Monthly Archives: September 2019

23, September 2019

Split by Brexit, Labour kicks off conference showdown ⁰

Britain’s main opposition Labour Party will begin the daunting task of forming a coherent Brexit plan at its annual conference on Sunday, with polls suggesting it could face an election drubbing.ADVERTISING

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s moment of truth comes with the crisis-torn country hurtling toward an October 31 exit from the European Union without a plan for future trade.

Yet the same divisions over Europe that saw Boris Johnson’s right-wing Conservatives lose their working majority — and make a general election appear inevitable — are also tearing apart Labour on the left.

The 119-year-old party’s support base consists of cosmopolitan city-dwelling europhiles and traditional working-class communities that rejected Brussels in the 2016 referendum.

Polls show these views have become even more entrenched today — a polarisation that further complicates Corbyn’s bid to find a unifying stance.

The strongly anti-European Brexit Party and the pro-EU Liberal Democrats are eroding Labour’s support on both flanks, and it now sits 15 percent behind the Conservatives, according to a poll published late Saturday.

Labour officials will hunker down in a swanky hotel on England’s south coast Sunday night to whittle down their Brexit options to a single position that will be either rejected or approved Monday.

Corbyn has given every indication that he wants Labour to stay neutral on the defining issue of UK politics.

“No, I am not sitting on the fence,” he insisted in a testy ITV interview Friday.

He has promised to negotiate a new divorce deal that maintains closer EU relations and then hold another referendum in which remaining in the bloc is the other option.

But he would not say which of the two he would campaign for — or whether he actually wants to stay or go.

“The British people will make that final decision,” Corbyn told ITV.

Ugly polls

Efforts to keep the peace by appeasing both wings of his party are not sitting well with voters ahead of an early election that most expect to happen within months.

A September YouGov survey showed that just half of self-identifying Labour supporters trust Corbyn’s ability to “make the right decisions on Brexit”.

And an Ipsos MORI analysis found Corbyn’s net satisfaction rating at -60. No opposition leader has fared worse in more than 40 years.

“This strategy of being all things to all people on Brexit — it paid off partly in 2017 (elections), but it’s not clear that it’s going to pay off again,” said London School of Economics analyst Sara Hobolt.

“I think it wouldn’t be right for Labour to have no opinion on such a big decision,” Labour’s foreign affairs spokeswoman Emily Thornberry agreed.

“Labour should campaign for remain,” she told The Guardian.

Party discipline

The push for Labour to reject Brexit is being resisted by a eurosceptic core of socialist Corbyn supporters who include his closest aides.

The rise of the veteran leftist followed a 2015 change in Labour leadership election rules that gave equal weight to the votes of both rank-and-file members and MPs.

Corbyn’s left-wing views resonated with new members and young people disillusioned by the New Labour approach of Tony Blair’s more centrist government.

A group called Momentum that helped Corbyn become leader that year unsuccessfully tried Saturday to abolish the post of the party’s pro-European deputy leader Tom Watson.

“I knew there was discussions going on about the role of deputy leader, I did not know that that particular motion was going to be put forward,” Corbyn admitted on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show.

“There was a move that didn’t happen, that didn’t work and I intervened,” he added.

But Momentum boss Jon Lansman said it was time to instill party discipline and for everyone to adopt Corbyn’s neutrality on Europe.

“We need to make sure the deputy leader role is properly accountable to the membership,” he said.

‘Radical transformation’

Corbyn has sought to move past Brexit and campaign on a more traditionally Labour agenda of workers’ rights and clean climate policies.

Some of the proposals that could come up for a vote at the conference include a plan to give 10 percent of UK companies’ shares to workers over the next 10 years.

The Financial Times called this “one of the biggest state expropriations of assets seen in a western democracy”.

Momentum also wants Labour to commit to a net zero carbon emissions target by 2030 and to “abolish private schools” in a “radical and transformational” election platform.

The various motions will be put for a vote before Corbyn concludes the conference with a keynote address Wednesday.

(AFP)

23, September 2019

US: Impeachment ‘only remedy’ if Trump’s Ukraine call proved ⁰

The chairman of US House intelligence committee has threatened President Donald Trump with impeachment amid controversy over his phone call with Ukraine’s president.

Adam Schiff said on Sunday that impeachment would be the “only remedy” if an investigation revealed that the US president had pressured his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, to investigate possible corruption involving former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter.

“If the president is essentially withholding military aid at the same time that he is trying to browbeat a foreign leader to do something illicit, to provide dirt on his opponent during a presidential campaign, then that may be the only remedy that is co-equal to the evil that conduct represents,” Schiff told the CNN.

Schiff, who has so far been reluctant to push for presidential impeachment, said it “may be that we do have to move forward with that extraordinary remedy” if Trump sought information on Biden and his son.

“[I] want the country to understand this is the last resort,” Schiff added. “The president is pushing us down this road.”

News outlets reported last week that Trump urged Zelensky about eight times during a phone call to work with his lawyer Rudy Giuliani on a probe that could hamper the US president’s potential 2020 opponent.

PressTV-'Trump pressed Ukraine president to probe Biden’s son'

Biden said there should be an investigation into Trump’s call, denouncing the action as “an overwhelming abuse of power.”

Trump on Saturday dismissed the Ukraine allegations as another witch-hunt attempting to smear his already tarnished reputation and damage his popularity as the Americans get closer to the 2020 presidential election.

Now that the Democrats and the Fake News Media have gone “bust” on every other of their Witch Hunt schemes, they are trying to start one just as ridiculous as the others, call it the Ukraine Witch Hunt, while at the same time trying to protect Sleepy Joe Biden. Will fail again!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 21, 2019

In an interview with local media on Saturday, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko insisted that his country was independent and that Kiev would never take sides with either party in US politics.

Addressing a July phone conversation between Trump and Zelensky, the Ukrainian minister said there was no coercion and the conversation was friendly.

PressTV-Biden holds modest lead in Democratic race for 2020: Poll

Biden is the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination for the 2020 election.

Since launching his bid for 2020 presidency, Biden has been referred to as “Sleepy Joe” by Trump, among other cases of name-calling.

The 76-year-old politician has also been lambasted for what his opponents and others have deemed inappropriate touching, hugging and sniffing of women and children. Biden has dismissed such allegations.

Source: Presstv

23, September 2019

Russian seamen kidnapped off Cameroon freed ⁰

Moscow on Sunday said three Russian seamen abducted in an act of piracy off the coast of Cameroon in August have been freed and brought to Germany.

The Russians were part of a group of sailors, including Chinese and Ukrainian citizens, taken hostage in mid-August after an attack on their merchant ships in the Gulf of Guinea.

In a statement, the Russian foreign ministry said they were “released from pirate captivity” and that their health was “satisfactory”.

They are due to return to Russia on Monday, it added.

The attacks took place off the port of Douala, located at the northeastern corner of the Gulf of Guinea that has become a hotspot of seaborne crime.

The total number of hostages taken in the attack is unclear. The Cameroonian navy reported the kidnappings at the time but was unable to give the number of those taken.

The Gulf of Guinea, whose coastline stretches in a huge arc from Liberia to Gabon, is notorious for piracy as well as oil theft, illegal fishing and human and drugs trafficking.

In recent years, the seas off West Africa have become “the world’s worst for pirate attacks,” according to the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) watchdog.

Attacks doubled in the Gulf of Guinea in 2018 compared to the previous year — the bulk of them due to piracy, it said.

The 17 countries bordering the Gulf of Guinea and adjacent coastline have limited surveillance and maritime defence capabilities.

Source: AFP

23, September 2019

Cameroon has had a case of “disappearing” oil revenue ⁰

The challenge of inequality is at crisis levels in many of Africa’s oil producing countries. According the NJ Ayuk, author of Billions at Play, a small but growing number of people are becoming rich in the sub-region, whilst the vast majority are denied the most essential elements of a dignified life, including quality education, healthcare and decent jobs, despite remarkable economic growth driven by extractive industries.

In chapter 16 of the book, Ayuk gave a substantial coverage on “Managing Oil and Gas Revenue”, According to him “Cameroon, for example, also has had a case of “disappearing” oil revenue. Since oil was discovered in Cameroon in 1977, approximately USD20 billion has been paid in oil rents—but only 54 percent of the money appeared in the government budget.

And how has Cameroon’s resource wealth played out for Cameroonians? There has been some good news on the economic front: During the last decade, the country’s gross domestic product per capita has grown by 4 percent annually, above the global average of 2.6 percent.293 Other figures, however, show oil revenue failing to impact the lives of the people who need help most: 48 percent of the population continues to live below the poverty line.

Healthcare is sparse, and Cameroon’s life expectancy only is 57 years for males and 59 years for females. Some might argue that local poverty and disenfranchisement, particularly in the South-West region of Cameroon, have contributed to the Anglophone crisis taking place. Since late 2017, it has resulted in violent clashes, the deaths of scores of people and the displacement of tens of thousands. The crisis has its roots in African Colonialism and the German colony of “Kamerun” being divided between France and England by the League of Nations following Germany’s defeat in World War I.

In 1960, when Cameroon gained its independence, English-speaking residents were given the option of joining the French-speaking portion of Cameroon or becoming citizens of neighboring Nigeria. They voted to stay, but since that time, have described unfair treatment, with education, roads, and healthcare in their western region of the country being neglected—despite the production of tens of thousands of barrels of oil per day in the South West, an English-speaking region.

Some English-speakers want their grievances addressed, while others are calling for a more extreme solution: the creation of an independent state which they refer to as “Ambazonia.” English-speakers have complained about the unbalanced distribution of revenue from natural resources. Their concerns resonate strongly with me: I am from the Manyu division in the South West region.

These grievances are valid. We aren’t producing jobs at the rate we should, and the private sector is suffering from high taxes, corruption, and red tape. Millions of young Cameroonians don’t have healthcare. Children and teenagers are senselessly being killed. I believe the only way out is a conversation that includes all of the people involved, all of the stakeholders. All of the country’s residents should be treated with dignity, justice, and equity”.

Source: www.vanguardngr.com

22, September 2019

Southern Cameroons War: Vice President Yerima must arm Ambazonia Forces ⁰

A Southern Cameroons think tank in the Federal Republic of Germany has written a strongly worded letter to the Ambazonia Vice President Dabney Yerima urging him to overcome the failures of the Sako Ikome administration and start arming the Southern Cameroons Restoration Forces to show that the Ambazonia Interim Government wants the complete liberation and independence of Southern Cameroons.

Ambazonia Self-Defense Forces are among the most effective fighters against French Cameroun army soldiers, the German based Southern Cameroons group said, and Vice President Dabney Yerima needs to know that Southern Cameroonians wish to start seeing Ambazonia Restoration Forces countering violence with violence in Ground Zero for financial donations to start pouring into the Interim Government.

Frustration is growing in Ground Zero that the Ambazonia Interim Government under Comrade Dabney Yerima will not supply weapons to Southern Cameroons Self-Defense Forces, who have largely used den guns during the three years uprising against Biya and French Cameroun state apparatus dominated by Francophone Beti Ewondo members of the ruling CPDM crime syndicate.

Ground Zero commanders said recently that Restoration Forces need weapons including shoulder-fired missiles to destroy French Cameroun military vehicles and bring down helicopters that the Yaoundé regime is using against the people of Southern Cameroons.

Vice President Dabney Yerima has been provided intelligence on the ground that some of the commanders seeking financial assistance are agents of La Republique du Cameroun and that with clever management the Southern Cameroons Interim Government can channel weapons to the right fighters.

The Southern Cameroons group also called on the leader, President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe to broaden the Interim Government to include other Southern Cameroons resistance movements to end the conflict and internal divisions within the struggle.

The letter that was signed by some prominent Southern Cameroons elites in Germany including medics whose names we are withholding pleaded with Comrade Yerima to use whatever has come into the state treasury and provide walkie-talkie radios to the main Ambazonia chain of command in Ground Zero.

Cameroon Intelligence Report understand Vice President Dabney Yerima is working to establish a unified command in Ground Zero due to concerns that weapons bound for Southern Cameroons Restoration Forces may fall into the hands of French Cameroun militias operation in the territory.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai in Essen, Germany

22, September 2019

President Buhari shares paternity with Paul Biya in leadership style ⁰

President Buhari shares paternity with Paul Biya of Cameroon in leadership style. Both men are joined by the umbilicus of repression and abrasion.

In 2010, Bertrand Teyou, an author, was sentenced to two years imprisonment for insulting the wife of Biya, Chantal. The Cameroonian Government filed charges against him for this spectacular reason.

Under Biya, Southern Cameroon has become the scene of a volcanic crisis – killings, illegal detentions and arrests. Specifically, the government is zeroing in on dissenting voices in effecting these violations.

I think, the situation is much more execrable in Nigeria than in Cameroon.

Amnesty International encapsulates it in these words: ‘’The human rights situation in Nigeria is marked by serious human rights violations such as extrajudicial executions, arbitrary arrests and detentions, torture and other ill-treatment, enforced disappearances, violence against women and girls, restrictions on the rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly, mass forced evictions, environmental pollution and lack of accountability for human rights violations and abuses.’’

As a matter of fact, the Buhari government has racked up egregious human rights records more than any other administration before it. In 2017, the United States Department of State released a convicting exposition on this villainy.

“Impunity remained widespread at all levels of government.

“The government did not adequately investigate or prosecute most of the major outstanding allegations of human rights violations by the security forces or the majority of cases of police or military extortion or other abuse of power.

“Authorities generally did not hold police, military, or other security force personnel accountable for the use of excessive or deadly force or for the deaths of persons in custody.

“State and federal panels of inquiry investigating suspicious deaths generally did not make their findings public,” it said.

I have studied the charges levelled against Omoyele Sowore, publisher of SaharaReporters, and they ossify my position that the gentleman is being put through a mill of thistles and thorns for being a relentless critic of the administration.

He is charged with ‘’insulting’’ the President, and for transferring money from New York to Nigeria? What a phenomenal charge? Obviously, Sowore’s only crime is that he has a roaring voice which puts the foundations of Aso Rock to fright.

And does it mean words cannot change the General, but they get to him?

Really, the cyberstalking law, by which Sowore is charged, was fashioned under President Jonathan. This was, perhaps, the former President’s response to social media criticism at the time. But the law, being defective, was never applied under him.

Jonathan was vilified, abused and defamed but not one Nigerian was incarcerated or charged with ‘’treason’’. In fact, in the North, coffins with photos and semblances of Jonathan were coursed through the streets by dissenters but not a single protester was detained. And he was even stoned in Yola on his way to Taraba.

These were clearly grievous offences that are punishable by the law. But a democrat will see beyond an act and ask, ‘’why is this happening? Why are citizens angry?’’

Although Jonathan was not without freckles, he exercised his own brutish aspect with the clampdown on media organisations.

Really, only a non-performing government will be afraid of citizens’ protests or interpret civil actions as subversion. Only a failing administration will be extremely irritated by criticisms and divergent opinions.

In the case of Sowore, he has exercised himself in the discipline of civil opposition. He has only used his voice as a protected child of the Nigerian constitution.

Section 39(1) of the 1999 constitution establishes that “Every person shall be entitled to freedom of expression, including freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information without interference.”

This is the grundnorm to which all laws submit. This is the pillar on which our democracy is built.

The charges cannot stand. But why do dictators rise in AFRICA? It is because of the people, who do nothing; who enable them and who only pray for an end to their suffering.

Culled from Sahara Reporters

21, September 2019

“Attack on French Cameroun army convoy transporting General Tataw’s remains shows strength of resistance” ⁰

A senior commander of the Ambazonia Restoration Forces has said that the recent attacks on a military convoy that was transporting the remains of the late General James Tataw in Batibo and also that of Ayaba Hotel in Bamenda hosting a delegation headed by French Cameroun’s Minister of Interior Paul Atanga Nji bears witness to the strength of Southern Cameroons Restoration Forces.

Speaking late today in Bamenda during a memorial ceremony for a prominent Ambazonia fighter, the Southern Cameroons commander who did not identify himself during his presentation at Bali Road added that Yaoundé was trying to demonstrate that Southern Cameroonians who represent Francophone interest were more valuable than the Ambazonia blood spilled everyday by French Cameroun army soldiers.

The Southern Cameroons commander also warned the French Cameroun soldiers heading to Ossing village in Manyu that they were gambling on a failed Biya plan. He reiterated that Southern Cameroons Restoration Forces will never let French Cameroun army attacks go unanswered.

With new rules of engagement already being implemented by the Southern Cameroons Vice President Dabney Yerima and the growing strength of French Cameroun opposition against Biya, observers believe the Federal Republic of Ambazonia will soon become a reality and that Biya and his French Cameroun political elites are in a state of denial.

By Sama Ernest in Bamenda

21, September 2019

Yaounde hires Toni Conceicao as national team coach ⁰

Five-time African champion Cameroon has hired former Portugal international Toni Conceicao as its new national team coach.

Cameroon’s sports ministry announced Friday that the former right-back, whose full name is António Conceição da Silva Oliveira, was given a two-year contract. He replaces Dutch great Clarence Seedorf, who was fired after a second-round exit at the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations in Egypt.

Cameroon will host the next African Cup in 2021, having last won the title in 2017 under Belgian coach Hugo Broos.

Conceicao made just one appearance for Portugal as a player but has managed a number of clubs in his home country and abroad, including three separate stints at Romanian side Cluj.

His first game with Cameroon will be a friendly against Tunisia on Oct. 12.

Source: Associated Press

21, September 2019

Biya regime says security forces repel Ambazonia’ attack on gov’t officials ⁰

Cameroon’s government forces on Friday repelled coordinated attacks by armed separatists on government officials in Bamenda, the largest city of the country’s restive Anglophone region of Northwest, the army said.

A group of separatists attempted to infiltrate a hotel in the city where senior government officials were lodged, but were repelled by troops deployed to the area, according to local authorities.

“Some of the secessionist terrorists escaped with serious injuries,” an army officer told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

Minister of Territorial Administration Paul Atanga Nji also stayed in the hotel, the officer said.

The minister was on an official visit to the region to reiterate calls for the separatists to surrender so as to deradicalized and reintegrated into society.

Separatists in Cameroon’s two English-speaking regions, Northwest and Southwest, have been fighting government forces in an effort to establish a separate state. The rest of about 80 percent of the country is French-speaking.

Cameroonian President Paul Biya has called for a national dialogue by the end of September to end the separatist crisis and facilitate a “return to normal life” in the troubled regions.

Source: Xinhaunet

21, September 2019

Roxana Willis awarded grant to investigate the Southern Cameroons Crisis ⁰

Roxana Willis has been awarded a grant by the University’s Global Challenges Research Fund for her project ‘Voices from the Civil Conflict in Cameroon: Creating a network and developing a research project to investigate the anglophone crisis’. The grant will go towards funding a full-time researcher to photographs of human rights abuses and reports of state violence are emerging regularly. To date, 530,000 anglophone Cameroonians are estimated to have been displaced by ongoing violence between the state and separatist movements.

Despite the severity of the conflict, limited international attention has been afforded to these events, and many of the human rights abuses occurring are undocumented. Accordingly, we intend to develop a research work on the project.

Cameroon is in the midst of a civil conflict, which is worryingly under-investigated. Since independence from colonial rule in 1961, the minority anglophone population of Cameroon has been subjected to discriminatory treatment by the francophone majority. This has included several cases of torture confirmed by the United Nations. In 2016, these issues erupted into the current civil conflict. A strike by anglophone teachers and lawyers over the marginalisation of anglophone professionals led to a military response from the Cameroonian government. Since then, activities in the anglophone regions, such as attendance at school, legal hearings, and local markets, have been severely restricted. Harrowing

team and co-develop a project that will impartially investigate the conflict and draw international attention to the events taking place. Barrister Mbinkar Caroline will be involved throughout the lifetime of the project and present in Oxford in Hilary term 2020. The research team will use this pilot project as the basis for developing a larger GCRF bid in 2020.

Source: Law-ox.ac