5, February 2019

Why China just quietly wrote off a chunk of Cameroon’s debt in secrecy ⁰

When top Chinese diplomat Yang Jiechi met Cameroon President Paul Biya in the capital Yaounde last month and wrote off a chunk of the African country’s debt, the deal very nearly went unnoticed. China issued no press release, and the Cameroon government did not mention the debt cancellation in its write-up of Yang’s visit.

It was only when a Chinese news report later alleged that Beijing had written off 3 trillion Central African CFA francs ($5.2 billion) of Cameroon’s debt during Yang’s trip that the existence of a deal emerged. The figure was incorrect. Five billion dollars is close to the amount Cameroon has borrowed from Beijing since 2000, according to the China Africa Research Initiative (CARI), and exceeds the amount the country is believed to still owe.

But while the news report was wrong, its release did force the Chinese government to speak publicly about what type of deal had been reached. Last week, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told CNN: “China agreed to waive the interest-free inter-governmental debt that Cameroon had not paid back by the end of 2018.” That debt was worth $78.4 million. Cameroon’s total debt is 5.8 trillion Central African CFA francs ($10 billion), about a third of which is owed to China, according to the International Monetary Fund. In short, this was a tiny slice of Cameroon’s liability to China. So why the initial secrecy?

African debt backlash

Debt write-offs for developing nations are usually greeted with great fanfare, such as the IMF and World Bank’s Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative, or the Paris Club’s landmark debt wipe-out in the early 2000s. In China, it’s more complicated: African debt has become increasingly controversial at home. When President Xi Jinping pledged a $60 billion package of aid, investment and loans to Africa last September at the triennial Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, angry posts emerged on the Chinese internet.

Critics questioned why China — where at least 30 million people still live in poverty, defined as an annual income of less than 2,300 yuan (about $340) — was giving money to Africa. Censors quickly deleted the complaints. There is also this to consider: African nations have borrowed $143 billion from China since 2000, according to CARI figures. Beijing’s leniency toward Cameroon could prompt other heavily leveraged nations, such as Ethiopia, Djibouti and Zambia, to expect similar treatment.

China may have also sought an under-the-radar arrangement because of Cameroon’s political turmoil. Last week, police arrested Maurice Kamto, the Cameroonian opposition leader who claims to have won last year’s election, along with several staff supporters, amid protests that are fueling political instability. The West African nation is battling a Boko Haram insurgency in the north, while a secessionist movement is destabilizing the two Anglophone regions of the largely French-speaking nation which was born from the unification of a former British and a former French colony. Due to the unrest, Cameroon has been stripped of the right to host the 2019 African Cup of Nations, the continent’s biennial soccer championship, which will now take place in Egypt.

An election posters for Cameroonian President Paul Biya in Yaounde in November 2018 reiterates he has “the force of experience” on his side.

From a human rights perspective, the bar for Chinese political partners in Africa is low. Beijing backed Zimbabwe during some of the darkest years of dictator Robert Mugabe’s rule, and poured money into Angola under former president José Eduardo dos Santos, an authoritarian figure associated with large-scale corruption.

But 85-year-old Biya, who has ruled Cameroon for 36 years, is increasingly looking like an “inappropriate partner” from a business standpoint as China faces growing scrutiny on the continent, says Chris Roberts, a political scientist at the University of Calgary. “Cameroon in every way, shape or form is getting worse by the day in every metric,” says Roberts. “This regime has dismantled whatever foundations it had for a stable economy.”

Deep pockets, deep port

China established diplomatic relations with Cameroon in 1971. Their economic partnership grew after Nicolas Sarkozy became president of France in 2007 and oversaw his country’s decreased engagement with its former colonial territory, leaving a vacuum for Beijing to fill. Since the turn of the century, China has been granting Cameroon debt relief: In 2001, it canceled $34 million of debt, then in 2007 it forgave another $32 million and $30 million was wiped out in 2010. Those figures in fact paled in comparison with the $227 million Canada forgave in 2006, for example, notes Roberts.

But it was in 2011 that China really committed to Cameroon by agreeing to build and finance a new port in the fishing town of Kribi. It seemed a stable place to invest: Cameroon was considered a relatively peaceful nation in a war-torn region. Cameroon’s existing port of Douala was overworked, run down and restricted by its location on a sediment-filled estuary. When completed in 2035, Kribi will be the biggest deep-water port in the region. It will handle exports of Cameroon’s bauxite, iron ore and other minerals and could also serve the Chad-Cameroon Petroleum Development and Pipeline Project, which pumps oil from landlocked Chad.

The first two stages of the project, constructed by China Harbor Engineering Company, were worth $1.2 billion.CHEC is also building a $436 million highway to connect the new port with Douala and has agreed to construct a railway to an iron ore deposit. Other Chinese companies have been throwing up concrete towers around Kribi, in anticipation of its transformation into a thriving regional commercial hub. The Kribi port will also extend the reach in West Africa of China’s Maritime Silk Road, an initiative that Senegal signed on to last year. It is an important part of President Xi’s massive multinational One Belt One Road economic development plan.

The old port compared with the new Chinese-built facility.

“The Gulf of Guinea is strategic for China,” says Xavier Auregan, a specialist on China-Africa relations in Francophone nations, explaining that a foothold there strengthens its interests in West Africa from the Ivory Coast to Gabon. “Cameroon is one of the countries that can bring together the energy infrastructure of … West Africa.”

China’s activity in Cameroon is not restricted to the new port: It was responsible for 90% of road construction and restoration in the country as of 2014, and Chinese companies have built dams and hydroelectric power facilities there. China has also undoubtedly benefited from these developments, with many of the contracts going to its firms. But the Cameroonian government has taken out considerable loans to fund them and debt repayments look increasingly problematic in a now faltering economy. “If you’re saying we lent this money for this project or development effort, and we’re just writing it off because we know we’re never going to get it back,” says Roberts, “that has a domestic effect, but it also has international implications.”

One of the big concerns around Chinese loans in Africa is debt-trap diplomacy — the idea that Beijing will pressure countries that can’t repay loans into handing over key assets. Last December, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta denied that Mombasa’s massive Kilindini Harbor, the largest port in East Africa, had been listed as collateral for a multibillion-dollar Chinese loan to fund a railway. China also denied the report. In Djibouti, similar concerns have been raised over China’s recent acquisition of a stake in a port there.

Gold mine tensions

China’s decision to provide Cameroon with debt relief also comes at a fraught moment between the country’s traditional gold-mining community and Chinese mining companies. East Cameroon is rich in gold. Justin Kamga, coordinator of the Forests and Rural Development Association (FODER) in Yaounde, says Chinese companies are operating illegal mines across the region and have scant respect for the land.

A Chinese mine site in Cameroon. Industrial machines are used to dig up the site.

The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not reply to CNN’s request for comment. Local Cameroonian miners typically use artisanal mining methods which do not damage the environment, says Kamga. Chinese companies use heavy machinery that often pockmarks villages with multiple holes 30 meters deep, destroying farmland.

Between 2012 and 2015, Kamga said that more than 250 excavations were abandoned, mostly by Chinese companies. From 2015 to 2018, he said, more than 100 people died in such holes, which trigger landslides and spark local outrage at Chinese companies. In December, nine people died in such an incident, according to FODER.

Artisanal gold miners in East Cameroon.

Regulations stipulate that operators should safely cover holes, but Kamga says the Cameroon army protects Chinese mining companies, meaning they often face little legal retribution. Cameroon ranked 152 out of 180 countries on the 2018 Corruption Perceptions Index. The Cameroon government did not respond to CNN’s emails asking for comment. Auregan says that while reckless mining has tarnished China’s image, it is unlikely to be the reason for the write-off of the 2018 debt. “China sees the geostrategic and long-term vision of the importance of Cameroon in that region,” says Roberts. In short, as long as China needs a maritime foothold in West Africa, Cameroon’s debt burden may be lightened for a while longer.

Culled from the CNN

5, February 2019

Biya regime’s Anti-Semitism Crisis: Yaounde abandons Minister Momo ⁰

When Barrister Jean de Dieu Momo went from being an unknown lawyer to a cabinet minister in the Biya Francophone Beti Ewondo regime, there was no natural urge to know more about him. He was simply a pro Biya comedian. Now he has provided not only local but the international media plenty to go through. Ever since he was installed as a Cameroon government minister by Prime Minister Dion Ngute, Jean de Dieu Momo has been the kind of French Cameroun politician from the West region who shows up everywhere seeking for notice and stays late in television stations to protect the already battered image of the Biya regime.

Questioned recently on the Cameroon Radio and Television (CRTV) on why he thought his kinsman and opposition leader Prof Maurice Kamto had blatantly refused to accept defeat following the October 7^th presidential election, the so-called Francophone cabinet minister used long established anti-Semitic stereotypes.

He noted authoritatively that “In Germany, there was a race of very rich people. They had enormous economic power. And they were so arrogant that the German people felt a little nervous. Then one day, a certain Hitler came to power and put these populations in gas chambers.” These are the kind of evil men that the 85 year old Biya relies on for his political survival and relevance in a country that is crumbling at catastrophic rapidity.

Correspondingly, the Israeli Embassy in Cameroon has said it is outraged at comments made by Cameroon’s Deputy Justice Minister Jean de Dieu Momo in which he justified the Holocaust that some six million Jewish people were killed in Nazi Germany.

It is vital to understand that Prof Maurice Kamto, the leader of the MRC party, comes from the Bamelike ethnic group who have a reputation for being successful businessmen and women. Minister Momo, who is also an ethnic Bamelike, further opined that it would be wrong for the group to seek political power alongside their economic influence, and suggested that trying to do so could be dangerous for the entire community.

The Israeli Embassy in Cameroon noted in a statement that “the government official has justified the Holocaust perpetrated by Nazi Germany”. It went on to suggest the comments would have an impact on the two countries’ relationship. The embassy called for “an immediate apology,” from Cameroon’s government and they have gotten one.

But nobody in Yaoundé even from within the ruling CPDM crime syndicate had really paid attention to Minister Momo after his anti Semitic comments, because why would you? He simply sounded a note of caution to his Bamileke community not to dare challenge Biya like the people of Southern Cameroons.

It is now evidently clear that the Biya regime is run by a gang of Holocaust deniers who only need the Jewish state for interest-free loans and weapons including political protection. The Biya regime’s war in Southern Cameroons-Ambazonia is being waged using Hamas and Hezbollah tactics-groups that continue to pose serious danger to the state of Israel. President Biya’s most trusted pilot for more than three decades has been a Palestinian national.

In the apology statement issued by the Cameroon government, Yaoundé was quick to say that the Deputy Minister for Justice was speaking on a strictly personal basis. The Biya regime further pointed out that “The Government of Cameroon strongly deplores the irrelevant comments of the said personality and completely disassociates itself.”

With the Biya Francophone Beti Ewondo regime perilously weakened by Boko Haram and the war in Southern Cameroons, Holocaust deniers like Ministers Momo, Paul Atanga Nji and Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh are closer than ever to becoming Cameroon’s Chief executive. There is a fear, a real fear of this disturbing development in the Cameroon political story.

This is not a low attack on the Yaounde government. Tribalism and nepotism have been the organizing principles of the Biya regime and the 85 year old leader has allowed prejudice to go unchecked ever since he took office in 1982. Yaoundé’s attempt to respond to the Minister Momo issue has somehow managed to make things worse.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

5, February 2019

Ukraine: Comedian ahead in unpredictable presidential poll ⁰

A Ukrainian comedian who plays the country’s president in a TV series is currently the favorite to take on the real-life role in this spring’s election, recent polls show.

As the deadline for candidate nomination expired overnight, surveys showed Volodymyr Zelensky ahead of former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko and incumbent Petro Poroshenko.

But with a record number of candidates in the race, the vote remains highly unpredictable.

“Thirty people have been registered, this is an all-time high,” commission spokesperson Kostyantyn Khivrenko told AFP, saying the documents of about 40 potential candidates are also being considered.

Zelensky, 40, has tapped into widespread frustrations with the country’s political class and the slow pace of reforms.

Various recent polls put him at between 19 and 23 percent, with Tymoshenko and Poroshenko several points behind — varying between second and third place.

But political analyst Anatoly Oktysiuk from Kiev’s Democracy House told AFP that Zelensky’s largely “young, often passive” supporters were likely to not turn out, predicting his final share of the vote would be lower.

Zelensky, already a popular comedian, has in recent years won further fans with his portrayal of the country’s leader in a sitcom called “Sluga Narodu” — which translates as “Servant of the People.”

But he has also rallied largely young supporters to his own political cause.

Others, however, highlight his lack of experience and flag up his ties to Poroshenko’s billionaire foe Igor Kolomoisky, who owns the television channel on which Zelensky stars.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko (R) gives a speech during a meeting with his supporters in Kiev on January 29, 2019. (Photo by AFP)

Observers say the race is too close to call.

“It’s very unpredictable at this stage who might actually win,” US Ambassador Kurt Volker told journalists last week, stressing that Washington would work with whichever democratically-elected leader emerged from the vote.

Poroshenko, a 53-year-old chocolate tycoon, sailed to victory in a May 2014 election after a popular uprising ousted the Moscow-backed regime of Viktor Yanukovych.

He promised to pivot the former Soviet country of nearly 45 million people towards the West and has sought to push through ambitious reforms.

But critics say corruption is still rampant and Poroshenko has done little to rein in fellow oligarchs, although the economy is showing signs of recovery after a recession.

Tymoshenko, the runner up, rose to international prominence through her role in the 2004 Orange Revolution.

But after 15 years — three of which were spent as head of government and another three in jail following a trial denounced in the West as selective justice — she remains a highly divisive figure.

Voting will take place on March 31, with a second round three weeks later if no candidate takes more than 50 percent.

(Source: AFP)

5, February 2019

Why the Ambazonia Interim Government matters so much in a turbulent Southern Cameroons ⁰

When ailing President Buhari and his consortium of crime syndicates in the Federal Republic of Nigeria abducted and forcefully handed over His Excellency President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe and his top aides to the Biya Francophone regime in Yaoundé, Southern Cameroonians both at home and in the Diaspora struggled to make sense of it. First, Ambazonians were shocked when they got an insight into what transpired at Nera Hotel in Abuja which was never broadcasted on Nigerian television. The Southern Cameroons Interim President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe and his cabinet were held in an undisclosed location in Nigeria by a regiment of the Nigerian secret service currently being controlled by President Buhari’s Fulani kinsmen before they were extradited to Yaoundé.

So far, a detail explanation for this bizarre sequence of events emerged from Cameroon Concord News Group reporters in Abuja and Yaounde and many in French Cameroun and beyond agrees on the reason behind President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe’s abduction: Biya regime at the Sisiku’s increasingly confident leadership in the quest for Southern Cameroons independence. Above all, the Federal Republic of Nigeria is under French pressure because it is the strongest British colonial force that can chase away the French and liberate the Francophone African countries whose central bank is the French treasury.

The Interim Government of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia began life some few years ago as an administration formed to defy French Cameroun’s 57 years occupation of Southern Cameroons. Since the election of President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe as Interim President, the Southern Cameroons Interim Government has successfully rallied Ambazonians throughout the globe to join the resistance.

The Interim Government contended from the very inception of the Southern Cameroons resistance that its growing arsenal was solely for self- defense in the face of numerous French Cameroun army attacks and for three years running the Ambazonian Interim Government has not been defeated militarily by French Cameroun with support from France and CEMAC nations. The Biya Francophone regime with the support of the French government and diplomats from Francophone African countries such as Chad, Gabon and Congo-Brazzaville have marked the Ambazonia Interim Government as a potential threat to regional stability in the Gulf of Guinea and the CEMAC region, a status the Ambazonia Interim Government retains to this day deep within the UN, the EU and the African Union.

The Ambazonia Interim Government’s political and self-defense power grew throughout the beginning of the Southern Cameroons revolution, but it was soon put to the test immediately after the arrest and extradition of President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe. As French Cameroun political elites celebrated the criminal action that was jointly taken by the Biya-Buhari gangs, the Ambazonia Interim Government worked with the Ambazonia Self-Defense Council (ASC) to fend off French Cameroun sponsored groups such as the ADF of Cho Ayaba and Morisc of Boh Herbert trying to topple the Interim Government. Fighting alongside the Ambazonia Interim Government’s forces, the ASC came to play a critical role in the struggle and continues to do so.

In the closed to three years since the Southern Cameroons war began, the Ambazonia Interim Government’s self-defense power has grown disproportionately. Even though the Interim Government is yet to secure unhindered access to arms supplies due to stone walls erected by the President Buhari administration and valuable field experience. Politically, however, the Ambazonia Interim Government has given the Biya Francophone regime a run for their money. Some unscrupulous Southern Cameroons political elites in the Diaspora have recently developed a greedy position towards the complex conflict. This has made the Ambazonia Interim Government too weak, both politically and militarily, to engage in a conflict with a neighbor supported by France and countries in the CEMAC region. Nonetheless, Acting President Samuel Sako Ikome and his powerful Communications Secretary Chris Anu are not sitting idle and watch Ground Zero fighters – fight alone to save the Federal Republic of Ambazonia.

With Restoration Fighters on Ground Zero, the Ambazonian Interim Government has become something much more than a mere resistance body against French Cameroun occupation. The Ambazonian Interim Government now possesses power that is typically reserved for African states with backing from the West: the power to help regimes rise or fall even in Mighty Nigeria.

If President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe wanted the Ambazonia Interim Government to stay in Nigeria and waged an armed struggle against French Cameroun, he would have done so immediately after he took over leadership of the struggle. That explains why Abuja invited him to the negotiation table but made a dramatic U turn and interfered so boldly and directly in the Southern Cameroons crisis. By arresting President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe and his top aides in Abuja, the God father of political Islam, President Buhari sought to pull the political rug from underneath Ambazonia Interim Government’s feet.

The Southern Cameroons struggle is now in a critical position. If the Ambazonia Interim Government gives up its popular support, that will be the end of the show. But should it heed the ASC’s advice it will come out as a more powerful administration. Whatever the Ambazonia Interim Government does with the ASC, its ’s next move puts hundreds of thousands of Southern Cameroonians in Ambzonia, French Cameroun and Nigeria at risk.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

5, February 2019

Francophone Crisis: Biya regime makes more “friends” in Israel with Holocaust comment ⁰

The Israeli Embassy in Cameroon has said it is outraged at comments made by Cameroon’s Deputy Justice Minister Jean de Dieu Momo in which he appeared to justify the Holocaust, in which some six million Jewish people were killed in Nazi Germany.

Asked on state television why he thought opposition leader Maurice Kamto had refused to accept defeat following the 7 October presidential election, Mr Momo used long established anti-Semitic stereotypes:

“In Germany, there was a race of very rich people. They had enormous economic power. And they were so arrogant that the German people felt a little nervous. Then one day, a certain Hitler came to power and put these populations in gas chambers.”

Mr Kamto, the leader of the MRC, comes from the Bamelike ethnic group who have a reputation for being successful businessmen. Mr Momo, who is also an ethnic Bamelike, said it would be wrong for the group to seek political power alongside their economic influence, and suggested that trying to do so could be dangerous for the entire community.

“Educated people like Kamto should know where he is leading his people. When you are a leader, you lead your people away from danger, not towards it,” Mr Momo said.

The Israeli Embassy in Cameroon said in a statement that “the government official has justified the Holocaust perpetrated by Nazi Germany”. It went on to suggest the comments would have an impact on the two countries’ relationship

These anti-Semitic comments, coming barely one week after Cameroon and the world participated in the commemoration of the International Day for the Remembrance of the Holocaust constitutes a big disappointment for bilateral relations between Cameroon and Israel.”

The embassy has called for “an immediate apology,” from Cameroon’s government. The government spokesman has not been available for comment.

BBC

5, February 2019

Cameroon troops ordered to hit “hard” on kidnappers in Adamawa region ⁰

Cameroon’s Minister of Territorial Administration Paul Atanga Nji said Monday government forces have been given the order to hit “hard” on kidnappers in its mountainous Adamawa region.

“The state has the will and the means to put things in order. The Head of State appreciates what we have done so far to neutralize most of those dangerous criminals. All the forces of law and order and the administrative and judicial authorities have to be very hard. They have to crack down on these criminals.” Nji told reporters upon arrival in the region’s capital Ngaoundere.

Nji said, he was sent by President Paul Biya to the region to distribute gifts to the affected population and hold working sessions with security and administrative authorities.

“For the past 16 months, the local people have been victims of all sorts of atrocities. President Paul Biya has given firm instructions that this criminal enterprise must be put to an end,” he said.

About 300 cases of kidnapping have been reported in the region over the last three years, according to local authorities, and at least 2 billion fcfa (about 3.6 million U.S. dollars) is estimated to have been paid as ransom and 5,000 cows stolen.

Last week, President Paul Biya deployed 130 “special forces” to the region to “restore peace and order.” Highway robbers had previously operated in the rugged and sparsely-populated region, but were forced to escape after Cameroon elite force, Rapid Intervention Battalion, intervened.

Xinhua

4, February 2019

Mimi Mefo shortlisted for 2019 Press Freedom award ⁰

Mimi Mefo has been shortlisted for an award for her fearless mode of reportage in Cameroon’s media landscape considered as repressive and self censoring.

The Index on Censorship released a list of 16 individuals and organizations fighting for free expression in the 2019 edition of its Freedom of Expression awards program.

Mefo was the sole African listed under the journalism category of the awards – whose main description was: “for courageous, high-impact and determined journalism that exposes censorship and threats to free expression.”

Others in the same category included Bihus.info – a group of independent Ukrainian journalists, the Center for Investigative Reporting of Serbia, CINS; and Mehman Huseynox, an Azerbaijani journalist and human rights defender.

What Index on Censorship wrote about Mimi Mefo

Mimi Mefo is one of less than a handful journalists working without fear or favour in Cameroon’s climate of repression and self-censorship.

An award-winning broadcast journalist and the first-ever woman editor-in-chief of private media house Equinoxe TV and Radio, Mefo was arrested in November 2018 after she published reports that the military was behind the death of an American missionary in the country.

Mefo reports on the escalating violence in the country’s western regions, a conflict that has become known as the “Anglophone Crisis” and is a leading voice in exposing the harassment of other Cameroonian journalists, calling publicly for the release of those jailed.

Other shortlisted African nominees

Other award categories that had Africans included Media Rights Activists and Institute for Media and Society (Campaigning category – for activists and campaigners who have had a marked impact in fighting censorship and promoting freedom of expression.)

The Arts category – for artists and arts producers whose work challenges repression and injustice and celebrates artistic free expression – also had Egyptian performing and digital arts company, ElMadina.

About the Index on Censorship group

Index on Censorship is a nonprofit that campaigns for and defends free expression worldwide. We publish work by censored writers and artists, promote debate, and monitor threats to free speech.

We believe that everyone should be free to express themselves without fear of harm or persecution – no matter what their views.

Index’s aim is to raise awareness about threats to free expression and the value of free speech as the first step to tackling censorship. Index relies entirely on the support of donors and readers to do our work.

Africa News

4, February 2019

UK: May vows to ‘battle’ for Britain, N Ireland in Brexit negotiations ⁰

British Prime Minister Theresa May vows to “battle” in negotiations aimed at divorcing from the EU.

The premier made the comment in an op-ed for Telegraph published Saturday, days after her version of the Brexit dead gained support among in the British parliament.

“When I return to Brussels I will be battling for Britain and Northern Ireland, I will be armed with a fresh mandate, new ideas and a renewed determination to agree a pragmatic solution that delivers the Brexit the British people voted for,” May wrote.

She further hailed the MPs for finally backing her up in dealings with Brussels.

PressTV-Officials warn of putrefying rubbish after no-deal Brexit

“Significantly, the amendment that MPs voted in favor of carried support from across the Conservative Party,” she added. “My colleagues — who had found themselves in different division lobbies in recent months — stood together, united in support of a single proposition.”

She failed to explain though what she means by the “alternative arrangements” that she would seek to the backstop provision on the Northern Ireland border.

According to Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney, “This is not a new concept… The EU is committed to trying to agree alternative arrangements to replace the backstop. We want a comprehensive future relationship in place by the end of 2020 so the backstop is never used. We want to get on with that work once the withdrawal agreement is ratified. Yet there are no credible alternative arrangements, put forward by anyone, that achieve the shared goal of the UK and EU to avoid a hard border.”

Presstv

4, February 2019

Serie A: Nicolas Nkoulou sees first red card in Torino’s stalemate ⁰

The Cameroon international was given the marching order for the fourth time in his career at Stadio Paolo Mazza

Nicolas Nkoulou was shown his first Serie A red card in Torino’s 0-0 stalemate with SPAL on Sunday.

On the back of a three-game winless run, the Bull bounced back to winning ways against Inter Milan last week but their effort to commence to a run was frustrated by Leonardo Semplici’s side.

Nkoulou’s sending off with 25 minutes to play did not help their cause either.

Goal.com

4, February 2019

French Cameroun: Three die in head-on collision ⁰

Three people, including two members of the same family, were killed and several others injured in a head-on collision Sunday morning in Mbankomo, a locality on the outskirts of Cameroon’s capital, Yaounde.

Emmanuel Watat, a highway patrol official said that the victims were on their way to bury a relative when the collision happened.

“A certain Dr. Massing Bias Louis Raoul who was in the vehicle survived but his wife, a relative, and his driver died on the spot. Other people were injured and have been rushed to a nearby hospital,” Watat said.

According to the official, their vehicle was hit head-on by another car on the highway.

Cameroon has one of the highest fatality rates for road accidents in Africa, mainly due to violation of traffic rules, poor vehicle conditions and shoddy highways, according to the Ministry of Transport.

Xinhua