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9, August 2019

Biya and his gang have spent at least $940,027 on lobbying in US since the start of 2017 ⁰

President Paul Biya’s government has hired Clout Public Affairs, a firm organised by former aides to Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, to lobby President Donald Trump and US Congress for $55,000 a month.

The contract signed in July will be in four-month increments until it is cancelled, according to public disclosure filings with the U.S. Justice Department.

Foreign Policy magazine reported that the firm, according to the contract, will provide public relations services to help cultivate a “favourable image” for Cameroon’s government, to include “placing targeted op eds in conservative-oriented outlets in order to foster a robust and growing partnership narrative into the future.”

The Clout spokesperson said it is an important time to strengthen ties between the U.S. and Cameroonian governments as the country faces growing instability and threats from terrorism. The lobbying contract does not mention work beyond PR and communications.

But it has drawn sharp criticism from human rights activists, especially after it hired U.S. President Donald Trump’s former acting attorney general, Matthew Whitaker, as its managing director.

Whitaker, who is joining Clout Public Affairs as managing director, will not be working directly on the contract with the government of Cameroon and will not be filing as a lobbyist, a Clout Public Affairs spokesperson told Foreign Policy.

Cameroon’s government has spent at least $940,027 on lobbying and PR work in the United States since the start of 2017, according to Anna Massoglia, a researcher who works on the Foreign Lobby Watch project at the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP).

Cameroon also maintains a lobbying agreement with the global law firm Squire Patton Boggs.) Tracking public disclosure filings under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA),

Massoglia estimates that this puts Cameroon 10th among African countries when it comes to expenditures to U.S. PR firms during that window.

Cameroon’s lobbying contract also represents the latest in a growing list of African governments pouring money into lobbying firms to carve out more influence in Washington under Trump, whose surrogates and campaign affiliates have cashed in on lobbying for foreign governments, catching the attention of human rights advocates and public transparency watchdogs.

“Over the past several years, there has been a hugely significant increase in the number of U.S. lobbyists representing foreign nationals, many of them connected to the Trump administration,” said Jeffrey Smith, the executive director of Vanguard Africa, which supports democracy movements in the region.

“Many of Trump’s fundraisers and supporters have struck it rich in this sector, often working on behalf of the world’s worst human rights abusers,” said Smith, who has done work on behalf of Cameroonian opposition figures. He cited Zimbabwe, which hired the Trump-linked lobbying group Ballard Partners in a bid to scrap long-standing U.S. sanctions, as well as Clout’s work for Cameroon.

Liberia outspent its next closest rival more than seven times over, with FARA records indicating that the country has spent more than $72 million in foreign influence work.

Niger’s spending in the same period totalled just $6,000, according to CRP data.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo has funneled more than $10 million into lobbyists, while a powerful military figure in Sudan’s ruling military junta, Gen. Mohamed “Hemeti” Hamdan Dagalo, hired a Canadian lobbying firm for $6 million to promote his interests with the U.S., Russian, and wealthy Persian Gulf governments.

South Sudan’s government, also implicated in war crimes and widespread corruption, has drawn criticism for hiring former U.S. diplomats to lobby on its behalf for $3.7 million to boost ties with the Trump administration.

Source: Foreign Policy

9, August 2019

Yaounde-Malabo Tension: Ailing Biya orders army to be on the alert ⁰

Cameroon has instructed its military to be on the alert as Equatorial Guinea says it is building a border wall to stop Cameroonians and West Africans from illegally entering its territory. Equatorial Guinea’s announcement comes as officials of the Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC) regional economic bloc, of which Equatorial Guinea is a member, are encouraging the free movement of people and goods to boost economic growth in the region.

Thirty-two-year old Cameroonian merchant Kome Pascal imports wine from Equatorial Guinea. He also exports cement, roofing sheets and farm produce from Cameroon to the neighboring nation.

“I feel very bad because goods will not come again into Cameroon and farmers who sell in Equatorial Guinea, what do they expect them to do with their goods,” he told VOA. “Building that particular wall is not going to permit Cameroonians to sell their goods.”

When Equatorial Guinea said it was building the wall and erected milestones on the border near the Cameroon town of Kye-Ossi, Cameroon army chief Lieutenant General Rene Claude Meka visited the border. Meka said he was told the neighboring state was not respecting territorial limits and was encroaching on Cameroon land. He said the Cameroonian army would not tolerate any unlawful intrusion.

Anastasio Asumu Mum Munoz, Equatorial Guinea ambassador to Cameroon, was called up by Cameroon’s minister of external relations on Thursday to explain his country’s plans for the border.

Ambassador Munoz said his country plans to build a wall, but that reports that the its military had installed milestones in Cameroon territory are misleading.

Equatorial Guinea has always accused Cameroon of letting its citizens and West Africans enter its territory illegally.

More than 100 migrants from Togo, Burkina Faso, Nigeria and Benin on their way to Equatorial Guinea and Gabon are currently stranded in Cameroon after they were rescued from their capsizing vessel in the Atlantic Ocean.

Cameroonian-born Christian Mbock, visiting lecturer of international relations at the National University of Equatorial Guinea, said the wall will stop illegal migrants and secure Equatorial Guinea.

“There was a problem in Equatorial Guinea because there was a coup there, then the government had to protect itself and said that the government was suspending the implementation of [CEMAC’s decision for free movement],” he said. “It is a complex situation.”

Equatorial Guinea has often sealed its border with Cameroon, complaining of security threats posed by illegal immigration.

In December 2017, Equatorial Guinea said it had arrested 30 foreign armed men from Chad, the Central African Republic and Sudan on the border. The report said they possessed rocket launchers, rifles and a stockpile of ammunition to destabilize the government of President Theodoro Obiang, who has led oil-rich Equatorial Guinea since 1979.

Cameroon said it also arrested 40 heavily-armed men on the 290-kilometer boundary.

Both countries are members of the CEMAC, which in 2017 said it had reached a milestone when heads of state meeting in Chad lifted visa requirements for their 45 million citizens traveling within the six-member nation economic bloc.

Source: VOA

9, August 2019

Why Southern Cameroonians Must Have Hope; Vice President Dabney Yerima ⁰

Fellow Ambazonians,

I come to you with revolutionary greetings from your President, Sisiku AyukTabe and his leadership team as they enter the tenth day of their hunger strike. Our prayers and thoughts are with them and all our heroes in illegal detention in French Cameroun at this challenging time.

There is a short video in circulation of our heroes crammed like sardines in a truck. They are on their way to a ‘court’ in La Republique du Cameroun. In the video, our heroes were defying their incarceration by singing liberation songs. From their audaciousness, tears of joy rolled down my eyes. There is a spirit in the young men of this revolution that gives me hope. They remind me of the statement; unjust practices must be broken and challenged before a just society is established.

Since 2017, our young men and young women have defied all odds. The government of French Cameroon declared war on us. We had nothing but primitive weapons to defend ourselves. In their minds, in a few months, we would be cowed and destroyed through their reign of terror. But we have and continue to prove them wrong. The cruelty our heroes endured after the peaceful prison protest of 22nd and 23rd of July 2019 was despicable. But that hasn’t discouraged them. They have returned full of focus, drive and determination to get to the promise land-Buea. They have returned with sharpness in their mind and a direction in their vision.

Day in, day out, by their actions, our heroes in captivity in La Republique du Cameroun continue to defy the enemy. By their actions, they keep letting the oppressor know that one can cage the person but cannot cage the revolutionary. By their actions, they are letting the oppressor know that beatings, tyranny and detention are temporary measures to postpone an inevitable outcome. By their actions, they are letting the oppressor know that the Ambazonian of the twenty-first century fears nothing but fear itself.

My people, as a nation, we have faced inexcusable inhumanness’ but we are still standing. We have faced concentration camps, burned villages, cold blood massacre but we are still standing. We have hope. Hope which cannot be shattered by illegal detention! Hope which cannot be destroyed by the killing of four months old baby Martha! Hope which cannot be shattered by the burning of two hundred and fifty villages! The French Cameroun government knows only one currency- violence. We have many- hope, fortitude, courage, decency, belief. With these and God willing, we shall prevail against this tyranny.

The despicable brutalities of La Republique du Cameroun will not stop us. The opposition we now face will definitely fail. We will win our freedom because the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of The Almighty are embodied in our just pursuit. In their defiance of the enemy, these heroes of ours give us HOPE. The great Desmond Tutu said ‘Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all the darkness’. Let’s keep our hope as our caged heroes are doing with their singing and hunger strike and our dream will be a reality.

God Bless You,

Dabney Yerima

Vice President

Federal Republic of Ambazonia

9, August 2019

Of President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe, Barrister Julius Achu and the Yaounde Military Tribunal ⁰

Barrister Julius ACHU, lawyer for the State of French Cameroun, ( Partie Civile) in the case between The People Vs Julius Ayuk Tabe & 9 others is a Douala based lawyer of Southern CAMEROONS ( Ambazonia) extraction who has lived the greater part of his life in La Republique du Cameroun and is renowned for his unscrupulous appetite for money such that the Biya Francophone regime has used him several times to achieve nefarious objectives.

From a family whose fortunes have been linked to the French Cameroun colonial empire for more than six decades, Barrister Julius Achu was the so-called Anglophone Cameroonian who sued Roman Catholic Bishop’s of Kumbo, Buea and the Archbishop of Bamenda claiming more than 150 million francs CFA as damages when the crisis pitting French Cameroun and Ambazonians began with the boycott of Schools and the Courts in 2016.

On Monday the 05^th of August 2019 in the Yaoundé Military Tribunal, Barrister Julius ACHU on behalf of his clients, the state of French Cameroun yelled that they give a damn to the opinion of the international community and the various International human rights instruments that the defense lawyers had cited generously to buttress their case, particularly the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).

He shouted at the top of his voice that he didn’t care that some of them were in the court hall (and he turned and looked at the gallery where two white ladies said to be US diplomats were sitting). He ridiculed the international community and opined that they will not come to determine how justice should be dispensed in French Cameroun and prayed the presiding judges in the panel comprised of Lt Colonel MISSE MISSE Jacques Baudouine and Magistrates EDOU MEWOUTOU Fidele Armand and NGOUONGUE TIANI Sandrine to deliver Justice strictly according to French Cameroun laws.

Before the court session actually started, Mister Julius Achu requested and gotten the support of French Cameroun security men to prevent President Sisiku Julius Ayuk Tabe’s niece Alicia Egbe from entering the court premises. Barrister Julius Achu told the French Cameroun military judges that Alicia Egbe consistently brings “white men” to court.

By Asu Isong with files from our Yaounde Intel Officer

9, August 2019

More than two million Muslims begin Hajj pilgrimage ⁰

Muslims gathered from around the globe in the holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia have begun this year’s Hajj pilgrimage.

According to local media, about 2.5 million believers are participating in the annual Hajj pilgrimage, which started on Friday.

Each and every able-bodied Muslim, male or female, is required to complete the religious trip at least once in their lifetime if they also have the sufficient financial capacity to do so.

The nearly month-long pilgrimage features various rites, including stoning a column representing the devil, sacrificing sheep in remembrance of Prophet Abraham’s offered sacrifice, and Tawaf, which consists of walking and praying around the Kaaba, Islam’s holiest shrine, at the Grand Mosque in Mecca.

‘An indescribable feeling’

“It’s an indescribable feeling. You have to live it to understand it,” said an Algerian pilgrim describing his first time taking part in the spiritual trip.

“It’s a golden opportunity and moment,” said his female companion.

The gathering is also seen as a symbol of Muslim unity, with all participants required to wear a simple and identical outfit during the processions.

The clothing consists of a two-piece white seamless garment for men, and a loose cover-all dress for women.

Muslim pilgrims wait for prayers at the Grand Mosque in Saudi Arabia’s holy city of Mecca on August 8, 2019, prior to the start of the annual Hajj pilgrimage in the holy city. (Photo by AFP)

Muslim scholars have pointed that the simple attire, along with other aspects of the pilgrimage, are meant to express unity and the humility of the Muslim Ummah — the Muslim people as a whole — towards God.

The pilgrimage ends with the start of Eid al-Adha, also known as the “Festival of Sacrifice”.

Saudis fear political opposition

This year’s Hajj takes place as the country is marred in a number of conflicts with its neighbors and faces the prospect of popular expressions of discontent.

The kingdom’s push to normalize relations with Israel and further isolate the Palestinian cause in taking part in the US-backed so-called “deal of the century” has been specifically met with anger in many Muslim countries.

Saudi officials have consequently warned pilgrims to avoid any political topics during the pilgrimage, despite the belief held by many Islamic scholars that the Hajj is in fact intended to be an opportunity for Muslims to discuss social and political issues affecting the Ummah.

“Leave all other matters in your countries to discuss,” said Mecca Governor Prince Khalid al-Faisal earlier this week.

Riyadh has also faced strong criticism for its mismanagement of the Hajj specifically after thousands of pilgrims died in a tragic human crush incident in 2015.

Saudi authorities gave an initial tally of 770 deaths and then stopped updating that figure, even as official counts from individual countries whose nationals had died in the incident rose to more than a total of 2,400 individuals, reaching nearly 5,000 deaths according to some reports.

At least 464 Iranians lost their lives in the incident.

Source: Presstv

9, August 2019

PLO Lumumba meets Vice President Yerima, Promises Support For Ambazonia ⁰

The Director of Kenya School of Law and the former Director of the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission, Prof. Patrick Loch Otieno Lumumba has promised to help the people of Southern Cameroons. The renowned academic while making a keynote address during a conference in Thuringen in the Federal Republic of Germany, said he will use his contacts to help the people of Ambazonia join Pan African Organizations.

Prof PLO Lumumba praised the leadership of the Southern Cameroons Interim Government for the resistance against the Biya Francophone government in Yaounde pointing out that Africa remained poor despite having the potential for generating enough revenue for sustainable development.

Lumumba reportedly told Vice President Dabney Yerima that Africa’s problems was being worsened by the persistent brain drain of professional trained people travelling to work in the developed world and a total lack of visionary leadership.

The Ambazonian Vice President and Prof Lumumba agreed that many intelligent migrants in the West want to return home but the leaders do not project home for their people. Lumumba said the phenomenon was largely due to the continent’s poor labour policies, low pay and high unemployment levels.

Prof Lumumba advised the Ambazonian leadership to desist from relying on divine intervention to solve the problems in Southern Cameroons.

By Asu Isong

9, August 2019

‘Nobody speaks for the United States,’ Trump tells French President Macron ⁰

US President Donald Trump has chastised French President Emmanuel Macron for sending Iran “mixed signals”.

Trump scolded Macron on Thursday telling him that no one was authorized to act in the role of mediator between the US and Iran.

“I know Emmanuel means well, as do all others, but nobody speaks for the United States but the United States itself,” Trump said in a tweet.

Donald J. Trump✔@realDonaldTrump · 11h

Iran is in serious financial trouble. They want desperately to talk to the U.S., but are given mixed signals from all of those purporting to represent us, including President Macron of France….

Donald J. Trump✔@realDonaldTrump

….I know Emmanuel means well, as do all others, but nobody speaks for the United States but the United States itself. No one is authorized in any way, shape, or form, to represent us!

It was not immediately clear what Trump was referring to, but a report earlier this week said Macron had invited Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to this month’s G7 summit to meet Trump.

European leaders are seeking to ease the escalating crisis between Tehran and Washington after Trump pulled out of the Iran nuclear last year prompting Tehran to scale back its commitments under the 2015 landmark nuclear deal with world powers officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

PressTV-Iran to slash JCPOA commitments in 3rd phase 'in a month'

A main topic of the G7 summit later this month is expected to be the repercussions of European signatories to the Iran nuclear deal continuing to renege on their obligations.

Iran Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif says the US cannot change the fact that affairs were shifting in favor of Iran.

PressTV-Zarif: US should stop isolating itself, adapt to new realities

Zarif rebuked the hawkish group of politicians and regional leaders, often referred to as the B-team, who were trying to pressure and isolate Iran by undermining the Iran nuclear deal and instigating regional tensions.

Trump and his administration officials have previously claimed that the US leadership is open to talks with Iran and that the United States does not want a war with Iran.

Source: Presstv

9, August 2019

Murder of WHO Cameroonian doctor: Congo medics arrested ⁰

Three Congolese medics have been detained over the murder of a World Health Organization (WHO) doctor who was fighting an Ebola outbreak in Democratic Republic of Congo, a military prosecutor said on Wednesday.

Cameroonian doctor Richard Valery Mouzoko Kiboung was shot dead on April 19 in an attack on a hospital in the eastern city of Butembo.

The arrested doctors will be prosecuted for “terrorism” and “criminal conspiracy,” Lieutenant-Colonel Jean-Baptiste Kumbu Ngoma, military prosecutor for Butembo in North Kivu province, told AFP.

The three are accused of holding meetings on April 14 to plot the assassination of Mouzoko, he added.

The WHO said Mouzoko had been deployed as part of a medical team to help rein in the Ebola outbreak which started last August in North Kivu.

The prosecutor said the doctors were “among the moral authors” of the attack on Mouzoko. He said one more doctor was being sought in the case.

In a letter to the mayor of Butembo, the local doctors’ association expressed indignation at the arrests and said they would go on strike if their colleagues were not released within 48 hours.

But the military prosecutor dismissed their demands as “out of the question”.

“It’s a delicate situation. As a man has died, we absolutely have know the truth about what happened,” the coordinator of the fight against Ebola in the DR Congo, Jean-Jacques Muyembe, told AFP.

More than 1,800 people have died from the virus in the past year.

The outbreak is the second deadliest on record, after the epidemic that struck West Africa in 2014-2016, which killed more than 11,300 people.

Efforts to roll back the highly contagious haemorrhagic fever have been hampered not only by fighting but also by resistance within communities to preventative measures, care facilities and safe burials.

Attacks on health workers have had a devastating effect, with seven murdered and more than 50 seriously hurt, according to an unofficial tally.

After the killing of Mouzoko in April, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said: “We will not be intimidated… we will finish our work.”

Source: AFP

8, August 2019

US immigration agents arrest 680 workers at food plants ⁰

US immigration authorities have arrested nearly 700 mostly Latino workers at seven food processing plants across the southern state of Mississippi, the largest workplace raid in at least a decade.

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said in a statement on Wednesday that the agency detained about 680 people who were working illegally at the plants.

Those arrested were taken to a military hangar to be processed for immigration violations. About 70 family, friends and residents waved goodbye and shouted, “Let them go! Let them go!” Later, two more buses arrived.

About 600 ICE agents spread across the plants operated by five companies, surrounding the perimeters to prevent workers from fleeing.

Many of those detained will be transported to an ICE facility in Jena, Louisiana, the US Attorney’s Office of the Southern District of Mississippi, which partnered with ICE, said in a statement.

Some of those detained will be released for “humanitarian reasons” and required to appear in U.S. immigration court, the US Attorney’s Office said.

ICE did not specify the nationalities of the workers arrested, but most are believed to be migrants from Mexico and Central America.

Matthew Albence, ICE’s acting director, told The Associated Press in an interview Wednesday that the raids could be the largest-ever workplace operation in any single state. He claimed that the raids are “racially neutral” and based on evidence of illegal residency.

The companies involved could be charged with knowingly hiring workers who are in the county illegally and will be scrutinized for tax, document and wage fraud, Albence said.

PressTV-Protests held across US over Trump treatment of migrants

The raids, planned months ago, happened just hours before President Donald Trump visited El Paso, Texas, a majority-Hispanic city near the US-Mexico border where a man linked to a white supremacist group was charged with fatally shooting 22 people.

Bill Chandler, executive director of the Mississippi Immigrant Rights Alliance, called the “terrible” raids “another effort to drive Latinos out of Mississippi,” and he blamed Trump for fanning racism with his past incendiary comments about immigrants.

“This is the same thing that Trump is doing at the border with the Border Patrol,” he said, referring to the increased crackdown on migrants coming into the US.

Major immigration raids were common under former President George W. Bush, including one at a kosher meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa, in 2008 that resulted in about 400 arrests. Former President Barack Obama avoided them, limiting workplace immigration efforts to low-profile audits.

Trump resumed workplace raids, but the months of preparation and hefty resources they require make them rare.

Trump has made his hard-line stance on immigration an integral part of his presidency and has promised to build a wall along the US-Mexican border to curb the flow of migrants from Mexico and Central America.

Source: Presstv

8, August 2019

Cameroonian star joins Norwich on loan ⁰

Cameroonian descent Ibrahim Amadou has officially joined from Sevilla for 2019-20 on a season-long loan in a deal which includes an option to buy clause.The defensive midfielder, 26, who joined the Spanish La Liga club in the summer of 2018 on a four-year contract, made 32 league appearances for the side last season.

Amadou joins fellow loanees, winger Patrick Roberts and goalkeeper Ralf Fahrmann speak to canaries official website: “I’m happy to play for Norwich because I know they just got promoted to the Premier League with a lot of points in the Championship.”It’s a new challenge for me and I would like to discover more about the Premier League.”When I was young, it was a dream to play in the Premier League but the more I grew up, the more it became an objective.”I had this opportunity right now and I’ve decided to take it. I will try to do my best in the Premier League.”I had interest from clubs in other countries, but my priority was to play in the Premier League.”I’ve spoken to the [Head] Coach. He seems like a good coach who will give me the opportunity to play.”I will have to show what I can do and make a good impression.”

Amadou who will wear the No 24 shirt could make his debut for Norwich when they open their 2019-20 Premier League campaign against Liverpool on Friday.

Source: Fcnaija.com