Monthly Archives: December 2019

27, December 2019

Football: Liverpool crushes Leicester City to go 13 points clear ⁰

Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool have extended their lead at the top of the English Premier League to 13 points with a game in hand, after outclassing their second-placed hosts Leicester City 4-0 on Boxing Day.

Liverpool dominated the first half, and went ahead in the 31st minute, when Brazilian Roberto Firmino nodded home a cross at the back post.

Leicester kept the score-line respectable only until the 71st minute, as James Milner set in motion a 3-goal blitz from the penalty spot after a handball in the area.

Firmino then bagged his second of the night, after firing into the top corner, to finish off a beautiful team effort in the 74th minute.

Trent Alexander-Arnold, who had helped set-up all of his side’s first 3 goals, rounded off the rout by drilling home the 4th from outside the box.

Liverpool now have 52 points from 18 matches, while Leicester are on 39 from 19.

27, December 2019

US: Public support for President Trump conviction at all-time high ⁰

Public support for Donald Trump’s removal from office is the highest it has ever been, according to a new poll.

Fifty-five percent of those asked said they were in favor of the US president’s conviction by the Senate, a figure which has shot up from 48 percent the week before.

Meanwhile, the number of people against Mr. Trump’s removal has dropped to an all-time low, according to the MSN poll.

On Christmas Day, 40 percent were opposed to the Senate voting to convict the president, who has been impeached over his dealings with Ukraine and an alleged subsequent attempt to obstruct congress.

The gap between the two views has become much wider since last week, when there was little to divide them (48 percent in favor of Mr. Trump’s removal, 47 percent against).

David Rothschild✔@DavMicRot

MSN Poll matches all-time high for support of conviction 55%, and opposition plummets to all-time low: Many people moving from “opposition” to “don’t know”, big moment will be if they reach support for conviction.

The percentage of respondents who neither supported nor opposed conviction also grew.

David Rothschild, an economist at Microsoft Research, said the numbers of people shifting from opposition to removal to “don’t know” was significant. “When you follow polling daily, you learn people rarely make big jumps from Opposition to Support,” he said.

“This polling is a clear sign that [the] Republican policy of complete obstruction is not selling well to [the] voting public.”

Republicans and Democrats have disagreed over how the Senate should conduct the trial into the US president. Mr. Trump is accused of asking a political favor from Ukraine – to investigate his 2020 rival Joe Biden – in return for aid and a state visit to the White House.

Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker, has not yet sent the impeachment case to the Republican-controlled Senate given the strong likelihood that the upper house would find in Mr. Trump’s favor.

The party leaders of the Senate have clashed over the trial’s witnesses, after Republican Mitch McConnell said he would not allow top White House officials to testify in line with Democrat requests.

(Source: The Independent)

26, December 2019

President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe is Cameroon Concord News Person of the Year ⁰

The Cameroon Concord News Person of the Year award goes to the leader of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia, His Excellency President Sisiku AyukTabe. The list of candidates was long and impressive with popular figures like President Paul Biya of French Cameroun, French Cameroun Minister of Territorial Administration Paul Atanga Nji, renowned Muslim Scholar Abdul Karim, Ambazonia Vice President Dabney Yerima , Archbishop Samuel Kleda of the Douala Archdiocese, His Lordship Bishop Andrew Nkea Fuanya of Mamfe, Hon. Joseph Wirba and many others.

Despite the impressive list, one man set himself apart, not by his stature and wealth, but by his discipline, love of compromise and dialogue, as well as his steadfastness to a cause that is so close to his heart. The choice of Sisiku Julius AyukTabe, the President of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia, who has been in the dungeons of La Republique du Cameroun for close to two years, is justified.

A sound and committed academic who was plying his trade with the American University of Nigeria, President Sisiku AyukTabe was elected as the Chairman of the Ambazonia Governing Council during the third conclave in Nigeria. Due to his great leadership skills and commitment to the Southern Cameroons cause, President Sisiku AyukTabe was subsequently elected as the President of the Interim Government of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia, a position that took him to many parts of the world.

His tours drew attention to the sorry plight of the suffering masses of Southern Cameroonians that started 58 years ago and his charisma triggered a sense of identity among Southern Cameroonians who saw a dedicated and selfless leader in President Sisiku AyukTabe.

Fifty-eight years ago, the British Southern Cameroons, a United Nations Trust territory under British administration, was betrayed and sold off to France through its vassal state of French Cameroun. Great Britain and France were among the key actors on whom humanity relied to create the United Nations on the 26 of June 1945 in San Francisco.

Pursuant to this multilateral treaty obligation, the United Nations oversaw the grant of independence to French Cameroun on 1st of January 1960 although it remains a vassal state of France. When the time came for the realization of the UN multilateral treaty obligation towards the Southern Cameroons on 1st October 1961, Great Britain handed the articles of sovereignty over the territory to French vassal state of French Cameroun and France’s proxy army of occupation in the night of 30th September 1961. Ever since, the genocidal onslaught and ferocious intensity with which it is executed qualifies the Southern Cameroons as a cancer on the conscience of the international community.

President Sisiku AyukTabe was abducted in Abuja, Nigeria, and extradited to French Cameroun where he is serving a life term. Though abducted for declaring the restoration of the independence of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia in NERA Hotel Abuja, the Ambazonia leader has remained unfazed and committed to the total independence of Southern Cameroons. It should be noted that the abduction of President Sisiku AyukTabe and his top aides was declared illegal by the Abuja High court on the 1st March 2019. The court verdict demanded the Nigerian government to take all the abductees from La Repubique du Cameroun back to Nigeria and freed. Each of Nera10 was also awarded 5million Naira. The court judgment is yet to be executed by the Nigerian government.

President Sisiku AyukTabe’s abduction in the Nigerian capital via a joint operation that involved the French, Nigerian and French Cameroun Secret Service agents explained to the world the complicit silence or inaction of the UN, the EU and the AU to the consequences in terms of Southern Cameroonian lives lost, legal and cultural identity destroyed, economy raped and culture of terror, and international criminality imposed on the Southern Cameroons on the watch of the UN and its ancillary institutions.

Despite being held incommunicado for close to a year both in Nigeria and in French Cameroun, the leader emerged against all French Cameroun obstacles and the seemingly insurmountable odds and appointed a Vice President in the person of Comrade Dabney Yerima who ever since has been championing the resistance against the fifty-eight years of excruciating life under genocide, terror, economic terrorism, and all forms of international criminality.

On the 22nd September 2017, and ultimately on 1st October 2017 President Sisiku AyukTabe led the people of Southern Cameroons to reclaim their freedom and independence. The deployment by French Cameroun of helicopter gunships and other ordinance supplied by France and other international actors to fight Boko Haram to kill and maim in large and systematic scale hundreds of thousands of armless Southern Cameroonians failed to abate the resolve of a determined independence seeking people of the Southern Cameroons.

Among his achievements is his successful rallying of the Southern Cameroons diaspora which is about 4 million and which has played a significant role in the revolution playing out in Southern Cameroons and above all, expressing to the international community the genocidal intent of French Cameroun leaders in the prosecution of the genocide and crimes against humanity against the people of Southern Cameroons.

Under his stewardship, President Sisiku AyukTabe for the first time in the history of the Southern Cameroons struggle formed the Ambazonia Interim Government whose modus operandi compelled the French Cameroun regime under the 86 year old President Biya, its planners, commanders and executioners of the genocide of the Southern Cameroons to publicly take credit for their brazen acts of criminality.

Prior to his abduction in Abuja, Nigeria, President Sisiku AyukTabe and the Ambazonia Interim Government handed over to the international community an unexhaustive list of French Cameroun criminals and persons who bear the greatest responsibility for the international crimes committed against the Southern Cameroons. They included Paul Biya, President of French Cameroun, President of the National Assembly of French Cameroun, Cavaye Yegui Djibril, President of the Senate of French Cameroun, Marcel Niat, former French Cameroun’s government spokesman Issa Tchiroma Bakary, French Cameroun Minister of Justice, Laurent Esso, French Cameroun Minister of Higher Education, Fame Ndongo, French Cameroun Minister of Defence, Joseph Beti Assomo, French Cameroun Minister of Territorial Administration, Paul Atanga Nji, French Cameroun Minister of Post and Telecommunications, Minette Libom Li Likeng, French Cameroun Governor of the South West-Ambazonia, Bernard Okalia Bilai, French Cameroun Governor of the North West-Ambazonia, Adolphe Lele Lafrique, former French Cameroun Minister of State in charge of the Gendarmerie, Jean Baptiste Bonkam, French Cameroun Delegate General in charge of National Security, Mbarga Nguele Martin, Army Chiefs of French Cameroun and all their proconsuls so-called senior SDO.s , the late Mayor Ekema Patrick Esunge, CRTV, Vision 4 television, Cameroon Tribune, French Cameroun Military Court, and the CPDM party.

President Sisiku AyukTabe’s revolutionary spirit and his unparalleled mobilization of Southern Cameroonians around the world to condemn and urge intervention to abate the ongoing crimes and for the perpetrators to be brought to book, sent a loud and clear message to French Cameroun and the world at large that prompted the regime in Yaoundé to come out with the so-called Special Status for the people of Ambazonia. But the independence of the Ambazonia fatherland is non-negotiable and sacrosanct will be defended at all costs and President Sisiku AyukTabe is demonstrating to the world that anything short of this will be a betrayal of the martyrs who died, peace plants leaves in hand, singing the songs of liberation, freedom and independence.

Today, both Cameroon Intelligence Report and Cameroon Concord News recognizes for honour the Southern Cameroons leader presently in detention for his determination in securing and defending the independence of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia even at the supreme price. President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe has evinced an irrevocable determination to defend the goals of the Southern Cameroons revolution. To be sure, President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe Julius has demonstrated to the people of Southern Cameroons and the international community that he understands the universal tenets of peace, justice and freedom.

In arresting him and his top aides in Abuja, Nigeria and cowardly extradited to French Cameroon, the French government of President Emmanuel Macron, the Buhari administration in Nigeria and the consortium of CPDM crime syndicates in Yaoundé, helped President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe conveyed the message of freedom to the Ambazonian people.

The French Cameroun regime is now feeling the full weight of Ambazonia’s collective resolve and Biya and his Francophone Beti Ewondo regime are paying the price for the unprovoked aggression and consequential costs in Ambazonian lives, economy and cultural heritage.

Your Excellency President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe, for your resolve and personal sacrifice in the defense of the people of Southern Cameroons, you deserve Cameroon Concord News Person Of The Year Award.

Congratulation

To this I put my name

Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Chairman/Editor-in-Chief

Cameroon Concord News Group

26, December 2019

US: Bernie Sanders overtakes Joe Biden among Democrats in presidential race ⁰

US Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has overtaken former Vice President Joe Biden in head to head matchup with President Donald Trump, a new poll shows.

The survey, conducted between December 18 and 19 by Ipsos/Reuters, found that 39 percent of US voters favored Sanders over Trump, compared to 37 percent who preferred Biden over the Republican president.

Biden has maintained a steady lead in national polls over other top candidates for several weeks, but primary voters have far from made up their minds.

Recent surveys have determined that Sanders enjoys more support among Hispanic voters and young people between 18 and 29 years old, demographics likely fueling his late-stage surge to the top of the Democratic field.

Biden, Sanders lead 2020 Democratic field in Iowa

In the past, Sanders has criticized Biden for his views on domestic issues and foreign policies towards other countries.

Sanders began to eclipse Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts after the fourth Democratic debate, when multiple candidates attacked Warren on how she would fund her health care plan.

In the Ipsos/Reuters poll, Sanders is supported by more independents (21 percent) and Democrats (74 percent) than both Biden and Warren in matchups against Trump.

Sanders, 78, would become America’s first Jewish president if elected. Nonetheless, he has called on the US government to withhold military aid to Israel if it continues to annex settlements in the occupied West Bank in Palestine.

“I would use the leverage, $3.8 billion is a lot of money, and we cannot give it carte blanche to Israel,” Sanders said in November at the annual convention of J Street, a liberal pro-Israel advocacy group.

“I would say that some of the $3.8 billion should go right now to humanitarian aid in Gaza,” Sanders added, referring to the annual amount of military aid that the United States currently gives to Israel.

Source: Presstv

25, December 2019

Algeria starts funeral of army chief Gaid Salah ⁰

The funeral of Algeria’s powerful army chief Ahmed Gaid Salah got underway Wednesday as his remains arrived at the People’s Palace, images broadcast by state TV show.

The wooden coffin containing the body of Gaid Salah, who died of a heart attack on Monday aged 79, arrived at 0630 GMT, covered in a national flag and carried by officers.

Surrounded by large numbers of motorcycle outriders, the funeral procession converged on the palace, which was built in the 18th century for Ottoman governors.

Gaid Salah became the country’s de facto strongman after longtime president Abdelaziz Bouteflika was forced to step down in the face of huge street protests in April.

Interim military chief of staff Said Chengriha was in attendance, while President Abdelmadjid Tebboune arrived a little after the procession.

Tebboune won a December 12 presidential election with 58.1 percent of the vote on a turnout of less than 40 percent, according to official results, in a poll dismissed by protesters as a ploy by Gaid Salah and other establishment figures to consolidate their power.

Algerians protest in thousands to reject talks with new president

After his win, Tebboune awarded Gaid Salah the National Order of Merit, Algeria’s highest honor. After the general’s death he announced three days of national mourning.

Abdelkader Bensalah, interim president after Bouteflika’s fall, and other senior personalities also gathered in front of the coffin.

Images broadcast by several TV stations showed a crowd massed at the gates of the palace to pay their final respects to Gaid Salah, who served as army chief for 15 years.

State TV later played images of small groups of civilians entering the palace complex and briefly stopping in front of the coffin to pay their respects.

The religious affairs ministry asked imams to lead prayers in Gaid Salah’s memory on Wednesday.

He was due to be buried shortly after 1200 GMT in Martyrs’ Square in Al-Alia cemetery, where former presidents and other major Algerian figures are laid to rest.

(Source: AFP)

25, December 2019

Pirates attack ship in Gabonese waters; one killed, four kidnapped ⁰

A crew member was killed and four others were taken hostage by pirates in waters off the capital of Gabon, a government spokesperson confirmed on Sunday, December 22.

Government spokesperson Edgard Anicet Mboumbou Miyakou said four vessels were targeted in the overnight attack in the bay of Libreville by unidentified pirates travelling in speedboats.

Miyakou said: “These attacks unfortunately led to the death of Mr. Mboumba Mbina Aymar, of Gabonese nationality, commander of the ship of the Satram company and the abduction of four employees of the company Sigapêche, of Chinese nationality.

The spokesperson added that defence and security forces continued to search for the attackers, in collaboration with Interpol and sub-regional organisations.

He stressed that the government of Gabon had taken measures to guarantee the safety of maritime traffic.

Source: Africa News

25, December 2019

Typhoon hits Philippines, bringing misery on Christmas Day ⁰

Typhoon Phanfone pummeled the central Philippines on Christmas Day, bringing a wet and miserable holiday season to millions in the mainly Catholic nation.

Thousands were stranded at shuttered ports or evacuation centers at the height of the festive season on Wednesday, and residents cowered in rain-soaked homes as Phanfone leapt from one small island to another for the second day.

The typhoon toppled houses and trees and blacked out cities in the Philippines’ most storm-prone region, but no deaths were reported.

Though weaker, Phanfone was tracking a similar path as Super Typhoon Haiyan — the country’s deadliest cyclone on record which left more than 7,300 people dead or missing in 2013.

More than 10,000 people spent the night in schools, gyms and government buildings hastily converted into evacuation centers as the typhoon made landfall Tuesday, civil defense officials said.

“It was frightening. The glass windows shattered and we took cover by the stairs,” Ailyn Metran told AFP after she and her four-year-old child spent the night at the local state weather service office where her husband worked.

A metal window frame flew off and fell onto a car parked outside the building, she said.

With just two hours’ sleep, the family returned to their home in the central city of Tacloban early Wednesday to find their two dogs safe, but the floor was covered in mud and a felled tree rested atop a nearby house.

Fallen power lines dangle over buildings after Typhoon Phanfone swept through Tanauan, Leyte, in the Philippines December 25, 2019, in this photo obtained from social media. (Photo by Reuters)

The weather office said the typhoon strengthened slightly overnight Tuesday and was gusting at 195 kilometers (121 miles) an hour, velocities that can knock down small trees and destroy houses made of light materials.

More islands along its projected path are expected to be hit with destructive winds and intense rainfall before blowing out into the South China Sea early Thursday, it added.

More than 25,000 people trying to get home for the traditional Christmas Eve midnight dinner with their families remained stranded at ports on Christmas Day with ferry services still shut down, the coast guard said.

Scores of flights to the region also remained cancelled, though the populous capital Manila, on the northern edge has so far been spared.

The Philippines is the first major landmass facing the Pacific cyclone belt.

As such, the archipelago gets hit by an average of 20 storms and typhoons each year, killing scores of people and wiping out harvests, homes and other infrastructure and keeping millions perennially poor.

A July 2019 study by the Manila-based Asian Development Bank said the most frequent storms lop one percent off the Philippine economic output, with the stronger ones cutting output by nearly three percent.

(Source: AFP)

25, December 2019

Federal Republic of Ambazonia: Vice President Yerima plans to address nation ⁰

The Ambazonia Vice President Dabney Yerima, will speak to the people of Southern Cameroons next Tuesday in an end of year policy speech.

Comrade Dabney Yerima is expected to present a positive bill of health of the Southern Cameroons Interim Government and also to urge the governors of the Bank of Ambazonia to approve finances for the Ambazonia Restoration Forces.

Vice President Dabney Yerima who is yet to return to Europe after a very successful outing in the Republic of South Africa, will use his end of year presentation to call for unity among all Southern Cameroons resistance groups and to appeal to Southern Cameroonians to continue to invest in the Amba Bonds Project.

The purpose of the Ambazonia leader’s 31^st of December speech is to reiterate publicly the role of the Interim Government in the Southern Cameroons war of liberation and Dabney Yerima is expected to endorse the creation of an Ambazonia National Army.

Vice President Dabney Yerima is currently visiting a number of European capitals privately but is expected to return to Holland before Tuesday next week.

Comrade Dabney Yerima’s trip to South Africa was his first ever since he was appointed Vice President by the Ambazonia leader, President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe.

Early next year, Mr Yerima will fly to the US. A senior Yerima aide told Cameroon Concord News that the Vice President was looking forward to having productive talks with Southern Cameroons officials and representatives in the USA.

By Chi Prudence Asong in London

25, December 2019

US: President Trump brushes off N Korea warning of ‘Christmas gift’ ⁰

President Donald Trump says that the United States will deal with North Korea “very successfully” after Pyongyang’s warning of a “Christmas gift.”

North Korea has promised a possible “Christmas surprise” missile test if the US does not come to the negotiating table, noting it would not give in to Washington’s pressure since it already has “nothing to lose.”

Pyongyang said the US was dragging out denuclearization negotiations ahead of Trump’s re-election bid next year, noting it was “entirely up to the US what Christmas gift it will select to get.”

While US military commanders believe the North’s response could involve the testing of a long-range missile, Trump brushed off the warning, saying maybe the surprise is a “nice present.”

“We’ll find out what the surprise is and we’ll deal with it very successfully,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort on Tuesday. “We’ll see what happens.”

“Maybe it’s a present where he sends me a beautiful vase as opposed to a missile test,” Trump said. “I may get a nice present from him. You don’t know. You never know.”

Meanwhile, US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said at a press conference Friday that the United States was ready “to fight tonight.”

Fears growing of war with N Korea as US says ready ‘to fight tonight’

General Mark Milley, who was next to Esper, also said, the US alliance with Japan and South Korea was “prepared to defend the interests of the United States, Japan and South Korea at a moment’s notice.”

Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, went on to say that “Korea is one of those places in the world where we’ve always maintained high levels of readiness.”

Meanwhile, China called on the United States Tuesday to take immediate action with regard to the implementation of agreements reached with North Korea during last year’s summit in Singapore.

“China calls on US to take concrete steps asap to deliver what has been agreed in Singapore. We encourage DPRK & US to work out a feasible roadmap for establishing a permanent peace regime & realizing complete denuclearization on the Peninsula,” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told the People’s Daily in comments relayed on Twitter by the foreign ministry.

The negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang have been largely stalled since the collapse of a February summit in Hanoi between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

Kim and Trump have already held two official meetings on the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. However, their first meeting, the Singapore Summit held in June 2018, concluded with a broadly-worded agreement, and the second one, the Hanoi Summit, held in February, collapsed without an agreement.

The North has been under multiple rounds of harsh sanctions by the UN and the US over its nuclear and missile programs.

Last week, China and Russia proposed the UN Security Council lift some sanctions to break the current deadlock.

US rejects China, Russia's call for lifting of some N Korea sanctions

A US State Department official, however, responded by saying it was not the time to consider such an action when North Korea was “threatening to conduct an escalated provocation, refusing to meet to discuss denuclearization, and continuing to maintain and advance its prohibited weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs.”

Despite the sanctions, Pyongyang has taken several unilateral steps to show its goodwill, including demolishing at least one nuclear test site and agreeing to allow international inspectors into a missile engine test facility.

Source: Presstv

25, December 2019

Heavy hearts as Notre-Dame misses Xmas mass for first time since 1803 ⁰

Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris was unable to hold Christmas Eve Mass for the first time in more than 200 years — after a fire ravaged its structure in April.

With heavy hearts, French Catholics instead gathered at the nearby church of Saint-Germain l’Auxerrois, a few hundred metres away, for a service celebrated by the cathedral’s rector Patrick Chauvet.

“It isn’t the same feeling but it’s still a Christmas Mass,” said 16-year-old Juliette, who had made the 700-kilometre trip from Aix with her family. “There will be a thought for Notre-Dame tonight, that’s for sure.”

“We have been crying since April 15, and today even more,” said Danielle, a Parisian, who attended last year’s mass at the Paris landmark. However, she was lifted by the choir of Notre-Dame, who performed at the mass.

Meanwhile, workers continue to repair and rebuild the cherished cathedral.

Notre-Dame, part of a UNESCO world heritage site on the banks of the River Seine lost its gothic spire, roof and many precious artefacts in the fire, which was watched by huge crowds.

President Emmanuel Macron has set a timetable of five years to completely repair the eight-centuries-old structure, which remains shrouded in scaffolding with a vast crane looming over it.

Paris prosecutors suspect criminal negligence and opened an investigation in June, suggesting a stray cigarette butt or an electrical fault could be the culprit.

The culture ministry said in October that nearly one billion euros ($1.1 billion) had been pledged or raised for the reconstruction.

Source: AFP