At least 40 people have been detained during a swoop on human trafficking across West Africa, after a video surfaced showing refugees apparently being sold at auction in Libya.

In a statement on Thursday, Interpol said those arrested face prosecution for offences including human trafficking, forced labor and child exploitation.

“They are accused of forcing victims to engage in activities ranging from begging to prostitution, with little to no regard for working conditions or human life,” the statement read.

Interpol also noted that some 500 people, including 236 minors, had been rescued in simultaneous operations across Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Senegal.

“The results of this operation underline the challenge faced by law enforcement and all stakeholders in addressing human trafficking in the Sahel region,” the operation’s coordinator Innocentia Apovo said.

The Interpol-led action comes amid global outcry sparked by footage of Africans being sold as slaves in Libya. CNN last week aired footage of a live auction in Libya where black men were being sold for as little as $400 to North African buyers as farmhands.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has recently said that the reported auctions of African refugees in Libya as slaves amounts to “crimes against humanity.”

Libya, gripped by chaos and lawlessness since the fall of dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, was the main embarkation point for mostly African refugees seeking to head to Europe until recently.

However, the flow across the central Mediterranean subsided when the European Union reached an agreement with local militia to provide them with funds and training on relocation of refugees.

In October, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) warned that thousands of Libyan refugees were living in dire conditions in a hub to the west of the capital Tripoli, saying they could be exposed to abuse on a shocking scale.

Source: Presstv

The French Cameroun dictator is putting pressure on the Prime Minister Philemon Yang administration to make available the sum of  CFAF 50 billion needed for the 2018 presidential elections, Cameroon Concord News has gathered from a source inside the presidency.

In the framework of the 2018 Finance Act, Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh, the Minister –Secretary General at the presidency of the republic, reportedly instructed the secretary-general of the Prime Minister’s office to raise 50 billion FCFA (77,524,508 euros) for the 2018 elections.

This disturbing increase of 15 billion comes at a time when the parliament is meeting to review the 2018 budget. Indeed, general elections are scheduled for October 2018, including the presidential elections, for which nearly 10 French Cameroun politicians have already announced their intention to run for office.

By law, Mr. Biya will summon the electorate to chose their mayors, parliamentarians, senators and the president of the republic. Work in the so-called national assembly has been brought to a stand still following protest led by opposition MPs of the Social Democratic Front party.

By Rita Akana in Yaounde

France today called an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council over slave-trading in Libya as President Emmanuel Macron blasted the auctioning of Africans as a crime against humanity. “France decided this morning to ask for an urgent meeting of the United Nations Security Council to discuss this issue,” Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told parliament.

“We are doing it as a permanent member of the Security Council. We have this capability and we are using it.” Macron said the auctions, captured on film in footage aired by US network CNN, were “scandalous” and “unacceptable”.

“It is a crime against humanity,” he said after meeting with African Union chief Alpha Conde. “I hope we can go much further in the fight against traffickers who commit such crimes, and cooperate with all the countries in the network to dismantle these networks.” CNN aired footage last week of an apparent auction where black men were presented to North African buyers as potential farmhands and sold off for as little as $400.

But the European Union — which is increasingly influenced by the French president — has also been criticised for cooperating with the Libyan coastguard to prevent migrants crossing the Mediterranean. UN human rights chief Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein accused the international community of turning a “blind eye to the unimaginable horrors endured by migrants in Libya” and called the EU’s policy “inhuman.” AFP spoke to a number of black African men in Cameroon this week who also reported being slaves in Libya, which has descended into civil war since the Western-backed overthrow of dictator Moamer Kadhafi in 2011.

“It was total hell,” said Maxime Ndong, one of 250 migrants who arrived in Cameroon on Tuesday night on a plane chartered by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) to take people home. “There is a trade in black people there. People who want slaves… come to buy them,” he told AFP. “If you resist, they shoot at you. There have been deaths,” added Ndong, who spent eight months in Libya.

Another migrant, 22-year-old Sanogo, said he had been caught by people who said they were police before being sold to a slave trader. He was then forced to work on a tomato farm. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed horror at the footage on Monday, saying the auctions should be investigated as possible crimes against humanity. African music and football stars have expressed outrage at the revelations, including Ivorian reggae singers Alpha Blondy and Tiken Jah Fakoly, as well as footballer Didier Drogba.

Source: Indian Express

A US Navy aircraft with 11 people on board has crashed into the Philippine Sea while en route to an aircraft carrier, the military said in a statement.

“A United States Navy aircraft carrying 11 crew and passengers crashed into the ocean southeast of Okinawa,” a statement said on Wednesday.

“Personnel recovery is under way and their condition will be evaluated by USS Ronald Reagan medical staff.”

This is the latest accident to hit the US armed forces in East Asia.

The interim president of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia, His Excellency Sisiku Ayuk Tabe will make public his first ever cabinet in the coming days, Cameroon Concord News has learned from reliable sources close to the leader.

In a press release issued on November 19, 2017, the interim head of state urged Southern Cameroonians to remain united despite the circumstances. President Ayuk Tabe reiterated that the Southern Cameroons revolution is not about groups or factions as was the case in the past.

The Sisiku revealed that revolutions do not succeed in the midst of disunity and indiscipline. “We must have a common goal, and unity in our actions.”

Sisiku Ayuk Tabe informed Ambazonians that work is almost complete on the formation of an interim government for Southern Cameroons. “It is not easy to choose fourteen individuals out of a population of nearly eight million people,” says the leader.

President Ayuk  Tabe also pointed that the stage of activism in the Southern Cameroons struggle is over, “Now you have to go to the nation building phase.” He invited the different Ambazonian groups to unite for a common purpose; the restoration of Southern Cameroons.

The leader sounded a note of caution to some prominent figures in the struggle “All of us, as leaders, must choose to work together for the good of our people and our country (Ambazonia), otherwise we will be rejected by our people.”  Sisiku Ayuk Tabe also noted that any leader who will work for his personal interest, will be excluded from the interim government.

By Sama Ernest, CCN

Former US President Bill Clinton is facing explosive new claims of sexual assault, according to top-level Democratic Party and the author of several bestselling books on the 42nd American president.

Edward Klein, former New York Times Magazine editor and the author of numerous bestsellers including his fourth book on the Clintons, Guilty as Sin, in 2016, said on Monday that Clinton is facing four separate lawsuits from women who claim he assaulted them when they were teenagers.

The women are now launching legal proceedings and are asking for cash to keep their silence, claimed Klein, whose latest book is All Out War: The Plot to Destroy Trump was released on October 30, 2017.

A member of the 71-year-old former president’s legal team has confirmed the existence of the claims, which stem from the period after Clinton left the White House in 2001.

The women accused Clinton of assaulting them when they were working in low level jobs for billionaire investor Ron Burkle. Clinton was hired by the Burkle to generate business. It is not clear whether the billionaire was aware of the alleged assaults.

The women will go public with their accusations if the legal negotiations fail, according some senior Democratic Party sources, Mail Onlinereported.

“Bill is distraught at the thought of having to testify and defend himself against sex charges again,” said a Democratic Party official familiar with the case as saying.

“He hopes his legal team can somehow stop the women from filing charges and drag him through the mud.”

The fresh allegations will revive memories of Clinton’s notorious extramarital affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky while he was still in the White House, and of previous charges of sexual assault against him.

Clinton, then 49, and 22-year-old Lewinsky started a sexual relationship in 1995 in the White House and came to light in 1998.

Lewinsky admitted she had sexual encounters with Clinton on nine occasions, until March 1997 and alleged that First Lady Hillary Clinton was at the White House during many of those incidents.

On January 26, 1998, Clinton ended a televised speech with the false statement that he did not have sexual relations with Lewinsky.

Clinton admitted in a taped testimony in front of grand jury on August 17, 1998, that he had engaged in an “improper physical relationship” with Lewinsky.  On that day, he also admitted in a televised statement that his relationship with Lewinsky was “not appropriate.”

The Lewinsky scandal led to impeachment of Clinton in the House of Representatives on December 19, 1998. Clinton was acquitted by the Senate in 1999 over his affair with Lewinsky.

Clinton was also sued by Paula Jones, a former Arkansas state employee, back in the late 1990s for sexual harassment.  Clinton reportedly paid $850,000 to settle the lawsuit by Jones.

Culled from Presstv