News

27, December 2016

Ntumfor Barrister Halle Nico snubs Yang Philemon’s ad hoc Committee ⁰

The Peace Crusader who doubles as president of the general assembly of the Cameroon Bar Association has announced that he will not participate in the committee created to examine and propose solutions to the grievances of Southern Cameroons lawyers.

Barrister Halle Nico is reportedly surprised that the presidents of the Fako and Meme Lawyers Association who championed the strike action are not on the Committee thereby giving the impression that it is a North West and not an Anglophone problem.

The legal luminary is also requesting that the seat of the Committee should be Buea or Bamenda and not Yaoundé. The senior Barrister has also questioned why the Chairperson of the Committee is a francophone who cannot articulate the common law.

Ntumfor Barrister Nico Halle observed that he has already informed the Prime Minister about his decision not to sit on the Committee which is supposed to meet in Yaoundé today December the 27^th 2016.

26, December 2016

2 killed, 5 injured on Christmas Day shootings in New York ⁰

At least two people have been killed and five injured as a result of two shootings in New York City on Christmas Day. In a mass shooting that took place on Sunday morning, a gunman opened fire on people inside the Mansion nightclub in Mount Vernon, killing two and injuring four. Police said O’Neal Bandoo, the club’s owner, was killed during the attack. The name of the second person who died in the shooting was not revealed.

The victims were found in the lobby and on the street outside the club, a sign that the shooter had chased them. The suspect managed to flee the scene, police said, describing him as a Bronx resident with a pending attempted murder case. According to eyewitnesses, around 200 people were inside the club when the shooting broke out.

In another incident on Christmas Day, rapper Roland Collins, aka Troy Ave, survived a shooting in Brooklyn, police said. The 34-year-old performer was sitting in his car at a red light when a gunman approached him and shot him twice. The bullets grazed Collins’ head and injured his arm, police said, adding that the rapper was rushed to a nearby hospital.

Accused of an attempted murder, Collins himself was out on a $500,000 bail following a May shootout at a concert that left a member of his entourage dead. The weekend leading to Christmas has seen similar mass shootings in other major American cities. In Chicago, for example, police said Sunday that 27 people were shot in a 48-hour period, seven of them fatally.

Four more people were killed in Wilson, North Carolina, after a shooting on New Year’s Eve, according to police. Statistics by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show that firearms kill more than 33,000 people in the US every year, a number that includes accidental discharges, murders and suicides.

Presstv

26, December 2016

Bamenda: 49 year old man killed in Christmas Day road tragedy ⁰

One person, AGWE Solomon AFI, 49, has died and several others injured in a road accident around Finance Junction, North West regional capital Bamenda. A 70 Seater bus matriculated NW 470 AV belonging to the Moghamo travel agency which left Douala 10 Pm Saturday to Bamenda, upon descending the Finance Junction around 5am missed tract, somersaulted and landed beside the road few meters to Sand Bank.

The tires of the bus were hanging vertically facing the road, the windscreens shattered. Passengers only succeeded to escape through broken windows. As rescue team from the Bamenda Army rescue unit arrived, a certain AGWE Solomon was discovered dead on the spot, dozens of others were injured. Others who were trapped in the bus were finally taken out by rescuers after tedious exercise.

Survivors told reporters that the driver of the vehicle seemed tired and worn and had made several attempts to throw them in the bush. The injured victims were taken to the Bamenda regional hospital for prompt medical attention and the deceased victim taken to the mortuary.

Cameroun Info.net

25, December 2016

Nigeria police building collapsed, kills 2 ⁰

A two-story building belonging to Nigeria’s police has collapsed, leaving two people dead. National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) said Sunday that the incident took place at about 04:00 a.m. (10.00 p.m. ET) in the densely populated Ikeja district in the commercial capital of Lagos.

A spokesman for Lagos state police said that the search for potential victims under the rubble was over. “Two people lost their lives. Nobody is inside the rubble,” said Dolapo Badmus. A NEMA official also confirmed that search for other people in the building, which was located in a police training center, was over.

There was no report on whether the cadets of the Nigerian police were also affected in the incident. Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, has seen frequent building collapses over the past years with officials keep blaming contractors for using cheap material in construction.

More than 150 people were killed in the collapse of a church southeast of Nigeria in December. In that case, prosecutors charged the engineers and church trustees with negligence, saying structural failures and detailing errors were to blame.

Presstv

25, December 2016

Search for French aid worker begins in Mali ⁰

French and Mali authorities have started search operations for a French aid worker abducted by militants in the West African country. France’s Foreign Ministry confirmed on Sunday that Sophie Petronin, a Frenchwoman who runs an organization for malnourished children in Mali, had been kidnapped in Mali’s restive north a day earlier, adding that a joint search operation had been launched to find the aid worker.

The ministry said that French and Malian authorities were working together “to find and free our compatriot as quickly as possible.” It added that the family of Petronin has been contacted by the ministry. Other sources said French military forces were also contributing to the search operation. “French soldiers of the Barkhane force (in Mali) are actively taking part in the search alongside the Malians,” a military source said in France without elaborating.

As the director of a non-governmental organization in the Malian city of Gao, Petronin has been helping children suffering from malnutrition in Mali for a long time. The women, who is believed to be in her sixties, has a specialty in nutrition and tropical diseases. Petronin had escaped a kidnapping by militants in Gao in 2012.

Reports from Mali on Saturday had suggested that a woman with dual French and Swiss nationality had been abducted Gao. The Swiss Foreign Ministry, however, later said that it found no evidence showing that Petronin had Swiss citizenship.

Violence erupted in Mali’s volatile north after groups linked to al-Qaeda seized areas in the territory beginning from March 2012. The government, groups backing it and ethnic Tuareg rebels managed to reach a peace pact last year following some lengthy negotiations but clashes continue unabated.

Presstv

25, December 2016

Fako Chiefs reject 5,000,000 FCFA offer to buy support for La Republique ²

Fako Chiefs have reportedly rejected the sum of five million francs (5000’000 frs) offered to each traditional ruler to denounce the struggle for freedom from Francophone slavery.

Cameroon Concord News was reliably informed that of the fifty four (54) members who were present in the town hall meeting, thirty four (34) of them walked out rejecting the offer while twenty signaled their intention to receive the money. The chiefs have declared their unflinching support for change and the new Anglophone nationalism.

Our informant is keeping a close watch over this issue and we will publish the names and full addresses of the chiefs who will eventually accept the payments.

By Rita Akana

25, December 2016

As pressure mounts on Biya: Over two dozens of Anglophones arrested in Bamenda released ⁰

Over two dozens of youths arrested in Bamenda, North West region during two separate strike actions staged on November 21, 2016 and December 8 have gained freedom. A former detainee who wanted to be called only by his surname, Elvis reveals that over 25 of them incarcerated at the Bamenda Central prison were released on bail Friday December 23, 2016 .

He said they were presented before state council and that their case was defended by some lawyers and Human rights activists. According to information independently gathered those who are still in prison are unable to bail themselves or pay for charges levied against them. The 25 were among others arrested during the uprising in Bamenda when a strike action initiated by Common law Lawyers and Anglophone Teachers turned violent and the Bamenda population joined in to denounce among others poor road networks and limited water supply.

The youths also staged a strike action and prevented the CPDM party from holding a unity meeting on December 8, 2016 but they met with police brutality as live bullets, tear gas and water cannons were used on them. Over half a dozen died but government sources counted just two deaths. However the fate of other youths over 50 transported to Yaoundé on helicopter is still to be determined. Common Law Lawyers and Allophone Teachers have set their release as a pre condition for dialogue with the government, without which dialogue will end on deadlock.

What has left untold about the Bamenda twin strike action on November 21 and December 8 this year leaves much to be desired. Most of those arrested were never part of the strike; in fact they were just unfortunate passer bys. Elvis who was released Friday sells plantains in Bamenda. That fateful December 8, he was returning from his site of sale and was intercepted by police forces who asked to see his palms, immediately they saw that they were dirty, they arrested him with pretext that he too was involved in burning tires and throwing stones. Like Elvis, several other youths were randomly arrested and detained, some brutalized.

Some of the youths who died were taken to their early grave by stray bullets. At City Chemist roundabout a youth went to fetch water but died on the spot after a stray bullet got him. Another youth went outside their home to eat his Pawpaw but a bullet came from nowhere and struck her mouth denying him the Pawpaw and squeezing life out of him.

Contrary to a situational report from North West Governor Adolphe LELE L’Afrique to Communication Minister Issa Tchiroma Bakary, which indicated that only two persons died, there have been more than six corpse removals from the Bamenda hospital mortuary, an indication that over half a dozen persons died. There are still some youths who were critically injured in hospitals as fear heightens they might give up the ghost.

Culled from Cameroun Info. Net

24, December 2016

Perpetrator of Berlin attack shot dead in Italy ⁰

A man believed to be the perpetrator of a Monday terrorist attack in the German city of Berlin has been killed in Italy. Italy’s interior minister confirmed that Anis Amri, wanted in the Berlin attack, was killed in a shootout with police in the northern Italian city of Milan on Friday. Minister Marco Minniti said that all the necessary checks were conducted after the shootout and that “the person killed, without a shadow of a doubt, is Anis Amri, the suspect of the [Berlin] terrorist attack.”Minniti said, however, that investigations were still in progress and that there could be “future developments.” A short video posted on the website of Italian magazine Panorama suggested that the shooting happened before dawn, with police gathered around a cordoned-off area in the dark.

Amri was the main suspect in an attack on a busy Berlin Christmas market on Monday. He allegedly ran a 40-ton truck into a crowd, killing 12 people and injuring 48 others. Shortly before the shootout in Italy, police in Denmark had said that a man matching his description had been seen in Aalborg in northern Denmark. Danish police said people had to keep away from the area as a security operation had been launched there.

German investigators had said they believed Amri was still laying low in Berlin because he was probably wounded, Der Tagesspiegel reported citing security sources. In the early hours of Friday, German special forces also arrested two men suspected of planning an attack on a shopping mall in the city of OberhausenIn in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia, police said in a statement. A police spokesman said there was no connection between the Duisburg arrests and the Amri case.

Presstv

24, December 2016

Cameroon’s Human Rights Commission approves a draft budget of 1.7 billion FCFA ⁰

Officials of the National Commission for Human Rights and Freedoms have agreed on a program for 2017. This was during the commission’s 21st Ordinary Session chaired by the institution’s Chairman, Dr Divine Chemuta Banda.

During the meeting, members approved a draft budget of 1.7 billion CFAF for 2017. Apart from the budget, members scrutinized the 2016 report on the state of human rights in Cameroon that is expected to be published.

In this regard, there was a zoom on cases of the violation of human rights during the strike actions in the South West and North West Regions. Dr Divine Chemuta Banda said the commission shall continue to encourage dialogue as the best way to maintain peace. Also during the session, commission members had the opportunity to take stock of the successes in 2016.

CRTV

23, December 2016

Former Director of M16 says Germany overwhelmed by some 7000 “live” terrorists ⁰

A former director at the British MI6 has claimed that German intelligence authorities are overwhelmed by and are almost unable to track some 7,000 “live” terrorist cases in their country. Richard Barrett told the BBC Radio 4’s Today program that there were around 550 “really extreme potential terrorists on the books” in Germany.

“If you include all the Lander (local regions) in Germany, they have about 7,000 live cases,” he claimed. “As you can imagine, that is an almost impossible number to control.” Barrett is a former director of global counter-terrorism operations at the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as the MI6.

In addition, Barret said, a wider group of potential suspects were those who had “come to attention in this context of radical extremism,” and were therefore “worthy of investigation.” It was not clear whether Barret was citing official data from Germany and, if so, how he had obtained it; and there was no comment from German intelligence authorities as of Friday morning.

German security forces have been criticized for a recent terrorist attack in the country that killed 12 people and injured 50. The Takfiri Daesh terrorist group, which is mainly active in militancy in Iraq and Syria, claimed responsibility for the Monday attack. Germany security officials have identified the main suspect in the terrorist attack, in which a 40-ton truck was rammed into a busy Berlin Christmas market, as Anis Amri, a 24-year-old Tunisian asylum seeker.

Amri, who had been under surveillance by German intelligence after he arrived in the country in 2015 and had been arrested three times already this year, should have been deported several months ago as his asylum application had been rejected.

However, Amri’s deportation papers were never served to him as he slipped under the radar despite being a known radical extremist who is alleged to have received weapons training, possibly by Daesh militants. Police have now spread a dragnet to find Amri, who remains at large and possibly dangerous.

Presstv