News

15, December 2016

Anglophones leaders refutes Danpullo “secret meeting” allegations ⁰

Anglophone trade union leaders have refuted reports that they took part in a meeting in Ndawara with CPDM business tycoon, Baba Danpullo. The Executive Secretary of the Cameroon Teachers Trade Union, CATTU, Wilfred TASSANG, told a sister publication, Cameroun info.net that no Anglophone leader ever met with business magnet, Danpullo.

Wilfred Tassang however observed that the negotiators sent by the Philemon Yang administration come with a hidden agenda which to him will not lead to a fruitful negotiation between them and the Government The firebrand unionist says the fact that the chairman of the Ad Hoc Committee put in place by Prime Minister, is demanding the striking teachers to call off the strike before going to the negotiation table is an indication that the Government is playing a game with them.

Meeting in Bamenda on Wednesday December 14, 2016, the teachers maintained the strike while welcoming the putting in place of committee and members to sit on negotiation table. The Executive Secretary of CATTU, Wilfred TASSANG, told Cameroon-Info.Net that “The trade Unions have met and we have taken cognizance of the creation of the Ad Hoc Committee. We are just waiting on the committee to go to work, however we are also expressing our disappointment with the Chairperson of the committee, Paul Ghogumo, who declared that the committee will not be convened until we call off the strike. If the committee is convened we will go to work. Government has not given us any reason to call off the strike, however if the committee does its work as we expect and the Prime Minister gives a timeline for implementation, that could lead to suspension of the strike. If that is not done, then there is a possibility that schools may not resume coming January.”

Culled from CIN

14, December 2016

US: Autistic boy jailed over attempt to assassinate Donald Trump ⁰

An autistic boy from Britain has been given a 12-month jail term over an attempt to assassinate GOP nominee Donald Trump in one of his rallies at a Las Vegas casino in June in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election. The 20-year-old Briton, identified as Michael Steven Sandford, tried to grab a police officer’s gun before he was stopped as the future president was addressing his fans. He later told officers that he meant to kill the now president-elect and pleaded guilty in September.

Judge James Mahan told him: “You have a medical problem. You should not be ashamed or embarrassed about it. You need medication….You’re not a hardened criminal. You’re not evil or a sociopath like a lot of people we have. I don’t think you wanted to kill anybody. This was just some crazy stunt that your mind told you to do.” The young man also voiced regret, saying, “I know saying sorry is not enough. I really do feel awful about what I did. I wish there was some way to make things better. I have cost taxpayers so much money. I feel terrible… I’m really sorry to you and the court for taking up so much time.” Sandford’s family has been trying to make the legal arrangements necessary to bring him back to the UK, where he can receive proper psychiatric help, The Guardian reported. They have also launched a crowdfunding campaign in an effort to raise money of the legal costs. According to his mother, Lynne Sandford, “Michael’s actions were completely out of character. He is an extremely vulnerable young man and we believe that he needs to return to the UK in order to serve his sentence.”

“During my visit to Las Vegas, I learned that Michael had been on suicide watch several times following numerous mental breakdowns,” his mother said. “‘Suicide watch’ in the US involves being kept in isolation 24/7 for up to a week at a time. Other prisoners are allowed books, but these are taken away from Michael while he is in isolation. Michael isn’t even allowed toilet paper while he is in isolation.”

Sandford, who also suffers from obsessive compulsive disorder, severe depression, seizures, cardiac issues and Crohn’s disease, had been in the US for 18 months before the incident happened. He drove from California with a plan to kill Trump in Las Vegas, where he even went to a gun range to learn how to fire a gun. According to his British lawyer, Saimo Chahal, he was delusional at the time. Trump finally managed to gain electoral victory on November 8 and become the country’s future president.

Presstv

13, December 2016

UN warns that world’s poorest countries are falling further behind ⁰

A UN report has warned that the planet’s poorest countries are falling further behind the rest of the world. The UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) said in its annual report on the world’s poorest nations on Tuesday that the Least Developed Countries (LDC) had failed to catch up without more aid and favorable trade deals.

The agency has warned that these 48 countries were caught in “vicious circles.” It has also voiced concern over the ability of the poorest nations to lift themselves up on their own. “Countries can only break out of such vicious circles with international support in finance, trade and technology.”

The UNCTAD report also said nearly half of the poor live in the 48 most impoverished countries. The rate has more than doubled since 1990. Extreme poverty is currently defined as living on less than $1.90 per day. Botswana, Cape Verde, the Maldives and Samoa are the only four countries that have graduated from the LDC list since the United Nations created it 45 years ago.

The current list of the LDC countries includes 34 African nations, nine in Asia, four in the Pacific, and Haiti. Only Angola, Equatorial Guinea and Vanuatu, the report said, are on track to be excluded from the LDC in the coming years. Angola and Equatorial Guinea have seen a rise in the gross national income (GNI), but the benefits of energy revenues have not been spread among the population.

Mukhisa Kituyi, the UNCTAD chief, has said that graduation from the LDC is not, in itself, a mark of progress. “How a country graduates is just as important as when it graduates.”

Presstv

13, December 2016

UK: Nigerian-born doctor with CCAS Kumba links jailed for 5 years ¹

He is known as a Cameroonian and also as a Nigerian-born doctor in the UK. However, Wilson Odume is simply a former student of the Cameroon College of Arts and Science, CCAS Kumba. He has been jailed for 5 years with another medical issue still pending.

Medical tribunal told Dr Odume ‘demonstrated considerable tenacity’ in trying to provide evidence he was fit to practice. Wilson Odume backed his application to be allowed to practise in the UK by saying he often watches medical dramas on telly. ‘I never miss medical programmes on BBC and other stations, for example Casualty, Scrubs and others’

“These also help keep me in-line with things happening in the medical world.” Dr Odume trained after coming to Britain in 2001. He has had six clinical attachments in Leicester. But he was refused registration by the General Medical Council in 2013 for concealing ten minor driving offences.

An appeal hearing in Manchester yesterday was told he had three failures before passing tests for foreign doctors, and that eventual pass had now expired. The panel said mention of the TV shows was “worrying” and “displays a very concerning lack of insight”. He admitted: “To have even mentioned this was a nonsense, and frankly rather light-hearted. It did not reflect my real thinking. It was a silly thing to put.”

He also claimed to have attempted to “understand UK culture” further and had taken a course in ethics. The tribunal was told Dr Odume had “demonstrated considerable tenacity” in trying to provide evidence he was fit to practise the “profession he loves”. Judgment was reserved with a decision due in four weeks.

Dr Odume again orchestrated a sham marriage scam

Wilson Odume (45), a Cameroonian national, and Martin Okoko (31), a Nigerian national, organised bogus weddings in an attempt to by-pass immigrations rules. The marriages between Hungarians, Nigerians and Cameroonians took place in Gretna and Leicester between 2007 and 2012.

Odume also took part in a fake marriage of his own in order to gain residency in the UK. Sarah Knight, prosecuting, told Leicester Crown Court the pair were caught following an inquiry by Immigration Enforcement Criminal Investigations officers, which began when intelligence was received that Okoko was arranging sham marriages from a shop he ran in Woodgate, Leicester.

There were also separate reports from registrars in Gretna of suspicious marriages involving individuals from the Leicester area. At the end of a six week trial, a jury found Okoko, of Aikman Avenue, New Parks, Leicester, guilty of two offences of assisting unlawful immigration and Odume, of Loughborough Road, Leicester, of three counts. Odume was jailed for five years, and Okoko for four years.

Culled from the SUN and Leicester Mercury

12, December 2016

Kumbo: Troops open fire on civilians ⁰

Cameroon Concord News has learnt that the army has opened fired into a crowd of peaceful protesters in Kumbo, in Bui Division. The crowd refused to disperse after an anti-La Republique demonstration was held.

The demonstrators took to the streets in several important places including on college campuses across Kumbo condemning the killing of their son by troops loyal to the Yaounde regime in Bameda.

A huge crowd of protesters assembled downtown early this morning chanting pro secessionist slogans. Troops have blocked the entrances and exit from Kumbo. The protest has been mostly peaceful.

By Fru James in Kumbo

12, December 2016

Syria: Full liberation of Aleppo only steps away ⁰

Syrian forces have reclaimed a major district in southeastern Aleppo as they push deeper into the last remaining militant-held parts of the northwestern city. “The army is now in full control of Sheikh Saeed,” Rami Abdel Rahman, the head of the UK-based so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told AFP early Monday. The army has been in control of Aleppo’s western half. Less than a month ago, it started a wholesale push to drive the militants out of their stronghold in the city’s eastern side, making great strides in the process.

The gain, Abdel Rahman said, has put the army in control of 90 percent of eastern Aleppo. On Friday, however, the Russian Defense Ministry said that the forces had wrested back 93 percent of the eastern sector. Russia has been lending airpower to the counter-terror push in Syria since last September. The militants have been carrying out indiscriminate attacks against western Aleppo amid the government’s drive to restore its control over the city, the monitor has reported.

According to the group, some 10,000 more civilians have fled Aleppo’s militant-held parts to areas controlled by the government during the past 24 hours. The Russian Defense Ministry, however, put the number at over 13,300 in a statement on Monday. Since the start of the Aleppo battle, some 130,000 people have managed to reach government-controlled parts, the Observatory added. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, 728 militants have laid down their weapons over the past 24 hours and relocated to western Aleppo.

In recent days, Daesh, the most brutal of the terror groups operating in Syria since 2014, has resurfaced in the ancient city of Palmyra in the west-central province of Homs. The group was driven out of the city back in March after holding it for some 10 months. Recently, it mobilized more than 4,000 terrorists, according to the official Syrian Arab News Agency, re-entering the city of Palmyra amid fierce clashes with the army. Homs Governor Talal Barazi has described the Daesh inroad as a “desperate” reaction to the government’s recent victories.

Reports on Sunday morning indicated that Daesh attempts to re-enter Palmyra had been reversed, but various sources said later in the day that they had managed to force their way back into the city. The militants then went door to door, looking for any remaining forces loyal to the Syrian government, opposition activists in the city said. The Observatory claims Daesh has managed to advance in the city’s western and southwestern areas.

Presstv

12, December 2016

Ghost town operations to begin today in Southern Cameroons ⁰

Teachers and Lawyers consortium have declared that the strike is no more a Lawyer or Teachers strike but one that should involve all the peoples of Southern Cameroons. Unconfirmed sources have hinted Cameroon Concord News that the consortium of teachers and lawyers are now calling on all Anglophones to join the strike action.

A spokesman for the Anglophone lawyers and teachers consortium was quoted as saying that “the army of La Republique du Cameroun can kill us but they cannot kill our spirits.” Our reporters in Bamenda and Buea are yet to confirm the correctness of this latest development in the Anglophone uprising.

However, a very flippant but reliable source in Buea revealed at the time of writing this report that a return to the ghost town operation is likely possible as the lawyers and teachers have called on the transporters unions, taxis drivers, students and the business community to stay at home beginning today Monday the 12 of December 2016.

Anglophones have been cautioned not to go against the decision by the consortium. In a statement made public recently in Bamenda and Buea, the teachers and the lawyers noted that anyone going against the ghost town directives will be tracked, declared an enemy of the struggle and severely dealt with.

By Sama Ernest

11, December 2016

France 24 reporter arrested in Bamenda ⁰

Zigoto Tchaya, a journalist with the Paris based international news network, France 24 has been arrested in Bamenda by plain cloth police officers. Cameroon Concord News gathered that Zigoto was picked up immediately after he conducted an interview with Barrister Bobga on the happenings in British Southern Cameroons.

France 24 is yet to confirm the arrest but what we do know from our sources in Bamenda is that the journalist was taken to the national gendermarie headquarters in Bamenda and was later on transferred to an unknown destination.

By Chi Prudence Asong

10, December 2016

Cardinal Tumi condemns Philemon Yang, says there is an Anglophone problem ²

Cardinal Christian Tumi has reacted publicly to the crisis that is shaking the English-speaking regions of Cameroon. In an interview on Radio Balafon, a Douala-based radio station the prelate said that there is indeed an Anglophone problem in Cameroon. The former Archbishop of Garoua and Douala believes it is possible that those who govern us unconsciously may not know that there is an Anglophone problem. He recounted to illustrate his anecdote about the former French leader Charles de Gaulle who reportedly questioned his Cameroon interlocutor: “English for what?”

Christian Tumi argued that the fate of Anglophones in Cameroon has changed. Said the prelate “Since then, we have tried to erase what is Anglo-Saxon unconsciously. I continue to say unconsciously.” The retired Cardinal added that Ni John Fru Ndi would have led Cameroon in 1992 if he was a francophone. “You know very well what happened in 1992. Many Cameroonians are now convinced that the winner of the elections in 1992 was an anglophone: Fru Ndi. And many are convinced that if Fru Ndi was francophone he would be President of Cameroon at least since 1992. True or false I do not know.

Returning to the crisis in recent weeks in the North-West and South-West, Christian Tumi noted that it is not well managed. “The Archbishop of Bamenda told me that the Prime Minister had received them. And he told me that he thought they were willing to sacrifice all day to thoroughly discuss this problem. The Prime Minister received the leaders of the religious denominations for about thirty minutes. He told me that he said, “This is what we should not do, that’s what we have to do.” It is not dialogue. In dialogue one must assume that the other can have the truth that saves. We must listen to it and have what I would call intellectual honesty and accept the truth, whatever its origin. Whether it comes from the opposition or the people who are on strike, you have to be open. Not coming as an authority.”

The Cardinal criticized the fact that Philemon Yang received during his first mission to Bamenda the groups affected by the crisis on an individual basis. The Cardinal would have liked to see the Prime Minister received those who went on strike, talk to them, and listen to their grievances.

By Sama Ernest with files from CIN

9, December 2016

Fresh fighting in Congo-Brazzaville between government forces and Ninja Nsiloulou rebels ⁰

Fresh fighting in the Republic of the Congo, also known as Congo-Brazzaville, between government forces and rebels has forced thousands of people to flee their homes. The United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) warned on Friday that fighting in the southeast of the country had displaced an estimated 13,000 people. “We are afraid some 13,000 displaced people soon may not have enough to eat,” UNHCR spokesman William Spindler told reporters in Geneva, Switzerland. People in the area are “also having trouble getting health care and education because so many state-employed medics and teachers have fled,” he added.

Spindler said that the uptick in violence in recent weeks between the Ninja Nsiloulou rebels and government forces has included an attack on a military vehicle in the southeastern district of Mindouli that killed two people. The rebels, who fought two civil wars against the government in the 1990s, were seen as having been mostly disbanded after agreeing to a peace accord in 2003. However, sporadic clashes between the two sides have continued ever since.

In October, at least 14 people, including children, were killed in an attack on a train in Mindouli. The assault was blamed on the Ninja rebels. The situation in Congo-Brazzaville had been tense since a constitutional referendum in October 2015 removed a two-term limit on the presidency, allowing the 72-year-old leader to run in the 2016 election.

The rebels are led by a Protestant pastor named Frederic Bintsamou, who his followers call the Prophet. Bintsamou came out in favor of opposition presidential candidate Guy-Brice Parfait Kolelas in elections in March 2016. However, the opposition candidate lost to longtime leader Denis Sassou Nguesso. Sassou Nguesso won re-election in the first round of voting, receiving 60 percent of the votes. The opposition claimed the election was a sham.

Presstv