Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu says his country will next month hold its biggest military exercise in almost four decades.

The exercise, dubbed Vostok-2018 (East-2018), will be held in central and eastern Russian military districts, Russia’s news agencies quoted Shoigu as saying on Tuesday.

The minister further said that about 300,000 troopers, more than 1,000 military aircraft, two of Russia’s naval fleets, and all of its airborne units, will take part in the drill.

The military exercise will be the biggest since 1981, Shoigu added.

It was not clear how long the drill would last.

The drill comes amid tensions between Moscow and NATO, which regularly holds war games, although near Russia’s western borders.

NATO member states, largely made up of Western European countries, have significantly increased their military activities near Russia’s western borders in recent years.

Russia, perceiving those activities as a security threat, has held several military drills to maintain preparedness, and the NATO countries have then pointed to those drills as signs that Russia has aggressive intentions.

NATO severed ties with Russia and subsequently increased its military presence in the Baltic region following the 2014 integration of the Crimean Peninsula with Russia.

The trial of more than two dozen people, including a former intelligence agency informant, suspected in the killings of two UN sanctions monitors last year in central Congo resumed on Monday after a 10-month suspension, defense lawyers said.

Zaida Catalan, a Swede, and Michael Sharp, an American, were killed in March 2017 while investigating an armed conflict in Democratic Republic of Congo’s Kasai region between government forces and the local Kamuina Nsapu militia.

The Congo’s government has blamed their kidnappings and killings on the militia but some Western governments and rights groups suspect state officials may have been involved as Catalan and Sharp were conducting investigations in an area where the United Nations has accused Congo’s military of war crimes.

Congolese government officials initially said no state agents were involved in the killings and that they did not know at the time that the two experts were in the region. But they later said they could not exclude the possibility state agents were involved.

Among the 13 defendants appearing in court on Monday in the Kasai city of Kananga were suspected militia leaders Constantin Tshidime Bulabula and Vincent Manga, who were arrested earlier this year, Bulabula’s lawyer Tresor Kabangu told Reuters.

Kabangu said Bulabula denies wrongdoing. Manga’s lawyer, Moise Bidua, also says he denies the accusations against him.

Another dozen defendants are scheduled to appear in court on Tuesday to be identified, Kabangu said, including his client Jose Tshibuabua, who was arrested late last year.

Reuters and Radio France Internationale (RFI) reported in December that Tshibuabua was working as an informant for Congo’s national intelligence agency (ANR) when he helped Sharp and Catalan organize their trip to the town of Bunkonde. Kabangu says Tshibuabua denies any wrongdoing.

According to phone logs in the Congolese prosecutor’s file reviewed by Reuters and RFI, Tshibuabua exchanged dozens of text messages with a local ANR boss in the days before and after Sharp and Catalan were killed.

Congo’s top ANR official, Kalev Mutond, said Tshibuabua had repeatedly assured him during interrogation that he had not informed ANR officials about his contacts with the UN monitors and suggested Tshibuabua was acting on behalf of the militia.

The trial began in June of last year. It was suspended in October pending the arrival of a team of UN experts meant to assist the investigation.

The experts have complained that Congolese security officials are interfering with their work, including by not granting access to key witnesses. Swedish prosecutors working the case also say Congolese authorities have not been cooperative.

Congo denies those accusations and says its justice system is conducting an impartial investigation.

(Source: Reuters)

The European Union and the United Nation’s deliberate silence on the ongoing genocide in Southern Cameroons and ethnic cleansing of Ambazonian tribes are tarnishing the UN’s credibility. A senior traditional ruler from the Manyu County recently told Cameroon Concord News that genocide and ethnic cleansing were taking place in Southern Cameroons and such crimes were being ignored by the international community including the so-called African Union.  The Manyu custodian who sued for anonymity also pointed out that South West CPDM elites should also be held accountable for the crimes committed by French Cameroun soldiers.

Another traditional authority from the Kupe Muanenguba County contacted by our correspondent in Tombel observed that “There is really no legitimacy left for the African Union and the UN if such massacre in Southern Cameroons would be allowed to continue after all these years and nothing would be done about it.”

The 85 year President Paul Biya declared war against the people of Southern Cameroons that has left some 2000 Southern Cameroonians dead and displaced around 200,000 people since late 2016. Some 50.000 of those displaced have crossed the border into neighboring Nigeria.

Years of resentment at perceived discrimination at the hands of the Cameroon’s francophone majority have led to almost daily acts of violence and retribution. Security in the newly created Federal Republic of Ambazonia has deteriorated significantly since late last year and now clashes with Ambazonian Restoration Forces are almost daily occurrences.

The Biya Francophone government sources say a total of 109 members of the police and security forces have been killed. The conflict now poses problems for the organization of a counterfeit presidential election, scheduled for October 7, in which the 85-year-old incumbent, Paul Biya, is bidding for a seventh consecutive term.

At the time of filing this report, we gathered that the Red Dragons of Lebialem have broken into the D.O’s office at Alou and taken all the ballot boxes, papers and cards.

By Sama Ernest in Kumba with additional report from Chi Prudence Asong

US Senator John McCain, who died of brain cancer on Saturday, requested that former presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush deliver eulogies at his funeral, and did not wish President Donald Trump to attend his services, according to reports.

McCain had long feuded with President Trump, and his family asked, before the senator’s death, that Trump not attend the funeral services, two White House officials familiar with the plans told The Associated Press.

Former Vice President Joe Biden will speak at a separate service in Arizona.

Obama, who defeated McCain in the 2008 presidential race, issued a statement shortly after the senator’s death, saying that “we shared, for all our differences, a fidelity to something higher — the ideals for which generations of Americans and immigrants alike have fought, marched, and sacrificed.”

“Few of us have been tested the way John once was, or required to show the kind of courage that he did,” Obama said. “But all of us can aspire to the courage to put the greater good above our own. At John’s best, he showed us what that means. And for that, we are all in his debt.”

Bush, who defeated McCain for the Republican nomination in 2000, issued a statement parsing McCain as “a man of deep conviction and a patriot of the highest order.”

The White House had prepared an official statement that hailed the life of McCain, but President Trump told senior advisers that he preferred to post a tweet instead.

Trump’s tweet did not include any kind words for the long-time senator and Vietnam War veteran.

“My deepest sympathies and respect go out to the family of Senator John McCain. Our hearts and prayers are with you!” Trump posted Saturday evening.

McCain, who served as a Republican senator from Arizona for more than three decades, wished to be buried at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, near the grave of a long-time friend.

Source: Presstv