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9, September 2019

French Cameroun: Internally displaced Ambazonia children struggle to continue schooling amid crisis ⁰

As early as 6:30 am on the day of school reopening, 10-year-old Cameroonian girl Kelsy Shinyuy was already on her way to meet her new teachers and classmates.

“I am very happy because I have not been to school for long. Very happy,” she said.

Shinyuy had to stay at home since 2017 due to a persistent crisis in the Cameroon’s two English-speaking regions of Northwest and Southwest, where separatists have been clashing with government forces in a bid to secede from the French-majority Cameroon and create an independent nation they call “Ambazonia”.

In late August this year, Shinyuy and her family left their home in Kumbo in the Northwest to take refuge in Foumban, chief-town of Noun division in the Francophone part of Cameroon, about 100 km away from Kumbo. She was finally able to restart school at Saint Joseph Bilingual School of Foumban.

Her mother Lidwina Limunyuy was very excited that she managed to resend her child back to school, although for lack of money, the other two younger brothers of Shinyuy have to keep staying at home.

“We went through hardship. In fact we are lucky to be alive,” Limunyuy said.

A UNICEF report released in August estimates that insecurity spreading across Cameroon’s Anglophone regions has left more than 4,400 schools forcibly closed, affecting more than 600,000 children. According to the government, many of these schools were found being used as bases of the armed separatists.

According to UN estimations in July, the conflicts have resulted in about 530,000 internally displaced persons (IDP). Among them, many are children and teenagers struggling to resume schooling with very limited ressources.

“The situation is sad and touching…We have asked all the school authorities to admit all the internally displaced children. We are very focused to make sure they go to school hitch-free,” said Amidou Mbouombouo, divisional delegate of the secondary education ministry in Noun.

Magdaline Abongmbuh, a teacher at Government Bilingual High School of Foumban, said 33 IDP students registered in her class.

“Some of the students came to school without uniforms and books and school fees. When I asked them to go home and dress properly before coming to school, they burst into tears and insisted that they are ready to study in any condition,” said Abongmbuh. “They cried, Madam, we have suffered a lot and we want to go to school.”

Humanitarian agencies like the Red Cross are also taking actions.

Last academic year, the Red Cross helped about 7,000 displaced children register in primary and secondary schools in Noun, where there are currently 38,940 IDPs, according to Ibrahim Pouamoun, divisional secretary of the Red Cross in Noun.

Local elites make their contribution too. Members of Bamoun Kingdom, a major chiefdom in Noun, visited displaced families before school resumption to donate learning equipments.

To provide IDPs with sustainable sources of income, the sultan king Ibrahim Mbombo Njoya has made available 600 hectares of farm land, according to Inoussa Ngoupayou, first deputy to the sultan king.

On this first day of school, Shinyuy was already making new friends. All children have been instructed to be kind to their mates coming from crisis-hit regions, school headmistress Caroline Yaah told Xinhua.

“I will study hard to become a doctor,” Shinyuy said.

Culled from Xinhuanet

9, September 2019

WHO says suicide kills one person every 40 seconds ⁰

Across the world, one person takes their own life every 40 seconds, and more people die by suicide every year than in war, the World Health Organization says.

Hanging, poisoning and shooting are the most common suicide methods, the WHO said as it urged governments to adopt suicide prevention plans to help people cope with stress and to reduce access to suicide means.

“Suicide is a global public health issue. All ages, sexes and regions of the world are affected (and) each loss is one too many,” the WHO’s report said.

Suicide was the second leading cause of death among young people aged between 15 and 29, after road injury, and among teenage girls aged 15 to 19 it was the second biggest killer after maternal conditions. In teenage boys, suicide ranked third behind road injury and interpersonal violence.

Overall, close to 800,000 people die by suicide every year – more than are killed by malaria or breast cancer, or by war or homicide, the WHO said.

Global rates have fallen in recent years – with a 9.8% decrease between 2010 and 2016 – but declines were patchy. In the WHO’s Americas region, for example, rates rose by 6% in between 2010 and 2016.

The report also found that nearly three times as many men as women die by suicide in wealthy countries, in contrast to low- and middle-income countries, where the rates are more equal.

“Suicides are preventable,” said the WHO’s director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.”We call on all countries to incorporate proven suicide prevention strategies into national health and education programs.”

World Health Organization (WHO) Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus delivers a speech at the opening day of the World Health Assembly on May 20, 2019 at the United Nations Offices in Geneva. (Photo by AFP)

The WHO said restricting access to pesticides was one of the most effective ways of reducing suicide numbers swiftly.

Pesticides are commonly used and usually result in death because they are so toxic, have no antidotes, and are often used in remote areas where there is no nearby medical help.

The WHO pointed to studies in Sri Lanka, where bans on pesticides have led to a 70% drop in suicides and an estimated 93,000 lives saved between 1995 and 2015.

(Source: Reuters)

9, September 2019

“Every Southern Cameroonian in Ground Zero should keep arms” ⁰

A senior adviser to the Ambazonia Vice President whose name we are withholding on Sunday indicated that the Southern Cameroons Interim Government would allow every Ambazonian citizen in Ground Zero to keep weapons in line with the policy of resistance against French Cameroun.

Members of the Southern Cameroons Interim Government began discussing a new policy which focuses on educating Ambazonian children while resisting French Cameroun occupation and aggression.

Cameroon Intelligence Report gathered that Vice President Dabney Yerima informed the Southern Cameroons exiled cabinet of his intention to reform the management of Ambazonia state finances and back to school for Southern Cameroons kids and weighed options for moving Ambazonian children to schools in neighboring Nigeria.

Rival Southern Cameroons groups involved in the Ambazonia struggle for independence long locked in disagreement over the makeup of the Ambazonia Interim Government are now supporting Vice President Dabney Yerima after weeks of backroom deals, as Southern Cameroons’s woes keeps mounting.

The Ambazonia Interim Government was formed under the guidance of President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe to combat French Cameroun. It has been the Southern Cameroons diaspora most successful investment ever since British Southern Cameroonians took up arms against French Cameroun some three years ago.

The Ambazonia Interim Government dominates the political and military landscape of Southern Cameroons and possesses tens of thousands of untrained fighters but it’s extremely lacking in sophisticated armaments.

By Chi Prudence Asong

9, September 2019

Zimbabwe: Mugabe to be buried next Sunday ⁰

Zimbabwe’s former president Robert Mugabe who died Friday in Singapore at the age of 95, is scheduled to be buried on Sunday, September 15, in a location yet to be determined, the presidency announced Sunday.

“His remains are expected on Wednesday afternoon (in Zimbabwe). The official funeral is scheduled for Saturday, his funeral will take place on Sunday (next),” President George Charamba told AFP, adding that the place of his funeral would be determined by his family.

Since his death, discussions between his family and the government about how to organize his funeral have been taking place.

Heroes Acre or not?

As early as Friday, the Head of State decreed official mourning and awarded him the status of “national hero”, which offers him a place in the “Field of the Nation’s Heroes”, on the edge of the capital, Harare.

This monument, which contains three bronze statues of soldiers donated by North Korea, traditionally houses the graves of veterans of the “War of Liberation”. It has recently been opened to personalities from the arts and sciences.

However, the speaker’s spokesman suggested on Sunday that Robert Mugabe could be buried elsewhere.

The place “will be determined by the family,” Charamba said Sunday.

According to reports in the local press, Robert Mugabe’s family opposed his burial at the “Field of National Heroes”, assuring that the former master of the country wanted to be buried in the village of Zvimba, where he owned a house.

“We, the inhabitants of Zvimba, do not want him to go to the Heroes’ Field (…) for what purpose,” his aunt Josephine Jaricha told AFP on Sunday, “we want him to be buried here.

Since the fall of Robert Mugabe, relations between the former president and his successor, whom he publicly called “traitor”, were notoriously bad.

In November 2017, the army had pushed him out after his decision to dismiss his vice president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, at the insistence of his second wife, Grace, who coveted the succession of her ninety year old husband.

AFP

9, September 2019

US: Biden’s election chances even lower than Hillary Clinton ⁰

An American political analyst and activist says leading US Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden’s prospects are even lower than previous elections’ also-ran Hillary Clinton.

Myles Hoenig, who ran for Congress in 2016 as a Green Party candidate, made the remarks in an interview on Sunday.

“Clinton’s political positions were so far to the right,” he said, adding, “Biden is in a similar situation.”

“His political views are very conservative, anti-environmental, and pro-war, nothing that would truly engage or electrify especially younger voters,” Hoenig noted.

As one instance of political posturing that shrinks Biden’s powerbase, he cited his views on the run-up to the 2013 US-led invasion of Iraq and the war itself.

Hoenig said Biden’s fellow Democratic presidential aspirants at least acknowledge that the invasion was “a mistake.”

Not only does not Biden do that, but also he “blames [former president George W.] Bush for convincing him to go to war against Iraq, rather than saying the war was an act of aggression on the US’s part,” the analyst observed, noting, “For that matter, there really isn’t any Democrat running who would say that.”

Many people, who would more likely vote for a progressive Democrat were, therefore, likely to stay home, “seeing only personality as a difference, not policy,” the expert stated. “That could mean another four years of a Republican administration, with or without [current President Donald] Trump,” he added.

In 2016, at the end of Barack Obama’s limit of consecutive presidential mandates, Trump raised eyebrows by stunning Clinton thanks to the US’s Electoral College system.

The system overrides the popular vote, which gives the victory to the candidate winning the most ballots. It instead makes 538 “electors” across different states, who are chosen based on each state’s representation in Congress, liable for electing the chief executive. Therefore, if a contestant secures at least 270 of the electoral votes, they have won the presidential race.

Trump’s victory came while Clinton had received three million more popular votes.

Earlier in the month, the results of an ABC News/Washington Post poll came out, showing that Biden, who used to serve as the US vice president under Obama, remained the favorite presidential candidate among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents in the 2020 nomination field.

According to the survey, 27 percent of Democrats favored Biden as the party’s 2020 presidential nomination, followed by Bernie Sanders with 19 percent of support and Elizabeth Warren with 17 percent.

Source: Presstv

9, September 2019

Football legend Maradona makes debut as ‘The Wolf’ coach ⁰

Former Argentine football star Diego Maradona made his debut as new head coach of the team Gimnasia and Esgrima La Plata, also known as ‘The Wolf’ in the city of La Plata on Sunday.

Footage shows the 1986 World Cup-winning captain making his way through a giant wolf mouth onto the field before getting into a caddy car to be driven to meet the players.

Maradona, who until recently was living in Mexico, decided to quit his previous job after having knee surgery, leaving behind a team he led twice to the Ascenso MX finals, the Sinaola Dorados.

Maradona will embark on his sixth club management role, hoping to set the Gimnasia and Esgrima La Plata team straight after several loses.

(Source: Ruptly)

9, September 2019

Yaounde: Maurice Kamto faces death penalty in insurrection trial ⁰

Cameroon’s main opposition leader, Maurice Kamto, has gone on trial in a military court in Yaoundé, along with 90 of his supporters. Kamto, who was the runner-up in last year’s presidential election, is accused of insurrection and rebellion, and could face the death penalty.

Kamto arrived in court on Friday under tight security. The trial venue was protected by 200 police officers in anti-riot gear, while others patrolled the area in pick-up trucks.

There had been calls from the opposition leader’s followers for a protest rally outside the court.

Kamto, together with several dozen of his political allies and supporters, faces charges of insurrection, hostility to the motherland and rebellion, crimes which, in theory at least, could carry the death penalty.

The head of the opposition Movement for the Rebirth of Cameroon (MRC) was arrested in January after months of peaceful opposition protests denouncing the results of the October 2018 presidential election.

The MRC alleges that the election was rigged in favour of President Paul Biya, who has been in power for 36 years. Kamto claims that he himself won the election.

Cameroon’s former colonial ruler France, the United States and the European Union have repeatedly called for his release.

“There is no justification for Mr Kamto and his supporters to have been incarcerated for eight months in these conditions,” their French lawyer Antoine Vey told the French news agency, AFP.

“None of them took part in acts of violence, none called for acts of violence or rebellion, there is no reason for their arrest other than a political motive.”

Ready for justice

The crackdown against the opposition has caused outrage among rights groups and many western governments.

In March, the US assistant secretary of state for African Affairs Tibor Nagy, told RFI that Cameroon would be “very wise” to release Kamto because his detention is widely perceived as politically motivated.

A top European Union official criticised the arrests and the military court’s “disproportionate” proceedings against them.

France in May also demanded the release of Kamto and his supporters.

On Monday, just days ahead of their trial, Kamto and his fellow defendants said they were “ready to face justice so the truth would come out,” demanding free public and press access to the courtroom.

“Mr Kamto is full of confidence,” his spokesman Olivier Bibou Nissack told journalists.

Conflict on all fronts

The authorities in Cameroon dismiss claims from the defendants and others that this a political trial designed to “decapitate” the opposition.

Along with the political protests, President Biya is facing a struggle on other fronts.

Since 2017, fighting between the army and English-speaking separatists demanding independence in two western regions has killed hundreds, forced nearly 500,000 people from their homes and filled jails with anglophone activists accused of militancy.

In the north of the country, Boko Haram’s nearly 10-year Islamist insurgency which is based in northeastern Nigeria, has more recently spilled over into Cameroon.

Source: AFP

8, September 2019

Ambazonia-Nigeria Crisis: Understanding the appeal against life terms for S.Cameroons leaders ⁰

An appeal, funded by residents of Canada, has been lodged against the sentences of life imprisonment handed down last month by a Cameroonian military tribunal to six academics arrested in Abuja, Nigeria, and deported back to Cameroon in January 2018.

The academics – who were teaching in Nigerian universities and had lived in the country in some cases for many years, marrying Nigerians and raising children there – were accused of terrorism and of belonging to an outlawed organisation, the aim of which was to facilitate the secession of Anglophone Cameroon from the rest of the country.

The academics are: Professor Augustine Awasum of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria; Dr Tata Henry Kimeng, associate professor at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria; Dr Egbe Nguitui Ogork, associate professor at Bayero University, Kano; Dr Fidelis Nde-Che, associate professor at the American University of Nigeria in Yola; Dr Cornelius Kwanga, a senior lecturer at Umaru Musa Yar’adua University; and Dr Sisiku Julius Ayuk Tabe of the American University of Nigeria in Yola.

Ayuk Tabe is reportedly the first self-proclaimed president of “Ambazonia”, a breakaway state declared in October 2017 in two English-speaking regions of Cameroon.

Barrister was ‘merely an observer’

The academics’ barrister Paddy Yong told University World News his role in the hearing was merely that of an “observer” but he had filed an appeal a few days after the ruling.

He said some “patriotic” Anglophone Cameroonians resident in Canada had contributed jointly towards the non-refundable sum of US$10,000 required to appeal the tribunal’s decision. “I have sent this amount of money to a dedicated bank account of the government treasury in Yaoundé,” he confirmed.

He said as a sign of solidarity with the convicted academics, Anglophone lawyers in the country had unanimously agreed to go on strike for four days.

The six academics were arrested after a meeting in January 2018 at a hotel in Abuja, Nigeria, where they apparently gathered to discuss the humanitarian situation facing Anglophone Cameroonian refugees in Nigeria. They were among 47 other separatists also arrested at the same time.

Two major objections

Yong said the trial had not been open to the public and had gone ahead despite him raising two major objections.

“When the trial was to commence, I raised two fundamental objections. First, I objected to the fact the military tribunal was headed by Lieutenant Colonel Misse Njone Jacques Beaudoin and that five other high-ranking military officers were members of the presiding panel. I objected to the fact that those accused were civilians who did not participate in any military uprising.

“My second objection was to the fact of the trial being conducted in French. My clients are Anglophone Cameroonians. Therefore, the trial should be held in English.”

Yong said his two objections were rejected. “But the trial continued. My role was reduced to that of an observer,” he said.

According to Yong, the linguistic crisis had its roots in what he called the “naïve” marriage between elites of Anglophone Cameroon and Francophone Cameroon on 1 October 1961 to form the Federal Republic of Cameroon. He said the bilingualism upon which the federal republic was founded had not prevailed for many years.

In March this year, two separate judgments handed down by the Federal High Court in Abuja found that the arrest and detention of the academics was unconstitutional and that their deportation from Nigeria to Cameroon was illegal.

Problematic judgment

Nigerian barrister Abdul Oroh, who represented the academics when they were still in Nigeria, told University World News the ruling was problematic on three grounds.

“First, a Nigerian High Court sitting in Abuja declared illegal the forceful abduction of these university teachers and said they should be returned from Cameroon to their respective universities in Nigeria where they were working.

“Second, the trial of civilians by a military court was challenged as an aberration in the Court of Law in Yaoundé. The military tribunal ignored this case and continued with its assignment.

“And third, the judgment of life imprisonment smacks of a travesty of justice,” he said.

Culled from University World News

8, September 2019

French Football Crisis: Too many matches stopped over homophobic chants ⁰

The head of French football said on Friday that “too many matches” have been stopped due to homophobic chants and banners, despite public outcry over a series of anti-gay incidents since the start of the 2019-2020 season.

Noël Le Graët, president of the French Football Federation (FFF), said that the FFF would not instruct referees to stop matches except in cases when a “whole stadium” was guilty of homophobic chanting.

“I think we’re stopping too many matches! That makes certain government ministers happy, but it bothers me. Football can’t be taken hostage by vulgarity,” said Le Graët in an interview with regional newspaper Ouest-France.

“Matches have been stopped when they shouldn’t have been,” Le Graët continued. “We will stop them if there is consistent homophobic abuse from the whole ground, but if among 30,000 people there are 2,000 imbeciles I don’t see why the other 28,000 should be punished.”

Since the start of the French football season less than a month ago on August 9, there have been at least 20 cases of fans chanting homophobic slurs or showing anti-gay banners during domestic games. By contrast, there were 111 incidents of homophobic abuse in England over the course of the entire 2017-2018 season, according to Kick It Out, a British pressure group for equality in the sport.

Le Graët’s organisation changed rules to allow matches to be stopped

Ironically, it was the body run by Le Graët, the FFF (Fédération française de football), which put in place new rules before the start of the 2019-2020 football season to allow referees to halt games in response to fans’ displays of homophobia.

For years, fans faced no consequences for engaging in the homophobic chanting common in French football, such as the use of the swear word “enculé,” which carries unmistakably anti-gay connotations.

However, the FFF was prompted to act after France’s Sport Minister Roxana Maracineau expressed outrage over fans’ anti-gay chants during Le Classique – the clash between bitter rivals PSG and Marseille – in March.

Saying that this sort of chanting made her want to stop taking her children to football matches, Maracineau expressed further shock over another case of homophobic chanting during a match between Lens and Valenciennes in April – leading the FFF to create new rules.

France’s Minister for Equality Marlène Schiappa publicly praised referee Clément Turpin after he stopped Marseille’s 2-1 win at Nice for over 10 minutes in August in response to anti-gay chants and the unfurling of homophobic banners by home fans.

PSG’s match at Metz two days later was also briefly halted because of two banners displayed by the hosts’ supporters: one reading “I won’t be on TV because my words are too gay”, the other saying “PSG, FFF, let me sing and tell you to go f*ck yourselves!”

‘The crisis will resolve itself’, says Le Graët

But Le Graët argued that a laissez-faire approach from politicians would be the best way to deal with the issue.

“Did football invent homophobia?” he asked, adding that “there are more important political issues”.

“This crisis will resolve itself,” the head of the FFF continued. “We will work with club presidents – people who don’t interfere every morning, who don’t just want to look good for the television cameras.”

These statements provoked a fierce response from Maracineau, who wrote in a Facebook post on Saturday that she was “astonished” by Le Graët’s words, before warning that “it must be remembered that homophobia is considered a form of discrimination in our society”.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)

8, September 2019

US: Trump claims cancelling peace talks in US with Taliban leaders over attacks ⁰

US President Donald Trump has claimed canceling peace talks with leaders of Afghanistan’s Taliban insurgents in a resort near Washington after the notorious militant group claimed responsibility for a recent Kabul attack that killed an American soldier and 11 others.

Trump revealed in a Twitter post on Saturday that he had planned a secret meeting with Taliban’s “major leaders” on Sunday at a presidential resort compound in Camp David, Maryland, adding that he also planned a meeting with his Afghan counterpart Ashraf Ghani, who was left out of the US talks with the militant group that seeks to topple the Kabul government.

The US president further stated that he immediately called off the talks after the insurgents declared responsibility for the attack on the Afghan capital.

“If they cannot agree to a ceasefire during these very important peace talks, and would even kill 12 innocent people, then they probably don’t have the power to negotiate a meaningful agreement anyway,” Trump wrote in the Twitter message.

Trump’s announcement came hours after US Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Washington is seeking a “good deal” with the Taliban even after a wave of recent attacks by Afghan insurgents overshadowed negotiations with the militant group.

“The United States’ view is that the best way forward is a political agreement and that (is what) we’re working diligently on right now, that doesn’t mean we’ll take any deal,” Esper said on Saturday during a press conference in Paris with his French counterpart.

“We will make sure we have a good deal, a good enough deal that guarantees at least the security of our countries going forward and a brighter path ahead for the Afghan people,” he stated.

The Taliban insurgents — who now control more Afghan territory than at any time since the US-led military invasion of the country in 2001 aimed at rooting out Taliban and terrorism across Afghanistan — launched new offensives against the northern cities of Kunduz and Pul-e Khumri over the past week and carried out two major terror bombings in the capital Kabul.

In one of the Kabul blasts on Thursday, a bomber set off his explosives near the American Embassy, killing a US Army Sergeant 1st Class Elis Barreto Ortiz of Puerto Rico, bringing the number of American forces killed in Afghanistan this year to 16.

The development came as a senior US military commander stated during a visit to Pakistan that the surge of attacks by Taliban insurgents in neighboring Afghanistan has been “particularly unhelpful” to what he described as “peace efforts” there.

Surge of Taliban attacks hindering peace talks: CENTCOM

“It is particularly unhelpful at this moment in Afghanistan’s history for the Taliban to ramp up violence,” said the head of US Central Command (CENTCOM) Marine General Kenneth McKenzie in a press briefing in Pakistani capital of Islamabad on Saturday.

McKenzie, who oversees American military operations in the region, declined to comment on the diplomatic negotiations between US and Taliban representatives, however.

McKenzie further underlined that for the peace process to move forward, “all parties should be committed to an eventual political settlement” which, in turn, should result in reduced violence.

“If we can’t get that going in, then it is difficult to see the parties are going to be able to carry out the terms of the agreement, whatever they might or might not be,” he added.

Many Taliban elements are also based in neighboring Pakistan, where McKenzie held talks on Saturday with a senior Pakistani general with more talks scheduled for Sunday.

The CENTCOM commander further stated that he was not aware whether any of the planning for the recent wave of Taliban attacks in Afghanistan came from Pakistan-based militants.

This is while US and Taliban negotiators struck just last week a draft peace deal that could lead to a a major withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan, where the American military has been bogged down in its longest war ever.

However, the recent wave of Taliban attacks in the country has cast a long shadow over a potential peace pact.

Under the draft accord, thousands of US troops would be pulled out over the coming months in exchange for Taliban guarantees that Afghanistan would not be used as a base for militant attacks on the United States and its allies.

But observers insist that a full peace agreement to end more than 18 years of war in the impoverished country would depend on subsequent “intra Afghan” talks. The Taliban, however, have rejected calls for a truce and instead escalated operations across Afghanistan.

Source: Presstv