Monthly Archives: August 2018

26, August 2018

South Africa summons US chargé d’affaires over Trump’s tweets ⁰

South Africa’s government has summoned US Chargé d’Affaires Jessye Lapenn over US President Donald Trump’s tweet on Pretoria’s land policy.

On his Twitter on Wednesday, Trump said he had asked his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to investigate South Africa’s “land and farm seizures and expropriations and large scale killing of farmers.”

Shortly after Trump’s comment, South Africa responded in a tweet that it “totally rejects this narrow perception, which only seeks to divide our nation and reminds us of our colonial past.”

The South African government added that the country would “speed up the pace of land reform in a careful and inclusive manner that does not divide” the nation.

Early this month, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced that the ruling African National Congress (ANC) was moving ahead with plans to alter the constitution in order to allow the expropriation of land without compensation, as white South Africans still owned most of the country’s land nearly a quarter of a century after the collapse of the apartheid system in South Africa.

Ramaphosa is trying to accelerate land reform plans before the 2019 general elections in order to “undo a grave historical injustice” against the black people during colonialism and the apartheid era that ended in 1994.

White community in South Africa constitute eight percent of the population possessing 72 percent of farms, while only four percent of the lands are owned by black people making up 80 percent of the population.

According to the AgriSA, an association of agricultural groups across South Africa, 47 farmers have been killed in South Africa since 2017.

The number of attacks on farmers has undergone an increase from 478 in 2016-17 to 561 this year, but the government’s involvement in the killings remains unclear.

Source: Presstv

26, August 2018

US Senator John McCain dies age 81 after battle with brain cancer ⁰

The senior Republican Senator from Arizona and former Republican nominee for president in the 2008 election, John Sidney McCain III, died Sunday after battling brain cancer for more than a year.

McCain suffered from glioblastoma, a rare and particularly aggressive form of brain cancer. It was announced on Friday that he had decided to stop treatment for his condition.

McCain was surrounded by his wife Cindy and his family in Arizona during his final hours.

“He was a great fire who burned bright, and we lived in his light and warmth,” said Meghan McCain, one of the late senator’s seven children.

The six-term senator was born on August 29, 1936, in Panama – a US protectorate at the time. He attended the United States Naval Academy from 1954 until 1958, training as a pilot.

During the Vietnam War, McCain’s plane was shot down over Hanoi while on a bombing mission in 1967. Both his arms and a leg were broken in the incident. He was held by the North Vietnamese at the infamous “Hanoi Hilton” prisoner of war camp until 1973. More than two of those years were spent in solitary confinement.

When offered a chance at early release, McCain refused to be repatriated before other American detainees who had been held longer than he, out of respect for the POW code of conduct. His injuries sustained during the war left him with lifelong disabilities.

McCain returned from the Navy in 1981, moving to Arizona. Soon after entering politics in 1982, McCain was elected to the US House of Representatives, where he served two terms before setting his sights on the US Senate, which he joined in 1987 and to which he won easy re-election five times (most recently in 2016).

© VNA, AFP | John McCain receives care from a Vietnamese soldier in 1967 after being beaten by North Vietnamese fighters.

McCain ran for president for the first time in 2000 with an insurgent campaign against then Texas governor George W. Bush for the Republican nomination. He ended his candidacy, however, after suffering two major defeats in the primaries.

In 2008 he made a second attempt at the White House, this time as his party’s nominee. He ultimately lost to Barack Obama, then a junior Democratic senator from Illinois.

“We are all in his debt,” Obama said in tribute to McCain Sunday.

“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.”

John McCain and Barack Obama meet for the first time in November 2008, 13 days after Obama’s first presidential victory. © Jim Watson, AFP

‘Maverick’

Over the course of his career, McCain earned a reputation as a maverick who put his country before politics.

A powerful Republican voice, McCain was also known as a politician who was unafraid to vote on principle instead of along party lines. In 2017, shortly after his brain cancer diagnosis, McCain returned to Washington, DC, where he cast a crucial vote against a Republican-led effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act – one of Obama’s signature policy achievements.

The senior senator from Arizona was also a vocal critic of President Donald Trump, warning against the president’s apparent admiration for his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin and other autocratic leaders in his recent book, “The Restless Wave”.

Following Trump’s meeting with Putin in July – during which he accepted the Russian president’s denial of interference in the 2016 US presidential election – McCain issued a searing statement in which he described the incident as “one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president in memory”.

Trump, who in the past has mocked McCain’s war record, said he sent his “deepest sympathies and respect”.

McCain is survived by his wife, Cindy, and his seven children: Doug, Andy and Sidney from his marriage to Carol McCain as well as Meghan, Jack, Jimmy and Bridget from his second marriage. McCain also leaves behind five grandchildren.

© Alex Wong, AFP | One of the last photos of McCain, taken at the Capitol building in December 2017.

Culled from France 24

25, August 2018

Pressure increases on Trump as impeachment gets closer ⁰

US President Donald Trump is feeling the political heat after two of his associates were indicted in federal criminal investigations, with a growing number of congressmen calling for his impeachment.

Pressure is mounting on Trump in the wake of his former attorney Michael Cohen’s plea deal and a guilty verdict for his former campaign manager Paul Manafort.

Congressman Eric Swalwell, a Democrat from California, said on Friday that the now-shuttered Russia investigation conducted by the House Intelligence Committee was a “sham” and needed to be reopened.

Asked whether he believed Cohen lied to his committee last year when the president’s former longtime attorney testified on allegations of Russian collusion during a six-hour session, Swalwell said only that Cohen had appeared to not have been “forthcoming.”

“[But] the only way to really test that is if he comes back [and testifies],” Swalwell added.

Swalwell’s remarks come days after the Senate Intelligence Committee stated that it wanted Cohen to reappear before the committee to testify.

Trump’s impeachment

Political observers say the current political trend shows that after the “countdown” for impeachment began, matters are spiraling out of Trump’s control, forcing him to either face the impeachment or resign.

In his first public acknowledgment of a possible impeachment, Trump claimed he was doing a great job, so he would not be impeached.

Why would Congress impeach “somebody who has done a great job,” Trump told Fox News on Thursday commenting about his impeachment.

“If I ever got impeached, I think the market would crash. I think everybody would be very poor,” he warned the people of the US.

Trump claimed that if he were to be impeached, the US economy would crash and the stock market would plunge to “numbers that you wouldn’t believe, in reverse.”

Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill efforts are underway to impeach Trump as soon as possible.

“The president has to realize that the countdown to impeachment has already started,” said congressman Al Green from Texas in a interview this week.

“He, at some point, will have to choose if he will face impeachment or if he will resign. It will be his choice. The congress will have no choice but to act,” the Democratic lawmaker pointed out.

Other congressmen made similar remarks.

“The president of the United States is now directly implicated in a criminal conspiracy, numerous members of both his campaign and administration have been convicted, pleaded guilty to felonies, or are ensnared in corruption investigations, and the Judiciary Committee has real work to do,” said New York congressman Jerry Nadler.

“If something comes out that is clear and convincing and impeachable, I think members will act,” said Tom Cole, a Republican member of the US House of Representatives.

Loyalty, not justice

In his Thursday interview with Fox News, Trump criticized his former lawyer Cohen for “flipping” amid pressure.

Trump suggested that anyone deciding to cooperate with the government by giving information about criminal cases to receive a reduced sentence from court is making up “stories” and “lies.”

The president said such practices should be banned. “It’s called flipping and it almost ought to be illegal,” he said.

Source: Presstv

25, August 2018

La Republique: Village Defenders Turn to Crime ⁰

Cameroon’s village defenders — local groups armed to fight off Boko Haram militants — are being accused of turning to crime. As the threat of terrorism and support for self-defense groups declines, many of the armed men villages depended on for security are looking for new ways to make a living.

Cameroon’s northern border with Nigeria has in recent years been preoccupied with the threat from Boko Haram. But, earlier this month police arrested 14 members of village defender groups accused of harassing, robbing, and abducting people for ransom.

Ahminu Youssoufa, with the Mora Criminal Research Brigadean armed police group, said as the threat from Boko Haram declined, some defenders formed gangs that prey on locals and business travelers crossing the Nigeria border.

He said authorities are still detaining five individuals who are now helping them with the investigations. They believe it is just a matter of time for the military to dismantle, what he called an entire network.

The self-defense groups were created in 2014 to patrol villages and remote border areas where the military has little or no presence.

They earned no pay but were given supplies of food, money, and equipment from donors and the authorities — that is, until Cameroon started winning the war against Boko Haram.

Motorcycles given to vigilantes are kept in Mora since the war has abated. (M.E. Kindzeka/VOA)

Gaibai Ousmanou, head of the Village Defender Committee for Mora, said when large-scale attacks by Boko Haram started fading out in 2017, assistance to the groups also dropped off.

But he insisted the groups are still needed for protection. He said although Boko Haram has not staged a full-scale attack with heavy weapons for more than a year, the presence of self-defense groups prevents followers of the Islamist group, who are still present in their communities, from attacking.

Local churches and mosques are taking up some of the slack in supporting the village defenders, said Ousmanou. But that support barely keeps them going, he said, and helps explain why some defenders use arms against those they were supposed to protect.

The Governor of Cameroon's far north region Midjiyawa Bakari greets a vigilante member. (M.E. Kindzeka/ VOA) — The Governor of Cameroon’s far north region Midjiyawa Bakari greets a vigilante member. (M.E. Kindzeka/ VOA)

The governor of Cameroon’s far north region, Midjiyawa Bakari, denies a lack of official support. He said the government will continue to assist them by providing motorcycles, bicycles, communication equipment, money and food, to enable them to intercept all those who have decided not to respect the laws.

However, he said just as Boko Haram fighters and suicide bombers were stopped, those defecting to create or join groups of robbers will also be stopped.

As he headed out on patrol, village defender Njibri Bakao acknowledged his gorup now has to defend the area against some of its own.

Source: VOA

25, August 2018

Ambazonian Interim Gov’t condemns attacks targeting Southern Cameroons civilians ⁰

Southern Cameroons Interim Government officials have condemned recent French Cameroun military attacks in the Menchum County precisely at Esu, Weh and Wum. Cameroon government forces killed at least 13 children in Esu and Weh prompting the Ambazonian Interim Government to renew calls for an impartial, independent and prompt investigation into attacks targeting Southern Cameroons civilians by the Francophone army.

Cameroon Concord News sources in Wum reported that elements of the Rapid Intervention Battalion killed 11 teenagers including the son of one Pa Souley resident in Holy Trinity Quarters as he was fleeing violence in the embattled Menchum County. We gathered that an additional machine gun attack in the Menchum area killed four more children today in Weh.

This is the second time in three days that a French Cameroun military action has resulted in dozens of Southern Cameroons civilian casualties in the Northern Zone. According to Ambazonian Interim Government medical sources, over 89 people, including 66 children have been killed in Esu, Weh and Wum in the last 4 days.

Acting President Ikome Sako has been pushing the United States Congress to get the UN Security Council to take action and end this conflict once and for all. The Biya Francophone regime in Yaounde announced that it was opening an investigation into deadly attacks by its soldiers in Southern Cameroons, but rights groups and advocates say nothing has been done ever since the war started.

The Yaounde regime has prevented human rights groups including the UN from carrying out a proper investigation of war crimes emanating from Cameroon government troops against civilian targets. The 85 year old French Cameroun dictator launched a devastating military campaign against English speaking Southern Cameroonians with the aim of crushing the Anglophone uprising and quest for an independent state.

Some 2,000 Southern Cameroonians have been killed and thousands more injured since the onset of the French Cameroun aggression. More than 50,000 others have fled into neighboring Nigeria.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

25, August 2018

Papal visit to Ireland dominated by calls for action on church abuse ⁰

Prime Minister Leo Varadkar has used the first papal visit to Ireland in 39 years to demand action by the Roman Catholic Church to address the systemic cover-up of child abuse by persists and church institutions.

An Alitalia flight carrying Pope Francis, his entourage and the Vatican media corps touched down at Dublin airport on Saturday morning for a brief visit to Ireland, a country that has been devastated by clerical abuse.

“Magdalene Laundries, Mother and Baby Homes, industrial schools, illegal adoptions and clerical child abuse are stains on our state, our society and also the Catholic Church. Wounds are still open and there is much to be done to bring about justice and truth and healing for victims and survivors,” Varadkar told a state reception attended by the Pope.

“Holy Father, I ask that you use your office and influence to ensure this is done here in Ireland and across the world … We must now ensure that from words flow actions.”

The Catholic Church faces its worst credibility crisis in years. Scandals in Ireland, Australia, Chile and the United States have put pressure on the Pope to more fully address the issue of child sex abuse.

‘Repugnant’ abuses a source of shame for church

Addressing the reception attended by some abuse survivors, Pope Francis acknowledged that the failure of Church authorities to address “repugnant” clerical abuses was a source of shame for the Catholic community.

“I cannot fail to acknowledge the grave scandal caused in Ireland by the abuse of young people by members of the Church charged with responsibility for their protection and education,” he said.

“The failure of ecclesiastical authorities – bishops, religious superiors, priests and others – adequately to address these repugnant crimes has rightly given rise to outrage and remains a source of pain and shame for the Catholic community.”

The number of people turning out for the Papal visit is expected to be about a quarter of the 2.7 million who greeted John Paul II in 1979, indicating how the country has changed since abuse cases came to light in the 1990s.

In 1979, contraception, homosexuality, divorce and abortion were illegal in Ireland, and more than nine in 10 people attended mass each week.

Those pillars of Catholic teaching have been overturned, with voters approving abortion and gay marriage in referendums over the past three years. Mass attendance is also now well below 10 percent in some Dublin parishes.

The papal visit coincides with the 2018 World Meeting of Families (WMOF) — a global Catholic gathering that takes place every three years.

Pope Francis is also set to attend an outdoor mass in Dublin’s Phoenix Park on Sunday.

25, August 2018

Ghana to give Kofi Annan befitting state burial ⁰

Former United Nations chief and Noble prize laureate Kofi Annan will be buried in his home country Ghana on Sept 13, the West African nation’s president said on Friday.

Nana Akufo-Addo told a delegation of Annan’s family that Annan would have a full state burial, “befitting his status as a global icon, diplomat and statesman”.

Annan died in a Swiss hospital in the early hours of Saturday at the age of 80. He was surrounded in his last days by his second wife Nane and children Kojo and Nina, his foundation and close associates said.

After rising through the ranks of the United Nations, Annan served two terms as U.N. Secretary-General in New York from 1997-2006 and retired to live in a Swiss village in the Geneva countryside. His 10-year-old foundation promotes good governance and the transformation of African agriculture.

Annan and the United Nations shared the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize for efforts to reform the world body and give priority to human rights issues.

REUTERS

25, August 2018

Veteran US senator John McCain ends cancer treatment ⁰

Veteran US senator and war hero John McCain — a towering figure in American politics for decades — has stopped treatment for brain cancer, his family announced Friday, one year after the Republican went public with his diagnosis.

The announcement signals the beginning of the end of a tough battle with glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer — and of a storied life that took him from a Hanoi prison to the doorstep of the White House.

“The progress of disease and the inexorable advance of age render their verdict,” the 81-year-old senator’s loved ones said in a statement.

“With his usual strength of will, he has now chosen to discontinue medical treatment.”

McCain has spent more than three decades in the upper chamber of Congress, looming large in debates over war and peace and the moral direction of the nation.

The Navy fighter pilot spent years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam after being shot down while on a bombing mission over Hanoi.

He lost the 2008 presidential election to Barack Obama, and was pilloried for selecting controversial Alaska politician Sarah Palin as his running mate.

With no more elections to run, since 2016, he has been a rare and outspoken Republican critic of President Donald Trump.

Known for his combustive temper, he has accused the 45th president of “naivete”, “egotism” and of sympathizing with autocrats.

Following Trump’s recent summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, McCain caustically described the US leader’s behavior as “one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president in memory.”

‘Strength to carry on’

McCain has not been on the Senate floor in months, remaining at his Arizona home for treatment. Glioblastoma is the same form of brain cancer that took the life of another Senate giant, Democrat Ted Kennedy, in 2009.

“I love my husband with all of my heart. God bless everyone who has cared for my husband along this journey,” his wife Cindy said.

His daughter Meghan thanked the public for an outpouring of support.

“My family is deeply appreciative of all the love and generosity you have shown us during this past year,” she tweeted.

“Thank you for all your continued support and prayers. We could not have made it this far without you – you’ve given us strength to carry on.”

Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he was “very sad to hear this morning’s update from the family of our dear friend.”

“We are so fortunate to call him our friend and colleague. John, Cindy, and the entire McCain family are in our prayers at this incredibly difficult hour.”

(AFP)

25, August 2018

Congo-Kinshasa deems candidacy of former warlord Bemba ‘inadmissible’ ⁰

Former warlord Jean-Pierre Bemba’s candidacy in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s upcoming presidential elections was deemed “inadmissible” by the country’s election commission on Friday, as opposition groups cried foul.

The commission rejected the candidacy of Bemba, a rival to DR Congo President Joseph Kabila, on the basis that he had been “convicted by the International Criminal Court” in March 2018 and handed a year in prison and a 300,000 euro fine for bribing witnesses.

Bemba’s war crimes convictions were overturned by the court in The Hague and he returned to Kinshasa in August after being acquitted.

Just ahead of the election commission’s announcement, the political opposition to president Kabila issued a fresh rallying cry, accusing the “powers that be” of seeking to “exclude” multiple opposition candidates.

Opposition groups called on Kabila to free up the electoral process and “stop giving injunctions to the election commission,” according to a statement signed by Bemba, and exiled opposition politicians Moise Katumbi and Felix Tshisekedi.

Overall, the election commission has excluded six out of the 25 candidates who had registered to run in the presidential elections, set for December 23. In addition to Bemba, the commission has barred three of Kabila’s former Prime ministers — Samy Badibanga, Adolphe Muzito, and Antoine Gizenga.

“These exclusions are unacceptable and show once again that the electoral commission is totally dominated by Kabila,” Moise Katumbi wrote on Twitter. A former governor of Katanga who joined the opposition in 2015, Katumbi said that he had been blocked from returning to the DRC to register his candidacy.

He has been living in Belgium since 2016 and has been sentenced absentia to three years in prison. Considered a fugitive by the Ministry of Justice, he is the subject of an international arrest warrant.

“With the population, the opposition, civil society, our partners, let’s keep up the pressure, refuse to accept these sham elections,” Katumbi added.

The six excluded candidates have 48 hours to appeal to the Constitutional Court. The election commission must publish a final list of candidates by September 19.

Suspicion

On August 8, Kabila, 46, eased months of tension when he signalled he would not stand again for the office he has held since 2001.

He threw his support behind a close ally as the candidate of his political majority — former interior minister Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, who is permanent secretary of Kabila’s People’s Party for Reconstruction and Democracy (PPRD).

The DRC opposition, which shed blood in protests against Kabila’s grip on power after his mandate ended in 2016, remains deeply suspicious.

It has raised concerns about nuts-and-bolts issues such as the electoral roll and the voting method, and fears Kabila is simply plotting to remain the power behind the throne.

A country of some 80 million people, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has never known a peaceful transition of power since it gained independence in 1960.

Kabila took over from his father, Laurent-Desire Kabila, who was assassinated by a bodyguard.

His tenure over the vast mineral-rich country has been marked by corruption, inequality and unrest. The watchdog Transparency International ranked it 156 out of 176 countries in its 2016 corruption index.

Bemba lost presidential elections to Kabila in 2006 and was later accused of treason when his bodyguards clashed with the army in Kinshasa. In 2007, he fled to Belgium, where he had spent part of his youth.

He was then arrested in Europe on a warrant by the ICC for war crimes committed by his private army in the neighbouring Central African Republic from 2002-3, when its then-president Ange-Felix Patasse sought his help to repel a coup attempt.

He was sentenced in The Hague in 2016 to 18 years before the conviction was overturned in June on appeal.

The ICC declared Bemba could not be held responsible for crimes committed by his troops.

The European Union, like the UN and US, is closely following the election buildup.

It has frozen assets and denied visas to a dozen Congolese figures — including Shadary — on the grounds of human rights abuses since the constitutional end of Kabila’s second and last mandate in December 2016.

(AFP)

25, August 2018

UK chancellor at odds with government Brexit strategy ⁰

The UK’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Hammond, has been accused by critics of pouring cold water on the government’s Brexit strategy, after he suggested the UK economy was likely to take a significant hit if the UK was forced into a hard Brexit in the event of a no-deal scenario.

The comments by Hammond came just hours after a speech by Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab, in which Raab tried to reassure EU leaders, politicians and political analysts that the UK would be able to cope with a no-deal Brexit divorce from the EU.

Raab, who replaced former Brexit Secretary David Davis earlier this year, unveiled a series of measures the government was preparing in the event of a no-deal Brexit. The measures aim to deal with a hard Brexit’s potential impact on credit card payments, access to pensions and the availability of medicine.

Raab’s speech was interpreted by critics, however, as an admission that the government is failing to secure a deal favorable to hard-line Brexit supporters in Westminster, while also being viewed as an acknowledgment from Downing Street that a no-deal Brexit was now much likelier outcome than previously thought, something which British Prime Minister Theresa May had, in the past, suggested was unlikely.

The comments by Hammond seemed intentionally to undermine the government’s position, given that they were made in the immediate aftermath of Raab’s speech, suggesting that there was more division in May’s cabinet than previously thought.

Hammond suggested that a hard Brexit would severely impact Britain’s GDP over the course of the next few years, contradicting assurances made by Raab. In addition, Alexander Winterstein, EU Commission Spokesperson, off the back of a recent round of negotiations, had already suggested that, whichever Brexit deal was eventually tabled, Britain should prepare for a negative economic impact.

“As we have said many times, we are working constructively to reach a deal. And whilst we’re continuously working to this effect, it is also clear that the withdrawal of the UK is going to lead disruption regardless with a deal or without a deal,” Winterstein said.

A recent poll conducted in the North of England by YouGov indicated that voters supported a new referendum on the terms of the final Brexit deal.

Source: Presstv