22, February 2019

US: Trump says ‘witch hunt’ must end as Mueller prepares to file report ⁰

US President Donald Trump has condemned an investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller into possible collusion between his 2016 election campaign and Russia as a “witch hunt” in a new tweet, calling for it to end amid reports that it is coming to a close.

“Highly respected Senator Richard Burr, head of Senate Intelligence, said, after interviewing over 200 witnesses and studying over 2 million pages of documents, ‘WE HAVE FOUND NO COLLUSION BETWEEN THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN AND RUSSIA.’ The Witch Hunt, so bad for our Country, must end!” Trump tweeted on Friday.

Senator Richard Burr (R-N.C.), the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said recently that the panel has not found evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 presidential.

According to reports, Mueller could file his report on his investigation with the Department of Justice next week. Trump announced in November that his personal legal team would compile a “major Counter Report” to Mueller’s findings.

Robert Mueller has disputed a report that President Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen said Trump directed him to lie to Congress. Trump has repeatedly denied any collusion and has long called for end to the probe. Moscow has also denied any interference in US elections.

“After two years and millions of pages of documents (and a cost of over $30 million) no collusion!” Trump tweeted in December.

In another previous tweet Trump had called the probe the “greatest witch hunt” in the US history. “This is the single greatest witch hunt of a politician in American history.”

Presstv

22, February 2019

Cameroon league authorities to pay outstanding money to clubs after Fifa intervention ⁰

An impasse over salary arrears between Cameroon league authorities and players’ representative body sucked in Fifa

The Cameroon Professional Football League (Lfpc) has agreed to pay 84 million FCFA ($145 205) meant for settling outstanding player salaries to 24 Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 clubs following an order by world football governing body Fifa.

A stand-off between Lfpc and the National Union of Footballers of Cameroon (Synafoc) over the non-payment of the money saw the latter reporting the matter Fifa and FIFPro.

According to Cafonline, Fifa secretary general Fatma Saoura wrote to new Cameroon Football Federation boss Seydou Mbombo Njoya ordering him “to take the necessary steps urgently to ensure that the salaries and bonuses due to the players of these 24 clubs, in accordance with the relevant contractual obligations, be paid in the near future.”

The situation had created a deep crisis in Cameroonian football and caused a delay to the start of the league. Synafoc is headed by former Real Madrid and Chelsea utility player Geremi Njitap.

The outstanding money dates back to two years ago and some Ligue 1 teams are set to receive $5185 each, while Ligue 2 clubs will get $3457.

Goal.Com

22, February 2019

UN moves fast into Southern Cameroons ⁰

A UN report has detailed how it plans to deploy its staff in Cameroon. The report slams the government and armed groups in the country’s two English-speaking regions for the deteriorating humanitarian situation. See excerpts from the report.

“The deployment of humanitarian actors to the field continues. A further allocation of CERF to Cameroon will in part support humanitarian activities in the North-West and South-West regions.As of 7 January, donors had provided 35 per cent of the US$15.2 million required as per the emergency response plan, according to the Financial Tracking Service (FTS). This amount constitutes the $5.1 million CERF allocation under the rapid response window. Additional contributions were received by other donors but not yet reported on FTS,” the report says.

“The Humanitarian Response Plan will be launched on 20 February 2019. The number of people estimated to be in need of humanitarian assistance in 2019 has increased by 31 per cent compared to 2018, from 3.3 million to 4.3 million. The number of people who will be targeted for assistance has also increased from last year, from 1.3 million to 2.3 million. This increase is mainly attributed to emerging needs in the North-West and South-West regions. More than a quarter of people targeted by the response (28 per cent or 820,000 people) lives in the North-West and South-West regions, which are now priority areas of intervention. Sectors need US $ 93 million – or 31 per cent of the total appeal – to support 437,000 IDPs in these two regions, the West and Littoral, and 376,000 vulnerable host communities due to forced displacement and disruption of social and health services,” the report points out.

See Cameroon Intelligence Report for a detailed report on UN plans to deploy in the Northwest and Southwest regions.

By Kingsley Betek

22, February 2019

High-profile journalist kidnapped in Southern Cameroons ⁰

The president of the Northwest regional chapter of Cameroon Association of English-speaking Journalists (CAMASEJ) was kidnapped Thursday by “unknown gunmen” in Bamenda, Cameroon’s largest Anglophone city, CAMASEJ said in a statement.

“It is with great disbelief and shock that CAMASEJ Northwest just learned of the kidnap of its president, Ambe Macmillian Awa, this Thursday afternoon around 2:30 p.m. by unknown gunmen,” Fongoh Primus Ayeh, secretary general of CAMASEJ Northwest, said in a statement released Thursday evening.

Ayeh “vehemently” condemns the act and said it was “tantamount to kidnapping all journalists in the region and nation.” He said the search for Awa’s whereabouts was in progress and demanded his “immediate and unconditional release.”

Awa, who is also secretary general of the Northwest chapter of Cameroon Journalists Trade Union, is the first high profile journalist to be kidnapped since an armed conflict started in the two English-speaking regions of Cameroon in November 2017.

His abduction has drawn condemnation. Committee to Protect Journalists tweeted that it was “concerned” over the abduction and stressed that “he must be freed unharmed.”

Kidnappings have become rampant in the two troubled Anglophone regions of Northwest and Southwest since the start of this year. Over the weekend, 170 students and their teacher were kidnapped in the Northwest. They were released later following negotiations.

Armed separatists want the two regions to secede from largely French-speaking Cameroon and create a new nation they called “Ambazonia.” The United Nations estimates that at least 430,000 people in Cameroon have been displaced internally by the conflict.

Xinhuanet

22, February 2019

Yaounde: Minister Nalova says teaching in secondary schools to go digital ⁰

Cameroon’s Minister of Secondary Education Nalova Lyonga said Wednesday that the country will begin teaching students in secondary school online to “gain time and facilitate the learning process.”

“We have a lot of schools that are not built with the right material and methodology. We are looking into the teaching methodology. We want to go digital,” Lyonga said during mid-term evaluation meeting of the 2018-2019 school year held in the capital, Yaounde.

“The more subjects we have online the better, and this is a methodology that shows us how we can actually transform a 45 minutes lesson into 10 minutes by highlighting those very important elements of the lesson,” She added.

Cameroon already has a sample of the online teaching platform and teachers are being trained on its usage, she said, adding that the programme will cover about 2,000 secondary schools in the country.

Xinhua

22, February 2019

Abortions From Rapes on Rise in Southern Cameroons ⁰

A new study confirms rape has become a weapon of war in Cameroon’s separatist conflict, and many victims are terminating pregnancies with crude, unsafe abortion techniques.

Sixteen-year-old Mercy Azefor says she was raped in Nkambe while hiding on her mother’s farm after her parents were killed in April 2018. Nkambe is in the Northwest region, one of two areas where English-speaking separatist groups are fighting to break away from Cameroon and its French-speaking majority.

Azefor says a family running from the fighting drove her to Yaounde. There, she met pastor Grace Mbegno of Divine Redemption Ministries, who took her in.

Two months ago, Azefor gave birth to a baby girl.

“I gave her the name Gracious because she is all that I have,” Azefor said. “I do not want her to go through what I went through. She will certainly have good education and help others tomorrow. She knows no other father than God who created her.”

A Cameroonian nonprofit group, the Rural Women Center for Education and Development, is keeping track of at least 300 school-age girls from the Northwest region who became pregnant as a result of rape, either from suspected separatist fighters or government soldiers.

Dangerous procedures

Vera Wirsiy, coordinator of the center, says the group was motivated to carry out the study after a 14-year-old rape victim came to a hospital in the Northwest town of Ndop and asked that her six-month pregnancy be terminated.

“The young girl came to do an abortion,” Wirsiy said. “The medical personnel tried to find out what happened. She told him the community is not safe, gunshots, her grandmother is not able to take care of her. The guy impregnated her and ran.”

Wirsiy said at least 130 of the 300 girls they met had already had abortions, with some using crude traditional means that endanger their lives.

Panje Roland of Cameroon’s Ministry of Women Empowerment said many more women and girls in the Northwest and Southwest regions have been victims of sexual exploitation, but it is difficult to know their numbers because many are hiding.

‘Weapon of war’

In December, Allegra Baiocchi, coordinator of the U.N. system in Cameroon, called for the protection of women and girls in the war zone and a stop to what she called humiliating practices.

“We know that rape is today a weapon of war and many women, thousands of women, have had to flee and are today even more vulnerable to sexual abuse,” she said.

A report last year by rights group Amnesty International criticized both the Cameroon military and separatists for abuses of civilians.

In October, the government of Cameroon said it had opened investigations into reports of police and soldiers raping teenage girls and young women.

VOA

22, February 2019

Urgent support needed to respond to Humanitarian Needs in Cameroon ⁰

Humanitarian needs in Cameroon have risen by a third this year owing to an upsurge in insecurity and violence, leaving one in six people – mostly women and children – requiring assistance. Today we launch the 2019 Humanitarian Response Plan appealing for US$299 million to provide support to 2.3 million people.

“The humanitarian emergency in Cameroon must remain high on our agenda. We must step up efforts to meet the needs of the affected population, many of whom are surviving in deplorable conditions without assistance,” said Ms. Allegra Baiocchi. the United Nations Resident Coordinator and Humanitarian Coordinator for Cameroon.

“In recent years, funding for humanitarian response has not kept pace with the needs. This means that we have been unable to provide enough food, water or medicine to vulnerable people, treat malnutrition or assist displaced families. This is very worrying as humanitarian needs are likely to continue growing in the coming months,” Ms. Baiocchi said.

In 2018, only 40 per cent of the $320 million needed for humanitarian assistance was received.

This year, around 4.3 million people need urgent assistance. Displacement has risen by 82 per cent compared with 2018. Renewed armed attacks have driven tens of thousands more Nigerians into Cameroon’s Far-North region, which already hosts 138,000 refugees. In North-West and South-West regions, worsening violence has uprooted 437,000 people and forced over 32,000 to seek refuge in neighbouring Nigeria. The East, Adamaoua and North regions host 275,000 Central African refugees.

“We acknowledge the scale of the humanitarian emergency and urge all actors to work with the Government to address the rising needs,” said MINAT. “We must also work together to not only ease the suffering of vulnerable populations, but to seek lasting solution for communities to withstand adversity.”

The crises arising from armed violence add to existing chronic vulnerabilities, including inadequate basic services, epidemics, food insecurity and malnutrition as well as the impact of climate change.

The 2019 humanitarian response plan focuses on providing immediate assistance to save lives, bolstering the protection of affected civilians, identifying risks and vulnerabilities to support the resilience of communities to shocks.

Africa News

22, February 2019

US: Senator Bernie Sanders slams Trump as a ‘demagogue’ ⁰

US Senator Bernie Sanders, who announced he is running for president again in the 2020 elections, has responded to President Trump’s attacks on him, calling him a “demagogue.”

In an interview with CBS News aired Tuesday, the Independent senator from Vermont who caucuses with Democrats, said the American people should not believe what Trump says.

“You got a president who is a demagogue, you got a president who is leading us in an authoritarian direction, I would hope that the American people don’t believe too much of what he says,” Sanders said.

Sanders to run for US president again

Sanders, who announced his 2020 election campaign on Tuesday, has been a relentless critic of Trump, and has called him “the most dangerous president in modern American history.”

“We are running against a president who is undermining American democracy as he leads us in an authoritarian direction,” Sanders said in an email to Reuters on Tuesday.

Trump has in turn railed against what he claims is the Democratic Party’s turn to socialism, citing the rising popularity of Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, both self-proclaimed democratic socialists.

A spokeswoman for Trump’s 2020 election campaign took a swipe Tuesday at Sanders and the Democratic Party in general, saying Sanders had already won his party’s nomination for president because the rest of the Democratic candidates had adopted his brand of socialism.

“But the American people will reject an agenda of sky-high tax rates, government-run health care and coddling dictators like those in Venezuela,” Trump campaign national press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said in a statement.

A former mayor of Burlington, Vermont, Sanders won a US House of Representatives seat in 1990, making him the first independent elected to the House in 40 years. In 2006, he won a US Senate seat and in 2018 was voted in for a third six-year term.

Sanders made an unsuccessful bid for the presidency in 2016, losing out to Hillary Clinton, who was in turn defeated by Trump.

His call for universal health care, a $15 minimum wage and free public university education has gained huge strong support among young liberals.

He mounted a fierce challenge to Clinton as he spoke to swelling crowds and garnered passionate support on social media. His 2016 campaign also rejected the use of corporate money and instead relied on small-dollar donations.

Presstv

22, February 2019

Sudan detains dozens of opposition leaders in largest crackdown ⁰

Sudanese security forces have detained nearly two dozen opposition leaders, who were on their way to deliver a petition to the presidential palace calling for President Omar al-Bashir to resign.

Media reports said opposition leaders belonging to several political parties were arrested while gathering in downtown Khartoum on Thursday.

The arrests took place as they were getting ready to deliver the petition, which demanded the formation of a new transitional government to replace Bashir and his administration.

In a statement, the Sudanese Congress Party confirmed that authorities “pre-empted” demonstrations. It said deputy head of Umma Party Mariam Sadiq al-Mahdi, the party’s secretary general Sara Naqdallah and Communist Party leader Mokhtar al-Khatib were arrested.

The spokesman of the Sudanese Professionals’ Association (SPA), the main protest organizer, was also arrested.

Later, police fired tear gas to disperse hundreds of angry protesters who had gathered to march near the Arab Market area in the capital city.

Protesters held anti-government placards and chanted slogans such as “Peaceful, peaceful against the thieves” and “Fall, that’s it” to send the message that their only demand was Bashir’s fall.

The detentions amount to the largest crackdown against the opposition in one day since the demonstrations began two months ago.

Official figures show 30 people, including some security agents, have lost their lives since the onset of the rallies. Activists and some rights groups say nearly 60 people have died so far.

Since December, Sudan has been rocked by a wave of protests calling on Bashir, who seized power in a 1989 military coup, to step down.

Sudan opposition unites against Bashir

The country’s security forces have so far used tear gas, stun grenades and live ammunition to break up demonstrations, and detained hundreds of protesters and opposition figures.

The president has remained defiant, addressing loyalists at a number of rallies across the country and seeking support from regional allies.

Bashir and other senior Sudanese officials have repeatedly said that the government can only be changed through elections. The 75-year-old veteran leader is considering running for a third presidential term in next year’s elections.

Sudan has been struggling with a worsening economic crisis, including a serious shortage of foreign currency. The cost of some commodities, including medicine, has more than doubled and inflation has hit 70 percent. A growing lack of food and fuel has also been regularly reported across several cities, including Khartoum.

Anti-govt. protesters in Sudan targeted with tear gas

Bashir is wanted by the International Criminal Court over charges of masterminding genocide in the Darfur region.

President Bashir, who has cultivated close ties with Saudi Arabia, has also stressed his intention to continue participating in the war on Yemen.

Presstv

22, February 2019

Amnesty jabs Cameroon govt: Military trial of civilians ‘horrifying’ ⁰

International Rights group, Amnesty International, AI, have described the insurrection charge slapped on Cameroon opposition chief as horrifying, accusing Yaounde of being less tolerant of criticism.

In a statement issued today (February 21), AI stressed that it was a clear violation of basic human rights to continue putting civilians before military courts.

Kamto appeared before the Yaounde court today, his second appearance since he was arrested in late January 2019. Reports indicate that the case has been adjourned till February 26.

“It is horrifying that the Cameroonian authorities are considering sentencing Maurice Kamto to death simply for daring to participate in a peaceful protest.

“He is one of many people who have been caught up in a wave of mass arrests as authorities attempt to silence their critics,” said Marie-Evelyne Petrus Barry, Amnesty International’s West and Central Africa regional director.

“As well as having their rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly crushed, many of Cameroon’s opposition members are now facing unfair trials by military courts.

“We are calling on authorities to end this ruthless assault on dissenting voices. Civilians should not be tried by military courts and should not face the death penalty for exercising their human rights,” she stressed.

International and regional human rights bodies including the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights consider that military courts should not, in any circumstances whatsoever, have jurisdiction over civilians. This is also recognized in the Principles of fair trial in Africa.

Africa News