Monthly Archives: January 2018

UN says last three years were hottest on record

18, January 2018

UN says last three years were hottest on record 0

The last three years were the hottest on record, the United Nations weather agency said Thursday, citing fresh global data underscoring the dramatic warming of the planet.

Consolidated data from five leading international weather agencies shows that “2015, 2016 and 2017 have been confirmed as the three warmest years on record”, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said.

It added that 2016 remains the hottest year ever measured due to the warming effect of El Nino, while 2017 was the warmest non-El Nino year, beating out 2015 by less than one hundredth of a degree.

“The long-term temperature trend is far more important than the ranking of individual years, and that trend is an upward one,” WMO secretary-general Petteri Taalas said in a statement.

The 21st century has so far been a period of the hottest weather, accounting for 17 of the 18 warmest years on record.

“And the degree of warming during the past three years has been exceptional,” Tasslas added.

The WMO also highlighted the intensification of weather and climate related disasters, which hit record levels in the United States last year, while multiple countries were devastated by cyclones, floods and drought.

The WMO findings were based on data provided by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, US space agency NASA, Britain’s Met office, the European Center for medium range weather forecasts and the Japan Meteorological Agency.

Using those inputs, the UN said that the average global surface temperature last year was 1.1 degrees Celsius (1.98 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels.

Reacting to the results, experts warned that the planet was moving closer to a set of red lines laid out in the historic 2015 Paris climate agreement.

That treaty calls for capping global warming at “well under” two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit).

“When even ‘colder’ (non-El Nino) years are rewriting the warmest year record books we know we have a problem,” said Dave Reay, the Carbon Management chair at the University of Edinburgh.

“Global temperatures will continue to bob up and down from year to year, but the climate tide beneath them is rising fast.”

This image taken at the foot of a glacier on Antisana Volcano, 50km east of Quito, Ecuador, on June 29, 2017, shows environmental advocates raising awareness to global warming, in a symbolically openly critical act towards the US withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement. (Photo by AFP)

 

‘Focus’ needed

There is mounting global consensus on the need to slash CO2 and methane emissions, improve energy efficiency, and develop technologies to remove CO2 from the air.

But US President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris accord has rattled the international community and complicated efforts at forging joint action — even though many US state governments insist they remain committed to cut emissions.

Since industrialization took off in the early 19th century, CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere have increased by nearly half, from 280 parts per million to 407 parts per million.

Trump will head to the World Economic Forum in Davos next week, an annual gathering of global elite, where he will confront some of the political and civil society leaders who fought hard for the Paris deal.

“Collaborative efforts” to combat unprecedented shared challenges will be a major theme of meeting, WEF boss Klaus Schwab said this week.

“The record temperature should focus the minds of world leaders, including President Trump, on the scale and urgency of the risks that people, rich and poor, face around the world from climate change,” said Bob Ward, policy director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment and the London School of Economics.

(Source: AFP)


Zimbabwe’s Mnangagwa announces election in four to five months

18, January 2018

Zimbabwe’s Mnangagwa announces election in four to five months 0

Zimbabwe will hold elections in four to five months, a newspaper on Thursday quoted President Emmerson Mnangagwa as saying, the first time since independence the southern African state will conduct a vote that does not involve Robert Mugabe.

The vote, a litmus test of Mnangagwa’s democratic credentials, will be crucial to unlocking badly needed financial assistance and repairing relations with Western powers and international financial institutions.

Mnangagwa, a protege of Mugabe, came to power in November after a de-facto military coup when the 93-year-old was forced to resign after the military confined him to his Harare mansion.

It was the culmination of a power struggle between Mnangagwa and former first lady Grace Mugabe, who was being groomed by her husband as his potential successor.

Now Mnangagwa, 75, is under pressure himself to deliver on the economy and show that he is breaking with the policies of Mugabe, whose 37-year rule since independence in 1980 turned a promising country into a basket case and international pariah.

He promised the elections for the presidency, parliament and local government would be peaceful and told business leaders their investments would be secure and their profits safe.

“Zimbabwe is going for elections in four to five months’ time and we have to preach peace, peace and peace because we know it is good for us and we have no doubt that we will have peaceful elections,” Mnangagwa was quoted as saying by the official Herald newspaper during an official trip to Mozambique.

“We will ensure that Zimbabwe delivers free, credible, fair and indisputable elections to ensure Zimbabwe engages the world as a qualified democratic state.”

Under the constitution, Zimbabwe should hold elections between July 22 and Aug. 22, but parliament can choose to dissolve itself, triggering an earlier vote. The ruling ZANU-PF holds a two-thirds majority in parliament.

Since 2000, which coincided with Mugabe’s often violent seizure of land from white farmers, elections in Zimbabwe have been marred by political violence and disputes.

But the 2018 vote could catch the opposition flat-footed.

Mnangagwa’s main rival Morgan Tsvangirai is suffering from cancer, which has helped expose divisions in his Movement for Democratic Change party as officials scramble to take over leadership of the party.

This file photo taken on March 6, 2010 in Harare shows former prime minister Morgan Tsvangirai (R) and ex-president Robert Mugabe as they attend a memorial service for his late wife, Susan Tsvangirai. (Photo by AFP)

 

The economy is suffering acute shortages of cash dollars, increases in prices of basic goods, high unemployment and low levels of foreign investment, making it the biggest challenge for Mnangagwa.

At a function ahead of next week’s World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Mnangagwa said the extent of economic problems required Zimbabweans to work together as he promised to safeguard all investments in the country.

“All investments will be safe and secure in Zimbabwe. Foreign investors will be able to repatriate profits,” he told a gathering of government officials and business leaders.

To reinforce that Mnangagwa plans to govern differently to Mugabe, the government said in a document published on Thursday that it was considering setting up a special tribunal to determine compensation for former white commercial farmers.

In the past 18 years, there has been little investment in agriculture, the backbone of the economy, due to disputes over compensation between former white farmers and the government.

Analysts say resolving the emotive land issue could unlock foreign investment in agriculture and help mend ties between Harare and the West, which imposed sanctions over the seizures and alleged vote rigging by Mugabe.

Mnangagwa said he was going to the Davos meetings, the first such trip by any Zimbabwean leader, to “dispel the perception” that Zimbabwe is “an isolated island”.

Source: Reuters


Of Minister Victor Mengot, La Republique and trip to Manyu

18, January 2018

Of Minister Victor Mengot, La Republique and trip to Manyu 0

Mr Editor,

One of the tests of a genuine individual is a measure of his or her moral compass. It’s gloomy but true that in the world of today, high standards and honest values are considered antiquated. In a statement dated the 16th of January 2018 by MANYU ELEMENTS CULTURAL AND DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATION (MECDA), the lack of decency has never been apparent. The garbage coated as a statement, bereft in courtesy and honesty was signed by MECDA Patron, Minister Victor Mengot.

The statement is the most blatantly dishonest statement ever uttered by a creature famous for uttering deceitful statements.

The people of Manyu have been bombed and shot at by the forces of La Republique and none of these so-called elites have said a word or done anything about it. Families without number have lost loved ones. Many young men are now living in the bushes for fear of arrest and murder by the forces of La Republique.  Internet access, which is a fundamental human right in the 21st century has been cut-off for months and none of these so-called elites has said a word.

No one ever contemplated they would witness a day when people of Manyu origin would be refugees in Nigeria. But that is a normalcy under the auspices of these so-called elites. My heart bleeds and the anger in me is immense for a statement like this could only come from the darkest of human minds.

In the circumstances, would it be irresponsible to call for a disruption to this meeting? Has there ever been a more justifiable reason for vengeance? I’ll let your readers answer these questions.

One of the issues that people like Minister Mengot have to understand is that the days when ‘elites’ use to visit our parents and trick them with bags of rice and salt are over. Today, Manyu indigenes live in every corner of the world and are exposing themselves to different cultures, good books and great colleges a new Manyu person has emerged. This new Manyu person doesn’t have to listen to the madness of old. This nonsense of patronizing us with messages and goodwill gestures and initiatives from Yaoundé is something for the birds.

As a people, all we need now is an occupation free Ambazonia so our families can mourn their loss whilst we plan to rebuild a county Minister Mengot and his mates lacking in decency have destroyed.

Thanks

Robert Ashu Mengot

Copenhagen, Denmark


Ambazonia Crisis: Biya still negotiating the extradition of President Ayuk Tabe and his top aides

18, January 2018

Ambazonia Crisis: Biya still negotiating the extradition of President Ayuk Tabe and his top aides 0

President Paul Biya is still negotiating the extradition to Cameroon of the leaders of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia arrested on January 5 in Abuja, Nigeria, Cameroon Intelligence Report has learned from a well-placed Francophone government official in Yaoundé.

Our source hinted that the 84 year old Biya has had two telephone exchanges on the subject with the Nigerian Head of State Muhammadu Buhari.  A leading security source who strongly requested anonymity told CIR that the Cameroonian Embassy in Nigeria and the Nigerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs are pursuing negotiations initiated by the two heads of state.

The Ambazonian leaders in Nigeria are already benefiting from political refugee status and permanent resident permits. The Ambazonian leaders were arrested in Abuja on January 5 during a meeting grouping members of the Interim Government on the refugee situation in the Cross River State.

In a political statement released recently, the Nigerian Police Force said that Ambazonian leaders were arrested for violating the laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and have been accused of setting up training camps for secessionist fighters, in preparation for armed confrontations with Cameroon’s defense forces.

The prolonged holding of the President and prominent members of the Ambazonia interim government by a Nigerian Security Outfit after their abduction more than a week ago, underscores the dilemma facing the Nigerian government.  The bungled operation was intended to be an assassination project blamed on alleged individuals from Ambazonia opposed to the interim government of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia. A claim of responsibility for the crime would have been made shortly after the assassination. The Federal Government would as it is required in such circumstances have condemned the assassination and promised a swift and efficient investigation to fish out the assassins.   Ambazonian refugees in Nigeria would have been the primary targets of these investigations. Till this moment, the Federal Government of Nigeria has not come out with a comprehensive statement taking responsibility for the abduction and providing the reasons for the abduction. The inability of the Federal Government to make a comprehensive public statement on the matter portray the Federal government in very bad light. That an abduction occurred in Federal Capital territory, and seat of power without an official explanation, portray a negative image of the Federal government, its security and intelligence network with a mission to provide security to Nigerians and persons on the territory of Nigeria. If anything, an anxious analysis of the abduction appears to portray a miasma of conflicting interests whose unintended outcome if not well controlled, may haunt the soul of the soul of the federation for long.

www.cameroonintelligencereport.com


Exposed: Nigerian Secret Service boss preventing lawyers from meeting President Ayuk Tabe

18, January 2018

Exposed: Nigerian Secret Service boss preventing lawyers from meeting President Ayuk Tabe 0

Two weeks after their arrest in Nigeria, Interim Government of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia have alleged that its leaders have been denied access to their lawyers and family members by the head of the DSS Lawal Daura. Ambazonian Secretary for Communication and IT, the Right Honorable Chris Anu, issued the alarm in a statement in Abuja.

The Interim Government hinted that the Buhari administration had no right to arrest their leaders since most of them were on refugee status in Nigeria. The statement noted:“The interim government of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia (the former British Southern Cameroon) notes with dismay the fact that since abducted at gunpoint on January 5, 2018, President Julius Tabe and 10 other members of his cabinet have not been granted access to any lawyers and family members by the Nigerian Government which we are now aware that in complicity with the Cameroon regime in Yaounde, engineered their abduction.

“We condemn vehemently, the fact that the Nigerian Government, more than a week after the abductions has not as much considered a press statement on the abductions even when the majority of those abducted are duly registered refugees in Nigeria. “Nigeria is a signatory to international conventions on human rights and to be acting recklessly as it is doing in this case is a breach of those conventions.”

The Ambazonian leaders – Sikiku Ayuk Tabe, Prof. Che Awasum, Barrister. Nalowa Bih, Dr. Fidelis Che, Dr. Nfor Nfor, Dr. Henry Kimeng, Prof. Che Awasum, Mr Tassang Wilfred, Dr. Ojong Okonghor, Barrister Shufai Berinyuh, Barrister Eyambe Elias and Dr. Cornelius Kwanga – were arrested at Nera hotel by the DSS in Abuja on January 5 while holding a meeting.

By Kinsley Betek with files from the Nigerian Vanguard


Ambazonia crisis: Manyus told to boycott Minister Victor Mengot’s trap meeting

18, January 2018

Ambazonia crisis: Manyus told to boycott Minister Victor Mengot’s trap meeting 0

URGENT PRESS RELEASE

Sons and daughters of Manyu, you might have heard an announcement on CRTV and your local radio stations about
a Manyu Solidarity Initiative in Mamfe on Saturday, January 20th, 2018 launched by Victor Mengot and other
Manyu CPDM sell outs serving in the Gangster regime of Paul Biya. We are strongly outraged, and believe those who have lost their loved ones should feel more outraged.

Here are some questions that should really outrage you:

Where was Victor Mengot and his Solidarity Initiative towards the sons and daughters of Manyu when Paul Biya sent his soldiers to kill our people?

Where was Victor Mengot and his hypocritical love towards the peoples of Kembong, Agborkem, Akwaya, Kajifu and
Eyumojock when the Soldiers of Paul Biya killed and forced them go on exile to Nigeria?
Was Victor Mengot ignorant about the evil plans to kill Manyu people? Why didn’t Victor Mengot warn his Manyu People or even tell Paul Biya to leave Manyu alone?

We have not forgotten the Press Release put out by the SDO of Manyu warning our people to flee from their villages
or be killed.

We have not forgotten how the Governor of the South West Region tricked our Manyu people by sending another
Press Release telling our people not to run into hiding.

We have not forgotten that the assurances from the criminal Governor proved to be a death sentence for our people
who did not run away. Those who stayed were brutally killed by the soldiers of Paul Biya.

Now that they do not see more of our people to kill for their blood rituals, Paul Biya has sent Victor Mengot to come
and deceive our people who escaped to return home, just as the Governor deceived those who ended up dead. Victor
Mengot is preparing the ground to get our people killed, so that the living witnesses of the evil carried out by Paul
Biya through the corrupt silence of people like Victor Mengot and other Manyu CPDM conspirators can be hidden
forever.

Therefore, we write to warn you not to fall for this trap. Victor Mengot and his CPDM friends are snakes. The blood
of our Manyu sons and daughters rest on the heads of Mengot and his CPDM DEVILS who turned their backs on
Manyu while Paul Biya slaughtered them.

We call on our brave brothers and sisters who are still around Mamfe to do everything within your power to Disrupt
and Boycott the holding of any such event in Mamfe on the 20th of January.

This bunch of murderers and blood suckers do not speak or represent the People of Manyu. Victor Mengot and the
corrupt Manyu CPDM gang do not own Manyu. The young people whose petrol was destroyed by the Mengot/ Biya
soldiers are the real heroes of Manyu. Their lives cannot be destroyed for the likes of the Mengots and Tabetandos to
reap political gains.

Sincerely
The Manyu Diaspora Advisory Committee


Trump has lowest approval for any president in their first year

18, January 2018

Trump has lowest approval for any president in their first year 0

US President Donald Trump wraps up a year in office with the lowest average approval rating of any elected president in his first year.

That is according to polling by Gallup, which shows that Trump has averaged just a 39 percent approval rating since his inauguration.

The previous low was held by former President Bill Clinton, whose first-year average stood 10 points higher than Trump’s, at 49 percent.

Recent surveys show most Americans view Trump as a divisive figure and even question his fitness for office.

One relative bright spot for Trump is his handling of the economy, though even there his ratings are not as high as might be expected given a relatively strong economy.

Trump’s current approval rating in Gallup’s weekly poll is comparable to his average rating, standing at just 38 percent, with 57 percent saying they disapprove.

The persistence of Trump’s first-year blues is unprecedented for a president so early in his term. Americans usually give their new presidents the benefit of the doubt, but Trump’s “honeymoon period”, to the extent he had one, saw his approval rating only get as high as 45 percent.

Since then, Trump has spent more time under 40 percent than any other first-year president.

Presidents have recovered from periods of low popularity before. For example, Clinton’s rating fell to just 37 percent in June 1993 before quickly regaining ground, and he went on to win re-election in 1996.

Former President Harry Truman held the approval of less than 40 percent of Americans for significant chunks of his first term and was also re-elected. He went on to set Gallup’s lowest-ever approval mark, at just 22 percent in 1952.

Trump’s lowest point in Gallup’s weekly polling – 35 percent– remains higher than those of several earlier presidents. Truman, Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter all had their ratings dip under 30 percent.

Aside from the economy, surveys have suggested few policy bright spots for Trump.

Healthcare has been a consistent low point. Seven in 10 Americans in the December AP-NORC poll said they disapproved of Trump’s handling of the issue, even as 85% called the issue very important to them personally.

In another AP-NORC poll conducted late in 2017, just 23 percent of Americans said he has kept the promises he made while running for president, while 30 percent said he has tried and failed and 45 percent said he has not done so at all. More than half said the country is worse off since Trump became president.

But it may be character more than policy that is driving negative opinions of Trump. In the January poll by Quinnipiac University, most voters said Trump is not level-headed, honest or even fit to serve as president.

And the AP-NORC poll conducted in December found that two-thirds of Americans thought the country has become even more divided as a result of Trump’s presidency.

In a July Gallup poll that asked those who disapproved of Trump for their reasons why, most cited his personality or character over issues, policies or overall job performance. That stood in stark contrast to Gallup’s polling on Obama in 2009 and George W Bush in 2001, when far fewer cited such concerns about personality or character as reasons for their negative opinions.

(Source: AP)


Yaounde: Francophone students auctioning President Biya’s laptop computers

18, January 2018

Yaounde: Francophone students auctioning President Biya’s laptop computers 0

Many French Cameroun students have reportedly auctioned the free lap top computers given to them by President Biya, Cameroon Concord News has learned from businessmen operating at the Kennedy Avenue in Yaoundé.

After the first phase of distribution of the computers recently, some students simply rushed to the Kennedy Avenue and offered them at give away prices to traders. Confirming the news on Wednesday January the 17th 2018, the French Cameroun triweekly L’oeil du Sahel reported that on the day of delivery, some students were already at the Avenue Kennedy to sell them.

A computer dealer at Kennedy Avenue hinted Cameroon Concord News that the PBHev computers are bought at a very low price. “Some students offer them for 55,000 FCFA while others are ready to exchange it for a modest sum of 39,000 FCFA.”

It was in the framework of the “Special youth plan” prescribed by the 84 year old Paul Biya, on February 10, 2016, that the Minister of Higher Education signed a convention agreement on July 27, 2016 in Yaoundé, with a Chinese company Sichuan Telecom Construction Engineering Co. Ltd called “e-national higher education”. Through this program, Paul Biya decided to implement a project “a student a computer.”

By Rita Akana


Menchum State: 2 Gendarmes killed in Weh

18, January 2018

Menchum State: 2 Gendarmes killed in Weh 0

According to the Wum Gendarmerie Company Commander in Menchum Division in Southern Cameroons, a Credit Union Microfinance Bank located at Weh village market some 7 km from Wum, the chief town in Menchum on the Nyos axis was attacked on the 16th of January 2018 by unidentified men.

Two of the five gendarmes guarding the premises of the bank were killed.  The Wum Gendarmerie Company identified the two as Constable Ndjameya Jean-Bosco (Class of 2013) and Peloton 905.

The Francophone dominated gendarmerie force also revealed that two other gendarmes were wounded during the aggression and one is in “a serious condition”.  Cameroon Intelligence Report was reliably informed that the weapons of the officers killed were carried away by the thugs.

Since the outbreak of the socio-political crisis in Southern Cameroons, security forces loyal to the regime in Yaoundé have been frequently attacked by Ambazonian militants in these areas.

www.cameroonintelligencereport.com


12 killed, 48 injured in suspected Boko Haram attack in Nigeria

17, January 2018

12 killed, 48 injured in suspected Boko Haram attack in Nigeria 0

Twelve people have been killed and 48 others wounded in an attack by suspected Boko Haram bombers on Nigeria’s northeastern city of Maiduguri.

Officials from the State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) for Borno said two assailants struck a market in the Muna Garage area in the vicinity of Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State, on Wednesday afternoon.

Muna Garage, the site of a camp for displaced people, is a frequent target of Boko Haram attacks.

Witnesses reported that parts of the market were still ablaze in the wake of the assault.

More than 20,000 people have been killed since Boko Haram started its deadly campaign in northeast Nigeria in 2009. The violence has claimed many lives in neighboring countries of Chad, Niger, and Cameroon as well.

Boko Haram has been largely pushed out of its main strongholds in northern Nigeria, according to the country’s military and government. The group, however, is still active in its Sambisa Forest enclave in Borno and launches sporadic attacks on civilians and security forces from there.

On January 8, at least 20 loggers were killed near Maiduguri after Boko Haram Takfiri terrorists opened fire on them.

On Monday, a Boko Haram faction released a video purporting to show some of the girls abducted from a school in the town of Chibok in 2014, as well as a downed Nigerian helicopter and a group of policewomen captured last year.


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