Headline News

17, July 2016

President Putin condemns recent botched military coup in Turkey ⁰

Russian President Vladimir Putin has made a phone call to his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to condemn the recent botched military coup attempt in Turkey and express hope that the country would soon embrace stability. In the phone call on Sunday, Putin described as categorically unacceptable the “anti-constitutional acts and violence” in the life of a state, saying that he “wishes for a speedy restoration of strong constitutional order and stability in Turkey.”

The Kremlin said in a statement that the Russian leader also offered condolences on the death of 161 troops and civilians killed during the coup attempt. The Turkish government and the military say more than 100 coup plotters were also killed in the course of state action against the military intervention which unfolded late Friday and was declared as failed a day later.

Russia and Turkey last month restored ties which had been badly strained following Ankara’s shooting of a Russian fighter jet near the Syrian border last year. The restoration came after Erdogan apologized to Putin over the incident and passed on his condolences to the families of the jet’s pilot and the crew member killed after the downing.

The Kremlin said the two leaders also confirmed during the Sunday phone call plans for a personal meeting in the nearest future. Turkish officials said earlier this month that Erdogan would fly to the Russian resort of Suchi to meet Putin in August. The Sunday statement said Erdogan also vowed to take “all necessary steps” to ensure the safety of Russian tourists visiting Turkey. Later on Sunday, Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency, quoting presidential sources, reported that Erdogan and his Russian counterpart will meet in the first week of August.

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17, July 2016

US ambassador to Cameroon says the United States is proud of its partnership with Yaounde ⁰

Michael Stephen Hoza, Ambassador of the United States of America to Cameroon tells Cameroon Tribune that the US is proud of the strong partnership it has with Cameroon. In this soul searching conversation, he also talks of areas of bilateral cooperation and preparations of US presidential election.

What are the key areas of current bilateral cooperation between Cameroon and the United States of America ?

Ambassador Stephen Hoza: The United States of America is proud of our strong partnership, particularly on the security front with Cameroon to defeat the violent extremism of Boko Haram, to provide peacekeepers to the United Nations and bring stability back to the suffering people of the Central African Republic and to defeat pirates in the Gulf of Guinea.

Our partnership extends into the health sector where we work closely with Cameroon’s health experts to fight infectious disease, to eradicate polio, to defeat HIV/AIDS, to build health sector capacity to prevent, detect and respond to virulent pandemics like Ebola or Avian Bird Flu, and to take on the scourge of malaria. We have sponsored people to people programs that have brought Fulbright scholars, International Visitors, and Young African Leaders to America, each of them representing a beautiful thread in the fabric of our bilateral relationship.

We have partnered with Cameroonians at all levels to sustain the engagement of Peace Corps Volunteers engaging their new families in a vibrant cultural exchange. We promote private sector investment in Cameroon, like Taylor Guitars and Crelicam, who bring world class technology, create jobs for Cameroonians, and responsibly harvest the riches of Cameroon’s wonderful forests. Crelicam supplies Cameroonian ebony to all of the finest guitar makers in the world, and Bob Taylor has partnered with the University of Yaounde and UCLA to begin a program that will plant more ebony than Crelicam cuts down! That is American corporate social responsibility at its finest.

All eyes are now almost turned towards the various parties nomination conventions ahead of the November 8, 2016 presidential election in the United States of America. How is your general appraisal of the electoral process up to this moment?

Ambassador Stephen Hoza: This is an exciting time for Americans to exercise our voice through our vote. When George Washington was elected as the first president in 1789, only 6 percent of the U.S. population could vote. In most of the original 13 states, only landowning men over the age of 21 had the right to vote.

Today, the U.S. Constitution guarantees that all U.S. citizens over the age of 18 can vote in federal, state and local elections. In November of this year, America will hold its 57th Presidential election. Over 218 million American citizens, every man and woman aged 18 and up, will have the right to vote, and their vote will select the chief executive of our country-peacefully. Winners will celebrate; losers will concede graciously and plan for the next election.

It is certain that after the presidential election, the US will have a new President to pilot the affairs of the country. How do you see the American position and rule in international affairs when the new leadership will be in power?

Ambassador Stephen Hoza: We can’t predict the results of the election or what the next President’s policies will be. However, we can say that the beauty of democratic systems are in their absolute commitment to respecting the will of the people in their choice of leaders, and the constitutional processes that ensure smooth transitions from one chief executive to the next.

On the day our new President is sworn in, this Embassy, the State Department, our military and our entire government will, as required by our constitution, immediately go to work on ensuring that his or her policies are faithfully executed in a manner consistent with our laws and regulations and that The Peoples’ business continues uninterrupted.

All federal employees pledge allegiance to the Constitution of the United States because it is that document that sets out our responsibilities to the office of the President and the people of the United States, and it is the values embodied by the constitution that carry over from one administration to the next, regardless of specific political programs and policies presidents are elected to enact.

And those values will continue to underpin our actions and activities now and in the future. As always, we are not focused on our position and power, but on our partnerships and their potential to promote stability and better lives for all. We are focusing on what we’re doing right now, both in Cameroon, and around the world, and our commitment to engagement in so many regions is not going to stop.

17, July 2016

French Interior Minister urged to resign ⁰

France’s far-right leader has called on Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve to resign, saying the steeply increasing death toll from terrorist attacks in France is clear evidence of the need for changes in the French government.

During a speech on Saturday, two days after the deadly terrorist attack in Nice, French National Front Party Leader Marine Le Pen said, “In any other country in the world, a minister with a toll as horrendous as Bernard Cazeneuve — 250 dead in 18 months — would have quit.”

The French government is facing severe criticism from opposition politicians and newspapers following the Nice attack, the third major terrorist attack on the French soil in 18 months.

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16, July 2016

African leaders in Rwanda to attend major summit ⁰

African leaders arrived in the Rwandan capital Saturday to attend a major summit which is expected to be dominated by discussions about excessive focus of international bodies on abuses in Africa and the conflict in South Sudan. The main theme of discussion is expected to be Africa’s uneasy relationship with the International Criminal Court (ICC) as some countries have renewed efforts to quit the body en masse despite opposition by some countries such as Botswana. Leaders have repeatedly criticized the ICC over the past years for what they call an unnecessary ICC focus on African nations. They have called for a separate African court with jurisdiction over rights abuses.

“Withdrawal from [the] ICC is entirely within the sovereignty of a particular state,” Joseph Chilengi, an AU official, told reporters. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, who has been a major campaigner for the withdrawal from the ICC, recently called the court “useless.” However, the call seems to have hit a major snag, as Nigeria, Senegal and Ivory Coast have followed Botswana and pushed back as well.

Rwanda has invited Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir, who is wanted by the ICC for alleged war crimes in the Darfur region. Rwandan Foreign Minister Louise Mushikiwabo said the country would not arrest Bashir despite concerns that Kigali would hand over the Sudanese leader like it did to war criminal Bosco Ntaganda of Congo in 2013.

“Africa doesn’t support criminals, but when justice is involved with a lot of politics we take a pause to separate the two,” Mushikiwabo said this week. Discussing the fresh wave of conflict in South Sudan, where deadly clashes have erupted between army factions, is also high on the agenda at the AU summit. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, who is at the summit, has called for an arms embargo as a solution to the conflict which has claimed a considerable number of lives over the past days.

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16, July 2016

Cameroon and Amnesty International: Living together differently ²

Cameroonians in their great majority are still waiting for publicized press releases from human rights organisations out rightly condemning human casualties caused Boko Haram suicide bombings last 12^th, 22^nd and 25^th July in the Far North Region. The alacrity with which they have been condemning alleged human rights violations by the Cameroonian defence and security forces mismatches their apparent reluctance in responding to the 13 deaths and 10 injured caused by two suicide bombers on July 12, 2015 in the locality of Fotokol as well as the three suicide attacks perpetrated in Maroua on 22^nd and 25^th July, 2015 leaving a total of 34 dead and 117 wounded.

To many, the silence of human rights organisations cannot be comprehended, thus raising questions as to who is really behind these NGOs? Who is footing their bills? Are they fronts for those plotting to destabilize stable countries such as Cameroon? On June 20, 2015, Amnesty International issued a press release denouncing the alleged detention of 80 children in a center for minors in the Far North Region for reported links with Boko Haram. The release quoted Cameroonian authorities as saying that the kids arrested in a Koranic school were preparing a suicide-bomb mission for Boko Haram.

An allegation which some human rights organisations, including Amnesty International, said was unfounded. Could this explain the latter’s silence when the two young suicide bombers detonated their bombs in Fotokol on July 12^th and later on 22^nd and 25^th July in Maroua? The answer is blowing in the wind. Nevertheless, the silence is sharply in contrast with Amnesty’s condemnation of Boko Haram’s human rights violations in neighbouring Nigeria. In a report early this year, the NGO claimed Boko Haram had since beginning of 2014 murdered at least 5,500 civilians in North Eastern Nigeria, displaced at least one million persons due to violence and kidnapped over 2,000 women and young girls.

Amnesty International is not the only organization to have gone vocal. A Cameroonian-based NGO called the Network of Human Rights Defenders in Central Africa (REDHAC) issued a release on February 19, 2015 denouncing human rights abuses by Cameroon’s security forces in their fight against Boko Haram. Although, the release timidly mentioned Boko Haram violations, it focused on alleged intimidation, acts of torture by Cameroonian soldiers against the population to gather information.

REDHAC has surprisingly gone silent after the Fotokol and Maroua Boko Haram suicide-bombings, likewise another NGO, Nouveaux Droits de l’Homme (NDH-Cameroon) which supported REDHAC with a release, even appreciated support given REDHAC by other NGOs such as “Un Monde Avenir” and the Civil Society Platform for Democracy. What now explains their silence after the three recent suicide-bombings in Far North region of Cameroon?

Cameroon Tribune

16, July 2016

Nice attack: Prime Minister Philemon Yang tells French ambassador “Cameroon stands shoulder-to-shoulder with the French nation” ⁰

Yaoundé has presented a condolence message to the French nation following the deadly attacks in Nice. To be sure, it was the sixth attack in France just within a year. At least 84 people were killed by a truck driven by a suicide bomber while they were celebrating the last hours of the national holiday at a place called “Promenade des Anglais”

Less than 24 hours after the tragedy, President Paul Biya sent a condolence message to Francois Hollande, his French counterpart in which he condemned in the strongest terms the “cowardly, barbaric and heinous acts that nothing can justify” wrote the Cameroonian chief executive.

Soon after the correspondence to President Hollande, Prime Minister Philemon Yang went to the residence of the French ambassador in Yaoundé on Friday afternoon where he was received by Christine Robichon, the Ambassador of France to Cameroon. Philemon Yang did sign a condolence book and assured the ambassador of the esteem and support of the Cameroonian people.

Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai (Cameroon Concord News Group)

16, July 2016

Arch Bishop Jerome Owono Bimboe is no more ⁰

The first Bishop of the Archdiocese of Obala is no more. Bishop Jerome Owono Bimboé died Friday the 15^th of July 2016 at the age of 83. His remains were transferred to the Yaounde General Hospital mortuary.

Born on February the 4th, 1933 at Ebolbum, a small village in the South Region, His Lordship Owono Mimboé was appointed bishop emeritus of the diocese of Obala in 1987. Upon retirement, he was replaced by Bishop Leopold Sosthenes Bayemi Metjei on December the 3rd, 2009.

After his secondary education at the Akono seminary, then Mva’a, he moved to the major seminary at the Grand Oétélé and from there to France. He returned to Cameroon and was ordained priest on the 22^nd of July 1962. On the 16th of July 1987 he was appointed Bishop of the new diocese of Obala, in the Central Region.

A great builder and a developer, the man of God drove the construction of several churches and schools. When he left in 2009, the diocese had more than 1,200 priests, all ordained by him.

Ebong Kingsley (Cameroon Concord News Group)

16, July 2016

As family pressure mounts on Biya!! Another government likely soon!! Martin Belinga may be replaced ¹

President Biya is considering a cabinet shake up following pressure coming from very close family members in support of the demands of the Cameroonian first lady, Chantal Biya. Cameroon Concord News has learnt from highly placed government sources that some of the barons of the CPDM regime are on the alert for a possible reshuffle.

Joseph Le, Oswald Babouké and Remy Ze Meka have been listed by the ruling “Essingan” clan as possible replacement for Martin Belinga Eboutou, the current Minister and Director of the Civil Cabinet at the Presidency of the Republic. A source at the presidency hinted that apart from his poor financial dealings with many of President Biya’s acolytes, Martin Belinga’s health has been failing recently. We understand, he recently traveled out of the country for medical reasons. Oswald Babouké is reportedly a cousin to first lady Chantal Biya and has been a silent force directing a large portion of the country because of the high trust placed on him by the first lady Chantal Biya and her husband

Remy Zé Méka, former Minister of Defense has always acted as a reserve general in the ruling Francophone Beti-Ewondo government. He is often with the Head of State on private trips abroad and many have constantly referred to him as next-of-kin to the head of state. Joseph Le, who hails from the East region in the Haut-Nyong Division, has always been a close pal to Martin Belinga Eboutou and replacing him will be a non event.

Rita Akana (Cameroon Concord News Group)

16, July 2016

Chaldean Catholic Priest charged with gambling away refugee funds ⁰

A Catholic priest in Canada has been legally charged with theft and gambling away more than 500,000 Canadian dollars (US$380,000) in donations for the resettlement of Syrian and Iraqi refugees arriving in the country.

The 51-year-old clergyman of the Iraq-based Chaldean Catholic church, identified as Amer Saka, had allegedly collected the funds from over 20 donors under the pretext of providing support for the refugees, Canadian police authorities said.

“This investigation spanned throughout the province of Ontario, the United States and other countries where refugees were attempting to come to Canada,” police in London, Ontario, said in a statement.

This is while the head of Canada’s Chaldean Catholic church Bishop Emanuel Shaleta told the local London Free Press that Saka had contacted him to confess he had indeed gambled and lost all of the collected funds.

According to the report, the Catholic priest had been involved in a sponsorship program for refugees for a number of years. He was reportedly sacked by the diocese of Hamilton, Ontario, after local police launched a probe into the case back in February.

Presstv

15, July 2016

The race for the White House: Donald Trump picks Indiana Governor to be his running mate ⁰

Presumptive US Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has chosen Indiana Governor Mike Pence to be his vice presidential running mate. “I am pleased to announce that I have chosen Governor Mike Pence as my Vice Presidential running mate,” Trump tweeted on Friday. Trump said he would make a formal announcement about his VP pick at a news conference on Saturday. Pence, 57, was elected as the governor of the state of Indiana in 2012. Before his current job, he spent 12 years in Washington in the US House of Representatives at the Congress. Pence’s popularity with many Republicans and religious conservatives makes him a target of Democratic opponents.

After the announcement, presumptive US Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton issued a warning about Pence, saying he favors policies that hurt minorities and favor the wealthy and powerful — people like Trump. “By picking Mike Pence as his running mate, Donald Trump has doubled down on some of his most disturbing beliefs by choosing an incredibly divisive and unpopular running mate,” said John Podesta, Clinton’s campaign chairman. Pence’s legislative experience in Congress as well as his position as governor of a Midwestern state could give Trump advantages in November’s presidential election.

The vast majority of Americans say they feel afraid if either Trump or Clinton is elected to the White House, a new poll shows. The Associated Press-GfK poll released Thursday found that 81 percent of US voters were worried by the idea of a Clinton or Trump presidency. On Wednesday, a poll by the Quinnipiac University showed that Trump has also overtaken Clinton in three swing states of Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania

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