it upon themselves not to allow the French Cameroun regime to continue to dictate and dominate the political life in Southern Cameroons,” Dabney Yerima, the Vice President of the Ambazonia Interim Government told journalists recently in Den Hague, Holland.

Since top Cameroon army general Bouba Dobékréo  announced he will crush the Southern Cameroons uprising within months, Southern Cameroons restoration groups have carried out a series of deadly ambushes against the Cameroon government military which have been on a bigger scale than anything yet seen since the start of the conflict five years ago. And now, the resistance is being spiced with acts of civil disobedience to denounce French Cameroun’s military presence and atrocious activities in Southern Cameroons.

Five years into the conflict, Southern Cameroons restoration groups have again imposed a successful lockdown in both the South West and the North West regions. Southern Cameroonians have remained defiant and unified on one thing, which is the complete rejection of Biya, Yaoundé and French Cameroun.

Cameroon Concord News London Bureau Chief Isong Asu thinks the unity among Southern Cameroonians today in Ground Zero is growing stronger again and that the complete implementation of the Big Rubbergun Project will be a turning point to mark the beginning of the end of Biya French Cameroun rule in Southern Cameroons.

Members of a ‘think-and-do-tank’ in the UK with strong ties to the Ambazonia Interim Government have urged Vice President Dabney Yerima to mobilize resources for all Amba fighters in Ground Zero.

Anger has been rising since the appointment of General Bouba Dobékréo and it is now further growing as the military creates more victims. Many Southern Cameroons families too have not recovered from atrocities committed by Amba fighters.

Despite violent repression from the Cameroon government military and the paramilitary Rapid Intervention Battalion Forces (BIR), the Southern Cameroons lockdown is raging on against the Biya Francophone regime in Yaoundé.

Francophone army soldiers have kept up their heavy-handed response and launched sweeping arrests of hundreds of Southern Cameroonians and Ambazonia activists. There are reports of the Cameroon government military going house to house in Kumbo in Bui Division detaining Southern Cameroonians.

Ghost towns and lockdowns have been successful in Southern Cameroons in the past; but this time around they are the two most effective tools the Ambazonia Interim Government has!

The 2022 back-to-school lockdown has taken root in Southern Cameroons with a wide array of participating Ambazonia groups and restoration forces.

In the entire Southern Cameroons, the majority of government and educational institutions have stopped working, and several businesses and banks have remained closed as many people responded to the lockdown calls.

Demands include the complete release of all Southern Cameroons detainees including President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe and an end to French Cameroun occupation of the Ambazonia homeland.

Lockdown is an extreme form of peaceful protest in Southern Cameroons to tell those in power in Yaoundé that, if they want to rule, Ambazonians won’t cooperate and they will squeeze French Cameroun economic and political interest in Southern Cameroons dry until their demands are met.

However, the campaign, besides hurting the political and military leadership in Yaoundé, affects Southern Cameroonians in their livelihoods, though many are willing to pay such a price for the greater good down the line.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

India’s Adani briefly listed as world’s second-richest person

16, September 2022

India’s Adani briefly listed as world’s second-richest person 0

Indian industrialist Gautam Adani briefly became the world’s second-richest person on the Forbes real-time billionaire tracker on Friday, weeks after becoming the first Asian to break into the top three.

The self-made billionaire’s net worth surged $4 billion overnight to $154 billion, according to Forbes, ranking him ahead of LVMH’s Bernard Arnault and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos.

Tesla founder Elon Musk remained well out in front with a fortune of more than $270 billion.

Arnault — who at times held the top spot in May 2021 — and Adani traded the number two position during the day as the share prices of their companies fluctuated.

Adani, 60, made his fortune in ports and commodities trading and now operates India’s second-largest conglomerate with interests ranging from coal mining and edible oils to airports and news media.

His ballooning net worth reflects a stratospheric rise in the market capitalisation of his publicly listed companies, as investors back the Adani Group’s aggressive expansion of old and new businesses.

Shares in the flagship Adani Enterprises — of which the billionaire owns 75 percent — have soared more than 2,700 percent since March 2020, and doubled in value in the past six months.

Stock price surges in other group companies including Adani Transmission, Adani Power, Adani Ports and Adani Green Energy catapulted Adani past fellow Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani this year.

Analyst estimates indicated the market capitalisation of Adani’s seven listed companies also briefly overtook those of the Tata group on Friday morning, making the Adani Group India’s largest conglomerate.

Born in the city of Ahmedabad in the western state of Gujarat to a middle-class family, Adani dropped out of college to work in the diamond industry before starting his export business in 1988.

In 1995, he won a contract to build and operate a commercial shipping port at Mundra in Gujarat, which has since grown to become India’s largest port.

At the same time, Adani expanded into thermal power generation and coal mining in India and overseas.

In recent years, the conglomerate has forayed into petrochemicals, cement, data centres and copper refining, in addition to establishing a renewable energy business with ambitious targets.

Recent investments in Indian news media and a bid for 5G airwaves this year have raised speculation that the billionaire’s empire could soon impinge on sectors dominated by Ambani’s Reliance Industries.

But Adani’s rapid expansion into capital-intensive businesses has also raised financial alarms, with Fitch Group’s CreditSights last week reiterating that they “remain concerned over the Adani Group’s leverage”.

Source: AFP

Biya regime deploys over 1,000 soldiers to join UN forces in Central African Republic

15, September 2022

Biya regime deploys over 1,000 soldiers to join UN forces in Central African Republic 0

Cameroon’s Defence Minister Joseph Beti Assomo on Wednesday announced the deployment of more than 1,000 soldiers to maintain peace and stability in the neighboring Central African Republic (CAR).

The 750 soldiers and 360 gendarmes make up the ninth contingent of Cameroonian troops tasked with carrying out stabilization and peacekeeping mission in the CAR.

The contingent is part of the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA), which began protecting civilians in CAR in 2014 under the UN Charter, Assomo said during a ceremony in the country’s East region to award medals to soldiers who underwent special training in the region.

“I urge you to represent your country in the right way,” Assomo said, and demanded the soldiers execute their assignment in strict respect of the rules guiding MINUSCA.

The contingent is taking over from predecessors who spent a year building peace in the war-torn country.

The CAR has been wracked by violence since the Seleka rebels ousted then President Francois Bozize in 2013. The conflict has forced nearly half of the country’s population to migrate and depend on humanitarian assistance, according to the UN.

Source: Xinhuanet

Indomitable Lions: Bryan Mbeumo has been called up to Rigobert Song’s squad

14, September 2022

Indomitable Lions: Bryan Mbeumo has been called up to Rigobert Song’s squad 0

Brentford attacker Bryan Mbeumo has been called up to the Cameroon squad for their two upcoming friendlies.

Bryan switched his international allegiance from France to Cameroon in August and has now received his first call-up to Rigobert Song’s squad.

The 23-year-old has played a key part in our good start to the season, having scored in wins over Manchester United and Leeds.

Cameroon will play against Uzbekistan in Goyang, South Korea on Friday 23 September, before facing South Korea at the Seoul World Cup Stadium on Tuesday 27 September.

Those two friendlies are in preparation for Cameroon’s World Cup campaign later this year, after they qualified for the tournament in Qatar in dramatic circumstances in March.

Karl Toko Ekambi scored a 124th-minute winner against Algeria in their World Cup play-off tie, which saw them go through on away goals following a 2-2 aggregate draw.

It sealed an eighth World Cup finals appearance for the Indomitable Lions.

Cameroon have been drawn in Group G with Switzerland, Serbia and five-time world champions Brazil at the World Cup, and will kick off their campaign against Switzerland on Thursday 24 November.

Source: BrentfordFCnews

End of Covid pandemic in sight: WHO

14, September 2022

End of Covid pandemic in sight: WHO 0

The number of newly reported Covid-19 cases has dropped dramatically, the World Health Organization said Wednesday, urging the world to seize the opportunity to end the pandemic.

Newly reported cases of the disease, which has killed millions since being identified in late 2019, last week fell to the lowest level since March 2020, said WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

“We have never been in a better position to end the pandemic,” he told reporters. “We are not there yet, but the end is in sight.”

But the world needed to step up to “seize this opportunity”, he added.

“If we don’t take this opportunity now, we run the risk of more variants, more deaths, more disruption, and more uncertainty.”

According to WHO’s latest epidemiological report on Covid-19, the number of reported cases fell 12 percent to 4.2 million during the week ending September 4, compared to a week earlier.

‘Underestimate’

But the agency has warned that the dropping number of reported cases is deceptive, since many countries have cut back on testing and may not be detecting the less serious cases.

“The number of cases that are being reported to WHO we know are an underestimate,” Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO technical lead on Covid, told reporters.

“We feel that far more cases are actually circulating than are being reported to us,” she said, cautioning that the virus “is circulating at a very intense level around the world at the present time.”

Since the start of the pandemic, WHO has tallied more than 600 million cases, and some 6.4 million deaths, although both those numbers are also believed to be serious undercounts.

A WHO study published in May based on excess mortality seen in various countries during the pandemic estimated that up to 17 million people may have died from Covid in 2020 and 2021.

Van Kerkhove noted that going forward there will likely be “future waves of infection, potentially at different time points throughout the world, caused by different sub-variants of Omicron or even different variants of concern.”

But, she added, “those future waves of infection do not need to translate into future waves of death.”

‘Seize this opportunity’

In a bid to help countries to do what is needed to rein in the virus, the WHO on Wednesday published six policy briefs.

Among the recommendations, the WHO is urging countries to invest in vaccinating 100 percent of the most at-risk groups, including health workers and the elderly, and to keep up testing and sequencing for the virus.

“These policy briefs are an urgent call for governments to take a hard look at their policies, and strengthen them for Covid-19 and future pathogens with pandemic potential,” Tedros said.

“We can end this pandemic together, but only if all countries, manufacturers, communities and individuals step up and seize this opportunity.”

WHO emergencies director Michael Ryan agreed.

“Even as the pandemic wanes, and as the number of cases may drop, we are going to have to maintain high levels of vigilance,” he told reporters.

“We still have a highly mutable, evolving virus that has shown us time and time again over two and a half years how it can adapt, how it can change.”

Source: AFP

Queen Elizabeth II’s coffin arrives at Westminster to lie in state

14, September 2022

Queen Elizabeth II’s coffin arrives at Westminster to lie in state 0

Queen Elizabeth II’s coffin left Buckingham Palace for the last time Wednesday as it was taken amid somber pageantry on a horse-drawn gun carriage past crowds of mourners to the Houses of Parliament, where the late monarch will lie in state for four days.

Crowds began massing early along the flag-lined road outside the palace for the procession from the monarch’s official London residence to the historic Westminster Hall at Parliament. King Charles III and other members of the royal family walked behind the coffin.

Thousands of people gathered on The Mall outside Buckingham Palace and along the banks of the River Thames hours before the coffin procession began.

About a half-hour before the procession was due to start, the gun carriage passed through the palace’s wrought iron gates.

Joan Bucklehurst, a 50-year-old retail worker from Cheshire in northwestern England, said the queen “meant so much for everybody”.

“She was amazing, yeah,” she added, choking up with emotion. “So, we had to be here. We’ve been here a few times when there have been special occasions, but this one, I couldn’t miss this.”

The crowds are the latest manifestation of a nationwide outpouring of grief and respect for the only monarch most Britons have ever known, who died at her beloved Balmoral summer retreat on Thursday at age 96, ending a 70-year reign.

Outpouring of grief

“It’s a very sad day, but it’s our last opportunity to do our duty for the queen and it’s our first opportunity to do it for the king, and that makes us all very proud,” said Maj. Gen. Christopher Ghika, of the Household division, who is responsible for organising the ceremonial aspects of the queen’s funeral.

London’s Heathrow Airport halted flights that could disturbing the procession. British Airways canceled 16 flights as a result of the changes.

The airport said in a statement that the changes would “ensure silence over central London as the ceremonial procession moves from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Hall”.

Troops involved in the procession have been preparing since the queen died. So have the horses of the King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery.

Sgt. Tom Jenks, from the King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery, said that the horses have undergone special training, including how to handle weeping mourners, as well as flowers and flags being thrown onto streets as the procession passes by.

People stood behind metal barriers or sat on folding chairs, umbrellas at the ready, takeout coffees in hand under gray skies hours before the coffin was scheduled to leave the landmark palace at 2:22pm (13:22 GMT).

Crowds have lined the route of the queen’s coffin whenever it has been moved in its long journey from Scotland back to London.

On Tuesday night, thousands braved a typical London drizzle as the state hearse, with interior lights illuminating the sovereign’s flag-draped casket, drove slowly from a military air base into the heart of London.

Geoff Colgan, a taxi driver who took the day off to witness the moment, stood stunned in the moments after the queen’s coffin passed.

“It’s one of those things you know would happen, but when it does you can’t believe it,” he said, holding his toddler.

Crowds line the banks of the River Thames

Earlier, in Edinburgh, some 33,000 people filed in silent respect past her coffin as it lay for 24 hours at St. Giles’ Cathedral.

Hundreds of thousands are expected to do the same in London when the queen lies in state at the 900-year-old Westminster Hall, the oldest building in Parliament, for four days before her state funeral on Monday.

The hall is where Guy Fawkes and Charles I were tried, where kings and queens hosted magnificent medieval banquets, and where ceremonial addresses were presented to Queen Elizabeth II during her silver, golden and diamond jubilees.

Chris Bond, from Truro in southwest England, was among those lining up along the banks of the River Thames. He also attended the lying in state of the queen’s mother in 2002.

“Obviously, it’s quite difficult queuing all day long, but when you walk through those doors into Westminster Hall, that marvellous, historic building, there was a great sense of hush and one was told you take as much time as you like, and it’s just amazing,” he said.

“We know the queen was a good age and she served the country a long time, but we hoped this day would never come,” he added.

Chris Imafidon, secured the sixth place in the queue.

“I have 1,001 emotions when I see her,” he said. “I want to say, God, she was an angel, because she touched many good people and did so many good things.”

Source:  AP

General Bouba Dobékréo has no good military options to use in Southern Cameroons

14, September 2022

General Bouba Dobékréo has no good military options to use in Southern Cameroons 0

According to supporters of the ill-considered war on Southern Cameroons, General Dobékréo is a battle-hardened soldier recently dispatched to crush the Ambazonia uprising.

Frankly speaking, General Bouba Dobékréo was on the frontline of almost every conflict Cameroon has faced in recent decades, and has battled highway bandits, pirates, and radical Islamists. Now he has been dispatched to lead the fight against Ambazonia Restoration Forces, and some reports have suggested that he plans to take a much less repressive approach than his predecessors.

In recent weeks, Southern Cameroons fighters have carried out a series of deadly ambushes against the Cameroon government military which have been on a bigger scale than anything yet seen since the start of the conflict five years ago. President Biya and his so-called army high command want to change strategy but they are yet to say how they intend to proceed.

Whether reports on General Bouba Dobékréo’s soft approach to the war are true or not, we of the Cameroon Intelligence Report and the Cameroon Concord News are of the opinion that no one can win this war in Southern Cameroons on the basis of bluff and bluster, or by ignoring the sheer facts on the ground. This, however, is how the 89-year-old President Biya and his Francophone dominated supreme military council are currently approaching the five year running war in West Cameroon. To be sure, the Beti Ewondo political elites arguing for continuing the war have chosen to ignore the grim realities that are actually shaping the course of the fighting and what will happen in Yaoundé if Biya suddenly dies.

There is only one source of official reporting on the military course of the war in Southern Cameroons-it is the Cameroon government military spokesman Serge Cyrille Atongfack. Yaoundé does not allow any other official reporting by traditional rulers, DOs, SDOs including the Governors of the two English speaking regions of Southern Cameroons. This corrupt structure of informing the Cameroonian public opinion is an indication that Cameroon government army soldiers are dying like flies and that the war is at best a stalemate.

The International Crisis Group and other respectable media houses were forced by the regime in Yaoundé to stop reporting on the war and funeral rituals for fallen soldiers were also stopped abruptly, evidently because such reports and burial rites showed steady Ambazonian gains.

We of the Concord Group have raised critical issues about progress in either to secure a peace or to successfully keep fighting.  We have also informed Yaoundé that the critical issue on the ground is not the total number of Francophone Special Forces, but the ability to implement appeasement policies as quick as possible. This is what General Bouba Dobékréo means when he speaks of a much less repressive approach than his predecessors and it is also a clear indication that he has no good military options to use in Southern Cameroons.

Discussion of peace talks no longer exist in the political discourse in Yaoundé. Staying in the war and providing heavy media coverage on Samuel Eto’o and FECAFOOT is now the Biya regime’s new strategy. And the government is spending hundreds of millions on a daily basis on the military, not counting support activity outside it. In short, there are no good military options in Southern Cameroons. Appointing General Bouba and signing a presidential decree deploying Special Forces after five years into a conflict simply creates a potential power vacuum in Yaoundé that the army can exploit if Biya suddenly bows out. Since there is no practical way to disarm an irregular Ambazonia Self Defense Group that does not maintain heavy weapons, it means that only dialogue can resolve the crisis in Southern Cameroons. Trusting the army to become a major player in Southern Cameroons and staying the course militarily means there is no clear path to lasting peace.

International indicators show that Biya regime is still one of the worst and most corrupt governments on the globe. Yaoundé is running the worst justice system in Africa and poverty is a huge problem.

Population issue is becoming intense in Cameroon as many people are leaving the country. Added to this difficult situation is a massive national and youth employment crisis that is further compounded by rising urbanization in cities such as Douala and Yaoundé without enough new jobs.

No one has projected what would happen in case President Biya suddenly leaves the political stage! Ultimately, all of the options in Yaoundé are bad. The choice, however, should be made between the best Southern Cameroons peace plan and the best plan for separation of the two Cameroons. This critical choice should be based on the grim realities on the ground, and offer the best steps forward it can. It should not be made on the basis of a hollow political gesture or on the basis of heated Biya Francophone Beti Ewondo rhetoric.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Schools Resumption: But not every child is in school in Southern Cameroons

14, September 2022

Schools Resumption: But not every child is in school in Southern Cameroons 0

The foundation of any state is the education of its youths. Unfortunately, this does not apply to Southern Cameroons where over a million children in the region’s rural areas have been held captive by Amba fighters who have very little faith in education and the Yaoundé government which does not really care if some of its citizens are in school or not.

For more than five years, many children in Cameroon’s English-speaking regions have been robbed of their right to education following a strike by lawyers and teachers which met with extreme violence from the Biya regime.

The violence which ensued has not only killed many young children, it is still having a huge impact on the most vulnerable segments of the society, especially children in rural regions of Southern Cameroons who are being threatened with death by Amba fighters who hold that no child should go to school until Southern Cameroons gets its independence from the Republic of Cameroon.

Schools effectively started in Cameroon last week, but many children in Akwaya Subdivision, Mamfe Central Subdivision, Eyumojock Subdivision and Upper Bayang Subdivision, all of which are in Manyu Division, are still at home, hoping that a miracle will occur for the so-called Amba fighters to allow them to go to school.

Cameroon Concord News last week sent a team to Manyu Division to find out if rural kids were back in school, but it turned out that school resumption which is supposed to be national is indeed not national as many Manyu kids are still at home.

Children in Kendem, Ossing, Kembong, Ntenako, Ndekwai, Sumbe, Akriba, Mbinjong and Bakebe are still at home with many really worried about their future as the years go by.

According to the Cameroon Concord News team, the blame lies squarely with the separatists who are determined to rob the children of their right to education.

Many parents are very disappointed and mad at the separatists but they cannot speak up because of the presence of gun-toting irresponsible Amba fighters who still erroneously think that their country will be the best without its people going to school once the Yaoundé government grants independence to the two English-speaking regions of the country.

“We are really desperate. Our children have been at home for more than five years and there is no sign that the independence will ever come. We need help. Our liberators have become a huge problem onto us and our children. If the Biya government is really a problem as Amba fighters tell us, it at least allows children to go to school in East Cameroon. The new invisible administration, which manufactured false hope for us, is now a millstone around our necks,” an angry parent who brought two of his young children to Mamfe town for them to go to school said.

“We are stuck with this rogues who are permanently threatening to kill us if we send our children to school. Which nation has ever developed without its population being educated?” he asked.

In Ntenako and Ndekwai where the schools have been invaded by wild weeds, the parents have begun speaking up against the band of criminals who pass off as liberators.

Speaking to the Cameroon Concord News team, an agree parent who elected anonymity said that “we can longer allow this to continue. We must work with the government for these rogues to be arrested or killed by the military. They came here promising to protect us, but we now need protection against them. Our children cannot go to school and the idle criminals keep harvesting our crops without our permission. We are scared of talking but if the government could deploy more troops here we will report all those boys who are making life unbearable to us,” he said.

“Some of these criminals even sleep with our daughters and wives for free and many are even pregnant for these thieves. We are really frustrated and we are using this medium to call on the government to come and help us. We are stuck,” he said angrily.

Even if the separatists call for a resumption of schools in the rural areas of Southern Cameroons, it will take years for things to return to normal. Most teachers in those rural areas have fled and many cannot be accounted for. Some have even left the country, but they are still receiving their salaries.

Worst of all, some of the school infrastructure is decaying and some villagers are even stealing school property.

In Ossing in Manyu Division, a bunch of low class, ill-behaved commoners have taken off the roofing sheets of the Ossing Government Primary and Secondary Schools and sold to some villagers.

All the academic and other records have been soaked by rain because these criminals took off the roofing sheets.

Currently, the Ossing Village Council is working hard to bring those who have committed these odious crimes to justice.

Some of those who purchased the sheets have been identified and they are being made to pay hefty fines for purchasing stolen property, a city councilor who elected anonymity told the Cameroon Concord News team.

“It is unfortunate that our own people are destroying our own infrastructure. How can we ever develop if our own people cannot go to school. I have never known a worse revolution than this,” he regretted.

I hope time will bring some wisdom to this revolution which is completely off its rails. Its leaders are completely unhinged and they are simply unaware of the adverse consequences of their misguided actions, he concluded.

By Our senior international correspondent Dylan Tambe Ashu

The Holy Father Pope Francis arrives in Kazakhstan to promote ‘dialogue’

13, September 2022

The Holy Father Pope Francis arrives in Kazakhstan to promote ‘dialogue’ 0

Pope Francis, warned by doctors not to travel to Ukraine, arrived in Kazakhstan in Central Asia on Tuesday for a three-day visit to promote dialogue and peace in the ex-Soviet region.

The Argentine pope, who is forced by knee pain to use a wheelchair and has admitted he must slow down or consider retirement, will take part in an inter-religious summit in the capital, Nur-Sultan.

His plane landed shortly after 5:15 pm (1115 GMT), an AFP journalist onboard said, and the 85-year-old pontiff was already meeting shortly after with President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev before giving a first speech to the authorities and the diplomatic corps.

Francis said Sunday that the 38th trip abroad since his election in 2013 would be “an opportunity… to (have a) dialogue as brothers, animated by the common desire for peace, peace that our world is thirsty for”.

Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill, a close ally of President Vladimir Putin, was initially expected but has pulled out of the September 14-15 event, dashing hopes of a meeting with Francis over the Ukraine conflict.

While the pope has called for peace and denounced a “cruel and senseless war”, Kirill has defended Putin’s “military operation” and the fight against Russia’s “external and internal enemies”.

About 100 delegations from 50 countries are expected to take part in the event in Kazakhstan, a former Soviet republic that gained independence in 1991.

“Dialogue, a coming together, the search for peace between different religious and cultural worlds are at the heart of this trip,” Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said Monday.

Tensions

Tokayev, 69, is an ally of Russia, though there have been tensions between the two countries since Moscow launched the invasion in February.

He has refused to support the war and the presence of a large Russian community in the north of Kazakhstan has sparked fears of a revival of Moscow’s imperial ambitions in the area.

Kazakhstan borders other former Soviet republics, as well as China and the Caspian Sea.

Lyudmila, a 74-year-old pensioner who declined to give her last name, said she hoped the Papal visit would encourage people around the world to learn more about Kazakhstan.

“Maybe it will raise the profile of our country, that such a great spiritual figure is visiting us,” she told AFP.

On Wednesday, Francis will address the opening of the plenary session of the Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions, before celebrating a mass in the afternoon and winding up his trip Thursday by meeting Catholic leaders.

Chinese President Xi Jinping will be in the country at the same time as Francis at a time when the Vatican is hoping to renew a historic accord appointing bishops in China.

Asked by journalists during the flight about a possible meeting with Xi, Francis said he had “no information” about any possible talks.

He added, however, that he was “always ready to go to China”.

Energy-rich Kazakhstan has 19 million inhabitants, 70 percent of whom are Sunni Muslims, while 26 percent are Christians — mainly Russian Orthodox. Less than one percent are Catholic.

Tokayev began a series of reforms after his election in 2019, but the country was rocked by protests over fuel prices earlier this year that left more than 200 people dead and shattered its image of stability.

Francis is the second pope to visit Kazakhstan after John Paul II’s trip in September 2001.

He said last week that doctors had forbidden him from travelling to Ukraine or Moscow for now, as he recovers from a knee problem that has forced him to cancel numerous events at the Vatican.

Source:  AFP

African bishops remember Queen Elizabeth as ‘pillar of stability’

13, September 2022

African bishops remember Queen Elizabeth as ‘pillar of stability’ 0

Queen Elizabeth II was remembered for “certain lasting values of discipline, hard work, a sense of duty, honesty and meritocracy” by bishops in Africa after her death on Thursday at the age of 96.

When she ascended the throne in 1952, the United Kingdom still ruled over much of Africa, and her reign saw the era of decolonizing the British Empire. Most of English-speaking Africa now belongs to the Commonwealth of Nations, a free association of mostly former British colonies headed by the British monarch.

Bishop George Nkuo of the Kumbo Diocese in Cameroon’s troubled North West region told Crux that Queen Elizabeth stood as “a symbol for royalty and of good and lasting values.”

“She certainly will be remembered as one who despite the changes brought about by the Android age, continued to remind the world of certain lasting values of discipline, hard work, a sense of duty, honesty, and meritocracy.”

Archbishop Ignatius Kaigama of Abuja in Nigeria told Crux that he received the news of the Queen’s passing with “great sorrow and sadness,” noting that “news of the demise of the longest-reigning monarch in British history, and the oldest and longest-serving head of state in the world, came as a shock.”

He recalled that Elizabeth came to the throne promising to devote her whole life to the service of the British people.

“The queen reigned with grace, elegance, and a tireless work ethic to fulfill this declaration,” Kaigama said.

He said Elizabeth was the only British monarch the vast majority of Nigerians had ever known, and had developed “great admiration and filial affection for her.”

“What made Queen Elizabeth so special was that she grasped the full spiritual weight and responsibility of her office, and sought to execute it with that in mind,” Kaigama said.

He asserted that the queen put her Christian faith at the center of all that she did, “and this made her a pillar of stability in an ever-changing world.”

“Her Majesty was, indeed, the epitome of duty, stability, wisdom and grace. The axiom, ‘Service Untiringly done. Duty faithfully fulfilled,’ encapsulates her reign,” the Nigerian prelate continued.

“The queen touched the hearts of many with her dedicated service especially to the Commonwealth which remains an important trade partner, investor and development partner in many African countries, the biggest being South Africa and Nigeria. It is our hope that the Commonwealth could continue to offer stability and continuity in years to come, especially, during the reign of King Charles III,” the archbishop added.

Bishop Sithembele Sipuka, the president of the South African bishops’ conference, told Crux that Queen Elizabeth was “a source of cohesion and identity for her people.”

“With all the moral failures that have been noted both in the royal family and in the country, Queen Elizabeth was regarded as a moral barometer and an ideal of good behavior,” Sipuka said.

The Coptic Orthodox Church in Egypt, headed by Pope Tawadros II, issued a statement saying the queen leaves behind “a great legacy of noble humanitarian work and huge support to human rights and religious freedom.”

“We particularly remember her relationship with our Coptic Church and her support to its existence in Britain to serve the church’s children living there, and this support was manifested in decorating Bishop Angaelos of the Coptic Orthodox in the UK with the Order of the British Empire (OBE),” the Egyptian church said in a statement.

Queen Elizabeth has been succeeded by her eldest child, Charles III. She will be laid to rest on Sept. 19.

Culled from Crux

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