Monthly Archives: August 2020

25, August 2020

Ronaldinho released after five-month stay in Paraguay penal system ⁰

Former Brazil star Ronaldinho was released Monday by a Paraguayan judge after five months in detention over a forged passport.

Judge Gustavo Amarilla also released Ronaldinho’s brother Roberto de Assis Moreira, who also had been held for a month in jail and another four months under house arrest in a hotel in Paraguay’s capital, Asuncion, for the same charge.

The 40-year-old former World Cup winner “is free to travel to whatever country in the world he wants but he must inform us if he changes his permanent residence” for a period of one year, the judge said.

“He has no restrictions except for the fulfillment of reparations for damage to society.”

Dressed in jeans, a black beret and black shirt, Ronaldinho accepted the terms of his release, which include payment of $90,000 damages. His brother, who is also Ronaldinho’s business manager, must pay $110,000.

The pair are also expected to appear before a judge in Brazil every three months — Ronaldinho for a year and his brother for two.

Amarilla accepted a recommendation by four prosecutors to avoid the need for an oral trial.

“There is no indication that he has any personal characteristics or criminal behaviour that … would put society at risk,” the prosecutor said prior to Monday’s trial.

Prosecutors did not believe Ronaldinho took part in the plan to manufacture the fake Paraguayan passports but believed de Assis Moreira was aware that the passports were false.

The brothers arrived in Paraguay on March 4 without any issues, with Ronaldinho, the 2005 Ballon d’Or winner, due to take part in an event in support of disadvantaged children.

However, two days later, the pair were taken into police custody when investigators raided their hotel following the discovery they had fake documents.

After being held in a police station in Asuncion, where Ronaldinho celebrated his 40th birthday on March 21, the two men had been under house arrest for more than four months in a luxury hotel in the capital, on bail of $1.6 million.

The investigation has since expanded into a case of possible money laundering.

Some 18 people have already been arrested in connection with the case, most of them immigration officials or police officers.

Ronaldinho, considered one of the greatest footballers of all time, was crucial in Brazil’s 2002 World Cup win.

He played for European giants such as Barcelona, AC Milan and Paris Saint-Germain during a hugely successful 10-year stint in Europe.

He won the Champions League and two La Liga titles with Braca and Serie A with Milan.

After returning home to Brazil he won the Copa Libertadores — South America’s equivalent of the Champions Legaue — with Atletico Mineiro.

Source: AFP

25, August 2020

Republican party formally nominates Donald Trump as presidential candidate ⁰

President Donald Trump adopted a grim tone in remarks to Republicans who formally backed his bid for a second term on Monday, warning without evidence that he could face a “rigged election” in November.

Trump repeated his claim that voting by mail, a longstanding feature of American elections that is expected to be far more common during the coronavirus pandemic, could lead to an increase in fraud. Independent election security experts say voter fraud is quite rare in the United States.

Trump spoke in an unscheduled appearance on the first day of the sharply scaled-back Republican National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, after he received enough votes to formally win the nomination to take on his Democratic rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, in the Nov. 3 election.

“The only way they can take this election away from us is if this is a rigged election,” Trump said. “We’re going to win this election.”

Party members are meeting amid a coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 176,000 Americans, erased millions of jobs and eroded the president’s standing among voters.

As he has done repeatedly, Trump described states’ responses to infections of Covid-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus, in starkly partisan terms, casting lockdowns and other steps recommended by public health officials as attempts to influence voting in November.

“What they’re doing is using Covid to steal an election,” Trump said. “They’re using Covid to defraud the American people – all of our people – of a fair and free election.”

The in-person proceedings, a far smaller meeting than originally planned, still marked a contrast with Democrats, who opted for an almost entirely virtual format instead of gathering in the election battleground state of Wisconsin. That change was intended to reduce the risk of the virus being spread at the political event.

“We did this out of respect for your state,” said Trump, targeting his message at the people of North Carolina, which is expected to be competitive in the November election.

Trump earlier this year moved the convention to Florida, his newly adopted home state, to avoid restrictions on gatherings in North Carolina due to the coronavirus, then abandoned that plan when infection rates soared in Florida.

Donald Trump says 2020 Presidential election ‘most important in the history of the US’ during GOP convention

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Republicans said their convention would offer a more hopeful message, with an emphasis on “law and order,” gun rights, tax cuts and the “forgotten” men and women of America.

The party opted not to vote on a traditional platform document detailing its policy goals, instead saying that it supports what Trump is doing. Trump’s campaign released a series of bullet-point goals, including a promise to “create 10 million new jobs in 10 months.”

In another contrast with the Democratic event, which featured all three living former Democratic presidents, and prior nominees, the Republican event will not include speeches from that party’s past living president or candidates.

Neither former President George W. Bush nor 2012 Republican presidential nominee Senator Mitt Romney, who voted to convict Trump at the president’s impeachment trial, plan to speak. Also absent from the schedule are several Republicans facing close elections in November, including Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina.

Break with Tradition

With the pandemic not yet under control, good news has been in short supply for Trump. His performance as president was sharply criticized by Biden and former President Barack Obama at the Democratic convention.

Biden’s campaign said Trump would attempt to change the subject, delivering “more desperate, wild-eyed lies and toxic division, in vain attempts to distract from his mismanagement,” according to spokesman Andrew Bates.

“What they won’t hear is what American families have urgently needed and been forced to go without for over seven consecutive months: any coherent strategy for defeating the pandemic.”

The president, a former reality television star, plans to hold several live events with in-person audiences, in contrast to Democrats, who showed pre-taped segments or delivered speeches in mostly empty venues.

Trump’s planned daily speeches are a break with the tradition of the nominee keeping a low profile before an acceptance speech on the convention’s final night.

Overnight, demonstrators and law enforcement clashed for a third straight night near the Charlotte Convention Center with police using pepper spray on the crowd. The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department said in a statement that officers arrested five people late on Sunday.

On Tuesday, Trump’s wife, Melania, will give a speech from the White House, while Pence follows on Wednesday from Baltimore’s Fort McHenry historic site.

Trump will accept his party’s nomination on Thursday night before a crowd on the White House South Lawn. Democrats have criticized the move as a partisan use of public property.

“Trump has four days to make two cases: One is ‘we know what we are doing and have done a great job, obviously interrupted by the virus,'” said Constantin Querard, president of Grassroots Partners, an Arizona-based conservative political consultancy.

“And then you have to knock the Democratic ticket for being as far-left as they are,” he said.

Source: REUTERS

24, August 2020

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON THE ARMED CONFLICT IN THE SOUTHERN CAMEROONS TO HOLD FROM OCTOBER 30 – NOVEMBER 1 ⁰

Originally planned for March 2020 the International Conference on the Armed Conflict in the Southern Cameroons was postponed indefinitely due to the growing COVID-19 pandemic. We are pleased to announce that this conference will now take place from October 30 – November 1, 2020 and will be online only.

The last few months have seen, unfortunately, a severe escalation in the armed conflict in the Southern Cameroons. Gross human rights abuses are registered daily with women and children bearing the brunt of it. Despite a recent United Nations resolution for a global ceasefire, the conflict in the Southern Cameroons is rather escalating. There is currently a stalemate in the Swiss initiative and no credible pathway for a broad-based negotiation to resolve the conflict.

The Coalition for Dialogue and Negotiations has again undertaken consultations in view of identifying a pathway for durable negotiations. All Southern Cameroonians must come together to define a path to durable negotiations and an end to the armed conflict.

Given the urgency of the situation and after due consultations with various stakeholders, we have rescheduled the International Conference on the Armed Conflict in Southern Cameroons to October 30 to November 1, 2020. Due to travel restrictions this conference will be organized VIRTUALLY.

The 3-DAY Virtual Conference will bring together Southern Cameroonians from all walks of life: civil society leaders, all leaders of “restorationist” (separatist) groups, Southern Cameroons political leaders, activists, religious and traditional leaders, legislators, businessmen and businesswomen, youth leaders, academics, media personalities and members of the diaspora.

The theme of the conference is:

“Defining a Pathway for Our Future”

The Conference has two main objectives:

Engage all segments and professionals of Southern Cameroons origin to establish the majority view on a pathway to a permanent negotiated solution to the armed conflict, and

Develop a detailed framework for a robust post-conflict reconstruction.

The seven previously established Working Groups (WG) will guide deliberations throughout the conference. WGs are made up of technical experts, representatives from major stakeholder groups and interested Southern Cameroonians. The seven Working Groups are: (1) Mediation and Negotiations; (2) Healthcare and Humanitarian Relief; (3) Judiciary and Constitutional Affairs; (4) Peacebuilding and Public Security; (5) Economic Reconstruction; (6) Education and Vocational Empowerment; and (7) Governance.

The Coalition has put in place a credible authentication process to ensure the decisions and positions during this conference represent the views of Southern Cameroonian attendees. We strongly encourage Southern Cameroonians from all walks of life to become actively engaged. The stakes could not be higher. We need to do everything possible to bring a durable end to this escalating war.

24, August 2020

Deadly violence erupts in Ivory Coast after Ouattara’s third-term bid ⁰

At least two people were killed in ethnic clashes in Ivory Coast following President Alassane Ouattara’s controversial announcement he would run for a third term, a hospital source and local residents said Sunday.

Young opposition supporters on Saturday took to the streets to voice loud and violent protest in several major cities, especially the southern cocoa growing hub of Divo, after Ouattara accepted his party’s nomination for the October poll.

“One person evacuated to the regional hospital succumbed to their injuries and died this morning,” said a hospital source in Divo, adding that “several were badly wounded with machetes”.

Several local people also said they had seen the body of a teenager killed in a fire in a local bar.

Ouattara was officially anointed as candidate by his ruling RHDP despite having already served two terms — the maximum permitted under the constitution — since 2010.

He had planned to hand the reins to prime minister Amadou Gon Coulibaly, but his presumed successor died of a heart attack in July.

Six people had already died in violence following Ouattara’s August 6 announcement that he would run again, while 100 were hurt.

The president and his supporters say a 2016 constitutional tweak has reset the clock on the two-term limit.

“Going back on my decision was not easy” but “there is nothing preventing me from standing,” Ouattara said Saturday.

‘Armed with machetes and clubs’

Saturday’s violence in Divo saw a bus station, bars and shops set on fire and looted, MP Famoussa Coulibay told AFP, while barricades were set up and tyres burned in former president Laurent Gbagbo’s hometown of Gagnoa.

Election authorities on Friday rejected an appeal by Gbagbo as well as former rebel leader Guillaume Soro to be allowed to run in October.

In Divo, there were clashes between the local Dida tribe and Dioula people from northern Ivory Coast who back Ouattara.

“It was very violent. The young men were armed with machetes and clubs. A lot of people were hurt and I saw a young man being beaten. He lost consciousness and had to be taken away,” said one witness who asked not to be named.

Coulibay said that by the time he toured the city Sunday, “calm had been restored. There were a lot of police”.

He said 21 people had been wounded including eight seriously.

(AFP)

24, August 2020

Southern Cameroonians supporting Biya complicit in crimes against Ambazonians ⁰

One of the pioneers of the Manyu Liberation Council has roundly denounced Southern Cameroons CPDM officials who are presently cooperating with the Biya French Cameroun regime saying such Ambazonians are complicit in the Yaounde regime’s crimes against the Ambazonian nation.

Seseskou Dr Ako Peter also stated that Southern Cameroons traditional authorities supporting the Yaounde regime are indeed partners in crimes against the Ambazonian people. The senior Manyu figure made the comments in a telephone conversation with Cameroon Concord News late on Sunday.

He also censured efforts by French Cameroun administrative officers to portray a good image of the ruling CPDM crime syndicate, emphasizing that Southern Cameroons villages who still welcome Francophone DOs and SDOs on lame and ridiculous reasons that they wish to resolve chieftaincy issues are actually turning a blind eye to facts, and telling lies in a bid to justify their corrupt mindsets.

“The French Cameroun regime became strong by destroying the Southern Cameroons House of Chiefs and shattering our Southern Cameroons traditional institutions through appointing the wrong persons as chiefs and killing innocent Southern Cameroonians. Biya and his French Cameroun regime remain the worst enemy of the Ambazonian nation, and has been sinister, destructive and dubious in its relationship with the Federal Republic of Ambazonia” Seseskou Dr Ako Peter pointed out.

He said that French Cameroun political elites before and after Biya only think of exploiting the people and resources of Ambazonia.

By Chi Prudence Asong with files from Soter Agbaw-Ebai

24, August 2020

Biya must pay the price for attacks against Southern Cameroonians: Vice President Yerima ⁰

The Southern Cameroons Interim Government has warmed that French Cameroun dictator will pay the price for declaring a war against the people of Ambazonia.

In a televised address to Southern Cameroonians last week, Vice President Dabney Yerima said that the French Cameroun regime and its corrupt leadership must bear the consequences and pay the price for the continued killings going on in the Federal Republic of Ambazonia.

“Over the last three weeks, the barbarisms of the French Cameroun Army and the regime in Yaoundé have been laid bare and the world is witnessing again the unpleasant side of the Yaoundé neo-colonial regime. The past few weeks are a clear sign of its utter desperation in the full realization that our people have decisively rejected annexation and colonial bondage for good. I come to you today on the 34th anniversary of the Lake Nyos disaster to speak of the tragic loss and devastation the Southern Cameroons (Ambazonia) has faced over the last three weeks” Yerima observed.

British Southern Cameroons, home to some eight million people, has been under a Biya French Cameroun imposed war for over four years now which has caused a catastrophic decline in the living standards as well as unprecedented levels of unemployment and unrelenting poverty there.

Vice President Yerima revealed that “On 7 August 2020, a staff of COMINSUD, an implementing partner for several United Nations agencies, was kidnapped from his home and later killed by unidentified armed individuals. On 11 August 2020, an unacceptable and despicable video circulated on social media of the slaughter of a woman in Muyuka. Upon close scrutiny, Ambazonia Intelligence Services identified that the perpetrators spoke with French Cameroun accents.”

“On Wednesday, 12 August 2020, three Southern Cameroonian minors were murdered in their gardens as they hunted for snails by French Cameroun prowling forces. A lawyer commissioned to ascertain the facts surrounding their murder was unlawfully arrested, harassed, detained for two nights. French Cameroun lawless forces continued their genocidal campaign by invading the village of Mautu, in Fako County on 13 August 2020, slaughtered over 30 civilians and recorded themselves dragging the lifeless body of a young man along the streets” the exiled Ambazonia leader furthered.

The Cameroon government army has also launched major operations against Southern Cameroonians residing in the rural areas, killing thousands of Ambazonians each time and shattering the impoverished territory’s already poor infrastructure.

Yerima noted that “Paul Biya and his minions have committed every crime under the sun. Over the last three weeks, we have been reminded of Paul Biya’s atrocities by the hideous execution of a woman in Muyuka, the murder of three children in Tiko, the abduction and brutal execution of four men in Bafut, the massacre in Mautu, the burning of villages in Ikata, the murders in Ndop and the dragging of the body of a slayed young man on the road. These genocidal crimes were committed by Biya’s tribal army and their proxies.”

Ever since the UN Security Council called for an international ceasefire to combat the Covid-19 pandemic, the French Cameroun war machine has been pounding different Southern Cameroons counties through artillery fire and claiming that the military operations were mainly targeting the so-called separatists.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

23, August 2020

Football: Bayern win Champions League as Coman goal defeats PSG ⁰

Bayern Munich won the European Cup for the sixth time on Sunday as Kingsley Coman’s goal gave them a 1-0 win over Paris Saint-Germain in an engrossing Champions League final in Lisbon, completing a fantastic season for the German giants and leaving their opponents still searching for the trophy they covet more than anything.

It was often a cagey final, with a bit of needle between the teams, but chances too, especially before Coman appeared at the back post to head in Joshua Kimmich’s inviting 59th-minute cross and wrap up a treble for a team who had already won the Bundesliga and German Cup.

Hansi Flick’s team will feel they deserved their victory, yet PSG will regret not taking any of the chances that were offered up to them on a surreal occasion at an empty Estadio da Luz.

Kylian Mbappe in particular should have done better than shoot straight at Manuel Neuer right on the stroke of half-time.

The France World Cup-winning forward had spoken of his determination to go down in his country’s history by helping PSG become just the second French winners of European football’s greatest prize.

But they will have to wait for the chance to match Marseille, who won the inaugural Champions League in 1993.

PSG’s Qatari owners spent a combined 402 million euros ($474m) on Neymar and Mbappe in 2017 to win this competition, not just reach the final. However, in the end it was one who got away from Paris who denied them.

The 24-year-old Coman was born in Paris and started his career at PSG, only to leave in 2014 for Juventus, sensing he wouldn’t get the regular football he desired if he stayed put.

He had been on the bench in the semi-final against Lyon but was promoted to the starting line-up for the final, replacing Ivan Perisic on the left wing.

Now he may not be welcome back in his home city again.

But at Bayern he will always be remembered as the man who won them this trophy in 2020, in the club’s 11th final and seven years after they were last European champions.

– Mbappe’s big miss –

Flick’s team have ended this season with 21 straight victories and unbeaten in 30 matches. They deserved to be crowned in a full stadium.

However, only a few hundred lucky invitees were inside the cavernous home of Benfica to see the denouement of the ‘Final Eight’, at the end of a competition so long delayed by the coronavirus pandemic.

The strangest of finals pitted together two clubs who have taken very different routes to becoming part of Europe’s elite, with Bayern’s status as Germany’s most successful and powerful side long established and PSG having left the rest of the French game behind following the Qatari takeover of 2011.

But if this was a mismatch in terms of history, on and off the pitch right now they are almost perfectly balanced.

That translated into the kind of proper match-up on the field that neither side often experiences these days.

Bayern came desperately close to opening the scoring midway through the first half when Lewandowski — looking for his 56th goal of the season — took down an Alphonso Davies cross, turned and struck a shot against the post.

The Pole also came close with a header that was saved by Keylor Navas, PSG’s goalkeeper who won the Champions League three times with Real Madrid and who was returning after injury ruled him out of the semi-final against RB Leipzig.

But Bayern take risks by playing with such a high line, and PSG should have punished them in the first half.

Neymar was denied by an excellent Neuer save after being set up by Mbappe, while Mbappe himself contrived to fire straight at the goalkeeper after David Alaba gited him the ball in the Bayern box.

Alaba had earlier seen his central defensive colleague, Jerome Boateng, limp out seemingly with a recurrence of the hamstring problem that forced him off against Lyon.

Niklas Suele replaced him and helped contain the Paris attack as Bayern held onto their lead.

Bayern had broken the deadlock just before the hour mark in a move that began with a sprayed Thiago Alcantara pass forward, and ended with Coman arriving to head in Kimmich’s perfect delivery.

Neymar ended the game with a yellow card for chopping down Lewandowski, and a runners-up medal, while Bayern celebrated.

Source: AFP

23, August 2020

US: Needing election boost, Trump prepares to dominate party convention ⁰

President Donald Trump will seek to revive his re-election hopes this week at the Republican Party’s largely online convention, battered by the coronavirus pandemic, economic troubles, racial unrest and polls pointing to an uphill fight.

Trump and his top aides strived over the weekend to put an optimistic spin on the convention as he prepares to head Monday to North Carolina to formally launch the four-day event.

“I think we’re going to see something that is going to be very uplifting and positive, that’s what I’d like it to be,” the president told Fox News.

He sought to draw a sharp contrast to the just-ended Democratic convention, which he has called the “darkest, angriest and gloomiest” in history.

Republicans, facing polls that give Democrat Joe Biden an eight to 10-point lead, were also hoping for a boost from a planned Trump announcement Sunday on an advance in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic, which has claimed more than 175,000 lives across the country.

– Provocative lineup –

The coming convention appears to be a highly Trump-centric affair — with the president appearing, unusually, on each of the four days — and with some speakers seen as intentionally provocative.

The scheduled includes a Missouri couple who pointed guns at anti-racist protesters marching past their mansion in June — an image that quickly went viral.

And Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is set to deliver a speech Tuesday in support of Trump during an official visit to Israel.

Such a directly political intervention by the nation’s top diplomat while abroad would be highly unusual.

Moreover, the president plans to deliver his acceptance speech Thursday from the lawn of the White House, shrugging off criticism over the use of the presidential residence for campaign purposes.

– Dealing with the virus –

Charlotte, North Carolina is where the party originally planned to hold its convention before the pandemic intervened, forcing first a shift to Florida and then a quick reimagining of the event as mostly virtual.

A few hundred Republican supporters are slated to gather in Charlotte to hear Trump speak on Monday, but Republican chairwoman Ronna McDaniel insisted that the gathering was being handled safely.

“We tested everybody before they came to Charlotte. We have been testing people on-site,” she told NBC.

Convention speakers includes former ambassador Nikki Haley and Donald Trump Jr. on Monday; First Lady Melania Trump and Pompeo on Tuesday; and Vice President Mike Pence on Wednesday.

While Democrats heard from all living former Democratic presidents as well as former presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and John Kerry, former Republican president George W. Bush is not expected to appear. Bush has been a critic of Trump’s.

– Help from ‘The Apprentice’ –

The event comes only four days after the Democrats — in a history-making all-virtual convention of their own — formally crowned former vice president Biden as the party’s presidential candidate.

Trump, whose rise from New York real estate mogul to political prominence was boosted by his reality TV show “The Apprentice,” has turned to two of the program’s producers to help with convention planning, according to reports.

The Republicans’ effort is expected to incorporate more live broadcasting — an approach holding both opportunity and risk — than the Democratic event.

Republicans are expanding also the nightly program from the two hours presented by Democrats to two and a half hours, with TV networks committed to broadcast the final hour.

Trump is expected to try to impart the best possible spin on his efforts to battle the coronavirus, but polls show most Americans trust Biden far more than him to deal with it.

The president faced further criticism over the weekend from someone uncomfortably close: his sister Maryanne Trump Barry, heard on secretly recorded tapes provided to the Washington Post describing him as cruel, a liar and a man of “no principles.”

Jason Miller, Trump’s senior campaign advisor, responded angrily on NBC, saying, “It’s shameful that the Washington Post came and ran the story yesterday, literally the day after the funeral services for (the president’s brother) Robert Trump.”

Miller joined other Republican aides in dismissing the Democrats’ convention, calling it a “massive grievance-fest” from a party with no “vision for the future.”

The candidates are scheduled to hold three debates, the first on September 29, before Americans cast their ballots on November 3.

Source: AFP

23, August 2020

Football: PSG take on Bayern Munich in first-ever Champions League final ⁰

Kick-off starts at 9pm today Sunday in a historic Champions League final, played behind closed doors in Lisbon due to Covid-19.

French champions PSG are hoping to win club football’s most prestigious tournament for the first time – but Kylian Mbappé, Neymar and teammates face formidable opponents in Bayern Munich, led by striking juggernaut Robert Lewandowski.

France 24 is providing live coverage

23, August 2020

Ivory Coast: Ruling party approves Ouattara’s re-election bid ⁰

Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara was formally chosen by his party Saturday to run for a third term in an October election, despite opposition charges it is unconstitutional. The decision came a day after election authorities rejected the candidacies of the former president, Laurent Gbagbo, and ex-rebel leader Guillaume Soro.

Ouattara, who has been in power since 2010, said in March that he would not stand again but changed his position after the death of prime minister Amadou Gon Coulibaly — seen as his anointed successor — in July.

The announcement came a day after the country’s election authorities rejected appeals by Ivory Coast’s former president Laurent Gbagbo and former rebel leader Guillaume Soro to be allowed to run in the country’s October election.

Outtara’s decision to contest a third term in October has already triggered outrage among opposition and civil society groups, who labelled it a “coup” that risked triggering chaos.

The constitution limits presidents to two terms, but 78-year-old Ouattara — who has served two five-year terms since 2010 — and his supporters argue that a 2016 constitutional tweak reset the clock.

His ruling Houphouetist Rally for Democracy and Peace (RHDP) party said Ouattara was nominated as its candidate at an event attended by 100,000 people in an Abidjan stadium.

“We remain focused on the election, with a record to defend and a project to propose to Ivorians,” party spokesman Mamadou Touré told AFP, branding the street demonstrations against Ouattara’s candidacy a “dismal failure”.

Rival candidates rejected

On Friday, the country’s Independent Electoral Commission (CEI) rejected appeals by Gbagbo and Soro to run in the October election.

“The decisions have been posted since the 18th, the CEI has not granted their requests,” Inza Kigbafori, the CEI communications manager, told AFP.

The shock news heightened tensions before October 31 vote, which takes place in the shadow cast by violence following 2010’s election that killed around 3,000 people.

Ivory Coast, one of the world’s biggest producers of coffee and cocoa, is still traumatised by the post-electoral violence after the 2010 vote, when Gbagbo refused to cede to the victor, Ouattara.

Gbagbo was freed conditionally by the International Criminal Court (ICC) after he was cleared in 2019 of crimes against humanity.

His return to Ivory Coast would be sensitive before the presidential election. His Ivorian Popular Front (FPI) party urged him to throw his hat in the electoral ring.

Soro, a former rebel leader, has been forced into self-imposed exile in France in the face of a long list of legal problems at home.

He was a leader in a 2002 revolt that sliced the former French colony into the rebel-held north and the government-controlled south and triggered years of unrest.

He was once an ally of Ouattara, helping him to power during the post-election crisis in 2010. The two eventually fell out.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)