Monthly Archives: January 2019

Gabon officers ‘oust President Ali Bongo’

7, January 2019

Gabon officers ‘oust President Ali Bongo’ 0

Junior officers say they have seized power in oil-rich Gabon, where the ailing leader’s family has ruled for 50 years.

Soldiers in the west African country say they launched a coup “to restore democracy”.

They took control of the national radio station at 04:30 local time (03:30 GMT) to read a short statement announcing a “National Restoration Council”.

Tanks and armed vehicles can be seen on the streets of the capital Libreville.

Ali Bongo succeeded his father Omar Bongo as president in 2009. He narrowly won re-election in 2016 in a poll marred by violence and accusations of fraud.

Mr Bongo, who has been out of the country for two months, reportedly suffered a stroke in October and received treatment in Morocco

Soldiers announcing a coup on state television
Image captionSoldiers also announced the coup on state television

‘Pitiful sight’

He sought to put an end to the rumours about his health with a televised New Year message in which he said he was feeling fine.

Soldiers said they had been disappointed by the message, calling it “a pitiful sight” and a “relentless attempt to cling onto power.”

“It reinforced doubts about his ability to assume the responsibilities of his role as President of the Republic”, said Lt Kelly Ondo Obiang, the leader of the so-called Patriotic Movement of the Defence and Security Forces of Gabon.

He specifically appealed to young people to “take charge of their destiny”.

The insurgents called on soldiers to take control of the transport system, ammunition reserves and airports “in the interests of the nation”.

There is no word so far from the government.

President Trump has deployed soldiers to Gabon to protect US citizens amid fears of violent protests in the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo following its presidential election.

BBC

6, January 2019

A Picture speaks 1000 words: One, United and Indivisible Cameroon Hoax 0

Look at Ahidjo’s body language on Jan 1, 1960; the day French Cameroun was granted independence and you can see the master-servant relationship between Francophones and France. From Jan. 1 1960 to February 11, 1961, Southern Cameroons was then a self-governing British UN-mandated territory with all the trappings of a nation-state, including its own internationally recognized borders and never part of French Cameroun.

If Britain had availed itself of its obligations towards the Southern Cameroons people, the 3rd option of independence agreed by the 43 delegates at the August 1959 All Party Conference in Mamfe, chaired by Sir Sidney Phillipson, Acting Southern Cameroons Commissioner, would not have been rejected by Andrew Cohen, Britain’s representative to the UN Trusteeship Council. The time has come to right this historical wrong. Biya should stop reveling in self-delusion; we are no longer in the 1970s. The regime can say what it wants, but nobody is fooled anymore.

Biya’s nepotistic abuse of presidential power to favor his Beti kith and kin is beyond clannishness. This generation of Anglophones are well-educated and know that the issue at stake here is their natural resources, which Biya exploits to feed his kleptocratic regime of tribal jingoists. The Ambazonia resistance speaks directly to the Anglophone resolve to fight and die for their future and there will be no peace, until Biya and his Beti cabal understand that Anglophones never voted to become the footstool of French Cameroun exploitation and plunder. Anglophones have rejected a system where a small clique of vampire elite are stealing the nation blind with impunity while the president looks the other way. Just look at the scandalously inflated AFCON 2019 contracts and ask yourself whether such monumental corruption could happen in Ambazonia?

The only thing that will bring unity in Cameroon is for the government to eschew this conquest mentality and dialogue with Anglophones where both sides will renegotiate the unity and the future of Cameroon as equal partners or revert to the status quo ante Feb 11, 1961

By Ekinneh Agbaw-Ebai

Trial of Ambazonian Leader: Interim Gov’t’s lawyer Falana drags La Republique to African Commission

6, January 2019

Trial of Ambazonian Leader: Interim Gov’t’s lawyer Falana drags La Republique to African Commission 0

Nigeria’s foremost human rights lawyer Femi Falana SAN has dragged the government of Cameroon to the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights in Banjul, The Gambia over the impending trial of 47 asylum seekers and naturalised Nigerians.

The lawyer wants the commission’s urgent intervention to end “the ongoing human rights violations of the applicants who were forcibly returned to Cameroon by the Nigerian authorities.” Falana is asking “the Chairperson and the Bureau to urgently hold an extra-ordinary session of the African Commission to address the illegal and unfair return of 47 refugees and asylum seekers, and the continuing violations of the rights of the returnees by the government of Cameroon.

“We also urge the Chairperson of the Commission to speak out strongly and condemn the unfair treatment of the returnees by the government of Cameroon, and request the government to immediately release them from unlawful detention.”

The petition read in part: “Cameroon has ratified the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. At the request of the Government of Cameroon the Nigerian authorities illegally and unfairly returned 47 refugees and asylum seekers to Cameroon on Friday, January 26, 2018. The returnees are mostly leaders of the people of Southern Cameroon and who have been living in Nigeria with their families for years.”

“Some of them have been granted political asylum while others were asylum seekers in Nigeria. On Saturday, 7th January 2018, the Applicants assembled to meet in Abuja to discuss the problems being encountered by several Cameroonian asylum seekers in Nigeria but before the commencement of the meeting security personnel from Nigeria arrested the Applicants and took them to an underground detention centre in a military barracks in Abuja.”

“While the Applicants were detained in Nigeria, they were denied access to their family members, friends, lawyers and doctors. However, the representative of the United Nations Commissioner for Refugees was allowed to visit the Applicants.”

“When the Applicants’ lawyers received information of the plan to deport them to Cameroon, they rushed to the Federal High Court in Abuja to stop the illegal plan. The Applicants also reached out to the Comptroller-General of Immigration, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the office of the United Nations Commissioner for Refugees in Nigeria.”

“As soon as the Office of the United Nations Commissioner for Refugees in Nigeria confirmed the information it dispatched a letter to the government of Nigeria pointing out that Nigeria has a legal obligation under international law not to deport the detained Cameroonians.”

“But in a demonstration of reckless impunity, the government of Cameroon pressured the Nigerian authorities to hand over the refugees. They were handed over to the Cameroonian security forces who forcefully took them away from Nigeria on Friday, January 26, 2018.”

“On account of the illegality of the deportation, the government of Nigeria could not announce that the refugees had been expelled from Nigeria but the Government of Cameroon decided to celebrate the deportation and threatened to prosecute the deportees for terrorism. We submitted a letter to the Office of the High Commissioner of Cameroon to Nigeria in Abuja to request for access to the Applicants who are currently held incommunicado in Cameroon. The request has to date not been granted by Cameroon.”

“Nigeria has no extradition treaty with Cameroon. Hence, the deportation was carried out outside the ambit of the extradition laws of Nigeria and Cameroon and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights.”

“In removing the Applicants from Nigeria, the government of Cameroon breached the human rights of the Applicants to enter Nigeria, reside, seek and obtain asylum guaranteed by Article 12 (3) of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights. The government of Cameroon also breached article 12 (4) of the African Charter, which provides that every individual shall have the right, when persecuted to seek and obtain asylum in other countries in accordance with the laws of those countries and international conventions.”

“Apart from the violation of the African Charter, the government of Cameroon breached its legal obligations under the 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and the 1969 Organization of African Unity Convention on Refugees and which have guaranteed the rights of refugees and asylum seekers in Nigeria to protection.”

“The Applicants are the leaders of the movement agitating for the creation of the Republic of Ambazonia from Cameroon. In 2002, the Applicants filed a suit at the Federal High Court in Abuja to determine whether the people of Southern Cameroon were not entitled to self-determination within their clearly defined territory separate from the Republic of Cameroon. The government of Nigeria decided to settle the case out of court.”

“By a consent judgment delivered by the Court on March 5, 2002, the government of Nigeria agreed to file a suit at the International Court of Justice to have a judicial confirmation of the human right of the people of Southern Cameroon to self-determination. The government of Nigeria also undertook to take other measures as may be necessary to place the case of the people of Southern Cameroon for self-determination before the United Nations General Assembly and other international organizations.”

“The Applicants are not soldiers, but civilians. Even though they are not military men, the government of Cameroon has decided to try them before a military tribunal. The military tribunal to try the Applicants has since been constituted by the government of Cameroon.”

“Upon the arrival of the Applicants in Cameroon and without any investigation whatsoever, the government of Cameroon announced that they would be tried for terrorism. The Applicants have been detained illegally from January –November, 2018.”

“The Applicants have since been arraigned for terrorism before a military tribunal specially constituted for the purpose of persecuting them even though they have never engaged in terrorist activities in Cameroon.”

“The trial of the Applicants is scheduled to commence in Cameroon on January 10, 2019 whereas their lawyers who are based in Nigeria have been denied access to them and the opportunity to defend them.”

“It is the case of the Applicants that they had left Cameroon with their families and have been living in Nigeria where that had applied for asylum. Thus, by removing them from Nigeria the government of Cameroon has separated the Applicants from their family members who have been left behind in Nigeria.”

Source: NAN

6, January 2019

Bayern Munich hand Ribery ‘heavy fine’ for angry Tweetstorm 0

Bayern Munich on Sunday said it will impose “a heavy fine” on Franck Ribery over an obscenity-laced outburst on social media, after the French striker became embroiled in controversy for eating a gold-coated steak.

The punishment comes after Ribery lashed out at critics in a string of angry posts on Twitter and Instagram on Saturday. It is the latest scandal to engulf the 35-year-old, who is deeply unpopular in his native France but revered by German fans.

“I had a long talk with Franck and I let him know that we would impose a heavy fine on him and he accepted it,” the club’s sporting director Hasan Salihamidzic told journalists in Qatar, where the club is on a training camp.

“He used words that we, FC Bayern, cannot accept and that Franck does not have the right to use, as a role-model and player of FC Bayern,” added Salihamidzic.

On Thursday, Ribery posted a video on social media showing him in a Dubai steak house owned by celebrity Turkish restauranteur Salt Bae and rubbing his hands before tucking into a huge chop coated in gold.

That ostentatious luxury, and the reported cost of the meal, drew ferocious criticism before Ribery — who earns an estimated eight million euros a year with the German champions — hit back.

“Let’s start with the envious, the angry, surely born because of a broken condom,” read the first of the posts on Ribery’s Twitter account. “F*ck your mothers, your grandmothers and your whole family tree,” he wrote, having taken care to sanitise the French word “n*quez”.

Salihamidzic made clear that Ribery did not pay the bill himself because he had been invited to the restaurant.

“Franck has been slandered and insulted,” said Salihamidzic. “And not only Franck, but his pregnant wife, his child and his mother, who is currently in hospital for an operation. Franck wanted to defend himself and defend his family. He has the right to do that. I support him in that, but unfortunately he totally lost control.”

German media and social media users had called on the reigning Bundesliga champions to punish the striker, who is out of contract at the end of the season after 11 years at the club. “Bosses must suspend Ribery,” urged Germany’s bestselling Bild newspaper.

The news portal T-Online went even further, slamming Bayern for not taking firmer action. “Ribery should not play for Bayern anymore,” it said in an editorial. “With this fine, the club falls short of drastic repercussions and that is a fatal signal.”

– Hated at home, loved abroad –

Ribery’s outburst comes less than two months after the forward insulted and attacked French TV pundit Patrick Guillou who had criticised his performance following Bayern’s 3-2 loss against Dortmund.

Bayern later made Ribery post a video apology on the club web site. Despite being known as one of France’s best players, Ribery is little loved at home, partly because of his perceived key role in the French team’s infamous training ground strike during their disastrous 2010 World Cup campaign in South Africa.

Ribery’s reputation was also damaged by allegations that he had had sex with an underage prostitute although charges in the case were dropped for lack of evidence in 2014.

Ribery announced his retirement from France duty after the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, which he missed due to a back injury.

But run-ins with the media and perceived displays of arrogance have kept Ribery in the headlines, and he has repeatedly been mocked on the French satirical puppet show “Les Guignols” as a dim-witted, out of touch figure.

It’s a different story in Germany, where Ribery is known as “King Franck” to grateful Bayern supporters. Since joining the Bavarian giants in 2007, Ribery has helped the team win the Champions League in 2013 as well as eightBundesliga titles and five German Cups.

Although he now sees less time on the pitch than in his younger days, Ribery finished 2018 in style scoring four goals in the final three matches of the year. But Bayern bosses have indicated the current season is very likely to be Ribery’s last.

 AFP

The Holy Father urges EU leaders to help migrants stranded in Mediterranean

6, January 2019

The Holy Father urges EU leaders to help migrants stranded in Mediterranean 0

Pope Francis on Sunday urged EU leaders to show “concrete solidarity” with 49 migrants stranded on NGO ships off the coast of Malta who have been refused permission to land. “Forty nine migrants rescued in the Mediterranean by two NGO ships have been on board for several days now, waiting to be able to disembark,” Francis told thousands of people gathered in Saint Peter’s square in Rome.

“I address a pressing appeal to European leaders that they show some concrete solidarity with respect to these people,” he added.

Amid growing concern over the plight of the migrants, some of whom have been at sea for more than two weeks, the European Commission earlier this week called on EU member states to admit them.

The Netherlands and Germany have offered to take some but only if their EU partners do the same, highlighting again the European Union’s long-running deadlock over sharing responsibility for migrants.

There are 17 people on board the German NGO Sea-Eye vessel, with another 32 on the Sea-Watch. Among them are a one-year-old baby and two children aged six and seven. Both Italy and Malta have refused port access and on Sunday they reiterated that position.

“In Italy, there are no more arrivals. That is the line and it will not change,” hardline Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini told the Il Messaggero newspaper. “Italian ports are closed and will remain so,” he added in a tweet.

(AFP)

Congo-Kinshasa election results postponed until ‘next week’

6, January 2019

Congo-Kinshasa election results postponed until ‘next week’ 0

The long-awaited announcement of the results of last week’s DR Congo presidential election, promised for Sunday, will be postponed to next week, the head of the electoral commission announced on Saturday.

 “It is not possible to publish the results on Sunday. We are making progress, but we do not have everything yet,” said commission president Corneille Nangaa. An exact new date has not been announced.

Last Sunday’s DR Congo presidential election has proved most divisive. The United Nations Security Council is split over how to react to this election process, according to an internal report. The United States also condemned a lack of transparency, while China, a major investor in DR Congo, lauded the process.

The election to pick a successor to President Joseph Kabila, who has ruled the country of 80 million people since his father was assassinated in 2001, should mark the first democratic transition of power since independence from Belgium in 1960.

But tensions have risen since the vote after observers reported a litany of irregularities that the opposition says is part of the ruling party’s effort to steal it.

Worried that the dispute could spark the kind of violence seen after the 2006 and 2011 elections, the Security Council met on Friday to discuss how to react.

“Tensions were mounting while the CENI tabulated the results, notably in light of posturing by parties and candidates,” Leila Zerrougui, head of the UN Stabilization Mission in Democratic Republic of Congo, told the meeting, according to the internal report.

But the 15 council members “differed in their appreciation of the problems that beset the process and were divided over the question of whether the Council should issue a press statement,” the report went on to say.

A negative or cautionary international reaction could be problematic for Kabila whose government has defended the election’s organisation, and could weaken the legitimacy of Kabila’s hand-picked successor, Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, should he be declared winner.

Inflame the situation

In Saturday’s meeting, France pushed for the publication of a statement that recognised that Congo’s election allowed people to exercise their democratic right and called for calm, but criticised the government’s decision to cut access to the Internet and some media outlets.

The United States, which has threatened to impose sanctions against those who undermine the election process and has deployed troops to Gabon in case its citizens need rescuing from any violence, backed the statement, alongside Britain, Ivory Coast, Belgium and others.

South Africa, long a Kabila ally, said the statement could “inflame” the situation if issued before the results, the report said. Russia said it could be seen as an attempt to skew public opinion. China “lauded the manner in which elections were conducted”, the report said, and said a statement should not be published before the results.

Initial results were expected on Sunday but the electoral board (CENI) said they could be delayed because vote counts were slow in arriving. The opposition, represented by its two main candidates Martin Fayulu and Felix Tshisekedi, and the ruling coalition say their candidates have won.

Congo’s Catholic church body, CENCO, said this week that it had identified the victor based on its own tallies collected by 40,000 observers, though it did not name the winner. The declaration was widely seen as a warning to authorities against rigging the vote.

(FRANCE 24 with REUTERS and AFP)

6, January 2019

Ukrainian church granted independence from Russian church 0

The spiritual head of Orthodox Christians worldwide formally granted independence to the Ukrainian church on Saturday, marking an historic split from Russia which Ukrainian leaders see as vital to the country’s security.

The decree, granting “autocephaly”, was signed by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew at a service with the head of the Ukrainian church Metropolitan Epifaniy and President Petro Poroshenko in St George’s Cathedral in Istanbul.

“I want to thank the millions of Ukrainians around the world who responded to my appeal to pray for the church to be established,” Poroshenko said at a ceremony accompanied by solemn liturgical singing.

“I want to thank the generations of Ukrainians who dreamed…and finally God sent us the Orthodox Church of Ukraine,” he told the congregation in the crowded church.

The patriarchate, the seat of the spiritual leader of some 300 million Orthodox Christians worldwide, endorsed Ukraine’s request for the new church in October. The decree, or Tomos, will be handed to Epifaniy at a ceremony on Sunday, completing the process of recognition by the Ecumenical Patriarchate.

Ukraine last month chose 39-year-old Epifaniy to head the new church, in a move which Poroshenko compared to Ukraine’s referendum for independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

The move incensed Moscow, and prompted President Vladimir Putin to warn of possible bloodshed in his annual news conference. Relations between Ukraine and Russia collapsed after Moscow’s seizure of Crimea in 2014.

Ukraine imposed martial law in November, citing the threat of a full-scale invasion after Russia captured three of its vessels in the Kerch Strait.

Bitter Russian opposition

The Ukrainian Orthodox church has been beholden to Moscow for hundreds of years, and Ukraine’s leaders see church independence as vital to tackling Russian meddling.

Kiev says Moscow-backed churches on its soil are a Kremlin tool to spread propaganda and support fighters in the eastern Donbass region in a conflict that has killed more than 10,000 people. The churches strongly deny this.

“Tomos – is just a paper, the result of restless political and personal ambitions. It was signed in breach of canonicity and this is why it has no power,” Vladimir Legoida, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church Synodal Department for Church-Society and Media Relations, posted in Telegram messenger.

Epifaniy was chosen by a council at the St Sophia Cathedral in Kiev, built by the son of Prince Volodymyr whose baptism in 988 led to the spread of Christianity in the region.

The new church may boost pro-Western leader Poroshenko, who lobbied hard for its creation and faces a tight election race in March.

Russia bitterly opposes the split, comparing it to the Great Schism of 1054 that divided western and eastern Christianity. Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill made a last ditch appeal against the process last month.

“Huge win for Ukraine, defeat for the Kremlin,” economist Timothy Ash wrote on Twitter. “(It) will make Moscow’s hope of some future pull of Ukraine back into its ‘orbit’ nigh on impossible without the use of overwhelming (catastrophic) military force.”

Religious divisions deepened in Ukraine after 2014 and two Orthodox factions vie for dominance.

The church known as the Moscow Patriarchate, aligned with the Russian Orthodox Church, sees itself as the only legitimate church in Ukraine. On Dec. 20, Ukrainian MPs passed a law that could force the church to add “Russian” to its name.

The rival Kiev Patriarchate was born after the collapse of the Soviet Union and its popularity has grown since 2014. It favours European integration and championed the independent church but the Moscow Patriarchate denounces it as schismatic.

(REUTERS)

6, January 2019

US: Pentagon chief of staff quits after Mattis 0

The US Department of Defense’s chief of staff, Rear Admiral Kevin Sweeney, has quit his post in the wake of his boss’s resignation.

Sweeney released a statement not long after a resignations was submitted by Secretary of Defense James Mattis.

Mattis’s former deputy, Patrick Shanahan, began serving as acting Defense secretary at the beginning of January.

“After two years in the Pentagon, I’ve decided the time is right to return to the private sector. It has been an honor to serve again alongside the men and women of the Department of Defense,” he said.

PressTV-'Mattis resignation protest at Trump decisions'

Before him, Pentagon spokeswoman Dana White had announced her resignation at the end of December.

The US president pushed James Mattis out of his post after disagreement over Trump’s decision to end the US military presence in Syria and scale it back in Afghanistan, making Trump further isolated at helm.

Before leaving Pentagon, Mattis ordered withdrawal of an estimated 2,200 US forces from Syria.

PressTV-Trump defends Syria plan, slams Mattis, McGurk

Mattis submitted his letter of resignation after he failed to convince the president that the US military presence in Syria is associated with maintaining critical alliances and partnerships.

The long list of dismissals and resignations in the Trump administration reveals the chaotic play of power inside the White House.

Source: Presstv

Amba December Resistance Spoils Biya’s New Year Eve “Victory” Soundbite

5, January 2019

Amba December Resistance Spoils Biya’s New Year Eve “Victory” Soundbite 0

The Ambazonia resistance is also a war of soundbites and news headlines reaching international news media and western capitals. The Ambazonia “spartan” resistance in December, including Christmas day clashes despite otherwise crippling losses at the hands of government defence and security forces, were a race for the headlines in classic international news and on social media.

That has spoiled what would have been the declaration of President Biya’s career if he had to open his New Year Eve address thus: “Fellow Cameroonians, my dear country men, we crushed them!”

(Remember the American official in Iraq declaring with unsuppressed relish after the capture of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, “Ladies and gentlemen, we got him!”)

That soundbite from Biya, would have had to go viral over international media and, received in the capitals of powerful countries and organizations, would have had to douse pressure on Yaounde to engage genuine, inclusive dialogue with Ambazonia leaders. After all, the world only seeks to solve a problem affecting the world, that is, the strategic interests of the big players; they are not drawn by moral, humanitarian considerations. So, if Yaounde was having the situation under control, why would the world waste scarce resources here?

Despite or because of the creation of the Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration Committee (also obviously in Biya’s end of year speech calculations) which looked like an olive branch weeks ago, government forces increased their fire power, hoping to build on undisputable gains from what they thought would have the impact of “serial” decapitation killings of Ambazonia field commanders.

Because of DDR and the hope that offer of amnesty to “misled good boys” dragged into the bush by “criminal bad boys” would instigate desertion  by some Ambazonia fighters as Dr  Simon Munzu lamented in a recent TV interview or a mutiny, government forces might also have hoped for some rudderless or demoralized combatants to surrender to government forces or naively throw themselves into government ambush, get massacred in quantums and their bodies displayed as signs of failure of their resistance.

Yes, some field commanders have been killed. Yes, the “Bali  Massacre”  and the Batibo/Guzang “friendly fire” backstabbing left big wounds in the heart of the Amba revolution, and there have been other factional tragedies. But there are no signs of decapitation, demoralization, induced (not coordinated) demobilization nor even desertion from the rebellion (DDDDR).

It is a good guess that recent gun battle resistance by Ambazonia forces, including some reported ruthless actions taken against captured government forces are calculated moves to dictate the soundbites that reach international media and foreign governments.

Now, it is obvious Biya cannot deliver a victory speech tonight. The Ambazonia resistance has not been crushed. The world won’t be fooled by a “victory” soundbite. Biya will have to cave in to talks as the only way of making peace with the Ambazonia resistance.

By Franklin Sone Bayen

5, January 2019

China’s Xi orders army to be battle-ready amid US tension 0

Chinese President Xi Jinping has ordered the country’s armed forces to get prepared for a “comprehensive military struggle” amid escalating tensions with the United States.

Addressing a meeting of the Central Military Commission in Beijing Friday, the president urged the armed forces to strengthen their sense of urgency and do everything possible to prepare for battle.

Xi said the world is in an era of drastic changes and “China is still in an important period of strategic opportunity for development,” Xinhua news agency quoted him as saying.

He said various predicable and unpredictable risks and challenges have been arising and that the armed forces needed to be able to respond quickly to emergencies and nurture new types of combat forces. 

Xi’s remarks follow his speech on the 40th anniversary of a key Taiwan policy statement in which he said Beijing would make no promise to renounce the use of force and reserved the option of taking all necessary means to achieve “reunification” with Taiwan.

PressTV-China: Independence to bring profound disaster to Taiwan

China claims sovereignty over Taiwan, and almost all world countries recognize that sovereignty under a policy known as “One China.”

‘Sinking US warships will resolve tensions’

A senior naval official said recently that tensions with the US will easily be resolved if the Chinese naval forces sink two of American warships in the South China Sea.

The deputy head of a Chinese military academy Admiral Lou Yuan said in an address late last month that “what the United States fears the most is taking casualties.”

He said sinking one carrier only would kill 5,000 and sinking two would double that number.

Beijing should, Lou said, deal with Washington by using an “asymmetric counter-attack,” that is “use our strengths to attack the enemy’s weaknesses. Whatever the enemy fears, we strike. Wherever the enemy is soft, we will exploit it.”

US military presence in the sea has long been a source of concern for Beijing which claims almost the entire South China Sea.

Beijing has also warned Washington that close encounters by air and naval forces of the two countries in the region could easily trigger miscalculation or even accidents at sea or in air.

The US, however, says military operations are meant to protect “freedom of navigation” in the sea, a gateway for trillions of dollars in maritime trade each year.

Taiwan appeals for support

Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, who accuses Beijing of interfering in the island’s political and social development, called on Saturday for international support.

“We hope that the international community takes it seriously and can voice support and help us,” Tsai told reporters in the capital Taipei.

She said if the international community did not support her government, “we might have to ask which country might be next.”

Taiwan has already lost several allies one after another since Tsai took office in 2016. Only last year, it lost three allies, who switched diplomatic allegiance to Beijing, leaving Taiwan now with just 17.

Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen (C) speaks with US President-elect Donald Trump through a speaker phone in the capital Taipei on December 2, 2016. (Photo by AP)

China says Taiwan is historically part of its territory, with no right to formal diplomatic ties of its own with other countries.

Almost all countries, including the US, recognize Chinese sovereignty over self-ruled Taiwan. Washington, however, has long courted Taipei in an attempt to counter China.

US President Donald Trump signed the so-called Taiwan Travel Act last year, which encourages high-level visits between the two sides, despite Beijing’s strong opposition.

Taiwan and the mainland separated amid a civil war in 1949. Beijing has vowed to bring the island under its control — by force if necessary.

Source: Presstv

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