News

8, March 2025

Cameroonian mayors in China ⁰

A delegation of mayors from Cameroon attended a matchmaking meeting at the conference room of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT) Changsha Branch from 10:00 to 12:00 on March 3, 2025. The meeting aimed to strengthen economic and trade exchanges and cooperation between China and Cameroon and jointly explore new opportunities for international trade and investment cooperation.

The matchmaking meeting was chaired by Luo Yejian, vice president of the CCPIT Changsha Branch. Mr. Daniel Yando, representative of the United Councils and Cities of Cameroon (UCCC) in China, introduced members of the visiting Cameroon delegation. The delegation members included Mr. Augustin Tamba, president of the National Association of UCCC and mayor of Yaoundé 7, and Mr. Gregory Ntemoyok Mewanu, financial representative of the National Association of UCCC and mayor of Kumba, and other important officials.

At the meeting, Vice President Luo Yejian provided a detailed presentation of the international trade and investment situation in Changsha. He noted that Changsha, as a vital city in central China, has made remarkable achievements in international trade and investment in recent years. The city boasts broad market potential and rich resource advantages. It is committed to fostering an international business environment. Enterprises from Cameroon and other African countries are welcome to invest and start a business in Changsha and seek common development here.

Subsequently, the Cameroon delegates gave speeches in turn, introducing Cameroon’s key development projects in fields such as agriculture, cocoa cultivation, animal husbandry, aquaculture, wood processing, and tourism. In particular, they mentioned the JEICOM 2025 exhibition, which is to be held in Cameroon this year. The JEICOM exhibition, an international exhibition with significant influence in Cameroon and even central Africa, aims to showcase the latest products and technologies from Africa while promoting international economic and trade cooperation. The Cameroon delegates sincerely invited Changsha enterprises to showcase their strengths and products at the exhibition and to further tap into the African market.

The matchmaking meeting attracted 14 well-known enterprises from Changsha, including the Sunward Intelligent Equipment Co., Ltd., Changsha Zoomlion Environmental Industry Co., Ltd., Hunan Guang’an Animal Health Products Co., Ltd., and Hunan Chuhan Construction Co., Ltd. These companies have expressed a keen interest in cooperation with African countries such as Cameroon. The Cameroon delegates said that Changsha’s achievements in construction machinery are impressive, and they are full of expectations for cooperation with Changsha enterprises. They also detailed Cameroon’s expectations for cooperation in seeking project financing support, technical assistance, and training and setting up special credit lines for municipal projects, hoping to carry out practical cooperation with Changsha enterprises in various fields. A spokesperson for the CCPIT Changsha Branch said that the branch will actively build China-Cameroon economic and trade exchange platforms, provide more convenient and efficient cooperation channels and services for enterprises of both sides, and help enterprises expand the African market.

8, March 2025

Canada: 12 injured in shooting at Toronto pub ⁰

Three suspects are still at large after 12 people were injured in a shooting at a pub in Toronto, police in the Canadian city say.

The shooting took place at 22:39 on Friday local time (03:39 GMT Saturday) near Scarborough city centre in eastern Toronto.

Authorities said six people suffered gunshot wounds and others were hurt by flying or broken glass. The injuries were not life-threatening, they said.

Toronto police said the three men had entered the pub and “opened fire indiscriminately”. They had been armed with an assault rifle and handguns.

A motive “right now remains unclear and we’re chasing down all leads”, said Police Supt Paul MacIntyre.

“This was a brazen and reckless act of violence that’s really shaken our community and the city itself,” he added.

Police said they were deploying all available resources to find the suspects.

Earlier, they said that one suspect, wearing a black balaclava, had been seen fleeing the scene in a silver car.

The victims ranged in age from 20s to mid-50, according to police.

“I’m happy to report, by the grace of God, that there have been no fatalities,” Supt MacIntyre said, which he called “extremely lucky.”

He said he and other officers were “horrified” by video of the shooting.

“These guys just looked at the crowd and opened fire. It was horrible.”

Glass walls were shattered and there was “blood all over the floor”, including in the basement, where some people ran to hide before police arrived, he said.

Mayor Olivia Chow wrote on X that she was “deeply troubled to hear reports of a shooting at a pub in Scarborough.”

“This is an early and ongoing investigation – police will provide further details. My thoughts are with the victims and their families.”

The number of those injured in this incident is high compared to other shootings in the area in 2024.

Last year, eight people were injured and two killed in shootings and firearm discharges in the police division where Friday’s incident occurred, the department’s data shows.

In Toronto, which has a three million population, 43 people were killed in shootings last year.

Canada has a lower rate of firearm homicides than its neighbour the US, with 0.6 per 100,000 people compared to 4.5 per 100,000, according to 2021 data from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.

Source: BBC

7, March 2025

Deadly clashes erupt between Syrian forces and Assad loyalists ⁰

Clashes between forces aligned with the new Damascus administration and gunmen loyal to Assad erupted in Syria’s Jableh region, part of the coastal area which forms the heartland of the Alawite minority sect to which the Assad family belongs.

The death toll “following attacks and ambushes by gunmen loyal to Assad in the town of Jableh and its surrounding areas increased to 16 members of the security forces”, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, adding that they were “the most violent attacks against the new authorities since Assad was toppled”.

The coastal region has emerged as one of the main security challenges for interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa as his government works to consolidate control.

Syria’s state news agency SANA, citing a defence ministry source, said “remnants of Assad’s militias” had attacked in several areas in a unified way. Reinforcements were on their way to the Jableh area to support security forces, it said.

Earlier this week, two members of the defence ministry were killed in the city of Latakia by groups identified by state media as Assad militia remnants.

Source: Reuters

5, March 2025

Trump tells Congress he ‘appreciates’ Zelensky’s message on Ukraine peace ⁰

Donald Trump says Ukraine is ready to begin peace negotiations “as soon as possible”, with strong signals Russia is also ready for a deal

During an address to Congress, the US president read aloud a letter he said he’d received from Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, which was similar to a message posted on X earlier in the day

“I appreciate that he sent this letter,” Trump said

The tone offered a hint of a possible cooling of the acrimony between the two leaders, our North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher writes

Meanwhile, the UK defence secretary is flying to Washington for a meeting with his US counterpart on Thursday – Ukraine is expected to be top of the agenda.

Source: BBC

1, March 2025

419: Two Cameroonians arrested in the US for targeting elderly victims and causing $10 million in losses ⁰

Two men living in Southern California were arrested today for allegedly leading a complex money laundering scheme that targeted more than 100 victims, many of whom were targeted because they were elderly, and caused victims more than $10 million in losses.

Sylas Nyuydzene Verdzekov, 38, of Chino Hills, and Lovert Che, 44, of Lomita, were taken into federal custody today. A third defendant, Mustapha Nkachiwouo Selly Yamie, 29, of Inglewood, is being sought by law enforcement. Each defendant is charged with one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering.

Verdzekov and Che are expected to be arraigned this afternoon in United States District Court in downtown Los Angeles.

“As the indictment alleges, these defendants built a sophisticated fraud and money laundering scheme that targeted and preyed on our most vulnerable citizens. They not only stole the victims’ money, but robbed them of their security and trust,” said Acting United States Attorney Joseph T. McNally. “Let this serve as a clear message: If you defraud members of our community, especially the elderly, we will hold you accountable to the fullest extent of the law.”

“Financial fraud against our elder population has unfortunately lined the pockets of several transnational criminal organizations,” said HSI Los Angeles Acting Special Agent in Charge John Pasciucco. “HSI and our law enforcement partners remain committed to protecting our most vulnerable and ensuring the public is informed of the red flag indicators of elder fraud.”

According to the indictment, from at least November 2021 and continuing to the present, Verdzekov, Yamie, and Che, and their co-conspirators, created fake identification documents of fictitious people, including passports and driver’s licenses. Using these fake documents, the defendants and their co-conspirators created at least 36 shell companies in California, which conducted no legitimate business and were created solely to advance their crimes.

Verdzekov, Yamie, and Che, and their co-conspirators, opened at least 145 bank accounts and at least 32 private mailboxes across Southern California using the fake identities and sham businesses.

In one scheme specifically targeting elderly victims using phone calls and email pop-ups, the defendants and their co-conspirators posed as law enforcement personnel or employees with well-known companies attempting to help the victims maintain the security of their accounts. They then allegedly fabricated claims of victim bank accounts or payment accounts being compromised and needing to be resolved quickly.

The defendants and their co-conspirators convinced the victims of their purported authority through pictures of fake badges and fake job titles, then requested the victims’ personally identifiable information (PII) and bank account information. Victims were told they needed to move money from their corrupted accounts quickly to ensure they kept all their money, and to move it into accounts that Verdzekov, Yamie, and Che, and their co-conspirators, fraudulently opened and controlled. Victims typically moved money via electronic bank transfers, money orders, cashier’s checks, or personal checks into these fraudulent bank accounts or mailboxes.

The defendants and their co-conspirators then deposited the ill-gotten gains into the bank accounts they controlled with the intent of disguising the ownership and control of the funds. Verdzekov, Yamie, Che, and their co-conspirators then withdrew large cash amounts to use the stolen funds on personal expenses, including rental payments.

In a similar scam, the defendants and their co-conspirators allegedly posed as a real estate owner selling property. Using fake identification and credentials, the defendants deceived victims into believing that they were entering into a legitimate sale of the property and tricked the victims into wiring money or mailing a check to an account or mailbox the defendants and their co-conspirators controlled.

In total, Verdzekov, Yamie, and Che, and their co-conspirators, laundered at least $10 million in funds taken from at least 100 victims.

An indictment is merely an allegation. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

If convicted, the defendants would face a statutory maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison.

Homeland Security Investigations’ Document Benefit Fraud Task Force, the FBI’s Honolulu Field Office, the U.S. Department of State’s Diplomatic Security Service (DSS), and the United States Postal Inspection Service are investigating this matter. The investigation remains ongoing.

1, March 2025

Southern Cameroons Crisis: 9 Amba fighters surrender in Bali ⁰

Nine Ambazonia fighters, including a commander, have surrendered to troops loyal to the regime in Yaoundé in the Northwest region, local officials said on Saturday.

The fighters turned themselves in to government officials in the town of Bali. On Friday, they were presented to the public at a ceremony attended by local authorities, soldiers and residents.

“We have come to apologize for any wrongs we have committed. We ask for your forgiveness,” one of the former fighters said while addressing the crowd.

Bali is one of the hotspots of the separatist insurgency.

Authorities said the surrender is a crucial step toward achieving lasting peace in the war-torn region and urged other fighters to lay down their arms.

Since 2017, government forces have been clashing with armed separatists seeking to establish an independent state in Cameroon’s two English-speaking regions, Northwest and Southwest.

Source: Xinhuanet

25, February 2025

Gold toilet worth £4.8m ‘stolen in five minutes’ ⁰

Thieves stole a £4.8m solid gold toilet from Blenheim Palace in an “audacious raid” which took just five minutes, a court has heard.

The toilet was plumbed in and fully functioning as part of an art exhibition at the Oxfordshire stately home in September 2019.

Michael Jones, 39, from Divinity Road, Oxford denies a charge of burglary. Fred Doe, previously known as Frederick Sines, 36, from Windsor, and 41-year-old Bora Guccuk, from west London, have pleaded not guilty to conspiring to transfer criminal property.

Their trial at Oxford Crown Court was told the toilet was most likely broken up and was never recovered.

The toilet was part of an art exhibition at Blenheim Palace

Prosecutor Julian Christopher KC told the court that a gang of five in two vehicles drove through locked gates of Blenheim Palace in the early hours of 14 September 2019 and smashed their way into the building with sledgehammers.

The court heard that the sledgehammers were left at the scene.

A photograph was taken about 17 hours before the toilet was stolen and Mr Christopher told the court that Mr Jones had taken it while he was “there as part of the reconnaissance for the burglary”.

Mr Christopher told the court the raid took just five minutes.

He added: “The work of art was never recovered. It appears to have been split up into smaller amounts of gold and never recovered.”

A fourth man, James Sheen, 40, from Wellingborough in Northamptonshire, pleaded guilty to burglary, transferring criminal property and conspiracy to do the same in April 2024, jurors were told.

Entitled America, the 18-carat gold toilet was part of an exhibition by Italian conceptual artist Maurizio Cattelan.

It weighed 98kg and was insured for $6m. Gold prices at the time would have seen the gold alone worth £2.8m in September 2019, the court was told.

The prosecutor said a series of messages, voice notes and screengrabs discovered on Mr Sheen, Mr Doe and Mr Guccuk’s phones showed the trio negotiated a price of £25,632 per kilo for around 20kg of the stolen gold.

It was claimed Mr Guccuk, who ran the jewellers Pacha of London in Hatton Garden, would make a profit of about £3,000 for every kilo he sold on.

The palace is a Unesco World Heritage Site and was the birthplace of Sir Winston Churchill.

The trial continues.

Source: BBC

24, February 2025

7,000+ killed in eastern DR Congo since January ⁰

More than 7,000 people, many of them civilians, have been killed in the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of Congo since January, Prime Minister Judith Suminwa Tuluka said on Monday.

Armed members of the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group, who have seized large swathes of the mineral-rich eastern DRC, including the main eastern cities of Goma and Bukavu, have met with the limited resistance of the fleeing Congolese armed forces.

“The security situation in eastern DRC has reached alarming levels,” Tuluka warned, addressing the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva.

She said the fatalities include “more than 2,500 bodies buried without being identified” and 1,500 bodies were still in the morgue.

The prime minister said “for the moment… we have not yet been able to identify all of these people.” She noted, however, that “there is a significant mass of civilians who are part of these dead.”

According to UN reports, the rebels, backed by some 4,000 Rwandan troops, have made rapid advances, sending thousands of people fleeing from the region.

Protesters have attacked the embassies of the United States and France in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

The rebel forces took control of the South Kivu provincial capital Bukavu recently, after first capturing Goma, the capital city of North Kivu province.

Congo’s prime minister said more than 3,000 people had been killed in Goma alone.

The M23 is the most potent of the many armed groups vying for a foothold in Congo’s east, which has trillions of dollars of mostly untapped mineral wealth such as lithium, which is used in technology for batteries in devices such as mobile phones and laptops.

In related news, Kaja Kallas, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, said Congo’s territorial integrity was “non-negotiable.”

The EU’s top diplomat said Brussels defense consultations with Rwanda have been suspended while their memorandum of understanding (MOU) on critical raw materials production is under review.

The EU and Rwanda had signed the MOU to “nurture sustainable and resilient value chains for critical raw materials,” she said.

The African country “produces tin, tungsten, gold and niobium, and has potential for lithium and rare earth elements,” she said.

Source: Presstv

24, February 2025

Southern Cameroons Crisis: At least six killed in Pinyin village ⁰

At least six people have been killed after gunmen attacked Pinyin village in the Northwest, local residents and security sources said on Monday.

Residents of the village interviewed said the gunmen raided the village on Sunday and shot six civilians, all male, at close range.

Separatist fighters have been active in the village since 2017 and villagers have recently asked them to leave, citing rampant kidnapping for ransom, said a security source in the region.

“The villagers have been complaining about atrocities committed by the separatists. So, last week they captured and killed two separatist fighters,” the source said, adding that the killing of the civilians on Sunday was apparently an act of revenge.

A separatist insurgency has been going on in Cameroon’s two Anglophone regions of Northwest and Southwest since 2017. Separatists want to create an independent nation in the regions.

Source: Xinhuanet

22, February 2025

Trump says Ukraine’s leaders ‘don’t have any cards’ in negotiations ⁰

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky faced pressure on Friday to sign a deal to hand the United States preferential access to Ukraine’s mineral deposits following harsh criticism from US President Donald Trump.

Trump wants Ukraine to give US companies access as compensation for the tens of billions of dollars of aid delivered under his predecessor Joe Biden.

But Ukraine is seeking security guarantees from the United States in exchange for signing away precious rights to vast amounts of its natural resources and critical minerals.

Mike Waltz, Trump’s national security adviser, on Friday predicted that Zelensky would sign the deal soon.

“Look, here’s the bottom line, President Zelensky is going to sign that deal, and you will see that in the very short term, and that is good for Ukraine,” Waltz told a conference on the outskirts of Washington.

Forbes Ukraine in April 2023 estimated that Ukraine’s mineral resources amounted to 111 billion tonnes, worth $14.8 trillion – mostly coal and iron ore.

But more than 70 percent of these resources were in Donetsk and Luhansk – regions partly controlled by Russia – and Dnipropetrovsk, where Moscow’s forces are approaching.

Trump’s top advisers have doubled down on their attacks on Zelensky in recent days, after Trump branded him a “dictator” and falsely claimed Ukraine had “started” the war with Russia.

Elections have been suspended in Ukraine since Zelensky declared martial law following Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

The war of words has stunned Kyiv and European capitals, a sign of just how rapidly Trump is overhauling Washington’s long-standing support for Ukraine as he opens talks with Moscow on a settlement to the conflict.

Trump told a gathering of US governors at the White House he had “very good talks” with his Russian counterpart, while adding Ukrainian leaders “don’t have any cards, but they play it tough”.

A senior Ukrainian official earlier Friday told AFP that despite the tensions between Zelensky and Trump, talks on a possible agreement were “ongoing”.

“There is a constant exchange of drafts, we sent another one yesterday,” the Kyiv source said, adding that Ukraine was now waiting for a US response.

Kyiv had rejected a first attempt by Trump’s team to strike a deal for Ukraine’s natural resources, saying the proposal did not include security guarantees for Kyiv – a move that infuriated Trump.

Three-year war

Ukraine is pressing for NATO membership or for the deployment of Western troops and masses of advanced equipment as part of any wider ceasefire agreement with Russia.

Zelensky said earlier this week he would not “sell” Ukraine in any deal with the United States.

The spat risks undermining Western support for Kyiv at a critical juncture in the conflict, ahead of the three-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion on Sunday.

Russia’s army on Friday said it had captured two more villages in eastern Ukraine.

Europe has also been left scrambling to respond, though Zelensky has held a flurry of calls in recent days with European leaders reiterating their support for Ukraine, including French President Emmanuel Macron and the leaders of Finland and Denmark.

Macron will travel to Washington next week where he will tell Trump: “You can’t be weak with President Putin,” he said in an address on Thursday.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer will also visit Trump, as Paris and London seek to marshal Europe’s response to the Republican’s first month in office.

‘Despised’

Zelensky met this week in Kyiv with Trump’s envoy Keith Kellogg whose description of meetings with Ukrainian officials came in stark contrast with rhetoric from his counterparts in Washington.

In a social media post Kellogg called Zelensky “the embattled and courageous leader of a nation at war”.

Trump told Fox News on Friday that “I don’t think he’s very important to be in meetings”, referring to Zelensky, adding “he makes it very hard to make deals”.

Tech tycoon and Trump backer Elon Musk weighed in on Thursday, saying Ukrainians “despised” their president and that the US leader was right to leave him out of talks with Russia.

“Some of the rhetoric coming out of Kyiv, frankly, and insults to President Trump were unacceptable,” Waltz said during a briefing at the White House.

In his most pointed criticism yet, Zelensky earlier this week said Trump had succumbed to Russian “disinformation” over the US president’s repetition of debunked Kremlin talking points on the conflict.

Source: AFP