7, April 2021

Bishop George Nkuo: Jubilee of Mercy in the diocese of Kumbo ⁰

Thousands of people are expected to take part in the Ruby Jubilee of the priestly ordination of the Bishop of the Kumbo Diocese Mgr. George Nkuo scheduled for Friday May 7, 2021 at the Kumbo Cathedral.

Every diocese in the English speaking regions and several parishes will be involved in some form of local pilgrimages as part of the major event organized by the church for the Jubilee.

The liturgy will be focused on our hope for the coming of Jesus Christ and the cry of John the Baptist to prepare the way of the Lord.

Major activities will be cancelled as parishes in the Kumbo Diocese joined forces to celebrate the life of a Good Shepherd.

Cameroon Concord News Group understands that the Bishop George Nkuo Ruby Jubilee is not just going to be a religious celebration but also a community event and in many parishes it will be ecumenical.

Concord Group Chairman Soter Agbaw-Ebai said it will be the most significant public celebration of a Man of God by the entire Christian community.

George Nkuo the founding father of the Cameroon Catholic Community in Mulheim an der Ruhr, Federal Republic of Germany was born on the 28 January 1953 in Njinikom, Boyo Division in the Archdiocese of Bamenda – North West Region of Cameroon. He did his Secondary and high school education in Bishop Rogan Minor Seminary, Small Soppo, Buea, from 1967-1974 where he obtained the General Certificate of Education, Ordinary and Advanced Levels.

He was then admitted in the Regional Major Seminary, Bambui, where he studied for the priesthood from 1974-1981. He completed his priestly formation in philosophical and theological studies with a Bachelors Degree in Philosophy in 1977 and a Bachelor Degree in Divinity in 1981 respectively.

He was ordained priest for the Diocese of Buea on the 26th of April 1981 at Small Soppo, Buea by the Right Reverend Pius Suh Awa, Bishop of Buea. He is of the second batch of priests trained in the present St. Thomas Aquinas’ Major Seminary, Bambui.

He did postgraduate studies in St. Patrick’s College, Maynooth, National University of Ireland (1989-1991) where he specialized in Education and obtained a Master’s Degree in the Science of Education.

Bishop George is known for his time spent as the Curate and Manager of Catholic Schools in the St. Joseph’s Parish, Mamfe and Kumba Town. He was Chancellor for the Diocese of Buea and Principal of St. Francis’ College, Fiango, Kumba. Before coming to the Diocese of Kumbo he was Catholic Education Secretary for the Diocese of Buea From 1994 to 2006.

Previous assignments include Provincial Chairman of the Association of Diocesan Priests, Bamenda Ecclesiastical Province; National/Diocesan Chaplain of the Catholic Women’s Association. Bishop George was also Member of the Council of Cameroon General Certificate of Education Examination Supervisory Board, member of Presbyteral Council and College of Consultors of the Diocese of Buea.

He was ordained a bishop and installed as the second Bishop of the Diocese of Kumbo on September 8, 2006.

After his appointed as Bishop, he became Chairman of the Episcopal Commission for Education in the National Episcopal Conference of Cameroon (CNEC) and in 2009; he became member of the Study Week of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences in Rome as well as member of the Permanent Committee of the Cameroon Episcopal Conference.

From the beginning of his episcopacy, Bishop George Nkuo expressed the hope that a Bishop’s responsibilities are first to the Diocese where he is ordained to oversee. This he makes visible in the way he is available to the Priests, Religious, Seminarians and Faithful in the Diocese of Kumbo. In his first meeting with his priests upon his appointment as Bishop of Kumbo, he insisted that the priests, his co-workers were to be seen as his main collaborators and emphasized on team work/collaborative ministry. Today, he recognizes the talents and abilities of the priests, religious, and laity and is ever more willing to work with them at all levels for the evangelization of the Church in Kumbo.

Bishop George is working very hard to build Catholic education, in the Catholic schools in the Diocese as well as in the religious education programs of the parishes. He has introduced the Catholic Education Week and the Bishop’s Education Fund which contributes in forming young people to become integral and holistic scholars. He is planning for the future construction of the Medical Department of the newly created Catholic University of Cameroon, Bamenda, and also carrying out improvements in the existing Schools in the Diocese.

One of the landmarks was the celebration of the centenary of the faith in the diocese of Kumbo in 2012. It was 100 years since the German Sacred Heart Fathers of St. Quentin arrived Kumbo. It was celebrated under the theme “We no longer believe because of what you told us” (John 4:42).

What is even more important for him, is pastoral plans, to be able to reach out to the people of God not only to preach the Gospel but also to be close to them in their needs is effectively being carried out. He has been trying to meet the Christians in their Parishes every year during pastoral visits and to set up little projects in the area of health and education to reassure the people of Kumbo and especially those in the remotest parts that they are not abandoned.

By Patience Ngwacalar Atanga in Essen in Germany

7, April 2021

Italy’s ex-PM Berlusconi hospitalised again ⁰

Former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi has been hospitalised for the second time in two weeks, a source within his Forza Italia party said Wednesday.

The flamboyant 84-year-old billionaire and media tycoon has been at Milan’s San Raffaele hospital since Tuesday afternoon, the source said.

Berlusconi arrived for a check-up, and doctors decided to keep him in to conduct more tests, the source added.

The hospitalisation was also announced by one of Berlusconi’s lawyers during a hearing in Milan linked to his long-running “bunga bunga” sex scandal.

The hearing is part of the latest prong of the investigation into Berlusconi’s relationship with an underage girl, Karima El-Mahroug, dubbed “Ruby the heart-stealer”.

The probe involves alleged payments to witnesses by Berlusconi to buy their silence over his so-called “bunga bunga” parties involving El-Mahroug and other women.

Berlusconi, who has dominated public life in Italy since the 1980s, has had a string of health problems in recent years.

He already spent a couple of days at the San Raffaele in late March. His entourage said at the time it was to conduct previously scheduled tests.

In January, Berlusconi — who had open heart surgery in 2016 — was admitted to a hospital in Monaco for heart problems. Last September, he was hospitalised for 11 days with Covid-19.

Source: AFP

6, April 2021

Tumi: The Splendor of Truth ⁰

Cardinal Christian Wiyghan Tumi, Archbishop emeritus of Douala (Cameroon), was born on 15 October 1930 in Kikaikelaki, Cameroon. He did his secondary studies at diocesan seminaries and at the seminaries of Ibadan, Bodija and Enugu in Nigeria. From 1969 to 1973 he obtained in Nigeria a Teachers’ Training Grade; a University General Certificate of Education at Ordinary Level in London; a licentiate in theology at the Catholic Faculty of Lyon; a doctorate in philosophy at the Catholic University of Fribourg, Switzerland. He is well versed in his native dialect, Nso, Pidgin and Hausa, Latin, English, and French.

He was ordained a priest on 17 April 1966 in Soppo, diocese of Buéa and from 1966 to 1967 carried out his ministry as a parochial vicar at Fiango (Kumbo). From 1967 to 1969 he was a professor at the Bishop Rogan College minor seminary. In 1973, after having studied abroad, he returned to his diocese and was named rector of the major regional seminary of Bambui, archdiocese of Bamenda. He was also chaplain to the Association of Catholic Dames and was very involved in promoting the ecumenical movement, obtaining much esteem by Presbyterians and Baptists.

President of the presbyteral diocesan council, on 6 December 1979 he was elected the first bishop of the diocese of Yagoua, erected the same day. He received episcopal ordination on 6 January 1980 in St. Peter’s Basilica. During his pastoral care, the local church developed rapidly, enriched with institutions and centers of formation, nursery schools and dispensaries.

Elected on 23 April 1982 vice-president of the Episcopal Conference, on 19 November 1982 he was promoted to Coadjutor Archbishop of Garoua. On 17 March 1984 he was made Archbishop.

In 1985 he was elected as president of the National Episcopal Conference of Cameroon (until 1991). President of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM), 1990 – 1994.

He participated in the 6th General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops (1983) and in the extraordinary assembly of the Synod of Bishops of 1985. President delegate to the 8th General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops (1990); President delegate to the Special Assembly for Africa of the Synod of Bishops (1994). He participated in the Second Special Assembly for Africa of the Synod of Bishops (October 2009).

Archbishop of Douala, 31 August 1991 – 17 November 2009.

He participated in the conclave of April 2005, which elected Pope Benedict XVI.

Created and proclaimed Cardinal by St. John Paul II in the Consistory of 28 June 1988, of the Title of Ss. Martiri dell’Uganda a Poggio Ameno (Martyrs of Uganda at Poggio Ameno).

Cardinal Christian Wiyghan Tumi died on 2 April 2021.

6, April 2021

Yaoundé: More than 850 Cameroonians have now died from COVID-19 ⁰

With a total of 57,337 cases, the ruling CPDM crime syndicate in Yaoundé has now been informed that La Republique du Cameroun is the 13th most affected country in Africa.

The curve of Covid-19 infection is constantly increasing in the two Cameroons and the frequency is even more worrying but not for the 88 year-old President Biya.

In one week, French Cameroun recorded 4112 new positive cases. This brings the number of people infected with the virus in the two Cameroons to 57,337.

Cameroon Concord News understands that with these figures, the divided nation is gradually approaching the top of the table of the most affected countries on the African continent.

53 people infected with the disease died recently including two cabinet ministers. A total of 851 patients have now died from Covid-19 in French Cameroun and the figures in Southern Cameroons are still being kept like a nuclear secret.

427 patients were reportedly in intensive care in the cities of Douala and Yaoundé, including 122 on oxygen. The National Order of Physicians made an appeal to the Biya regime to take important measures to limit the spread of the virus.

The so-called Dion Ngute administration instead placed a ban on all festive events only in the Centre region hosting the political capital and the barons of the Biya regime.

Prime Minister Joseph Dion Ngute told a COVID-19 task force meeting to intensify sensitization campaigns as infections continue to increase. But it is still business as usual in all the major towns and cities in French Cameroun.

By Rita Akana in Yaounde

6, April 2021

Central African Republic: Powerful armed group vows to leave rebel coalition ⁰

The most powerful of the Central African Republic’s armed groups said in a statement Monday it will quit a rebel coalition aiming to unseat President Faustin Archange Touadera.

The Unity for Peace in Central Africa (UPC), mainly active in the country’s east, “commits to withdraw from the Coalition of Patriots for Change” (CPC), the group’s head Ali Darassa wrote.

The coalition is an alliance of some of the war-torn country’s most powerful armed groups, who joined together on December 19 accusing Touadera, the frontrunner in the December 27 elections, of trying to fix the vote.

Its components were drawn from militia groups that, together, controlled two-thirds of the impoverished country.

Touadera was reelected with barely one in three voters able to cast their ballot because rebel groups control most of the country.

Darassa said Monday that since the “electoral crisis, the population has suffered terribly from insecurity, the health situation, famine and the lack of humanitarian assistance.”

The UPC, the statement continued, “reiterates its commitment to the Khartoum Accord process,” a peace agreement signed in February 2019 between the government and 14 armed groups.

Surge in violence

Tensions have been high in the Central African Republic since the December election, although the surge in violence in recent months is just the latest flare-up in a civil war that has lasted eight years since the ouster of president Francois Bozize.

More than 30,000 people have fled the country due to the violence surrounding the elections, the UN says, while tens of thousands more have been internally displaced.

On January 13, rebels launched twin attacks on the outskirts of the capital — the first time they had struck so close to the city since the start of their offensive.

But their offensive foundered faced with government forces backed by 12,000 UN peacekeepers force, Russian paramilitaries and Rwandan troops.

Since January, the government and its allies have recaptured towns once held by fighters from the alliance of militias.

Bangui has accused Bozize, now the head of the CPC, of attempting a coup.

The UPC announcement came just days after another powerful group in the CPC announced that its chief had died from wounds suffered during an attack, in another blow to the rebel alliance.

Sidiki Abass, head of Return, Reclamation and Rehabilitation (3R), died on March 25, the rebel group announced Friday.

Abass, whose real name was Bi Sidi Souleymane, died in hospital in the country’s north, 3R said in a statement, adding he had been “seriously wounded” during attacks in the town of Bossembele on November 16.

The 3R group is made up largely of the Fulani ethnic group, whose members are traditionally nomadic herders.

Abass’s group has in the past been accused of war crimes, and judicial sources said he had been the target of an investigation by the country’s Special Criminal Court, set up to probe serious human rights violations committed since 2003.

Mineral-rich but rated the world’s second-poorest country on the Human Development Index, the CAR has been chronically unstable since independence 60 years ago.

Source: AFP

6, April 2021

US: 60% of Republicans want Trump to run in 2024 election, say election was ‘stolen’ ⁰

Since the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection at the US Capitol, former president Donald Trump and his Republican allies have pushed false and misleading accounts to downplay the event that left five dead and scores of others wounded.

His supporters appear to have listened.

Three months after a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol to try to overturn his November election loss, about half of Republicans believe the siege was largely a non-violent protest or was the handiwork of left-wing activists “trying to make Trump look bad,” a new Reuters/Ipsos poll has found.

Six in 10 Republicans also believe the false claim put out by Trump that November’s presidential election “was stolen” from him due to widespread voter fraud, and the same proportion of Republicans think he should run again in 2024, the March 30-31 poll showed.

Since the Capitol attack, Trump, many of his allies within the Republican Party and right-wing media personalities have publicly painted a picture of the day’s events jarringly at odds with reality.

Hundreds of Trump’s supporters, mobilized by the former president’s false claims of a stolen election, climbed walls of the Capitol building and smashed windows to gain entry while lawmakers were inside voting to certify President Joe Biden’s election victory.

The rioters – many of them sporting Trump campaign gear and waving flags – also included known white supremacist groups such as the Proud Boys.

In a recent interview with Fox News, Trump said the rioters posed “zero threat.” Other prominent Republicans, such as Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, have publicly doubted whether Trump supporters were behind the riot.

Last month, 12 Republicans in the House of Representatives voted against a resolution honoring Capitol Police officers who defended the grounds during the rampage, with one lawmaker saying that he objected using the word “insurrection” to describe the incident.

The Reuters/Ipsos poll shows a large number of rank-and-file Republicans have embraced the myth.

While 59% of all Americans say Trump bears some responsibility for the attack, only three in 10 Republicans agree. Eight in 10 Democrats and six in 10 independents reject the false claims that the Capitol siege was “mostly peaceful” or it was staged by left-wing protestors.

“Republicans have their own version of reality,” said John Geer, an expert on public opinion at Vanderbilt University.

“It is a huge problem. Democracy requires accountability and accountability requires evidence.”

The refusal of Trump and prominent Republicans to repudiate the events of Jan. 6 increases the likelihood of a similar incident happening again, said Susan Corke, director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups.

“That is the biggest danger – normalizing this behavior,” Corke said. “I do think we are going to see more violence.”

In a fresh reminder of the security threats the US Capitol faces since Jan. 6, a motorist rammed a car into US Capitol police on Friday and brandished a knife, killing one officer and injuring another and forcing the Capitol complex to lock down.

Officers shot and killed the suspect.

Allie Carroll, a spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee, said its members condemned the Capitol attack and referred to a Jan. 13 statement from Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel.

“Violence has no place in our politics … Those who partook in the assault on our nation’s Capitol and those who continue to threaten violence should be found, held accountable, and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” McDaniel said. A representative for Trump did not respond to requests for comment.

‘Dangerous spin on reality’

The disinformation campaign aimed at downplaying the insurrection and Trump’s role in it reflects a growing consensus within the Republican Party that its fortunes remain tethered to Trump and his devoted base, political observers say.

According to the new Reuters/Ipsos poll, Trump remains the most popular figure within the party, with eight in 10 Republicans continuing to hold a favorable impression of him.

“Congressional Republicans have assessed they need to max out the Trump vote to win,” said Tim Miller, a former spokesman for Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush. “That that is the path back to the majority.”

Republicans in Congress show few signs of breaking with Trump.

Right after the deadly Capitol siege, 147 Republican lawmakers voted against certifying Biden’s election win. The Democratic-led House of Representatives impeached Trump for “inciting an insurrection”, making him the only US president to be impeached twice, but most Senate Republicans acquitted him of the charge in a trial.

Last week, Republican congressman Jim Banks of Indiana said the party must cater to the working-class voters that comprise Trump’s political base ahead of next year’s critical midterm elections that will dictate control of Congress.

“Members who want to swap out working-class voters because they resent President Trump’s impact… are wrong,” Banks wrote in a memo to Republican House leader Kevin McCarthy, contents of which he posted on Twitter.

Banks was one of the 147 lawmakers who voted to block certification of Biden’s win, and he later voted against impeaching Trump. Banks did not respond to requests for comment.

Some mainstream Republicans contend that after Republicans lost both the White House and control of both chambers of Congress on Trump’s watch, the party must move on from the former president in order to attract suburban, moderate and independent voters.

In the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll, only about three in 10 independents said they have a favorable view of Trump, among the lowest level recorded since his presidency.

Most Americans — about 60% — also believe Biden won the November election fair and square, and said Trump should not run again.

Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, one of Trump’s top Republican critics in Congress, has criticized the push to rewrite the history of the Capitol attack.

The disinformation effort is “such a dangerous, disgusting spin on reality,” Kinzinger wrote in a fundraising appeal to supporters last month, “and what’s even worse is that it goes unchallenged by so many in the Republican Party.”

The window for the Republican Party to distance itself from Trump seems to have passed, Miller said.

“There was a chance after January 6 for Republican leaders to really put their foot down and say, ‘We can’t be the insurrectionist party,’” he said. “Now that opportunity is totally gone.”

The Reuters/Ipsos poll was conducted online, in English, throughout the United States. It gathered responses from 1,005 adults between March 30-31. The poll has a credibility interval, a measure of precision, of about 4 percentage points.

(Source: Reuters)

5, April 2021

Russia: Putin signs law allowing him to hold office for two more terms ⁰

Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law that would allow him to stay in office for two more terms until the year 2036.

The legislation, officially approved by Putin on Monday, came after changes to the country’s constitution last year that allowed the 68-year-old Russian leader to run for two more six-year terms once his tenure ends in 2024.

The changes, which were overwhelmingly backed in a public vote last summer, permit Putin to potentially hold office until the age of 83.

The reforms also include an amendment that grants former Russian presidents automatic immunity from criminal prosecution.

Putin, already the longest-serving leader in modern Russian history since Soviet leader Josef Stalin, and his supporters said at the time that the reforms were needed to ensure national stability.

The legislation was passed in both the lower and upper houses of Russian parliament last month.

Putin has ruled the country as a president or prime minister for more than 20 years.

Source: Presstv

5, April 2021

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Priest Recounts Rough Ordeal with Military ⁰

Fr. Ngenge Godlove Bong-aba who grew up in the Archdiocese of Bamenda in Cameroon’s Northwest region recalls several instances he has been harassed by the country’s security forces on allegations that he was connected to militants in the Central African nation.

In an interview with ACI Africa Wednesday, March 31, the former Parish Priest of St. Therese of the Child Jesus Esu Parish of Bamenda Archdiocese says that members of the Clergy whose only concern is to uphold the dignity of human life in the country are sometimes accused of siding with those who oppose the government.

“My challenges reflect those of the Catholic Church as a whole in the Anglophone regions of Cameroon,” Fr. Godlove told ACI Africa.

He added, “In my quest to uphold the truth, condemn injustice and defend the God-given dignity of the human being, I am sometimes misunderstood, suspected and misrepresented as supporting one or the other camp by the regime as well as the actors advocating for the breakaway state of Ambazonia!”

Ambazonia is a self-proclaimed independent state by separatists in Cameroon’s English-speaking North West and South West regions.

Efforts to create the state are at the heart of the ongoing conflict that has led to the death of over 3,000 people and displacement of over 679,000 others. The conflict that started with a strike of a section of teachers and lawyers in the two regions has also left more than 600,000 children unable to go to school.

Fr. Godlove recalls a particular incident in 2020 when he was summoned by a group of military men that were setting up camp at a village near his Parish.

“I was introduced to the highest in command in the entire Division (a Colonel), who told me to my face that he did not trust Priests, Bishops and the Catholic Church as far as the crisis was concerned!” the Priest told ACI Africa.

He went on to narrate, “He (the Colonel) kept us there for over an hour, obtaining information from a Fulani motorbike rider concerning a boy who was riding my Parish motorbike, whom he suspected to be an armed separatist.”

The 33-year-old Priest who recently went to work on a project in South Africa says that were it not for the word of the Fulani, the military would have taken the young man into custody “and probably shot him and disposed of his body.”

In a separate incident, Fr. Godlove was denied access to an Outstation of his Parish by an armed separatist.

Recalling the event, he says, “I was with the same boy and they searched us thoroughly and emptied all my stuff on the ground; also claiming that I had shown the military the way to go and attack their colleagues.”

In this particular altercation, the Cameroonian Priest was ordered to leave immediately and warned never to minister at the outstation again.

Fr. Godlove is currently working with the Denis Hurley Peace Institute (DHPI) that has been closely monitoring the situation in the conflict hit part of Cameroon for about two years now.

He shares with ACI Africa that the work of the institute of the Southern African Catholic Bishops Conference (SACBC) is to “meticulously record and report human rights violations in the country.”

The institute is also working to rouse the international community into action to work in bringing about an end to the conflict.

Fr. Godlove says that clashes between the Cameroonian military and armed separatists still occur from time to time.

“Except for a few schools that run in urban areas under strict military protection, schools remain closed down for all these years,” he says, and adds, “Teachers and students are targeted by separatist fighters in order to ensure effective school boycott.”

In the two English-speaking regions, there are “routine ghost town days” every Monday and total lockdown days to frustrate government activities.

Kidnapping for ransom by separatist fighters makes life unbearable for people in the conflict areas, he says.

“Esu where I worked is one of the hardest-hit areas in the conflict,” the Catholic Priest shares, adding that the local population suffers from the state military who accuse them of collaborating with armed separatists.

On the other hand, separatist fighters deal harshly with anyone suspected of interacting with the military, calling them “blacklegs”.

Blacklegs is a term used by the exiled advocates for separation (activists) and armed separatists to refer to those whom they think want to compromise the struggle for independence (traitors) by collaborating with the state military or other administrators of the regime.

Additionally, teachers, especially government-employed, are abducted, tortured, killed and extorted, Fr. Godlove told ACI Africa, adding that witch hunting and settlement of scores is rampant among the people.

Schools remain shut down in most of the rural areas and very few run in urban areas with heavy military presence, a situation that the Priest says psychologically impacts the learners negatively.

Movement between towns and villages in the conflict areas is very expensive, difficult and dangerous with many checkpoints mounted by both the state military and the separatist fighters, who extort money from passengers and drivers, he says.

“As a result, transport fare has quadrupled as bike riders and drivers risk having their cars, buses and bikes burnt down,” the Priest told ACI Africa during the March 31 interview.

He expressed concern that the number of internally and externally displaced person has kept on rising as a result of kidnapping for ransom in cities and killings by the Fulani gunmen who also loot in some of the rural areas and burn down villages.

Source: aciafrica.org

5, April 2021

Palestinian leader Abbas headed to Germany for ‘medical tests’ ⁰

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas left for Germany on Monday for “routine medical tests” and to meet Chancellor Angela Merkel, a source within his office told AFP.

Less than two months before the first Palestinian polls in 15 years, the 86-year-old Abbas left the presidential compound in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank via helicopter for Jordan, said the source.

He was to fly to Germany before returning on Thursday, the source added, requesting anonymity pending an official announcement.

Palestinian legislative elections are scheduled for May 22, with a presidential vote set for July 31.

Abbas, who was elected president of the Palestinian Authority in the last vote in 2005 following the death of Yasser Arafat, has not yet declared whether he intends to run again.

His secular Fatah movement, which controls the West Bank, has submitted a list of candidates for the legislative polls.

Abbas, a heavy smoker, was hospitalised with pneumonia in 2018, fuelling speculation about a possible Palestinian succession plan.

His latest visit comes with Abbas and Fatah facing mounting political pressures.

In the legislative polls, Fatah is facing challenges from dissident factions including the Freedom list, led by a nephew of the late Arafat, Nasser al-Kidwa.

Freedom has been endorsed by Marwan Barghouti, a popular leader whom supporters have described as the Palestinian Mandela.

Barghouti is serving multiple life sentences in Israel for allegedly organising deadly attacks during the second Palestinian intifada (uprising) from 2000-2005.

Abbas’s former Gaza security chief, Mohammed Dahlan, who is currently in exile in Abu Dhabi, is also backing a list of challengers.

Former Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad, an ex-World Bank official with a track record of fighting corruption, is supporting his own group.

The Palestinian election followed an agreement on vote procedures between Fatah and Hamas Islamists who control the Israeli-blockaded Gaza strip.

Source: AFP

5, April 2021

Jordan: Palace turmoil, wave of arrests over plot to ‘destabilise’ kingdom ⁰

Jordan’s Prince Hamzah, accused of a “wicked” plot against his elder half-brother King Abdullah II, has struck a defiant tone, insisting he will not obey orders restricting his movement.

The government has accused Hamzah of involvement in a seditious conspiracy to “destabilise the kingdom’s security”, placed him under house arrest and detained at least 16 more people.

But 41-year-old Hamzah, who says he has been ordered to stay inside his Amman palace, vowed he would defy orders limiting his movement and communications, in an audio recording posted on Twitter late Sunday.

“I don’t want to make moves and escalate now, but of course I’m not going to obey when they say you can’t go out, you can’t tweet, you can’t communicate with people, you’re only allowed to see your family,” he said.

Hamzah, a former crown prince who was stripped off that title by Abdullah in 2004, has emerged as a vocal critic of the monarchy, accusing Jordan’s leadership of corruption, nepotism and authoritarian rule.

In a video he sent to the BBC on Saturday he bemoaned “incompetence that has been prevalent in our governing structure for the last 15 to 20 years and has been getting worse”.

He charged that “no-one is able to speak or express opinion on anything without being bullied, arrested, harassed and threatened”.

‘Wicked slander’

Hamzah denied being involved in any “nefarious” plot, but said he had been placed under house arrest, with his phone and internet cut, by Jordan’s military chief, General Youssef Huneiti.

In the recording released Sunday, Hamzah said that: “When the head of the joint chiefs of staff comes and tells you this … I think it’s kind of unacceptable”.

He added that when Huneiti visited his home, “I recorded what he said and sent it to my friends abroad and to my family, in case anything happens”.

King Abdullah, 59, named Hamzah crown prince in 1999, in line with their father’s dying wish, but stripped him of that title five years later and named his own son Prince Hussein, now 26, heir to the throne.

Hamzah’s mother, American-born Queen Noor, defended her son and the others on Sunday, tweeting that she was “praying that truth and justice will prevail for all the innocent victims of this wicked slander.”

Linchpin of stability

Jordan’s palace turmoil has laid bare divisions in what is usually considered a bulwark of stability in the Middle East.

Washington, major Gulf powers, Egypt and the Arab League were all quick to pledge their support for Abdullah and all his steps to ensure stability.

Jordan has only 10 million people but outsized strategic importance in a turbulent region. It borders Israel and the occupied West Bank, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia and is the formal custodian of Jerusalem’s Al Aqsa Mosque.

It hosts US troops and is home to millions of exiled Palestinians and more than half a million Syrian refugees.

The Washington Post had first reported Saturday that the former crown prince was “placed under restriction” as part of a probe into an alleged plot to unseat the king.

Jordan’s government waited until Sunday afternoon to outline its case, delivered by the foreign minister and deputy premier Ayman Safadi.

“This sedition was nipped in the bud,” Safadi said, charging that the plotters had linked up with foreign parties “to carry out wicked plans aimed at destabilising” the kingdom.

Among those arrested were a former finance minister, Bassem Awadallah, who was chief of the royal court in 2007-08, and Sherif Hassan bin Zaid, a junior member of the royal family.

Safadi declined to identify the alleged foreign parties or say what the charges were, but said authorities acted because the alleged conspirators were “talking about timing”.

He also charged that an individual “with links to foreign intelligence services” had offered to spirit Hamzah’s wife out of the country by plane.

An Israeli who said he is a close friend of Hamzah, Roy Shaposhnik, said in a statement he had indeed “extended an invitation for the prince’s wife and children to stay at his home in Europe”.

He said he had made “this benign, humanitarian” offer after the prince had described a “dynamic situation in Amman” and voiced “concerns about the safety of his family”.

Shaposhnik stressed that he had “never served in any capacity with any intelligence branch in Israel or any other country for that matter” and that he had “no knowledge of, or any involvement with, events that are allegedly transpiring in Jordan”.

(AFP)