Turkish Interior Minister Efkan Ala has quit his post in the wake of apparent intelligence failures and public criticism over a string of militant attacks as well as the failed July 15 coup attempt.

Prime Minister Binali Yildirim announced the resignation in a brief statement broadcast on Turkish television channels, without providing any reason for the decision.

The announcement followed an unscheduled meeting between President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Yildirim at the presidential palace in the capital city of Ankara on Wednesday evening.

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Amnesty International has once again indexed Cameroon in its practices in the context of countering terrorism. Indeed, on the occasion of the International Day of the Disappeared, celebrated Tuesday, August 30, 2016, the NGO again challenged the ruling CPDM government about 130 detainees missing since their arrest in December 2014.

The world body insisted that the Cameroonian authorities must reveal the whereabouts of the 130 men and boys still reported missing 20 months after their arrest during a crackdown against suspected members of Boko Haram.

Cameroon government spokesman and Minister of Communication, Issa Tchiroma Bakary had since claimed that only 70 were arrested 70 and 25 died the same night and 45 were transferred to the Maroua prison. The fact that Cameroon government officials continue to refrain from revealing their location is insulting to the families who have been waiting a long time to find out what happened to their loved ones.

Cameroon has reportedly used the fight against the Nigerian Islamic sect, Boko Harm as an argument to justify gross human rights violations.  Cameroon Concord News is aware that Amnesty International submitted the list of names of the missing Cameroonians to the Ministers of Defence and Justice, as well as head of military operations in the north. The authorities announced that an internal investigation had been opened at the Ministry of Defence to shed light on events.

By Sama Ernest

Disturbing video has been released showing police officers pepper spraying an 84-year-old black woman inside her home in the US state of Oklahoma. The footage, taken on August 7, shows Muskogee police officers kicking in Geneva Smith’s front door apparently in pursuit of her son, Arthur Paul Blackmon, Fox 23 News reported. Blackmon, 56, had allegedly run a stop sign and refused to pull over when ordered by police. Officers followed Blackmon to his mother’s home and demanded he come outside. They applied a Taser on him when he refused to comply even though he had his hands up in the air.

A female officer then turned towards the elderly woman, yelling at her to turn around or she would spray. The footage then goes on to show Smith being sprayed in the face. She falls to the floor and her hands are secured behind her back. “I just came out and asked what was going on and they just pepper sprayed me,” she later told the media. Smith, who suffered a panic attack while in police custody, has accused the officers of using excessive force. She said she was getting a lawyer and planning to take legal action against police.

Muskogee police chief Rex Eskridge has not apologized and stopped short of condemning the officers’ conduct. “Videos can’t give a full sense of what happened, but at the same time, they do either validate or expose any warts that you may have,” Eskridge told Fox 23.

Scott Wood, the city’s attorney, defended the officer’s decision to use pepper spray as understandable “given the totality of the circumstances.” The use of unnecessary force by police against African Americans has sparked nationwide protests in the past two years, giving birth to the anti-racism Black Lives Matter movement.

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The UN Security Council is holding secret ballots on Monday to choose a candidate to replace Ban Ki-moon who has to leave after serving two five-year terms as the United Nations Secretary General. The 15-member Security Council will cast a ballot for each of the 10 candidates, with the choices being encourage, discourage or no opinion.

The candidate chosen unanimously by the Security Council will be recommended for appointment by the UN General Assembly as the new secretary general who starts work in January 2017. Ban, who had been initially selected for the post by the Security Council in October 2006, steps down on December 31. He was the first Asian head of the organization in 35 years.

Based on the UN’s unofficial regional rotation scheme, many analysts believe there is a good chance that the next UN chief will hail from Eastern Europe, which has not produced a secretary-general as of yet. However, current tensions between Russia and Western permanent members over the conflict in Ukraine could potentially lead to a deadlock over an Eastern European nominee. In that case, one of the remaining candidates from non-Eastern European regions will assume the job.

The selection of the secretary-general is subject to the veto of any of the five permanent members of the Security Council including  China, Russia, Britain, the United States and France. The nominees for the position include five women, namely UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova of Bulgaria; former Croatian FM Vesna Pusic; Moldova’s former FM Natalia Gherman; former New Zealand PM Helen Clark, who heads the UN Development Program; Argentinian FM Susana Malcorra and former UN climate chief Christiana Figueres of Costa Rica.

There are also five male candidates. They are Montenegro FM Igor Luksic; former Slovenian president Danilo Turk; former UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres, who is also a former Portuguese prime minister; former Serbian FM Vuk Jeremic; former Macedonian FM Srgjan Kerim and Slovak FM Miroslav Lajcak.

The UN’s first official secretary-general was Trygve Lie from Norway who was appointed in February 1946 and stayed in the job until November 1952. Lie was preceded by Gladwyn Jebb from the United Kingdom who served as the acting United Nations secretary-general from October 1945 to February 1946. The second secretary-general  was Sweden’s Dag Hammarskjold who stayed in office for eight years. He was followed by Asia’s U Thant from Burma who served for 10 years after his appointment in 1961 as the third secretary-general.

Kurt Waldheim from Austria took the office from 1972 to 1981. Javier Pérez de Cuéllar from Peru came after him, from 1982 to 1991. Egypt’s Boutros Boutros-Ghali served from 1992 to 1996. And, Kofi Annan from the African country of Ghana served from 1997 to 2006, before South Korea’s Ban was appointed as the secretary-general of the world body.

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US Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has sparked a firestorm on social media after he exploited the shooting death of an African-American woman in Chicago.

Nykea Aldridge, the cousin of Dwyane Wade, a star player on the NBA’s Chicago Bulls, was caught in the crossfire and shot in the head and arm while pushing a baby stroller on Friday afternoon.

“My cousin was killed today in Chicago. Another act of senseless gun violence. 4 kids lost their mom for NO REASON. Unreal. #EnoughIsEnough,” Wade tweeted after the event.  Instead of offering condolences, Trump took to Twitter on Saturday morning, looking ahead to Election Day.

The message stunned many on social media. “There’s nothing more horrifying than a presidential candidate patting himself on the back after someone is killed,” someone posted on Twitter. “I’m sure you are all Dwayne Wade’s family can even think about right now!!” read another post. “You’re a national disgrace. My god, man,” another user said.

Trump had initially misspelled Wade’s first name and later posted another tweet, correcting the spelling but leaving the rest of the message intact. Several hours after the initial tweet, however, the GOP nominee offered his condolences to Wade and his family.

The White House hopeful has been making appeals to black voters in recent weeks, trying to make the case why they should vote for him in November.

“You’re living in your poverty, your schools are no good, you have no jobs, 58 percent of your youth is unemployed,” he said at a rally in Michigan last week.

Trump’s characterization of African-American communities in that speech was widely criticized as offensive. Recent polls show as little as one or two percent of African Americans support the bombastic candidate.

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