1, September 2020

Douala: Reverend father collapses and dies while preaching during Sunday mass ⁰

A catholic reverend father identified as Jude has slumped and died while preaching the Homily during mass on Sunday, 30th August 2020.

It is understood from the caption of the video that Rev.Fr Jude was the spiritual director of CMA Diedo in Duoala, Cameroon’s commercial capital city.

It was observed from the video that the clergy while speaking, first paused for a few seconds and then slumped while still at the pulpit, sending commotion and noise into the congregation.

The cause of his death could not be established at press time.

Source: Naija News

1, September 2020

Boko Haram kills a pregnant woman in French Cameroun ⁰

A pregnant woman living in Amtchali village at the outskirt of Mora town in French Cameroun was shot dead and the insurgents looted about 15 houses before leaving the village. The injured woman died while receiving treatment in a hospital in Mora.

Following the Armed forces’ continuous assault on the Islamist militants, the jihadists have stepped up raids on villages along the border, looting homes and abducting women.

On Thursday, August 28, the terrorists attacked an IDP camp in Kolofata at night making away with foodstuff and other valuables.

Two years ago President Biya said that Boko Haram had been defeated in the country. However, security is still a major issue in the two Cameroons with Southern Cameroons facing a bloody English-language separatist movement.

French Cameroun’s Far North Region for years has been the target of suicide bombings and other attacks by Boko Haram fighters who spilled over the border from Nigeria, where the extremist group is based. Nearly a quarter-million people in French Cameroun have been displaced.

Boko Haram fighters continue to attack French Cameroun military targets despite repeated Biya regime declarations that it has been crushed.

By Fon Lawrence

31, August 2020

French Cameroun: Customs intercepts dynamite, explosives in Garoua ⁰

200 explosives have been seized in Garoua in northern French Cameroun by custom officers. A security source hinted Cameroon Intelligence Report that this is the largest seizure of military hardware by the Customs Department.

This seizure comes at a time when several towns and cities including the nation’s capital Yaoundé have been rocked by a multiplication of explosions. We understand the seizure took place on Saturday in Pakete, a village located in the Demsa district whose capital is Gashiga, Benue Division in bordering the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

A spokesperson for the French Cameroun Customs Department revealed that the improvised explosive devices were packed in a vehicle coming from Nigeria.

According to security experts in the CEMAC region, the highly porous, poorly secured and easy to cross border between Nigeria and French Cameroun is conducive for smuggling and illegal migration.

Elements of French Cameroun defence and security forces have tested and confirmed the dangerousness of the explosives.

It is vital to include in this report that in recent months several bombs have exploded in Yaoundé causing many injuries and significant material damage.

By Fon Lawrence

31, August 2020

Football: Arsenal beat Liverpool in 5-4 in shootout ⁰

Arsenal have overcome Premier League champions Liverpool on penalties to secure the Community Shield after a 1-all draw at an empty Wembley Stadium.

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang put the Gunners in front after just 12 minutes of play with a brilliant finish, following a sweeping move.

But, the Merseyside Reds got the equalizer after the break when Japanese striker Takumi Minamino slotted home in the 73rd minute to send the match into a penalty shootout.

Rhian Brewster missed his spot kick, allowing Aubameyang to step up and seal the victory for the Gunners as they clinched their 16th Community Shield trophy.

This is also the second time Arsenal have defeated Liverpool this year.

31, August 2020

US Covid-19 cases surpass 6 million as Midwest, schools report outbreaks ⁰

U.S. cases of the novel coronavirus surpassed 6 million on Sunday as many states in the Midwest reported increasing infections, according to a Reuters tally.

Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota and Minnesota have recently reported record one-day increases in new cases while Montana and Idaho are seeing record numbers of currently hospitalised Covid-19 patients.

Nationally, metrics on new cases, deaths, hospitalisations and the positivity rates of tests are all declining, but there are emerging hotspots in the Midwest.

Many of the new cases in Iowa are in the counties that are home to the University of Iowa and Iowa State University, which are holding some in-person classes. Colleges and universities around the country have seen outbreaks after students returned to campus, forcing some to switch to online-only learning.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo on Sunday said his state was sending a “SWAT team” to a State University of New York (SUNY) campus in Oneonta in upstate New York to contain a Covid-19 outbreak. Fall classes, which started last week at the college, were suspended for two weeks after more than 100 people tested positive for the virus, about 3% of the total student and faculty population, SUNY Chancellor Jim Malatras said.

“We have had reports of several large parties of our students at Oneonta last week, and unfortunately because of those larger gatherings, there were several students who were symptomatic of Covid,” Malatras said.

Across the Midwest, infections have also risen after an annual motorcycle rally in Sturgis, South Dakota drew more than 365,000 people from across the country from Aug. 7 to 16. The South Dakota health department said 88 cases have been traced to the rally.

More than eight months into the pandemic, the United States continues to struggle with testing. The number of people tested has fallen in recent weeks.

Many health officials and at least 33 states have rejected the new Covid-19 testing guidance issued by the Trump administration last week that said those exposed to the virus and without symptoms may not need testing.

Public health officials believe the United States needs to test more frequently to find asymptomatic Covid-19 carriers to slow the spread of the disease.

While the United States has the most recorded infections in the world, it ranks tenth based on cases per capita, with Brazil, Peru and Chile having higher rates of infection, according to a Reuters tally.

The United States also has the most deaths in the world at nearly 183,000 and ranks 11th for deaths per capita, exceeded by Sweden, Brazil, Italy, Chile, Spain, the United Kingdom, Belgium and Peru.

(REUTERS)

31, August 2020

French Cameroun on the verge of a civil war ⁰

La Republique du Cameroun is evidently on the verge of a civil war, more likely a tribal war, instigated by the Beti, Bulu and Ewondo tribes of the Central and South Regions. The President of the Movement for the Renaissance of Cameroon Prof Maurice Kamto has invited all political entities including the diaspora to pool their efforts to oust the 87 year old President Paul Biya.

Beti Ewondo servicemen and women, armed Bulu militias’ including senior army officers all backing President Biya are ready to stage attacks against the Bamilekes who are pushing for change in Etoudi.

Yaoundé inhabitants are reportedly preparing for a nightmare scenario as they believe there is the prospect that Biya loyalists will fight to hold on to power and will refuse to accept any outcome that will keep the ruling CPDM party out of government.

Biya and his kinsmen are also preparing for the anticipated fight and the regime is doing everything to intimidate the population of the capital city with regular fake bomb alerts.

Prof Maurice Kamto has blamed the fighting in Southern Cameroons on the Biya regime and he is also pressing the government to reform the electoral law that has legalized electoral fraud, voter suppression, irregularities, late ballots and long lines at the polls which are problems often manufactured by ELECAM the French Cameroun body responsible for organizing elections run by persons appointed by President Biya.

Ever since the 1988 Kaki and Green parliamentary elections, the ruling CPDM crime syndicate has excelled at rigging their own internal elections for the party’s favorites and National Chairman Paul Biya by suppressing and targeting potential challengers. The late Ayissi Mvodo, Prof Titus Edzoa and Albert Nzongang have all been victims.

The situation in French Cameroun has become very complicated. To be sure, what is different in this recent appeal by Prof Kamto is that the Beti Bulu Ewondo political and military elites, who usually work overtime to suppress citizens from other ethnic extraction on election days, now have a president whose end is looming!

A likely outcome is that there might be a major split in the French Cameroun army if someone from the Biya family is chosen to succeed the 87 year old dictator. Both sides of the French Cameroun divide are “Frenching” up in Paris for an epic fight.

Conditions in French Cameroun are dire now. La Republique du Cameroun is on the verge of a civil war, more likely a tribal war. Even if Biya agrees to step outside, such a war might still be in the offing, as some CPDM hardliners have been hungering for such a war against the Bamilekes for decades and the emergence of Prof Kamto and Biya’s imminent departure has green lighted the plan.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

31, August 2020

Football: Clinton N’Jie on target as Dynamo Moscow hold FC Ufa ⁰

The Cameroon international scored his second goal of the season to help the White and Blues avoid defeat at Neftyanik Stadium

Clinton N’Jie found the back of the net to inspire Dynamo Moscow to a 1-1 draw against FC Ufa in Sunday’s Russian Premier League game.

The forward teamed up with the White and Blues last summer from French side Marseille but did not have the best time in his debut season in Russia.

The striker only scored one goal in 19 league appearances but has hit the ground running in the 2020-21 season.

N’Jie was handed his fifth start in this campaign by manager Kirill Novikov against Vadim Evseev’s side and made the most of the opportunity.

The centre-forward shone in the encounter to ensure his side avoided defeat and stretched their unbeaten run to two games after securing victory over Zenit last time out.

N’Jie opened the scoring in the 43rd minute for the White and Blues after both sides had failed to convert the few chances that came to their ways.

Timur Zhamaletdinov then levelled proceedings moments before the hour mark after he was set up by Aleksandr Sukhov.

The draw is Dynamo Moscow’s second this season, having also won three games and lost one in six outings so far.

N’Jie featured for 78 minutes before he made way for Vyacheslav Grulev while Nigeria international Sylvester Igboun was a second-half substitute for the White and Blues.

The Cameroon striker has played for French side Lyon and Premier League club Tottenham Hotspur before he signed for Marseille permanently in 2019 after impressing while on loan with the side.

N’Jie has been a key member of the Cameroon national team since he made a scoring debut for the West Africans against the Democratic Republic of Congo in September 2014.

The forward has featured 32 times for the Indomitable Lions, scoring seven goals and was part of the side that won the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations title.

N’Jie will hope to continue his fine start to the season when Dynamo Moscow take on Rubin Kazan in their next Premier League game on September 12.

Source: Goal.com

30, August 2020

Mali in crisis: Divisions emerge between junta, opposition leaders ⁰

Tensions mounted on Saturday between Mali’s military junta and the country’s longtime political opposition after the coup leaders failed to invite prominent opposition figures to a planned forum on the country’s political future.

The meeting ultimately was cancelled and the junta leadership instead met with imam Mahmoud Dicko, an opposition leader who on Friday urged the junta to speed up the transition to civilian rule so the West African country could avoid further crushing financial sanctions.

“I ask them to be part of the solution and not another problem,” he said.

Only a week earlier, the opposition coalition known as M5-RFP that includes Dicko had publicly backed the coup, with thousands of their supporters taking to the streets after the junta’s overthrow of President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita. M5-RFP had led several months of demonstrations calling for his resignation three years before his final term was due to end.

In a statement late Friday, one M5-RFP leader said the alliance regretted not being invited to take part in Saturday’s planned discussions between the junta and various political actors.

“The M5-RFP is and remains a major player in this desired change and must be at the forefront in determining the structure of the transition,” Choguel Maiga said.

The path back to democracy has been a stumbling point with West African heads of state, who on Friday urged the junta to restore civilian rule within a year. But the junta has proposed a three-year timeline. That has led to the unraveling of talks and more threats of sanctions.

The regional bloc known as ECOWAS already has cut financial flows to Mali, and neighboring countries have closed their borders in a bid to step up pressure on the coup leaders.

The international community has expressed alarm over the coup, fearing that the political vacuum could allow Islamic extremists to expand their reach. A similar coup in 2012 led to the militants overtaking major towns in the north where they implemented their strict interpretation of Islamic law, amputating the hands of those charged with theft.

A French-led military operation in 2013 ousted the extremists from power but the Malian military and its partners have faced an insurgency ever since.

There are concerns that the new political upheaval could erode what gains have been made in the fight to stabilize Mali.

Source: AP

30, August 2020

French magazine depicts Black MP as a slave ⁰

French President Emmanuel Macron led nationwide outrage Saturday after an ultra-conservative magazine portrayed a black lawmaker as a slave.

The French presidency said Macron called Danielle Obono from the far-left party France Unbowed and “expressed his clear condemnation of any form of racism”.

The magazine, Valeurs Actuelles, which caters to readers on the right and far right, showed Obono in chains with an iron collar on her neck to illustrate a seven-page imaginary story.

Prime Minister Jean Castex said it was a “revolting publication that calls for clear condemnation” and told Obono that she had the government’s backing.

“I share the indignation of lawmaker Obono,” he said.

“One is free to write a putrid novel within the limits fixed by the law. One is free to hate it. I hate it,” said Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti.

Obono tweeted: “The extreme right — odious, stupid and cruel. In brief, like itself.”

The anti-racism body SOS Racisme deplored rising hate speech against African and Arab politicians and said it was mulling what legal measures could be taken to counter this.

The magazine however denied it was racist, saying the story concerning Obono was “a work of fiction… but never nasty.”

An official from France’s far-right National Rally party, Wallerand de Saint-Just, said the story was “in absolute bad taste”.

France witnessed several protests in June and July against racial injustice as well as colonial and police brutality, inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement and George Floyd’s death at the knee of police in the United States.

Macron, a centrist, who raised eyebrows when he gave an interview to Valeurs Actuelles last year and praised it as a “good magazine”, has pledged to root out racism.

But he also said France will not take down statues of figures linked to the colonial era or the slave trade, as has happened in other countries recently.

(AFP)

30, August 2020

Bakassi: Nigerian Group wants Buhari to probe ceding of peninsula to Cameroon ⁰

A group, Save Nigeria Movement (SNM), has called on President Muhammadu Buhari, to, as a matter of urgency, set up a judicial commission of inquiry to probe the circumstances that led to the decision of ceding the oil rich Bakassi peninsula to neighbouring Cameroun.

Convener of the group, Mr. Solomon Semaka, also stressed the need to revisit several unresolved incidents, including the tragic 1992 Airforce military aircraft C-130 Crash in Lagos State in which over 160 senior and middle level military officers and the entire crew died.

The group is seeking probe into the 2006 tragic occurrence of an airforce donier 228 aircraft crash in Benue State that killed about 15 senior military officers and the entire crew, as well as the sad incident of Boeing 737 plane crash that occurred in October 2006 in Abuja, which claimed the lives the late Sultan of Sokoko, Alhaji Maccido, his son, Senator Maccido, grand son, as well the then deputy governor, Alhaji Garba Muhammad, as well as 98 others.

Other probe requests, include the need to unravel the circumstances of the tragic crash of a naval helicopter in 2012 in Nembe, Bayelsa State, which claimed the lives of Governor Patrick Yakowa and Gen. Andrew Azazi, the circumstances surrounding the bombing and subsequent murder of the famous journalist, Dele Giwa, through a parcel bomb.

It also includes the need to unravel the circumstances surrounding the arrest of Gloria Okon and her subsequent mysterious death, “the circumstances surrounding the murder of Chief Bola Ige in 2001, the burning and killing of the Resident Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Commissioner and his family in Kano in 2015, the 2011 bombings of the INEC office in Suleja, which killed over 25 people and the annulment of June 12 election, among others.”

The group in the statement signed by Richard Oduma of Coalition of Minority Tribes in Nigeria and Dr. Ndubisi Okon, Center for Advanced History and Civil Right contended that the issues if left unchecked could pose grave danger to the corporate existence of Nigeria.

Source: The Guardian