Monthly Archives: June 2021

13, June 2021

Brazil favourites to win Copa America, as Covid-19 strikes rival teams ⁰

Brazil’s international players were reluctant to play in the Copa America on home soil. Now that they’re committed, they’re favourites to win it.

Argentina still looms as a threat to Brazil’s title defence, but now as a visiting team.

Argentina and Colombia were dropped as tournament co-hosts before Brazil contentiously stepped in late to stage the continental championship.

Being away from home takes some pressure off Lionel Messi and his Argentina team.

The Copa America will kick off Sunday with defending champion Brazil against Venezuela at the Mané Garrincha stadium in Brasilia. The final will be on July 10 at the Maracanã stadium in Rio de Janeiro, one of the Covid-19 epicentres in Brazil, where more than 480,000 have died from the coronavirus.

Eleven players have already tested positive for Covid-19 upon arriving in Brazil. Eight are Venezuelans and three Bolivians, football bodies of the two countries said on Saturday.

Bolivia’s first match in the tournament will be on Monday against Paraguay.

South American football body CONMEBOL stressed in a statement that “the matches will be played as scheduled”.

Brazil health minister Marcelo Queiroga said Venezuela players who have the virus will return only after they test negative. He said there’s no reason for the Brazil match not to take place on Sunday.

No spectators will be allowed to attend any Copa America matches because of restrictions in place for the pandemic, which has already delayed the tournament by a year.

No boycott

Brazil players ended speculation about a potential boycott by issuing a unified statement on Wednesday saying they are “unsatisfied” with the decision to move the tournament to their country, but it wouldn’t stop them representing their national team.

And if South American World Cup qualifiers are anything to go by, the Copa America title is Brazil’s to lose. Brazil has won all six of its games and is six points clear of second place Argentina. With the likes of Neymar on board, coach Tite expects not only to defend the title lifted in 2019, but also use the next 30 days to prepare for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

Many tests are expected. Alisson is no longer the team’s unchallenged goalkeeper, with Ederson getting more chances to start.

Captain Casemiro is yet to find out whether he will play as defensive midfielder next to Douglas Luiz, Fred or Lucas Paqueta. And four options appear up front to work with Neymar: Gabriel Jesus, Roberto Firmino, Richarlison and Gabriel Barbosa.

Argentina placed third in the 2019 Copa America, but the team has improved under coach Lionel Scaloni.

Defender Cristian Romero, and midfielders Leandro Paredes and Giovani Lo Celso are now trusted to break the opponents’ lines. Up front, Lautaro Martínez and Sergio Agüero bring the same respect.

And that means Messi, who turns 34 later this month, doesn’t need to be part of every play for Argentina to win.

“Argentina always dominates, sometimes in a very vertical way,” Scaloni said. “If you look at all our matches in qualifiers, we deserved to win. But at soccer, deserving doesn’t count.”

Argentina hasn’t won a major title since the 1993 Copa America.

An improved Colombia

Colombia has improved since the return of coach Reinaldo Rueda. It trashed Peru 3-0 in Lima and got a late equaliser to force a 2-2 draw after being two goals down against Argentina. Copa America could further enhance the team, which will not have midfielder James Rodríguez because of fitness problems.

Uruguay has struggled despite counting on Luis Suárez and Edison Cavani, who will return to the team after a two-match suspension in World Cup qualifiers. Uruguay hasn’t won any of its three latest matches on the road to Qatar.

“We have to be aware there’s things to improve as always and get ready for something that gives us a lot of aspiration,” Uruguay coach Oscar Tabárez said after Tuesday’s 0-0 draw with Venezuela.

Peru, the 2019 Copa America runner-up, is struggling in World Cup qualifying but hoping a 2-1 win at Ecuador earlier this week might spark a change in momentum. Coach Ricardo Garca decided not to bring in striker Paolo Guerrero, who is returning from injury. He will be relying instead on Santiago Ormeño, who plays at Mexico’s León.

Chile coach Martín Lasarte has decided to use an inexperienced squad in Copa America, making it more of a priority to qualify for the next World Cup.

“We will use it as a tool to strengthen younger players,” he said. Chile is currently in sixth place in qualifying.

The tournament will be divided into two groups of five. Group A includes Argentina, Bolivia, Uruguay, Chile and Paraguay. Brazil is in Group B with Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador and Peru. The four best of each group advance to the knockout stage.

Quarterfinals will take place on July 2 at the Nilton Santos and Goiania’s Olimpico stadium, and July 3 at Olimpico stadium and Brasilia’s Mané Garrincha.

The semifinals will be at the Nilton Santos stadium in Rio on July 5 and in Brasilia the next day.

(FRANCE 24 with AP)

13, June 2021

Three Ivory Coast military killed after their vehicle ran over explosive device ⁰

Two soldiers and a police officer were killed when their vehicle hit an explosive device in northeast Ivory Coast near the border with Burkina Faso, the military said Sunday.

Army chief of staff General Lassina Doumbia said that at around 7:00 pm (1900 GMT) on Saturday a reconnaissance patrol “was the subject of a complex attack” in the restive region.

“It was an ambush using an improvised explosive device which caused one of the vehicles to blow up,” he said in a statement.

“The detachment’s response were able to secure the area and provide assistance to the injured,” he said, adding that three people were killed and four injured.

The chief of staff also reassured the population that defence and security forces would “continue to act for their protection” and called on them to cooperate.

A security source had earlier told AFP that three were killed in the ambush, which came a week after another attack by suspected jihadists killed an Ivorian soldier in Tougbo town a few kilometres (miles) from the border.

It also comes just two days after Ivory Coast and France inaugurated a counter-terrorism academy near Abidjan intended to ramp up the Sahel region’s ability to counter a widespread jihadist threat.

Security experts have warned that the area’s bloody jihadist insurgency could spread southwards to countries on the Gulf of Guinea.

It was the fourth attack in the west African region in just over two months.

The latest spate of assaults dates back to March, when dozens of suspected Islamists killed three members of the Ivorian security forces in a twin raid on army positions near the border with Burkina.

“Three terrorists” were killed and four were arrested, the army said.

These attacks have been blamed on jihadists who are active in Burkina Faso, as well as neighbouring Mali and Niger.

French drawdown

The Sahel insurgency sprang up in northern Mali in 2012 before advancing into Niger and Burkina Faso in 2015.

Ivory Coast was first hit in a jihadist attack in March 2016, when 19 people died in a raid on Grand-Bassam, a seaside resort near Abidjan.

In June 2020, 14 soldiers were killed in an attack on Kafolo.

“Northern Ivory Coast along the border with Burkina Faso is coming under the heel of jihadist groups. This region constitutes an important security aspect for the Ivorian state,” Ivorian anti-terrorism expert Lassina Diarra told AFP recently.

On Thursday, Ivorian Prime Minister Patrick Achi and French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian attended the formal inauguration of the International Academy for the Fight Against Terrorism just outside Abidjan.

Ivorian Defence Minister Tene Birahima Ouattara said the academy would be “a focal point of regional competence in the anti-terror fight to benefit the stability of our states and the security of our populations.”

Former colonial power France already plays a strategic role in the region with a 5,100-strong military presence at the head of Operation Barkhane.

But French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday announced a troop drawdown and a new international task force, promising “a profound transformation of our military presence in the Sahel”.

Details of the pullback have yet to be made public, but Macron said several hundred French troops would remain in the region as part of the so-called Takuba international task force.

Source: AFP

12, June 2021

Dabney Yerima: French Cameroun killing of Ambazonians is state terrorism ⁰

Southern Cameroons Vice President Dabney Yerima has denounced as an act of state terrorism the fatal shooting of more than ten children, including three elderly women by Cameroon government forces in the North West region.

The Southern Cameroons Broadcasting Cooperation (SCBC) cited Yerima as saying in a press statement that the killing in the North West region now being denied by the French Cameroun regime in Yaoundé was an act of organized state terror and would have serious consequences for the occupying French Cameroun troops.

The Ambazonia Interim Government (IG) announced late on Friday that pro French Cameroun armed militias known as Atanga Nji Boys have blocked the main road linking Bamenda to Wum preventing the flow of food and medicine. The IG also said the Atanga Nji Boys were harassing the sick and the elderly and putting the blame on Ambazonia Restoration Forces.

Several Southern Cameroons activists have also reported that the Bafut passage that links Bamenda to Menchum Division is now under the control of the Atanga Nji Boys with support from Yaoundé.

Vice President Yerima described the latest deadly violence in the Northern Zone of Southern Cameroons as an attempt by the 88-year-old corrupt French Cameroun leader Paul Biya to elicit reactions that would enable him to transfer power to his ill equip and poorly educated son Franck Biya in his final days of his grip on power in French Cameroun.

The exiled Southern Cameroons leader called for an urgent intervention of the United States and the European Union to stop the killings going on in Southern Cameroons and to condemn the French Cameroun genocidal campaign.

Dabney Yerima also offered his condolences to all suffering Southern Cameroons families and wished a speedy recovery for the wounded Amba fighters.

By Chi Prudence Asong with files from Fon Lawrence

12, June 2021

Italy launches Euro 2021 with commanding win over lacklustre Turkey ⁰

Italy kicked off the European Championship in emphatic style on Friday as they delivered a commanding performance to sweep past toothless Turkey 3-0 in the Stadio Olimpico and stamp their early authority on Group A.

After a goalless first half, an own goal and strikes by Ciro Immobile and Lorenzo Insigne were just reward for the home side, who played with relentless positivity from the start.

Their dispiriting failure to qualify for the 2018 World Cup looked a distant memory as they stretched their unbeaten run to 28 matches in a buoyant atmosphere.

They were helped by a flat display from Turkey, who lost their fifth consecutive opening match of a European Championship finals and barely mustered a worthwhile attack all night.

“It was important to start well here in Rome and it is a joy for us and for all the Italians,” said coach Roberto Mancini.

“We produced a good performance and I think we satisfied everyone, for the fans and all the Italians watching. (But) there are six games to go and there are a lot of good teams.”

Switzerland and Wales, who meet in the group’s second game in Baku on Saturday, always knew Italy were the group favourites but the size of their task has suddenly looked somewhat bigger.

Strong start

After a build-up featuring a spine-tingling rendition of Nessun Dorma by opera singer Andrea Bocelli – channelling thoughts of Italia ’90 – a spectacular fireworks display and a typically raucous rendition of Italy’s national anthem, the 16,000-strong crowd was in fine voice by kick-off. They were given plenty to cheer too as Italy made all the early running against a Turkish team happy to sit deep and invite pressure. However, Mancini’s side were left frustrated in their efforts to break through the wall of red shirts.

Giorgio Chiellini had a header tipped over with a spectacular one-handed save by Ugurcan Cakir and Immobile nodded a cross wide as Italy went in at the break with 14 attempts to none from Turkey – but without a goal.

They kept probing and their patience was rewarded when Berardi fired a cross into the six-yard box where Demiral chested the ball into the net – the first time in a European Championship that the tournament’s opening goal was an own goal.

The ever-dangerous Leonardo Spinazzola had a shot beaten away and Manuel Locatelli’s low effort was palmed wide before Immobile doubled Italy’s lead by pouncing on Cakir’s parry from another Spinazzola effort to neatly knock in the rebound.

The Azzurri’s dominance was rewarded again when Immobile threaded a pass to Insigne, who placed a precise finish into the bottom corner with 11 minutes remaining.

It marked the first time Italy had scored three goals in a match at the Euros at their 39th attempt and capped a perfect start.

Mancini had told his players they should enjoy themselves and seek to entertain and that was exactly what they did for a jubilant home crowd.

There was only gloom in the visiting camp as veteran coach Senol Gunes, who led Turkey to third place at the 2002 World Cup, apologised for the performance.

“I was expecting a better game, and I am disappointed and we are sorry,” he said. “Italy totally controlled the game.”

On June 16, Italy face Switzerland in Rome and Turkey take on Wales in Baku in the second round of Group A games.

Source: REUTERS

12, June 2021

Macron will reset relations with UK if Johnson ‘keeps his word’ on Brexit ⁰

French President Emmanuel Macron offered on Saturday to reset relations with Britain as long as Prime Minister Boris Johnson stands by the Brexit divorce deal he signed with the European Union.

Since Britain completed its exit from the EU late last year, relations with the bloc and particularly France have soured, with Macron becoming the most vocal critic of London’s refusal to honour the terms of part of its Brexit deal.

At a meeting at the Group of Seven rich nations in southwestern England, Macron told Johnson the two countries had common interests, but that ties could improve only if Johnson kept his word on Brexit, a source said.

“The president told Boris Johnson there needed to be a reset of the Franco-British relationship,” the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said.

“This can happen provided that he keeps his word with the Europeans,” the source said, adding that Macron spoke in English to Johnson.

‘Shared approach’

The Elysee Palace said that France and Britain shared a common vision and common interests on many global issues and “a shared approach to transatlantic policy”.

Johnson will meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel later on Saturday, where she could also raise the dispute over a part of the EU divorce deal that is called the Northern Ireland Protocol.

The British leader, who is hosting the G7 meeting, wants the summit to focus on global issues, but has stood his ground on trade with Northern Ireland, calling on the EU to be more flexible in its approach to easing trade to the province from Britain.

The protocol aims to keep the province, which borders EU member Ireland, in both the United Kingdom’s customs territory and the EU’s single market. But London says the protocol is unsustainable in its current form because of the disruption it has caused to supplies of everyday goods to Northern Ireland.

Source: REUTERS

11, June 2021

Chinese official found dead amid probe into fatal ultramarathon ⁰

A top official from the Chinese county that hosted a fatal ultramarathon last month has been found dead, authorities said Friday, as 27 people face punishment over the incident.

In May, extreme weather at an ultramarathon in northwestern Gansu province killed 21 runners when freezing rain, high winds and hail hit competitors.

The deadly incident sparked calls for more regulation and raised questions over why organisers had apparently ignored the incoming weather.

On Friday, provincial authorities told a press conference that the Communist Party secretary of Jingtai county — which hosted the event — had been found dead.

Li Zuobi was confirmed to have died after falling from the building where he lived. Police received the incident report on Wednesday, and have since ruled out homicide.

27 people, including municipal government officials, face criminal charges or disciplinary actions over the deadly ultramarathon.

Among those punished include the party secretary and mayor of Baiyin city — which holds jurisdiction over Jingtai — as well as the magistrate of the county, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

Last month’s incident also led to a suspension of sports competitions that lacked national safety standards, including events such as mountain trail running and ultra-long distance running.

Source: AFP

11, June 2021

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Cameroon gov’t military spokesman sends out conflicting signals on war ⁰

Cameroon government military spokesman Cyrille Serge Atonfack says soldiers did not carry out any attack on Southern Cameroons civilians in Ako in Donga-Mantung and Bafanji in Balikumbat. Captain Atonfack noted in a poorly worded statement in the French language that troops loyal to the Francophone regime in Yaoundé have suspended its attacks in Southern Cameroons.

The Cameroon government army spokesman contradicted himself in the same press release when he claimed that a military operation was carried out in the vicinity of Ekuru in the Nkambe district by the Francophone dominated army.

The 88-year-old President Biya and his French Cameroun political elites with support from France — launched a brutal war against the English speaking people of Southern Cameroons. The ongoing war was declared to crush the British Southern Cameroons uprising and it’s Interim Government.

The offensive has failed to achieve its goals, but pushed Southern Cameroons-Ambazonia to the brink, killed thousands of innocent people, and destroyed the territory’s impoverished administrative infrastructure.

Captain Cyrille Serge Atonfack’s remarks come amid a four year offensive by the Cameroon government army to restore French Cameroun dominance in the rural areas of Southern Cameroons.

The leader of the Ambazonian nation and its people President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe say the French Cameroun aggressors have to end all their attacks against Southern Cameroons, take out all their forces, end their simultaneous and crippling occupation of the territory, compensate Southern Cameroons victims before entering any peace process that will determine the future of the two Cameroons.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

11, June 2021

Disgraced Cameroonian Head of State rushed to a Yaoundé hospital ⁰

The disgraced president Paul Biya (88) was hospitalized for the first time in his country of birth late on Wednesday after he reportedly suffered a minor vascular incident, Cameroon Intelligence Report sources in Yaoundé said.

We gathered that Biya did not spend a night in the hospital facility as his private doctor who is now a powerful personality in his entourage revealed that his general condition was satisfactory.

Our Yaoundé city reporter who contributed to this report said members of the Biya family had feared that the corrupt Francophone leader had probably suffered a stroke.

Biya has high blood pressure and has been suffering from arteriosclerosis.

Nobody in the current Ngute government including the so-called ruling CPDM barons have access to the president’s bill of health. The regime and its media war lords are now teleguiding the focus on Niat Marcel, leader of the House of Senate and the constitutional next-of-kin to Biya.

A medic at the National Social Insurance Hospital in Yaoundé, where the 88-year-old recently had an examination was heard saying that Etoudi warned the management of the hospital not to release any information on the nature of the illness of the head of state.

French speaking Africans have little faith in medical bulletins about their leader’s health. In Guinea, Gabon, Togo, Ivory Coast, heads of state have died after hiding their various cancers from the public. The late Omar Bongo of Gabon was diagnosed with HIV but with French support issued fake medical reports for decades.

By Rita Akana in Yaounde

10, June 2021

President Biden lands in UK with message for Prime Minister Johnson ⁰

U.S. President Joe Biden will bring a grave Brexit warning to his first meeting with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson: Prevent a row with the European Union from imperilling the delicate peace in Northern Ireland.

On his first trip abroad since taking office in January, Biden meets Johnson on Thursday in the English seaside resort of Carbis Bay ahead of a Friday-Sunday G7 summit, a NATO summit on Monday, a U.S.-EU summit on Tuesday and a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Geneva the following day.

Biden will try to use the trip to burnish his multilateral credentials after the tumult of Donald Trump’s presidency, which left many U.S. allies in Europe and Asia bewildered and some alienated.

Biden, though, has an uncomfortable message for Johnson, one of the leaders of the 2016 Brexit campaign: Stop heated EU divorce negotiations from undermining a 1998 U.S.-brokered peace deal known as the Good Friday Agreement that ended three decades of bloodshed in Northern Ireland.

“President Biden has been crystal clear about his rock-solid belief in the Good Friday Agreement as the foundation for peaceful co-existence in Northern Ireland,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters aboard Air Force One.

“Any steps that imperil it or undermine it would not be welcomed by the United States,” said Sullivan, who declined to characterise Johnson’s actions as imperilling the peace.

Britain’s exit from the European Union strained the peace in Northern Ireland to breaking point because the 27-nation bloc wants to protect its markets, yet a border in the Irish Sea cuts off the British province from the rest of the United Kingdom. Northern Ireland shares a border with EU member Ireland.

Such is Biden’s concern over Northern Ireland that Yael Lempert, the top U.S. diplomat in Britain, issued London with a demarche – a formal diplomatic reprimand – for “inflaming” tensions, the Times newspaper reported.

Biden will also speak on Thursday about donating more COVID-19 vaccines to poor countries.

End of the ‘Troubles’

The 1998 peace deal largely brought an end to the “Troubles” – three decades of conflict between Irish Catholic nationalist militants and pro-British Protestant “loyalist” paramilitaries that killed 3,600 people.

Biden, who is proud of his Irish heritage, will make a statement of principle about the importance of that peace deal, Sullivan said.

“He’s not issuing threats or ultimatums, he’s going to simply convey his deep-seated belief that we need to stand behind and protect this protocol,” Sullivan said.

Although Britain formally left the EU in 2020, the two sides are still trading threats over the Brexit deal after London unilaterally delayed the implementation of the Northern Irish clauses of the deal.

The EU and Britain tried to solve the border riddle with the Northern Ireland Protocol of the Brexit agreement, which keeps the province in both the United Kingdom’s customs territory and the EU’s single market.

Pro-British unionists say the Brexit deal that Johnson signed contravenes the 1998 peace deal and London has said the protocol is unsustainable in its current form after supplies of everyday goods to Northern Ireland were disrupted.

Britain, home to a large Airbus facility, and the European Union are hoping to resolve a nearly 17-year old dispute with the United States over aircraft subsidies to Boeing and Airbus.

U.S., British and EU officials have expressed optimism that a settlement can be reached before July 11, when currently suspended tariffs will come back into force on all sides.

One source close to the negotiations said the discussions were progressing well but a deal was unlikely to be reached before the U.S.-EU summit next week.

Johnson, who wrote a biography of British wartime leader Winston Churchill, will agree with Biden an “Atlantic Charter”, modelled on the 1941 deal struck by Churchill and President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

The two leaders will agree to a task force to look at resuming UK-U.S. travel as soon as possible.

(REUTERS)

10, June 2021

Corrupt France: Jail term sought for man who slapped President Macron ⁰

Prosecutors called Thursday for a 18-month jail sentence for a man who slapped French President Emmanuel Macron across the face this week as he appeared for a fast-track court hearing in southeast France.

Damien Tarel, a 28-year-old medieval history enthusiast, has been in custody since the assault on Tuesday and risks a maximum three-year jail sentence and a fine of 45,000 euros ($55,000).

Speaking at court in the town of Valence, prosecutor Alex Perrin called for an 18-month prison term after describing the slap as “absolutely unacceptable” and “an act of deliberate violence”.

Under French law, prison sentences of less than two years can be converted into non-custodial punishment, meaning it is unlikely that Tarel would spend time behind bars even if the court followed the prosecution’s plea.

The long-haired history buff and board games enthusiast told investigators that he “acted instinctively and without thinking” after waiting for Macron outside a school in the village of Tain-l’Hermitage.

In court, he expressed sympathy for the anti-government “yellow vest” movement and said that he and two friends had considered throwing an egg or a cream pie at the head of state during his visit to the Drome region, according to the BFM news channel.

“Macron represents the decline of our country,” he told the court.

Tarel, unemployed and living on benefits with his disabled girlfriend, said he had been annoyed by Macron’s decision to come to greet him — “an electoral tactic that I didn’t appreciate”, BFM reported.

In a video of the incident, a smiling Macron can be seen striding towards a crowd of onlookers including Tarel who are being kept behind a barrier.

– Social media –

Macron has shrugged off the assault, calling it an “isolated event”, and he has vowed to continue meeting voters despite concerns for his personal security.

Asked about it again during an interview on Thursday with BFM, he called it a “stupid, violent act” and suggested it was a consequence of the poisonous atmosphere found on social media.

“You get used to the hatred on social media that becomes normalised,” he said. “And then when you’re face-to-face with someone, you think it’s the same thing. That’s unacceptable.”

Leaders across the political spectrum have united in condemning the slap, with many seeing it as a symptom of the fraught political climate and declining standards of public debate just weeks from regional elections and 10 months from presidential polls.

“The political climate is turning to vinegar. It’s dangerous what’s happening,” senior leftist MP and regional election candidate Clementine Autain told France Info.

Others saw the assault as a sign of how Macron, a reformist former investment banker, continues to inspire visceral rejection from many French people.

His presidency was rocked by the anti-government “yellow vest” protests in 2018-2019, which were driven in part by anger at his economic reforms as well as his abrasive personality.

Macron, 43, whose personal ratings have risen recently, is expected to seek a second term next year.

Polls show him holding a narrow lead over his main rival, far-right leader Marine Le Pen.

Other modern French presidents have been targeted in shootings, including post-war leader Charles de Gaulle and Jacques Chirac.

In 2011, right-winger Nicolas Sarkozy had a security scare in southwest France when he was grabbed violently by the shoulder by a 32-year-old local government employee.

Source: AFP