29, January 2017
Italy: Former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi faces new trial 0
A court in Italy has ordered a new trial for three-time ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi on corruption charges, creating a new obstacle to his bid to return to office. Milan Judge Carlo Ottone De Marchi scheduled the new trial for Berlusconi on April 5, local media reported on Saturday.
The 80-year-old former Italian statesman allegedly paid as much as 10 million euros and gave expensive gifts to young women to “buy” their silence in various other court cases involving him. The new trial is now aimed at determining whether the payments amounted to hush money and interfered in the other judicial proceedings.
Berlusconi has denied any wronging. One of his lawyers, Federico Cecconi, has said the new prosecution is “the first trial for the crime of generosity.” Berlusconi is the leader of Italy’s center-right Forza Italia Party, currently the opposition party in the parliament.
Last year, Berlusconi was tried for a sexual relationship with an underage teenager when he was premier and then using his influence to cover it up. While he was acquitted in that case, several other complaints of sexual misconduct have been filed against him, in addition to the accusations of financial corruption.
A 2013 tax fraud conviction forced him out of his Senate seat and barred him from holding public office for the next few years. Berlusconi has challenged the ban, taking his case to the European Court of Human Rights. Berlusconi eyes participating in Italy’s national elections, due in 2018, but his hopes for running for office may be dashed with the newly-scheduled trial.
Presstv
29, January 2017
Without the Consortium: Southern Cameroons will perish 2
The Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium has recorded a major breakthrough in the Anglophone struggle and quest for independence. Southern Cameroonians only have to fast, pray and assist the interim leaders in the struggle. To be sure, every West Cameroonian should and must listen only to the Consortium.
History teaches us that the SCNC leaders have been using the struggle to seek for international publicity in order to achieve selfish aims. In an interview we had with the late Albert Mukong on August the 14th 1998 in Bamenda, Mukong observed that Carlson Anyangwe and Simon Munzu, the SCNC founding fathers were fortune seekers. As we write, these two men do not see eye-to-eye anymore.
After gaining too much publicity and their lucrative international jobs, both Anyangwe and Munzu including their SCNC followers went quiet. The Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium has revealed to us that a good leader must stand by his people, fight and die for the cause. We have seen all these qualities in the leaders of the Consortium and their decision to hand over coordination to two committed young men in the Diaspora remains a blessing to the struggle as the likes of Munzu, Anyangwe and George Ngwane had rushed there to seek leadership and negotiate lucrative deals with the Biya Francophone Beti Ewondo regime.
George Ngwane’s welcoming of Mr Biya’s commission on bilingualism was not a surprise to any authentic Southern Cameroons political observer. That reaction was orchestrated from the presidency of the republic through a man call Dr Ewumbue Monono Churchill. Ngwane and Churchill were SWELA’s principal architects of all anti North West press releases. To be candid, these two senior South West academics were the political engineers of the South West Elites Association’s domestic and foreign policy vis-à-vis the North West province and La Republique du Cameroun. No right thinking South West citizen would trust Ngwane at a time when the Consortium has laid to rest the North West/South West Divide.
Correspondingly, ever since Dr Ewumbue Monono Churchill was appointed at the presidency of the republic, the soft spoken diplomat has been trying to create a political space for himself in Fako Division with the support of his mentor, Martin Belinga Eboutou. He is the one pushing Mayor Ekema Patrick of Buea to demonstrate absolute disrespect for former Prime Minister and Senator, Peter Mafany Musonge. Through him, Minister Martin Belinga Eboutou has handed hundreds of millions of FCFA to Mayor Ekema Patrick to destabilize the Southern Cameroons Nationalism.
However, the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium has been consistent and slowly but surely, Anglophones deep within the CPDM party and in government are now being listen to! Southern Cameroonians contributed money in order to support the leadership of CAM and SCNC in their touristic escapades to the UN in New York. And each time they fail, they brought back a UN flag and deceived a gullible people. Where is the flag today?
Southern Cameroonians who sincerely desired a homeland for themselves should give their full financial support to the interim leaders of the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium. You can also support the Consortium by calling your family, friends and relatives back home and urge them to observe the civil disobedience campaign, stay at home or go to your place of worship and spend time praying and fasting. Help in keeping the schools closed by safeguarding your children at home.
By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai