16, March 2022

China says it is ‘not a party’ to Ukraine Crisis ⁰

China says it does not want to get caught up in the diplomatic and economic blowback Russia is facing from Western nations over its invasion of Ukraine.

State media said Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi expressed his government’s wishes during a lengthy phone conversation Monday with Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares.

According to a transcript of the phone call published Monday by the Chinese foreign ministry, Wang told Albares that Beijing is “not a party to the crisis” and does not want to be “affected” by the mounting economic sanctions imposed on Moscow over the nearly 3-week-old invasion.

The conversation took place as U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and officials from the National Security Council and State Department met in Rome with China’s top foreign policy adviser, Yang Jiechi. The Biden administration has warned that Beijing would face severe “consequences” if it helps Moscow avoid sanctions.

Media reports emerged Sunday that Moscow has requested military and economic assistance from China for its war in Ukraine.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian Tuesday repeated an accusation leveled by Beijing that the United States is spreading “disinformation” over reports that China has responded positively to Moscow’s request.

Zhao calls the reports “not only unprofessional, but also immoral and irresponsible.”

He told reporters China’s position is “completely objective, impartial and constructive.”

State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters Monday that the United States is watching very closely the extent to which China, or any other country, provides any form of support to Russia.

“We have communicated very clearly to Beijing that we won’t stand by, we will not allow any country to compensate Russia for its losses,” he said.

CNN reported late Monday that the United States told European and Asian allies in a diplomatic cable that China had indicated a willingness to help Russia in the war against Ukraine. CNN said the cable did not state definitively that assistance had been provided and that it warned that China would likely deny any such offer.

Chinese arms sales to Russia would have “a devastating impact on the U.S.-China relationship, because it would clearly align the Chinese with the Russians, against the United States, Europe in a war,” Robert Ross, a political science professor at Boston College, told VOA.

China is in a unique position because of its partnership agreement with Russia, according to Stephen Roach, a senior fellow at Yale University’s Jackson Institute for Global Affairs. He told VOA that China has “considerably greater” leverage over Russia than even Western countries that have implemented “unprecedented sanctions” on Russia.

“China has something that the West does not have, and that is the partnership,” with Russia, he said.

Source: VOA

16, March 2022

Biya regime says it will rebuild hospitals destroyed by Boko Haram ⁰

Cameroon’s government says it will rebuild hospitals and clinics destroyed by Boko Haram terrorists along the border with Nigeria. In a visit to the area this week, officials said the facilities were needed for villagers who have suffered from the conflict as well as for former Boko Haram members who have been rehabilitated.

Cameroon’s Ministry of Public Health says at least 35 hospitals along the country’s border with Nigeria have either been abandoned by medical staff or destroyed by Boko Haram terrorists.

Minister of Public Health Manaouda Malachie this week visited some of the remaining hospitals along the border.

He says although working and living conditions are very difficult, the few medical staff members in former Boko Haram prone towns and villages are doing their best to save lives. Malachie says Cameroon’s President Paul Biya has ordered his government to build and equip destroyed hospitals and recruit more health workers. He also says he asked several hundred hospital workers who fled Boko Haram terrorism to return to Cameroon’s border with Nigeria.

Malachie did not say when the hospitals would be re-built.

But Cameroon’s government says it will spend $300 million this year to reconstruct what Boko Haram destroyed, including hospitals and medical equipment.

Government troops have been fighting Boko Haram along the northern border with Nigeria since 2014.

Cameroon’s military says there have been about 25 cases of abductions and kidnappings for ransom this year, but no large scale attacks by the terrorist group.

The military says the return to peace has allowed several thousand internally displaced persons and former Boko Haram members to return to their villages.

But health care in the region is sorely lacking, say social workers like Jean Pierre Ndlend in Kolofata district via a messaging application.

Ndlend says youths of between 15 and 35 years old are a majority of the 150 people suffering from mental health disorders that the Kolofata hospital has received since January. He says trauma from seeing people dying or forcefully separated from loved ones, poverty, and risky living conditions are the highest causes of mental health disorders in Cameroon’s northern border with Nigeria.

Ndlend says the Kolofata hospital receives hundreds of patients every day but has only seven health care workers.

Speaking to Cameroon state radio (CRTV) this week, Far North Region Governor Midjiyawa Bakari said the military has been helping civilians while they wait for the government to re-build hospitals.

Bakari says most Cameroon’s troops deployed to fight Boko Haram have been sent to border villages to provide health care and education to both returnees and militants who surrender and leave the terrorist group. He says Cameroon’s military health unit visits border villages to provide humanitarian assistance and treat sick returnees, former fighters, and the host community.

Bakari said thousands of Boko Haram fighters and supporters have defected from the terrorist group since last May, when the leader of the Nigerian militants Abubakar Shekau was declared killed.

The United Nations says the Boko Haram conflict, which started 13 years ago in northeast Nigeria, has killed more than 350,000 people and displaced 2 million across Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and Niger.

Source: VOA

16, March 2022

From airlines in Nigeria to shoppers in Malawi- Africa feels economic fallout from Ukraine crisis ⁰

From airlines in Nigeria to shoppers in Malawi, Africans are feeling the impact of the Ukraine crisis in wrenching increases in the price of fuel, grain and fertiliser.

Global oil prices scaled decade-long highs of more than $100 a barrel shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, inflicting a hefty blow to many businesses south of the Sahara.

Both Ukraine and Russia are also major suppliers of wheat and other cereals to Africa, while Russia is a key producer of fertiliser.

The impact of the war and the West’s sanctions against the Kremlin are already starting to translate into higher prices for farm inputs and imported grain, AFP bureaus in Africa report.

For Lagos baker Julius Adewale, the crisis is a perfect storm.

Nigeria’s fragile power grid had recently been supplying just a few hours of electricity per day, forcing Adewale to turn to diesel-fueled generators for power — the cost of which has now soared.

“There is no light since yesterday and we’ve been running on gen since yesterday,” Adewale said this week, as workers stacked piles of loaves in his bakery.

“(The) cost of production has increased immensely.”

Nigeria is Africa’s largest oil producer and biggest economy, but it has little refining capacity.

The government subsidises the cost of petrol, but diesel and aviation fuel are sold at market price.

Several local airlines warned this month they were forced to cancel flights due to aviation fuel scarcities.

Diesel used to sell in Nigeria at around 300 naira (0.72 cents) a litre but now goes for 730 ($1.75) a litre.

“I don’t know how we are going to cope because 70 per cent of industries are running on diesel,” Lanre Popoola, a regional chairman of Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), told local media.

“Other businesses are also running limited hours on diesel as they cannot afford to use generators all day.”

Hardship ahead

If the crisis is sustained, said Eurasia Group analyst Amaka Anku, African countries which are big importers of fuel and grain will rank among the losers, although exporters of those commodities may be among the winners.

There are also countries that are heavily indebted, such as Ghana, which will struggle with higher borrowing costs as investor risk appetite lowers, she said.

Gas producers like Tanzania, Senegal and Nigeria may benefit from Europe’s moves to end its dependence on Russian energy, said Danielle Resnick at the Brookings Institution think tank.

But, she said, the immediate challenge was hardship for African families, millions of which are already struggling to get by.

“War in Ukraine means hunger in Africa,” International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said on Sunday.

High prices will for instance aggravate food insecurity in conflict-torn Ethiopia, where nearly 20 million people are in need of food aid.

– Inflation already here –

In many parts of Africa, the inflationary machine has already lurched into higher gear, AFP bureaus report.

In Kenya, a two kilogramme (4.4-pound) bag of wheat flour now sells for 150-172 Kenyan shillings (US$1.3 to US$1.5), compared to less than 140 shillings in February.

Sub-Saharan Africa’s No. 3 economy usually gets a fifth of its imported wheat from Russia and another 10 percent comes from Ukraine, according to government figures.

As for fertiliser, a 50-kilo bag that cost 4,000 shillings last year now changes hands for 6,500 shillings ($57) — a figure that is likely to increase as the planting season starts this month.

In the Ugandan capital Kampala, Ukraine’s crisis has already caused a surge in prices of soap, sugar, salt, cooking oil and fuel.

“Most of the essential commodities are produced locally but some ingredients are imported and their prices are being dictated by the shocks on international markets,” Junior Finance Minister David Bahati told AFP.

Cooking oil has risen from 7,000 shillings per litre ($1.94) in February to 8,500 shillings ($2.4) and a kilo of rice from 3,800 to 5,500 shillings, according to Kampala retail shops.

“My family of four people spend an average of 5,000 shillings to cater for food and other necessities but this is no longer enough… I now spend more than 10,000 shillings,” Ritah Kabaku, 41, a shop assistant in Kampala, told AFP.

‘Victims of war’

Wary of Ukraine-fueled inflation, Mauritius’ central bank has raised its key interest rate to two percent — its first hike since 2011.

“It is unfortunate that as the sky cleared after Covid 19, more clouds appeared,” Prime Minister Pravind Kumar Jugnauth said in a televised speech.

In Somalia’s capital Mogadishu, prices for fuel, cooking oil, construction materials and electricity have shot up.

“A week ago, the 20-litre jerrycan of cooking oil was $25, today it’s about $50. A litre of gasoline was $0.64 and today it runs about $1.80 — it’s crazy,” said Mohamed Osman, a trader.

In southern Africa, bread and cooking oil prices in Malawi have shot up by an average 50 percent.

“This war doesn’t concern us and it is not right that we should be paying such a high price,” Fatsani Phiri, an auditor who was buying bread in the capital Lilongwe.

“We cannot always be victims every time there is a war somewhere in the world.”

Source: AFP

16, March 2022

SOBA UK and Saint Joseph’s Feast Day Celebration: When, Where and why ⁰

The Feast of Saint Joseph as a custom was adopted by the Vatican and in 1570; the Holy Father Pope Pius V extended its use to the entire Roman Rite.

From the late 19th century through the middle of the 20th century, Saint Joseph’s Feast Day was established to honour St. Joseph as the spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the step-father of Jesus Christ.

Ex-students of Saint Joseph’s College Sasse in Cameroon will join the rest of the world in celebrating the feast day for St. Joseph – which falls on March 19th each year.

To the Sasse Old Boys in the United Kingdom, it is a Patronal Feast Day!

SOBA UK’s tables specially decorated for the 2022 Saint Joseph’s Feast Day have all arrived the city of Manchester, and the Sasse Old Boys are all heading for the celebration mindful of the fact that what will not be placed on the tables is any dish which contains meat because this holiday occurs during Lent.

For the first time ever in the history of SOBA UK, four Roman Catholic clerics from the Mill Hill Missionaries would be joining Sobans in Manchester. Mill Hill Missionaries were the founders of St Joseph’s College Sasse.

SOBA UK members will use this year’s celebration to give thanks to St Joseph and ask him to continue to guide and protect their association and its members.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai in Leicester

15, March 2022

Ruxit: Russia says quitting Council of Europe ⁰

Russia said Tuesday it would pull out of the Council of Europe after pressure mounted for Moscow to be expelled from the pan-European rights body over its invasion of Ukraine.

Essentially jumping before it was pushed from the Strasbourg-based body, the Russian foreign ministry said it had given notification of its departure to the Secretary General Marija Pejcinovic Buric.

The decision draws the curtain on Russia’s quarter century membership of the Council of Europe (COE) and also opens the way for Moscow to reimpose the death penalty if the authorities decide.

The so-called “Ruxit” from the Council of Europe means that Russia will no longer be a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights and its citizens will no longer be able to file applications to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).

It is only the second time in the history of the Council of Europe that a member state has announced it has quit the body after Greece walked out temporarily in the late 1960s.

Russia was suspended from all its rights of representation a day after tens of thousands of troops entered Ukraine on February 24.

The body’s parliamentary assembly was Tuesday also expected to pass a resolution urging the committee of ministers — the COE’s main decision making body — to start a procedure to expel Russia.

Buric “received formal notification from the Russian Federation of its withdrawal from the Council of Europe”, the body’s spokesman Daniel Holtgen confirmed.

Ukraine’s Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal had on Monday demanded that Russia be immediately expelled, saying it had no right to remain a member after sending troops to the pro-Western country.

Eyes on death penalty

The Russian foreign ministry posted a statement on “launching the procedure to exit the Council of Europe” on its Telegram account, adding it had “no regret” about leaving.

Russia joined the Council of Europe in 1996.

The ministry said its exit would “not affect the rights and freedoms of Russian citizens” and that “the implementation of already adopted resolutions of the European Court of Human Rights will continue, if they do not contradict Russia’s Constitution”.

It claimed that EU and NATO member states within the Council of Europe had turned the organisation into an “instrument for anti-Russian policies”.

Russia’s exit will mark a major change for the ECHR which acts as a court of final instance when all domestic avenues are exhausted.

Cases brought by Russian citizens have piled up at the ECHR accounting for 24 percent of the current cases, such as those concerning dissident prisoner Alexei Navalny.

No member state has ever been expelled from the Council of Europe, which was created in 1949 and has 47 member states including Russia.

Moscow’s move has one precedent — when it was under military rule Greece walked out of the body in 1969 to avoid being expelled. Athens then rejoined in 1974 after the fall of the junta.

Not using the death penalty is a precondition of COE membership, and former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, now deputy national security council chief, had evoked bringing back capital punishment if Russia left the body.

Medvedev had described Russia’s suspension as “a good opportunity to restore a number of important measures to prevent especially serious crimes — such as the death penalty… which is actively used in the US and China”.

Russia has observed a moratorium on the death penalty since 1996 though it has never formally abolished the practice.

Belarus, the only European country to still use the death penalty and Moscow’s ally, is not a member of the organisation.

A Russian exit will also deprive the COE of nearly seven percent of its annual budget, around 500 million euros ($545 million).

But Buric told AFP this month she had received “reassuring” signals from several member states, including France and Germany, ready to guarantee the financial sustainability of the organisation.

Source: AFP

15, March 2022

Termination of French Cameroun military presence in Ambazonia only a matter of time ⁰

The Vice President of the Southern Cameroons Interim Government says the presence of Francophone army soldiers in Ambazonia homeland is temporary whose termination is only a matter of time.

Dabney Yerima made the comment on Monday during a conversation with the Cameroon Concord News Group.

The exiled Ambazonia leader said he recently endorsed a campaign across the entire Ambazonia territory for self defense units to use explosives against the occupying forces and their agents.

Yerima also asserted that in the days ahead French Cameroun civil administrators and troops loyal to the Biya French Cameroun regime will get to witness the bravery of the Ambazonia Revolutionary Guards.

Dabney Yerima noted that Amba fighters who surrendered their weapons were now regretting. He added that the enemy is arrogant and only interested in rendering the people of Southern Cameroons weaker.

Yerima, meanwhile, furthered that Southern Cameroonians in Ground Zero will become stronger in all areas, including fire power and devotion.

By Chi Prudence Asong

15, March 2022

UN chief warns of ‘hurricane of hunger’ amid Ukraine crisis ⁰

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has warned of the “hurricane of hunger and a meltdown of the global food system” in the wake of a simmering crisis in Ukraine.

Addressing correspondents outside the UN Security Council in New York on Monday, the top UN official said 45 African and least-developed countries import at least a third of their wheat from Ukraine or Russia, while 18 of them import at least 50 percent, pointing to the growing food insecurity.

“We must do everything possible to avert a hurricane of hunger and a meltdown of the global food system,” he said, making a passionate appeal. “In addition, we are seeing clear evidence of this war draining resources and attention from other trouble-spots in desperate need.”

Russia and Ukraine, the two warring neighbors, represent more than half of the world’s supply of sunflower oil and about 30 percent of the world’s wheat, Guterres said, noting that Ukraine alone provides more than half of the World Food Programme’s (WFP) wheat supply.

“Food, fuel, and fertilizer prices are skyrocketing. Supply chains are being disrupted. And the costs and delays of transportation of imported goods – when available – are at record levels,” he asserted.

“All of this is hitting the poorest the hardest and planting the seeds for political instability and unrest around the globe.”

Guterres called on the international community to find “creative ways” to address the increased humanitarian and development recovery needs worldwide and to release pledged funds.

Late last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced what he called a “special military operation” aimed at “demilitarization” of the restive Donetsk and Lugansk regions in eastern Ukraine.

Putin said the military mission was aimed at “defending people who for eight years are suffering persecution and genocide by the Kiev regime.”

Kiev has shown willingness to negotiate but has refused to surrender or accept any ultimatums from Moscow, even as fierce fighting rages on.

Negotiators from the two warring sides have held several rounds of talks in recent weeks but so far a breakthrough has been eluding.

Sources

15, March 2022

Press Freedom: Assange denied permission to appeal against US extradition ⁰

The UK’s highest court has refused to give permission to Wikileaks’ founder, Julian Assange, to appeal against a decision to extradite him to the United States.

A court spokesperson said the whistle-blower’s application did not raise “an arguable point of law”, dealing a serious blow to his hopes to avoid deportation.

“The application has been refused by the Supreme Court and the reason given is that application did not raise an arguable point of law” the spokesperson was quoted as saying.

Authorities in the US want the Australia-born Assange, 50, to face trial on 18 counts related to vast troves of confidential US cables published on the Wikileaks website in 2010 and 2011.

The US Justice Department has charged the whistle-blower under the Espionage Act for obtaining and publishing secret government documents, which reveal how the US military killed hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The US government says the leaks broke the law and endangered lives, but Assange maintains that the case is politically motivated.

His lawyers said he is likely to launch a final appeal against the court decision. “We regret that the opportunity has not been taken to consider the troubling circumstances in which requesting states can provide caveated guarantees after the conclusion of a full evidential hearing,” a spokesperson for Assange’s solicitors, Birnberg Peirce, said in response to the court decision.

“In Mr. Assange’s case, the court had found that there was a real risk of prohibited treatment in the event of his onward extradition.”

The case now goes back to district judge Vanessa Baraitser, the judge who first assessed the US’ extradition request.

The extradition decision will then have to be approved by UK home secretary Priti Patel. If she gives her approval, Assange could make his fresh challenge, according to his lawyers.

Assange’s lawyers have four weeks now to make submissions to the home secretary before her final decision. They found the decision to extradite Assange “too disturbing”. Assange has been languishing in Belmarsh prison since April 2019, when he was captured from the Ecuadorian embassy where he had lived for seven years.

In January last year, Baraitser had blocked his extradition on the basis that procedures in US prisons could provoke Assange to take his own life. The decision was later overturned by two senior judges, Lord Burnett of Maldon, the lord chief justice, and Lord Justice Holroyde, at the high court.

Assange is due to marry his fiancee, the lawyer Stella Moris, in Belmarsh prison on 23 March.

Source: Presstv

14, March 2022

Southern Cameroons refugees desert Ogoja camp over reduction of allowance ⁰

A large number of Ambazonians who took refuge in the Ogoja refugees camp in Cross River State have since deserted it.

It is suspected that the abandonment of the camp may be a result of the reported drastic reduction in their monthly stipend.

Findings confirmed that the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, (UNHCR), which took special care of the Cameroonian refugees, recently reduced its cash-based intervention from N7,200 per head to paltry N2,600.

On enquiries, it was discovered that refugees whose villages were not directly affected in the ongoing Cameroon arms insurrection by separatist Ambazonian fighters against President Paul Biya’s government, went back to their homes and farms.

One of the refugees who was in the camp but has now returned to one of the borderline communities, Obengo Nru said the camp is virtually empty now, claiming he could not fold his hands in the camp and receive the paltry sum.

“I still have my papers entitling me to enjoy the monthly stipend intact so that whenever the UN people call us, we just run to Ogoja and collect the sum, and return to our villages.”

“Most of us merely left the villages and joined in ‘sympathy movement’ to Nigeria”, he said.

An official of the Cameroonian Consulate in Calabar who said he is an information officer claimed he could not give any good reasons why the number was reducing.

But the Director-General of Cross River State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA), Princewill Ayim said it was not true that the camp has been deserted.

Source: DAILY POST

14, March 2022

Yaoundé: Foreign football team wins Championship ⁰

It was all happiness when PWD Bamenda won yesterday’s final to clench the trophy that has eluded it for 43 years.

The happiness following the victory did not leave many analysts indifferent. PWD Bamenda is a team in the newly minted country of Ambazonia and for more than five years, there have been bloody fighting and killings in the two English-speaking regions of the country which had declared their independence some five years ago.

The comedy was all the more comic when natives of the new country showed up with placards bearing the most irrational demands.

“We need a stadium in Bamenda,” some of the placards read. It was like a child demonstrating in front of a neighbor’s house for school fees when the child had clearly told the neighbor he had nothing in common with the neighbor.

Maybe the message was for Ambazonian leaders who all live abroad. Bringing that message to Yaoundé is like addressing the wrong audience and PWD Bamenda supporters were clearly wearing Ambazonian colors as if they had a plan to provoke the Yaoundé government.

If the people of Bamenda really need a stadium, will it not be appropriate for them to send that message to Dr. Sako Ikome and the multitude of Ambazonian generals who are living out of their own country?

It is obvious that Yaoundé will just be smiling. The people of Bamenda who have seen the worst violence over the last five years are simply tired of the violence that has been brought to them by their own people.

They seem to have counted on a Washington-based government that simply includes the poorest and most crooked pastors God has ever put on the face of the earth.

The PWD victory and the messages taken to Yaoundé might just be heralding the end of a violent struggle which is currently struggling.

If the messages were actually intended for the Yaoundé government, then the people of Bamenda are clearly flogging a dead horse as the Biya government has not got any appetite to develop infrastructure in a part of the world where the people have a mercurial temperament and can ruin everything in a feat of anger.

By Fon Lawrence in Bamenda