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28, December 2018

10 Burkina Faso police officers killed in ambush ⁰

Ten police officers were killed and three wounded in an ambush in northwestern Burkina Faso on Thursday, the west African country’s security ministry said.

“The toll is 10 officers who have lost their lives and three wounded,” the ministry said in a statement, adding that a police convoy from the Toeni region and reinforcements from the Dedougou area had been ambushed.

Security minister Clement Sawadogo confirmed the toll on national television, announcing an increase in police and army forces patrolling the area.

The officers were attacked while heading to the village of Loroni, near the border with Mali, after a school had been attacked and textbooks torched by armed assailants, a security source told AFP.

The wounded, including two in serious condition, were taken to a hospital in Dedougou, the source added.

“A convoy of defence and security forces who were scrambled from Tougan to come to the scene of the tragedy… also hit an explosive device that ripped through the lead vehicle but fortunately did not kill anybody,” Sawadogo said, adding that three of the four officers in the vehicle were wounded.

“This is an area that has recently been the target of a number of attacks. Arrangements have been made for regular patrols but we are working to strengthen the security system on all the sensitive axes of the zone,” he said.

Burkina Faso has been increasingly hit by deadly attacks over the last three years. They began in the north of the country but have since spread to the east, near the border with Togo and Benin.

On Wednesday, a police officer died during an attack on his station in the northern town of Solan.

Most attacks are attributed to the jihadist group Ansarul Islam, which emerged near the Mali border in December 2016, and to the JNIM (the Group to Support Islam and Muslims), which has sworn allegiance to Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.

Those groups are believed to be responsible for more than 255 deaths since 2015. The capital Ouagadougou has been hit three times and almost 60 people have died there.

(AFP)

28, December 2018

Egyptian soccer star threatens to quit Liverpool over Israeli player ⁰

An Egyptian soccer super-star playing for British football club Liverpool, Mohamed Salah has allegedly threatened to leave the premier league club over an Israeli player joining the team.

Salah threatened to quit Liverpool if Moanes Dabour joined the team, media reported on Wednesday.

According to the report, Salah said that he will leave Liverpool should Dabour be signed.

Salah in the past refused to shake hands with Israeli players.

However, people close to the Egyptian athlete said he needs to be left alone to focus on playing soccer and that he is a professional, and it is not his concern with whom Liverpool is discussing a possible contract.

Salah has had a very good debut season in Liverpool history, helping the club reach the Champions League final.

Salah also represented his country at the World Cup.

Egypt and Liverpool forward, who is currently the best footballer in Africa, has been voted BBC’s No.1 African Footballer of the Year for the second time in a row.

Prior to this Nigeria’s Jay-Jay Okocha had won the award in consecutive years.

Source: Presstv

28, December 2018

Christmas and Cameroon’s Redemption: Joy to a troubled Nation ⁰

Cameroonian Christians joined their counterparts the world over on December 25 to celebrate the great event of the birth of Jesus Christ, the Son of God and the Savior whose remarkable life of virtue, teaching and sacrificial death on the Cross of Calvary form the bedrock of the over two thousand-year-old Christian religion. Even in a nation overrun by materialistic wooliness, self-centered pedestrianism and other social vices impacting negatively on spirituality and morality, a nation witnessing an inexorable decline in public morality and Christian values, the continued influence of Jesus Christ is nevertheless unmistakable.

Cameroonian Christians should therefore reflect on Christ’s compassionate life and instructions and apply His teachings in their individual lives. Through His love, Christ demonstrated God’s mercy and compassion for mankind. So, Cameroonians should always show mercy to all in their communities with love and charity that touches the lives of those around them. In a nation begging for good exemplars, President Biya and the ruling elite occupy a unique place in that deficiency. The soul of the country is lost and the nation has been taken hostage by a cabal of octogenarians tottering on the borders of senile decay. The President is completely out of touch with reality and his underlings are stealing the nation blind in his name. In Cameroon today, it is now fashionable to steal only in billions. Just look at the scandalous contracts in the AFCON 2019 debacle. As a result, a blessed nation seems cursed and rudderless in life’s ocean.

This should engage the attention of all in this festive season. Christmas, of course, has come to be associated with festivities, the celebration of family and friendship, with the exchange of visits and gifts. For Cameroonians, however, this year’s Christmas is bringing to a close, a year of forlorn hopes and shattered expectations. The nation has been struggling to cope with poverty, worsening economic crisis, decaying social infrastructure and even more widespread insecurity, especially in the Northwest and Southwest regions; in the throes of a full blown armed insurgency by Ambazonia restoration fighters.

Reports of monumental corruption and mindless looting of the treasury continue with the scandalous contracts awarded in the countdown to the AFCON 2019 debacle. The fight against corruption appears lost as the regime has surrendered to the superior firepower of graft. The rising insecurity accompanied by kidnapping for ransom especially in the Anglophone regions has made every Cameroonian a prisoner in his own land. So hostile is the land that many youths would do anything including trekking across the desert to escape it and not minding the risks being taken. As a result, when not dying on the voyage, Cameroonians have ended up as slaves being sold in the open market in North African countries.

In spite of the agony and the social chaos that have buffeted in the country, the celebratory spirit of the Cameroonian is one that is most irrepressible. This incurable optimism in the average Cameroonian is what appears to have secured the peaceful quiet that prevails in many quarters today amid the subsisting trauma of life. Cameroonians, their pains notwithstanding, live the truism that Christmas is indeed the proclamation of good news. It is a celebration of joy and of hope. The Christ whose birth was celebrated on December 25 has given the world a roadmap to abundant life, peace and prosperity. Taken seriously and applied in individual and corporate lives, the values preached by Jesus Christ, namely, sacrificial love, justice, compassion, leadership by service, forgiveness, humility and purity of heart, will transform Cameroon for the better.

And so, in the middle of the festivities, Christians are once again challenged to live up to the core values of their religion, and impact positively on their socio-cultural and political environment. Christians are challenged to reject the prevailing cult of greed and selfishness, to shun the widespread cult of pleasure, to reject the dominant cult of money and strive to live purposeful lives devoted to the advancement of the common good. It is time for Cameroonian leaders to exhibit the attributes of Jesus Christ in order to build a just, peaceful and prosperous nation. Until that happens, Anglophones will continue to see no reason to belong to a country run by gangsters and kleptocrats.

By Ekinneh Agbaw-Ebai

27, December 2018

Russia backs bin Salman, warns US not to interfere with Saudi throne succession ⁰

Saudi Arabia Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has “every right” to succeed his ailing father into power, says Russian Deputy Prime Minister Mikhail Bogdanov, warning the United States against interfering with the embattled prince’s right to rule the kingdom.

Bogdanov, who is also President Vladimir Putin’s envoy to the Middle East, said Tuesday it was up to Riyadh to decide what was next for bin Salman when King Salman, 82, dies. “Of course we are against interference. The Saudi people and leadership must decide such questions themselves,” Mikhail Bogdanov said in an interview in Moscow, according to Bloomberg.

Bin Salman became Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler last year in an untraditional manner, replacing Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, the late Saudi king’s son.

Wary of getting bogged down in a power struggle, bin Salman soon launched a widespread crackdown against other royals to cement his grip on power.

However, his actions went mostly unanswered until October this year, when Riyadh admitted to murdering dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in the Turkish city of Istanbul.

The crown prince has also faced worldwide criticism for leading the ongoing deadly war against Yemen, which has killed thousands of civilians.

US President Donald Trump’s reluctance to hold the crown prince responsible for his actions has prompted angry bipartisan calls in Washington to remove MbS from power.

Prominent senators have publicly blasted the crown prince, with Lindsey Graham, Trump’s staunch ally, calling him “crazy” and “dangerous.”

Bogdanov said Tuesday that Americans were in no positions to make such calls.

“The king made a decision and I can’t even imagine on what grounds someone in America will interfere in such an issue and think about who should rule Saudi Arabia, now or in the future. This is a Saudi matter.”

Culled from Presstv

27, December 2018

Leaked video shows jailed Francophone minister celebrating birthday ⁰

A video that was leaked out on social media showed former Minister of Water and Energy, Basile Atangana Kouna celebrating his birthday in his luxurious cell at the Yaounde central prison.

It is not clear when the amateur video was shot but it emerged on December 24 showing the jailed minister alongside his wife, son and other family members.

The luxurious nature of his prison cell has caused outrage on social media with many questioning the reasons of keeping people in luxurious cells without recovering money they are being accused of embezzling.

Basile Atangana Kouna has been behind bars for the past nine months after he was arrested in Nigeria on March 22 and flown back to Cameroon as he attempted to escape following his dismissal from the government on the 2^nd of March.

Culled from Journal Du Cameroun

27, December 2018

Yaounde: Maurice Kamto ‘barred’ from travelling out of the country ⁰

The man widely believed to have won the October 7 presidential poll in French Cameroun, Prof Maurice Kamto has accused authorities of scheming to bar him from travelling out of the country.

According to a statement from a member of the Kamto Campaign, Cameroun government authorities have refused to renew Kamto’s passport since it expired despite all formal procedures completed for renewal.

“The national and international community is informed that President Maurice Kamto has been barred from leaving Cameroon,” Olivier Bibou Nissack, spokesman for Maurice Kamto said.

Kamto last left the country in November to attend the African Union summit with the help of his civil passport but it has equally reached its expiration date without renewal and his team sees this as a means to stifle the president of the Cameroon Renaissance Movement.

“It is now very clear that the various illegal restrictions on Kamto’s freedoms which started with a house arrest which never came to fruition, other measures are being taken to restrict his freedom of movement and communication” Bibou Nissack said

Maurice Kamto has refused to recognize the results proclaimed by the Constitutional Council declaring Paul Biya winner of the October 7 Presidential election, vowing to challenge the results at international level.

Source: Journal du Cameroun

26, December 2018

Boko Haram kills 13 soldiers, a policeman in Nigeria ⁰

Boko Haram Takfiri terrorists ambushed a military convoy in northeastern Nigeria, killing 13 soldiers and a policeman, the army said Wednesday.

But an officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the militants had overrun an army base, and put the death toll at 18.

An army statement said the attackers ambushed a military convoy late Monday on a highway linking Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state, with Damaturu in neighboring Yobe state.

“Sadly, 13 military and a police personnel… paid the supreme price while extricating themselves from the ambush,” said the statement, signed by local military spokesman Colonel Onyema Nwachukwu.

The attack followed an attempted raid on a nearby military base along the highway in Kukareta village, 20 kilometers (12 miles) from Damaturu, Nwachukwu said.

That attack was “repelled” by troops who “engaged and overpowered the terrorists, killing several of them”, Nwachukwu said, adding that a soldier was injured.

Other security sources said fighters travelling in eight trucks fitted with anti-aircraft guns had overrun the base.

“The terrorists killed 17 soldiers in the attack, which lasted for more than an hour,” an officer told AFP on condition of anonymity.

“They took over the military base after overpowering troops and burnt it down. A policeman was killed when their vehicle which was heading to Damaturu ran into crossfire but the driver escaped unhurt,” the military source said.

A Nigerian army vehicle patrols in the town of Banki in northeastern Nigeria

A medic in Damaturu hospital said 18 bodies were taken to the morgue late Monday.

A civilian militiaman in the area gave a similar account and said the fighters withdrew after torching the base.

“They burnt the base and two military vehicles. They also burnt two primary schools in Kukareta and neighboring Ngaurawa village,” said the militiaman.

Boko Haram extremists have carried out dozens of attacks on military bases in recent months. Scores of soldiers have been killed or listed as missing.

The 120-kilometre (75-mile) Maiduguri-Damaturu highway has seen repeated attacks, including raids on military bases and markets.

In September 2013, Boko Haram fighters disguised as soldiers barricaded the highway and killed 167 people, in the worst attack targeting motorists.

The nine-year-long insurgency has killed 27,000 people and displaced two million more, creating a dire humanitarian crisis.

The conflict has spilled over into Nigeria’s northern neighbors Chad, Niger and Cameroon.

(Source: AFP)

26, December 2018

French Cameroun Villagers Flee Suspected Ambazonian Attack ⁰

Authorities in Cameroon say hundreds of people have fled villages in a French-speaking region after suspected Anglophone separatists abducted 15 people and torched 80 houses.

The French-speaking villages of Menkefou and Choupat in western Cameroon are almost empty.

An attack by suspected Anglophone separatists early Monday sent hundreds of villagers fleeing for safety.

Fifty year old Constantine Njowir, a Menkefou militia member, says he was lucky to get away with only a machete wound to his leg.

He says he watched helplessly as one of his militia members died after he was inflicted wounds on his chest and stomach with knives and machetes. He says besides burning houses the fighters were shooting indiscriminately and taking along people who resisted.

Njowir says the armed men shouted demands that the government release all arrested English-speaking Cameroonians or pay the price

Elvis Suinyuy, a government teacher in the village of Choupat, says the men threatened to return if Anglophone leaders were not freed.

“They were young boys carrying guns, shooting. One man was killed. As you can see many of the people around have gone away because they have promised us that they are going to come back so we do not know their next plan,” Suinyuy said. “If the government is not there to help us, there will be a serious catastrophe.”

Governor of the western region Augustine Awah Fonka says there were more than 300 armed men involved in the attack. He says they abducted 15 people and torched houses, cars and motor cycles, and looted property.

Governor Augustine Awah Fonka in Bangourain, Sunday, Dec. 23, 2018. (Photo: M. Kindzeka)

“More than 86 houses have been destroyed by unidentified gun men made up of mostly young men and women who appeared in this village and destroyed houses and properties, had the population beaten and left them in pain, poverty, and traumatized,” Fonka said. “I want to assure them that the government is going to redress the situation. More military men will be deployed to take care of the population.”

The government blamed Anglophone separatists in the neighboring northwest region for the attack, and said they appeared to be men fleeing from military raids. Cameroon’s separatists did not issue any immediate response to the accusation.

It is the second time the Bangourain region where the villages are located was attacked.

The government deployed the military and asked communities near separatist areas to create village militias for self defense.

Cameroon’s English-speaking separatists have been protesting since 2016 against discrimination by the French-speaking majority.

Their protests were initially peaceful but, in response to a government crackdown, some separatists are waging a violent campaign for independence.

The insurgency gained pace in 2017when leader JuliusAyukTabewas arrested in Nigeria with 46 collaborators and extradited to Cameroon.

They face a possible death penalty in Cameroon on charges of secession, terrorism and attempting to destabilize the country.

Cameroon President Paul Biya earlier this month ordered the release of 289 English-speaking people arrested for supporting the separatists.

While the gesture of reconciliation received widespread praise, the separatists continue to demand Biya release all of their leaders.

Culled from the VOA

26, December 2018

Cameroon forward Choupo-Moting’s home burgled in Paris for second time in a month ⁰

The home of Paris Saint-Germain forward Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting was broken into by thieves for the second time in a month, a police source said on Tuesday.

Thieves escaped with jewels and handbags worth more than 500,000 euros (570,000) last month while Choupo-Moting was playing for PSG against Liverpool in the Champions League.

The Cameroon international was again targeted on Monday, as burglars reportedly forced open the door of his flat in the French capital and then fled after setting off an alarm.

PSG captain Thiago Silva had been the victim of a robbery on Saturday while he was playing in the club’s 1-0 win over Nantes at the Parc des Princes.

In December 2017, the Paris apartment of then PSG coach Unai Emery, now at Arsenal, was burgled as his team played Strasbourg in the French Cup.

Source: ahram.org.eg

26, December 2018

In Xmas message, Pope appeals for peace in Mideast conflict zones ⁰

In his annual Christmas message, Pope Francis, the head of the Roman Catholic Church, has urged people to overcome their differences and find political solutions to conflicts, especially those gripping the Middle East region.

Addressing a 50,000-strong crowd at Saint Peter’s Square in Vatican City on Tuesday, the pope called for a spirit of “fraternity” to be rekindled in conflict zones such as Syria, Yemen and Palestine.

“My wish for a happy Christmas is a wish for fraternity,” among individuals of “every nation and culture” as well as among people “with different ideas, yet capable of respecting and listening to one another,” the 82-year-old pontiff said.

He also stressed that differences should not be seen as a “detriment or a danger” but rather “a source of richness.”

“May the international community work decisively for a political solution that can put aside divisions and partisan interests, so that the Syrian people, especially all those who were forced to leave their own lands and seek refuge elsewhere, can return to live in peace in their own country,” the pope said.

The pontiff also used the occasion as an opportunity to address the ongoing war and the humanitarian disaster in Yemen.

“My thoughts turn to Yemen, in the hope that the truce brokered by the international community may finally bring relief to all those children and people exhausted by war and famine,” he added.

Pope Francis also expressed hopes for a resumption of dialog between Israelis and Palestinians to “put an end to a conflict that for over 70 years has rent the land chosen by the Lord to show his face of love.”

He further affirmed the Palestinian side’s readiness to hold new discussions with the Tel Aviv regime on the basis of the international law and relevant United Nations General Assembly and Security Council resolutions.

Referring to other hotspots across the globe, Pope Francis further called for rapprochement on the Korean Peninsula, peace in Ukraine, “social harmony” in Venezuela, reconciliation in Nicaragua and an end to conflict in Africa, “where millions of people are refugees, or displaced or in need of humanitarian assistance and food security.”

Source: Presstv