Monthly Archives: August 2021

Ronaldo misses Juve training as Man City rumours rumble

27, August 2021

Ronaldo misses Juve training as Man City rumours rumble 0

Cristiano Ronaldo will not train with Juventus on Friday, the Serie A giants confirmed to AFP, as rumours of an imminent move to Manchester City gather pace.

Widespread media reports said that Ronaldo left Juve’s Continassa training centre before the start of Friday’s session. Sky Sport Italia reported that the five-time Ballon d’Or winner arrived in the morning to say goodbye to his teammates before leaving at around 10:45 am local time (0845 GMT).

Asked by AFP if Ronaldo would be training with his Juve teammates, a club spokeswoman confirmed that he would not.

According to daily Gazzetta Dello Sport, a deal for superstar Ronaldo to go to Premier League champions Manchester City could be completed with the next 24 hours.

Despite Juventus insisting the 36-year-old was staying, on Thursday Sky claimed the Portugal captain had already cleaned out his locker in the dressing room and is reluctant to make himself available to face Empoli this weekend.

If a deal is to be reached, the clock is ticking with the transfer window set to close on Tuesday.

Premier League champions City have been widely linked with a move for the five-time Ballon d’Or winner after missing out on England captain Harry Kane.

The fee, however, could be a problem with the Italians believed to be wanting in the region of 25 million euros ($29.4 million).

Ronaldo, who has one year remaining on his contract, has also been linked with Paris Saint-Germain and a return to Madrid.

Ronaldo joined Juve in 2018 to huge fanfare.

Last weekend, Juventus coach Massimiliano Allegri insisted that he had received assurances from the Portugal star over his future.

“Let’s clarify this issue, Ronaldo told me that he’s staying,” Allegri said in response to numerous questions on Ronaldo’s form and mindset ahead of Sunday’s Serie A opener at Udinese.

“He has always trained well and has always been available. I’ve read rumours in the papers, but he’s never wanted to leave Juventus.”

Italy’s top scorer last season with 29 goals started the Udinese game on the bench.

– ‘Disrespectful’ rumours –

Last week, Ronaldo himself rubbished reports of a move back to Real Madrid, calling them “disrespectful” and saying that stories of his departure were written with “nobody ever being concerned about trying to find out the actual truth”.

Real have since had an initial bid of 160 million euros for PSG star Kylian Mbappe rejected, but according to French media reports are set to make a second offer of 180 million.

That would close any route for Ronaldo back to the Santiago Bernabeu, although as well as the reports of a possible move to City, there have also been rumours he could join old rival Lionel Messi in Paris to replace Mbappe should the Frenchman leave.

Ronaldo scored 118 goals in 292 appearances for Manchester United early in his career before leaving for Madrid in 2009.

He joined Juve in 2018 after scoring a remarkable 450 goals in 438 matches in a glittering nine-year spell at the Bernabeu that also included four Champions League triumphs.

At Juventus, his hopes of winning another Champions League have been thwarted, with the club failing to get beyond the quarter-finals during his time in Turin.

Last season, they were deposed as Italian champions by Inter Milan.

Source: AFP

Covid-19: Has Delta killed the herd immunity dream?

27, August 2021

Covid-19: Has Delta killed the herd immunity dream? 0

As the Delta variant continues its global surge, experts are questioning whether the long-held goal of achieving herd immunity from Covid-19 through vaccination is still viable.

Herd immunity is achieved when a certain threshold of the global population has either been inoculated against a pathogen or has recovered from infection.

But whether or not it is achievable with Covid-19, with the regular emergence of more infectious strains, is up for debate.

“If the question is ‘will vaccination alone allow us to dampen and control the pandemic?’ the answer is: no,” epidemiologist Mircea Sofonea told AFP.

He said herd immunity hinged on two basic factors.

“That’s the intrinsic infectiousness of the virus and the efficacy of vaccines to protect against infection. And at the moment, that efficacy isn’t there.”

Delta has shown to be roughly 60 percent more transmissible than the Alpha variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, and up to twice as infectious as the original strain that emerged in late 2019.

The more effective the virus becomes at infecting people, the higher the herd immunity threshold becomes.

“Theoretically, it’s a very simple calculation to make,” said epidemiologist Antoine Flahault.

For the original virus, which had a reproduction rate between zero and three — meaning each infected person infects up to three others — herd immunity could have been achieved with around 66 percent of people immunised, Flahault told AFP.

“But if the reproduction rate is eight, as with Delta, that puts us closer to 90 percent,” he said.

Were vaccines 100 percent effective at stopping Delta infections, that 90 percent could conceivably be possible. Unfortunately, they aren’t.

– Waning immunity? –

According to data published this week by US authorities, the efficacy of the Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines at preventing infection has fallen from 91 percent to 66 percent since Delta became the dominant variant.

And studies have shown that the vaccine efficacy against infection with Delta falls over time — one of the reasons why several countries are now readying for an autumn third shot, or “booster”, vaccination campaign.

With all this taken into account, absent other health measures such as mask-wearing or social distancing, Sofonea said it would take more than 100 percent of people to be vaccinated in order to guarantee transmissions end — an obvious impossibility.

“The Delta variant will still infect people who have been vaccinated and that does mean that anyone who’s still unvaccinated, at some point, will meet the virus,” Andrew Pollard, director of Britain’s Oxford Vaccine Group, told lawmakers this month.

– ‘Mythical’ –

But even if, as Pollard termed it, the “mythical” aim of herd immunity is no longer in play, experts stressed that getting vaccinated remained paramount.

As with vaccines against other, now-endemic diseases such as measles and influenza, the Covid vaccines offer excellent protection against severe illness.

“What scientists are recommending is to get the maximum number of people protected” through vaccination, said Flahault.

Eventually, of course, all pandemics end.

Sofonea said it would still be possible that Covid would become another endemic disease over time, “just not with vaccines alone”.

He envisioned a near future where “masks and social distancing continue in certain regions” in order to limit transmission and, ultimately, severe illness.

“During the AIDS pandemic, when scientists said we needed to wear condoms, lots of people said: ‘OK, we’ll do it for a while’,” said Flahault.

“And in the end they kept on using them. It could well be that we will continue using masks in enclosed spaces and on transport for quite some time.”

Source: AFP

Nigeria: People in northwest made desperate by ever-increasing kidnappings

26, August 2021

Nigeria: People in northwest made desperate by ever-increasing kidnappings 0

Desperate Nigerians are caught in the midst of a rash of abductions across the impoverished northwest of Nigeria, where thousands of bandits ask for hefty ransoms from families in return for their kidnapped children.

“We are in agony. Honestly, I don’t have anything left,” said Abubakar Adam on Tuesday, after selling his car and a parcel of land to raise a ransom to free his seven children, who were abducted along with hundreds of other students from a school in the northwestern Nigeria.

The 40-year-old tire repairman gave his three million naira (7,300 dollars) together with payments from other families in his town of Tegina to free their kidnapped children. The kidnappers took the money, seized one of the men delivering it, and demanded even more cash and six motorbikes.

Adam said they were still waiting for any sign of what happened to his children three months after the mass abduction.

Since December last year, around 1,000 students have been abducted by heavily-armed criminal gangs in different Nigerian states, with some of them having been released after negotiations with local officials and ransom payments.

President Muhammadu Buhari has advised states not to pay fees to kidnappers, saying it will only encourage more abductions. Security agencies say they are targeting the bandits through military operations.

“We are begging the government to help,” said Aminu Salisu, whose eight-year-old son was taken in the same daylight raid on Tegina’s school in May.

Salisu liquidated his own savings and sold everything in his store to raise the ransom. The owner of the school sold off half the land. Together, with the help of friends, relatives, and strangers, the people of Tegina raised 30 million naira, but that wasn’t enough for the bandits.

According to an estimate by Lagos-based analysts SBM Intelligence, Nigeria’s leading geopolitical intelligence platform, kidnappers collected more than 18 million dollars in ransom between June 2011 and March 2020.

In December last year, gunmen kidnapped 344 boys from the Government Science Secondary School in the northwestern state of Katsina during a night-time raid.

President Buhari, who promised to tackle insecurity at his inauguration in 2019, is under mounting pressure as kidnappings surge in the impoverished northwest of Nigeria.

The military is deployed to at least 30 of Nigeria’s 36 states to fight kidnappers. Security officials are concerned that they are being infiltrated by Takfiri terrorists. The northern and northeastern parts of the country have been wracked by years of violence involving Boko Haram and other affiliates of the Takfiri Daesh terrorist group.

Source: Press TV

Ambazonia: Department of Foreign Affairs says Yaoundé attacks, aggressions endanger peace, security

26, August 2021

Ambazonia: Department of Foreign Affairs says Yaoundé attacks, aggressions endanger peace, security 0

The Southern Cameroons Department of Foreign Affairs has released a statement detailing a series of French Cameroun military raids in Southern Cameroons, saying such acts of aggression pose serious threats to peace and security in the two Cameroons.

During a meeting with the Vice President of the Southern Cameroons Interim Government Dabney Yerima in South Africa, a senior member of the Ambazonia Department of Foreign Affairs, Prof Carlson Anyangwe said the Southern Cameroons was one of the territories set for decolonization in the context of the UN decolonization agenda. Britain’s devious handling of it and the British wheeling and dealing at the UN in 1959 and 1960 caused a great historical injustice to the people of the Southern Cameroons. That injustice continues to cry out for redress.

Anyangwe called on the AU and the Commonwealth to fully undertake their tasks and report to the UN Security Council and other international bodies the repeated Biya French Cameroun military attacks and escalatory moves, which pose serious threats to peace and security in Southern Cameroons. The renowned Southern Cameroons academic added that the people of Ambazonia are fighting to vindicate their unquestionable and inalienable right of self-determination. They will continue to fight until self-determination is achieved.

Yerima, for his part, praised the Department of Foreign Affairs for its support for and cooperation with the Southern Cameroons war cabinet so that it can properly implement its mandate and get Ambazonians to Buea sooner than later.

By Isong Asu

Niger army repels Boko Haram attack, says 16 soldiers killed

26, August 2021

Niger army repels Boko Haram attack, says 16 soldiers killed 0

Hundreds of Boko Haram militants attacked a military post in southeastern Niger overnight, killing 16 soldiers and wounding nine more, the defence ministry said on Wednesday.

About 50 of the Islamist militants were killed in the resulting combat in the West African country’s Diffa region and significant quantities of weapons were recovered, the ministry said in a statement.

The attack late targeted the town of Baroua, where thousands of residents had only just returned after taking refuge elsewhere following jihadist massacres in 2015.

The Boko Haram insurgency broke out in northeastern Nigeria in 2009, but violence frequently spills over into neighbouring Chad, Niger and Cameroon in the Lake Chad Basin.

In December, an attack blamed on Boko Haram killed 28 people and burned 800 homes in the Diffa region.

More than 6,000 people had returned to Baroua in late June under a programme to encourage around 26,000 inhabitants in the region to leave safer villages or UN camps and go back to their homes.

The authorities said they had beefed up security to provide returnees with greater protection.

The world’s poorest country by the benchmark of the UN’s Human Development Index (HDI), Niger is facing jihadist attacks on two borders, with Islamist militants also carrying out cross-border raids from neighbouring Mali.

(FRANCE 24 with REUTERS, AFP)

University of Buea marks-for-sex scandal: Prof. Peter Agborbechem and Dr. Ernest Molua demoted 

26, August 2021

University of Buea marks-for-sex scandal: Prof. Peter Agborbechem and Dr. Ernest Molua demoted  0

When changes were made a few days ago at University of Buea in the Southwest region of Cameroon, many people in the two English-speaking regions wondered why some of the university dons had been replaced.

But before the dust triggered by those changes, especially the replacement of the University of Buea former registrar, Dr. Ernest Molua, and the former Head of Department of Education and Curriculum Studies, Prof. Peter Agborbechem, could settle, the Vice Chancellor of the University of Buea, Prof. Ngomo Horrace Manga, published a press release announcing that there were investigations into allegations that university lecturers were engaging in inappropriate conduct by requesting money from the students in order to give them marks.

But the vice chancellor’s press release did not tell the whole story. There is more to the vice chancellor’s communiqué than meets the eyes. Parts of the story have been withheld by university authorities in order not to bring shame to a university designed to be the best in the country and to serve as a beacon of hope for the country’s English-speaking minority. 

According to the Cameroon Concord News Group’s source at the University of Buea which elected anonymity, Peter Agborbechem and Ernest Molua had carefully transformed the University of Buea into their harem where they were satisfying their unusually high and uncontrollable libido with impunity. Both men have been using their offices as hotel rooms where they were having sex as if they were satyrs. It was as if they had established their own Hollywood in Buea where they were shooting pornographic movies. 

According to some of their victims, both men seem to be possessed by some demons. Sex seems to be like food to them. It appears to be part of their benefits package. But Sources at the registrar’s office have informed the Cameroon Concord News Group that sex is not part of the university’s benefits package and if Ernest Molua and Peter Agborbechem thought they were entitled to free sex, then they were mistaken. Their long-running sex-party and impunity have been ended by a vice chancellor who is more concerned about the image of the institution he runs. 

“The University’s vice chancellor has decided to shut down the harem and Ernest Molua and Peter Agborbechem can take their madness to somewhere else. They have been demoted and if they are not happy, they can resign and leave the university. These men have given our university a very bad name. How can educated men transform sex into food?” our source quipped.

“All the motels and small hotels in Buea know both men. They have been exploiting these female students for a long time. These young Cameroonians have been entrusted to the University for It to empower them through sound education, but Agborbechem and Molua have been having a never-ending sex party. This sex drama in the University of Buea is like telling a fox to take care of a poultry. These men do not deserve to be within a university environment. They have hurt so many girls and many people in Buea are only too happy that they have been caught but will they walk away from their bad and old ways when they are still teaching in the same university?” the source asked.

“I don’t know what will follow next, but we understand that there is a disciplinary process that is currently underway to determine the extent to which both men have damaged the university’s reputation. These men must be sick. They should be made to see a psycho-therapist. I have always thought that it is impossible to fall in love with any and every woman but Agborbechem and Molua have proven that it is possible. They sleep with any and everything. This has been going on for years and because the past vice chancellors of the university protected these men, they have continued to act with impunity,” the source said.

“But Karma has started cutting them down to normal human proportions. Some of the girls are willing to testify if the university decides to carry out a full investigation. Some say they were humiliated by Molua and Agborbechem and that they want to take revenge on these predators who are preying on young girls in the university. The girls, who have asked to be anonymous for now, have clearly said that they would provide a graphic description of what both men do when female students go to their offices for academic assistance,” the source concluded.  

The Cameroon Concord News Group has dispatched a correspondent to the University of Buea where details regarding this misconduct must be uncovered. The Group will be requesting for an opportunity to interview the university’s vice chancellor who many say is currently doing a good job by introducing major reforms that are very likely to transform the university into a true citadel of knowledge.  

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai with files from Stephen Mukake in Buea 

Tennis: Serena Williams withdraws from US Open through injury

25, August 2021

Tennis: Serena Williams withdraws from US Open through injury 0

Serena Williams has pulled out of next week’s US Open because of a hamstring injury, the 23-time Grand Slam winner announced on her Instagram page on Wednesday.

“After careful consideration and following the advice of my doctors and medical team, I have decided to withdraw from the US Open to allow my body to heal completely from a torn hamstring,” wrote the 39-year-old American.

Williams, who has not played since a tearful first round exit at Wimbledon when she hobbled off court during the first set against Aliaksandra Sasnovich, is a six-time winner in New York.

She won her first Major at the 1999 US Open as a teenager, the first step on her path to a domination of the women’s game.

Williams, whose ranking has now slipped to 22, last missed the US Open in 2017 because of the birth of her daughter.

She reached the final in 2018 and 2019, losing both which added to her frustration as she attempts to equal Margaret Court’s record of 24 Grand Slam singles titles.

“New York is one of the most exciting cities in the world and one of my favorite places to play — I’ll miss seeing the fans but will be cheering everyone on from afar. Thank you for your continued support and love. I’ll see you soon,” she wrote on social media.

Williams is the latest big name to withdraw from the US Open following multiple winners Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer as well as the 2020 men’s champion Dominic Thiem.

Source: AFP

Taliban shows off ‘special forces’ in propaganda blitz

25, August 2021

Taliban shows off ‘special forces’ in propaganda blitz 0

The Taliban has been showing off its own “special forces” on social media, soldiers in new uniforms equipped with looted American equipment who contrast sharply with the image of the usual Afghan insurgent.

Pictures and videos of fighters in the so-called “Badri 313” unit have been posted online for propaganda purposes to underline how the Taliban have better equipped and trained men at their disposal than in the past, experts say.

The soldiers are shown in uniforms, boots, balaclavas and body armour similar to those worn by special forces around the world — and unlike the shalwar kameez, turban and sandals of the traditional Taliban fighter.

Rather than a battered Russian-designed Kalashnikov rifle slung over their shoulder, the men of Badri 313 hold new US-made rifles such as the M4, sometimes with night-vision goggles and advanced gunsights.

Badri 313 “likely represents some of the best trained and equipped fighters within the Taliban more broadly, although as you would expect there is a degree of sensationalising in propaganda coverage of the unit by the group,” Matt Henman from the Janes defence consultancy told AFP.

A Western weapons expert who writes anonymously on Twitter under the pseudonym of Calibre Obscura said the unit would be no match for Western special forces, or those of India or Pakistan.

But “they are more effective than normal Taliban and certainly more than standard Afghan national army troops from a couple of weeks ago,” he told AFP.

– US weapons –

Named after the battle of Badr 1,400 years ago, when the Prophet Mohammed supposedly vanquished his enemies with only 313 soldiers, the Taliban unit could number up to several thousand men, experts say.

The amount of equipment at their disposal is unclear, but multiple pictures online show jubilant Taliban fighters posing with captured armoured Humvees, aircraft and weapons abandoned by the defeated US-equipped Afghan national army.

Experts say the most sophisticated equipment, especially the helicopters, will be difficult to operate and near-impossible to maintain.

“There is certainly a degree of propaganda, but we saw during the final offensive since May that the Taliban special forces have been critical in the taking over of Afghanistan,” said Bill Roggio, managing editor of the US-based Long War Journal.

“When they began to overrun the Afghan forces, they progressively integrated Western supplies. The US in effect armed the Taliban army,” he added.

In previous days, the unit has been in charge of security outside Kabul international airport, bringing them nearly face-to-face with American troops inside who are overseeing the airlift of thousands of civilians.

In a social media post, Badri 313 troops even mocked their US counterparts by recreating the famed picture of American soldiers raising the Stars and Stripes on the island of Iwo Jima in 1945.

The Taliban figures in uniforms are seen raising their black-and-white flag.

– Haqqani role? –

Badri 313 is also seen as having benefited from training from the Haqqani network, Afghanistan’s most ruthless and feared militant group which has been responsible for multiple suicide attacks on civilian targets.

Mainly based in eastern Afghanistan — with alleged bases across the border in Pakistan’s northwest — the group has become more visible in the Taliban leadership in recent years.

They have also long been suspected of links with the Pakistani military establishment — US Admiral Mike Mullen described them as a “veritable arm” of Islamabad’s intelligence in 2011.

Pakistan denies the allegations.

“There is a strong likelihood of Pakistan having provided at least a vestige of training to the unit,” said Henman from Janes, who specialises in terrorism and insurgencies.

Gilles Dorronsoro, an expert on Afghanistan at the Sorbonne University in Paris, said the emergence of the new Taliban commandoes was part of a larger trend.

“We’ve seen a remarkable professionalisation of the Taliban since the middle of the 2000s,” he told AFP.

“The war they are fighting is not the same as the one their parents fought against the Soviets. They’ve learned from the ground and they are very good technically,” he added.

Source: AFP

Cash-for-marks scandal rocks Buea University, lecturers implicated!

25, August 2021

Cash-for-marks scandal rocks Buea University, lecturers implicated! 0

Cameroonian Universities under the Biya Francophone regime are rife with corruption and several instances of moral turpitude. The University of Buea (UB) is not immune from this vice; a recent press release linked to the revaluation of answer sheets attests.

Under the ruling CPDM crime syndicate, lecturers who took bribes and corrected the marks of dozens of students including those who had sex with under-aged female students have often escaped with a lenient punishment or go scot-free making the mark tampering scheme to flourish in the University of Buea.

Prof Ngomo Horrace Manga, the Vice Chancellor of the University of Buea is leading the investigation this time around pertaining to the final-semester examination involving money being transferred via MTN services to UB lecturers.

Cameroon Intelligence Report gathered that the first step in the process is for the lecturers to humiliate the students who do not clear the exam. After that the lecturers comforts them and says he would be able to help. He eventually takes a bribe and changes the marks.

The Vice Chancellor’s communiqué made public evidence collected from several students when the irregularity was brought to light.

It is estimated that some one hundred students benefitted from the cash-for-marks scam scheme.

By Soter Agbaw-Ebai with files from Mukake Stephen in Buea

Atanga Nji in Abuja: Cameroon, Nigeria to protect countries against terrorists, secessionists

24, August 2021

Atanga Nji in Abuja: Cameroon, Nigeria to protect countries against terrorists, secessionists 0

The Federal Government and the Republic of Cameroon have pledged to complement each other’s effort in securing the borders of both countries, particularly against terrorists and secessionists.

The Minister of State, Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Zubairu Dada, while declaring open the 8th Session of the Cameroon-Nigeria Trans-Border Security Committee Meeting in Abuja, said the committee has achieved a lot of appreciable strides since its establishment in 2012.

Dada disclosed that Nigeria will always welcome and support any initiative from the Republic of Cameroon that will strengthen the border relations and curtail security threats, especially from terrorists and secessionists.

Dada added that since the signing of the Cameroon-Nigeria Trans-border Security Agreement in February 2012 and the first session of the committee’s meeting in Yaounde in 2013, the committee has made efforts to collectively address the enduring challenges of terrorism and other forms of criminality along borders in order to promote peaceful coexistence.

Dada further said it was crucial to sustaining the level of cooperation between the two countries.

‘It is crucial that we sustain this level of cooperation in order to overcome our lingering border security concerns. It is for this reason that we are gathered here in Abuja, in line with the aforementioned agreement to ensure that our people in the border areas live in a peaceful and secured environment,’ Dada said.

Dada also stated that the Common Border Governance Strategy as agreed during the 4th Conference of African Ministers responsible for border management held in Addis Ababa in 2016, was critical in addressing challenges and opening doors of opportunities for trans-border economic cooperation.

‘It was unanimously agreed that Africa’s peace and security is directly intertwined with good border governance at the attainment of sustainable development in the border areas,’ Dada stated.

In his remarks, the Head of the Cameroonian delegation, Mr Atanga Nji Poul, described the committee as an important forum for both countries.

The Minister of Territorial Integrity of Cameroon disclosed that since the commencement of the Committee activities, Nigeria and Cameroon borders have recorded a lot of improvement in terms of security.

Atanga Nji maintained that due to the improvement in security, the activities of Boko Haram and other criminals have reduced drastically which led to the returning of many Nigerian refugees residing in Cameroon back home.

The Head of the Nigerian Delegation and National Security Adviser, General Babagana Monguno, said the 8th session’s main focus is the consolidation on gains of the previous ones.

Monguno added that multilateral platforms in the fight against terrorists must be sustained by both countries.

He reaffirmed the commitment of the two countries to resist any attempt to form alliances by secessionist groups to destabilise the region.

Source: Sunnewsonline

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