Headline News

GCE 2017: Francophone Minister extends deadline for the fourth time

31, March 2017

GCE 2017: Francophone Minister extends deadline for the fourth time 3

The Francophone Minister for Secondary Education, Jean Ernest Massena Ngale Bibehe has again extended registration deadline for the General Certificate of Education Examinations, GCE to April 15, 2017. This is the fourth time the Biya member of government is authorizing an extension.

Minister Jean Ernest Massena Ngale Bibehe known in Southern Cameroons as “the Clown,” made public his decision on Thursday March 30, 2017in Yaoundé. The minister added that the extension shall benefit only students in Buea and Bamenda centers who have not registered.

The Ministerial order comes some 10 days after the 3rd deadline expired on March 20, 2017. Ngale Bibehe also gave a two weeks period of grace for the GCE examination. Correspondingly, the examination will hold two week after the initial date.

Confirming that he was indeed a clown, the Francophone minister stated in his press release that Anglophone students should take advantage of this two weeks Easter holiday break and enroll in holiday classes to catch up with time lost.  A leading figure of the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium has rubbished the extension stating that schools and universities in Southern Cameroons will remained closed till both French and West Cameroon will open dialogue in the presence of a third party.

By Sama Ernest with files from CIN

 

Fire destroys food market in Limbe

30, March 2017

Fire destroys food market in Limbe 0

Fire has consumed seven shops at the Limbe New market early Thursday, razing all its contents to ashes. According to some Motor Bike riders who were the first to arrive the scene, the fire started around 4am. They recounted how they saw chunks of smoke in the air accompanied by sudden light that pierced the darkness sending an unusual signal that all was not well.

The people of Church Street Limbe accompanied by many bikers struggled to put off the fire three hours after. They did so with local means due to the absence of fire fighters. Cameroun Info.Net reported that the Fire fighters from the Limbe City Council and SONARA did not show up despite incessant calls.

Roofs of some of the shops got burst and the fire found its way out of the shops, several goods especially palm oil, clothes were consumed by the flames. The Divisional Officer for Limbe One, Epalle Seraphine together with some Francophone Gendarmes visited the site but refused to talk to the press saying on the Senior Divisional Officer, Zang III was in best place to issue a public statement. The cause of the tragic incident has not been established yet but traders are suspecting a criminal act.

Cameroun Info.Net

French Cameroun: Another Biya committee holds session

30, March 2017

French Cameroun: Another Biya committee holds session 0

The Biya regime has come up with a new style of governance which is that of creating committees. Correspondingly, members of the Finance Committee charged in putting in place the reforms of the Public Finances in the country began meeting this Tuesday 28 th March 2017 in Yaoundé. The 7th ordinary session focused on the relevance of reforms on results oriented for the country’s sustainable growth is being chaired by the Minister of Finance, Alamine Ousman Mey.

At the opening session he restated that the reforms of public finance will be based on the 2035 vision, the impact of climate change, gender equality and national debt strategy which focuses on growth, employment and good governance.

This will be carried out through Coordinate planning, programming, budgeting and evaluation; material and human resources will also be mobilized and used efficiently so to accomplish the goal. Mr. Alamine further emphasized the need for joint efforts by government, private sector, technical and financial partners.

Culled from CRTV

Southern Cameroons digital businesses still relying on La Republique!! Diaspora won’t talk

30, March 2017

Southern Cameroons digital businesses still relying on La Republique!! Diaspora won’t talk 0

Young businessmen and women from British Southern Cameroons have established a center at Bonako, a village some few kilometers from French Cameroun from where they are able to have access to internet services from La Republique du Cameroun.

Not to see their businesses crumble, the Southern Cameroons entrepreneurs particularly start-ups have decided to create an “oasis” of the Internet following cuts ordered by the 84 year old dictator, President Paul Biya.

Bonako has become the largest internet hub in the world for Southern Cameroonians. “Several start-ups have rented rooms in the village of Bonako, furnished it with chairs and tables and installed electricity using generators. Dozens with start-ups now operate here, each using their own phone as an internet modem.’

It is tedious and the remoteness of the village is not easy to manage. However, the so-called Anglophone CPDM political elites are satisfied with the internet shutdown and have claimed that La Republique du Cameroun will eventually stifle the Southern Cameroons revolution.

Southern Cameroons have been cut off from the world after months of violent protest. The Francophone dominated government decided to deprive the Anglophones of any internet connection-a radical policy that has endangered the highly developed digital ecosystem in the Southern Cameroons.

The absence of the internet does not only affect exchanges among British Southern Cameroonians, but it has also weighed heavily on the economy and the fact that the Southern Cameroons Diaspora is maintaining a kind of deliberate silence on the matter is disturbing.

By Chi Prudence Asong

UK prime minister triggers Brexit process

30, March 2017

UK prime minister triggers Brexit process 0

UK Prime Minister Theresa May has triggered the formal, two-year process of withdrawing Britain from the European Union (EU), likely to be the most complex London has held since World War Two. Launching the process of Britain’s exit from the EU, popularly known as Brexit, was announced by the prime minister on Wednesday at the UK Parliament, after more than 40 years of membership in the bloc.

On behalf of May, British Ambassador to the EU Tim Barrow hand-delivered a letter to European Council President Donald Tusk in Brussels to officially notify the EU of Britain’s decision to withdraw from the bloc. The six page letter invoked Article 50 of the EU Treaty, the mechanism for starting Britain’s divorce process.  In her speech to Parliament, which was planned to coincide with the letter’s delivery, May urged the country to come together as it embarks on a “momentous journey.” “The Article 50 process is now under way and in accordance with the wishes of the British people, the United Kingdom is leaving the European Union,” she said. “This is a historic moment from which there can be no turning back.”

Brussels is expected to deliver its first response to London on Friday, followed by a summit of EU leaders on April 29 to adopt their own guidelines, possibly taking weeks before formal talks start. The United Kingdom held a referendum last June in which Britons voted by a 52-48 percent margin to leave the EU, the first member state ever to do so. However, there is a chance that the Brexit negotiations will break down and the UK will be forced to exit the EU without any deal in place. The EU is determined to preserve its own unity and has said that any Brexit agreement must not encourage other member states to leave the bloc.

Although Britain as whole voted to leave the EU, Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to stay in the bloc. The Brexit referendum has prompted nationalists in Scotland and Northern Ireland to call for a referendum on independence from the United Kingdom. There is broad consensus among economists that Brexit will have a prolonged effect of the British economy and will ultimately diminish output, jobs and wealth to some degree. Many business leaders are also concerned about May’s decision to leave the EU single market, a free trade area of 500 million people, fearing its impact on jobs and economic growth.

Presstv

 

146 feared missing after boat capsizes in Mediterranean

30, March 2017

146 feared missing after boat capsizes in Mediterranean 0

A Gambian man rescued from a refugee vessel sunken in the Mediterranean has told the United Nations officials that around 150 were on board when the ship capsized off Libya. The UN refugee agency said Wednesday that some 146 refugees, among them children and several pregnant women, were feared missing after the capsizing, which purportedly occurred earlier this week.

The agency said the Gambian man was interviewed in a hospital in the Italian island of Lampedusa after he was spotted almost by accident by a Spanish military ship sailing in the Mediterranean as part of a European Union operation to crack down on smugglers. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) said the Spanish ship had found the man while he was desperately holding on a fuel can to survive.

The Gambian told a member of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees that the refugee vessel, which left on Sunday or Monday from Sabratha, western Libya, began taking on water a few hours after setting off. He said passengers included refugees from Nigeria, Mali and The Gambia.

A deal between the EU and Turkey in March last year forced many to dare the risky journey through the Central Mediterranean from Libya to Italy. Smugglers have also benefited from the chaos and lawlessness in Libya to dispatch more people on board unsafe dinghies.

More than 23,000 refugees have managed to make it to the Italian shores since the beginning of 2017, Italian authorities say. The IOM says 590 refugees have died or gone missing along the Libyan coast, without considering the figure from the recent disaster.

Presstv

Financial scandal rocks the Indomitable Lions, Head Coach says corruption so profound that even aid granted to the country by international partners rarely reaches their recipients

29, March 2017

Financial scandal rocks the Indomitable Lions, Head Coach says corruption so profound that even aid granted to the country by international partners rarely reaches their recipients 0

After winning the Africa Cup of Nations in Gabon, Cameroon football has gone back to its old habits rocked by scandals. In a statement that has sparked controversy and embarrassed the Yaoundé regime, the trainer of the Indomitable Lions of Cameroon, Hugo Broos has told the world that the players did not eat at noon in Brussels, Belgium before a friendly encounter because the hotel was not paid.

The declaration has once again raised the issue of corruption and embezzlement of funds allocated to the management of the national team and more generally of Cameroonian football. “I’m more than outraged before the game the players did not eat. About eleven, I asked them to go down to the restaurant for lunch. They went there. But the hotel staff blocked the entrance saying that since the team’s stay, the bills have not been paid, “said the Belgian technician on Radio France International, after the friendly match against Guinea in Belgium.

The Belgian added, “And me the question I ask is where the money went. We must stop with amateurism. I’ve been with Cameroon for a year now. With the players I have done beautiful things. But frankly, I wonder if I have to continue with Cameroon!! “

Perhaps that explained why the current African Champions suffered their first defeat on Tuesday evening, against Guinea at the Edmond Machtens stadium.  The European technician revealed that corruption is a profound evil in Cameroon. So profound that even the aid granted to the country by the international partners rarely reaches their recipients. Cameroonian leaders are accused by the press of monopolizing all the wealth they share with their families or courtiers. And that they are passed down from generation to generation.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Trump’s funding request for wall, military must wait

29, March 2017

Trump’s funding request for wall, military must wait 0

US President Donald Trump’s funding request for building a wall on the Mexican border as well as military activities has to wait by later this year, Senate Republican leaders say. Missouri Republican Senator Roy Blunt argued Tuesday that the new president’s supplemental funding request would complicate the spending bill lawmakers already have to deal with.

The US government could face a shutdown as its funding is due to expire on April 28. “We have the FY17 defense bill,” said Blunt, a senior member of the Appropriations Committee, at a leadership press conference.

Democrats have vowed to bar any legislation, involving a funding for the construction of the wall, which the Republican president used to promote on the campaign trail.

“All of the committees, the leaderships of the House and Senate, are working together to try to finalize the rest of the FY17 bill,” Blunt said. “My guess is that comes together better without the supplemental.”

The statement ran against Trump’s request for a supplemental spending bill. According to South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, “The border wall is probably not a smart investment.” While campaigning for the 2016 presidential election, the then-GOP candidate vowed to make Mexico to pay for the wall rather than American taxpayers

Presstv

 

Nelson Mandela’s closest colleague in the anti-apartheid struggle dies aged 87

29, March 2017

Nelson Mandela’s closest colleague in the anti-apartheid struggle dies aged 87 0

Celebrated South African anti-apartheid activist Ahmed Kathrada, a Robben Island prisoner and one of Nelson Mandela’s closest colleagues in the struggle against white rule, died early Tuesday aged 87.

Kathrada was among those tried and jailed alongside Mandela in the Rivonia trial in 1964, which drew worldwide attention to the brutalities of the apartheid regime. He died in hospital in Johannesburg after a short illness following brain surgery, his charity foundation said.

Kathrada spent 26 years and three months in prison, 18 of which were on Robben Island, the notorious jail off the coast of Cape Town.

After the end of apartheid, he served from 1994 to 1999 as parliamentary counselor to President Mandela in the first African National Congress (ANC) government.

Retired Archbishop Desmond Tutu described Kathrada as “a man of remarkable gentleness, modesty and steadfastness,” hailing him a moral leader of the anti-apartheid movement.

“These were people of the highest integrity and moral fibre who, through their humility and humanity, inspired our collective self-worth -– and the world’s confidence in us,” Tutu said in a statement.

Culled from Concisenews

West Cameroon Crisis: Fru Ndi and the SDF should go and go now

29, March 2017

West Cameroon Crisis: Fru Ndi and the SDF should go and go now 5

The crisis in Southern Cameroons has finally exposed the SDF Chairman Ni John Fru Ndi as a collaborator and not an opposition to the Biya Francophone Beti Ewondo regime. The SDF leadership held a National Executive Committee meeting in Yaoundé to demonstrate to their French donors that the party is against secession.  The barons of the SDF party launched a fierce attack on the credibility of Hon. Joseph Wirba calling him a reckless and tackle Member of Parliament.  Fru Ndi further pointed out that Wirba acted out of the party’s rules and regulations.

The SDF National Executive Committee meeting came out virtually with nothing than the simple fact that Fru Ndi’s authority was fast draining away even among his own people. We of this publication think Ni John Fru, Joseph Mbah Ndam and the other NEC members are playing the Francophone card and are trying to benefit from the Southern Cameroons revolution. The recent SDF stand on Hon. Joseph Wirba only confirmed that Fru Ndi and his acolytes should go and go now.

When we of the Cameroon Concord News Group look along the SDF front liners and we see Hon. Joseph Mbah Ndam, we wonder if he is aware of the killings and abductions going on in his home constituency or if he is thinking about the current militarization of Bamenda or is he wondering about his private investments in La Republique du Cameroun if an independent state of Southern Cameroons becomes a reality in the months ahead?

We think about Hon. Josuah Osih who should be concerned with the current problems facing businesses in Southern Cameroons after the shutdown of internet services but notice he is wondering whether he will continue to have lucrative CPDM government contracts when Southern Cameroons is freed.

The fact is that Southern Cameroonians have got long-term challenges and we need a long-term political strategy not the SDF’s short-term collaboration with Biya to deal with those challenges. We are standing by our earlier comments that all Anglophone MPs be they from the SDF or the ruling CPDM crime syndicate should stand down from the National Assembly in French Cameroun for the good of all Southern Cameroonians. Cameroon Concord News Group meant that sincerely. And this week SDF NEC meeting only confirms what we said.

Southern Cameroonians are utterly confused because they pay their taxes but they see everything including the health service potentially shrinking instead of growing. Fru Ndi and his gang need to admit to the mistakes that have been made by the SDF. There has been mismanagement of good political opportunities by the SDF and that has created so many deficits in Southern Cameroons. The Southern Cameroons uprising and the unity of the North West and the South West people are not about better jobs and top pay or health care and other financial imperatives. It is about an INDEPENDENT STATE OF SOUTHERN CAMEROONS.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Cameroon Concord News Group

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