World

15, February 2018

US Senate unveils immigration plan, defying Trump ⁰

A bipartisan group of US senators in Congress have unveiled a compromise plan to protect so-called “Dreamers” and boost border security, defying President Donald Trump’s demand to embrace his more hardline plan.

The potential breakthrough, reached Wednesday after hours of closed-door deliberations, would protect from deportation 1.8 million immigrants brought to the United States illegally as children.

Congress is struggling to act after Trump ordered the March 5 termination of DACA, an Obama-era program that gives young immigrants temporary legal status. Congress has tried and failed to overhaul immigration policy over the past decade.

While several Republicans are co-sponsoring the new bipartisan measure, it was not clear whether there would be enough support from Democrats to pass it in the Senate. Even if the bipartisan immigration plan passes the Senate, it faces an uncertain fate in the House of Representatives, where Republicans hold a larger majority.

The bipartisan measure, which has eight Republican and eight Democratic sponsors, emerged from a centrist group nicknamed the “Common Sense Coalition.”

“Our legislation underscores the broad, bipartisan commitment to creating a path to citizenship for Dreamers, who were brought to this country illegally through no decision of their own, while strengthening border security to help stop the flow of illegal immigrants,” Senator Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine, said in a statement announcing the measure.

The bipartisan effort would only make limited changes to family reunification, and would leave the diversity lottery visa untouched, because it is too “politically toxic,” said Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, one of the lawmakers who crafted the bipartisan plan.

But supporting the immigration deal would put members of Trump’s own party at odds with the president, who urged senators to oppose any plans that were different from his own.

In the midst of the showdown, Democrats stressed Trump would be to blame for any failure to reach a deal.

Americans “know this president not only created the problem, but seems to be against every solution that might pass because it isn’t 100 percent of what he wants,” said Senator Chuck Schumer, a Democrat from New York state.

“If, at the end of the week, we are unable to find a bill that can pass… the responsibility will fall entirely on the president’s shoulders and those in this body who went along with him.”

Source: Presstv

15, February 2018

Gun nightmare in US schools: Shooting every 60hrs ⁰

The Wednesday mass shooting at a high school in Florida was the 18^th shooting at a school since the beginning of 2018, that is one shooting every 60 hours.

There has been over 6,500 shooting incidents across the US so far, leading to the death of over 1,820 people and injuring more than 3,100 other.

The data have been compiled by the Gun Violence Archive, a non-profit that tracks gun-related violence in the US.

According to the website, since January 69 children between the ages of 1-11 years and a staggering number of 333 teenagers (12-17 years) have been killed in various incidents.

As of Thursday, there has been 30 mass shootings, collectively killing over 58 people and injuring dozens more.

According to Everytown for Gun Safety, a gun control advocacy group, a school shooting is “any time a firearm discharges a live round inside a school building or on a school campus or grounds, as documented by the press and, when necessary, confirmed through further inquiries with law enforcement or school officials.”

That is the very definition of what happened at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Pompano Beach on Wednesday afternoon, where a former student who was fired for disciplinary reasons killed at least 17 people at his school.

The suspect, identified as 19-year-old Nikolaus Cruz was armed with an AR-15 rifle and what officials described as endless number of magazines.

The semi-automatic weapon, which was introduced by Colt in the 1960s, has virtually become the favorite weapon for mass murderers across the US and has been linked to many similar shootings.

Last October, a gunman armed with 14 AR-15s and a cache of other deadly weapons opened fire on a music festival from his nearby hotel room leaving 58 people dead and 851 injured.

In September 2016, a gunman used stormed a nightclub in Orlando, Florida, Killing 49 people and wounding 58 others using his AR-15.

Just two days after the shooting, the Huffington Post sent a group of reporters to see how long did it take to purchase the latest iteration of the deadly weapon. The result was astonishing: You can buy an AR-15 in Orlando in just 38 minutes.

In the latest instance of gun violence in the United States, at least 17 people were killed and several others injured in a shooting at a high school in the US state of Florida.

The shooting occurred on Wednesday at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

It is estimated that there are between 270 million and 300 million guns in the US, about one per person, according to the New York Daily News.

Perhaps it is no surprise then that Statistics by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show firearms kill more than 33,000 people in the US every year, a number that includes accidental discharges, murders and suicides.

Here is a look at some of the deadliest school shootings in recent US history:

April 2007: Seung Hui Cho, a 23-year-old student, went on a shooting spree at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia, killing 32 people, before killing himself.

December 2012: Adam Lanza, 20, killed as many as 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, before taking his own life.

August 1966: Charles Joseph Whitman, a former US Marine, shot and killed 16 people from a university tower at the University of Texas in Austin before being shot by police.

April 1999: Students Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, started shooting students and teachers at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, killing 12 students and one teacher while wounding more than 20 others. They both killed themselves.

February 2008: Steven Kazmierczak, 27, stormed into a lecture hall at Northern Illinois University and opened fire, killing five students and wounding 18 others before killing himself.

March 2005: Jeff Weise, 16, killed his grandfather and his companion before heading to a high school on the Red Lake Indian Reservation in Minnesota, where he killed five students, a teacher and a security guard before committing suicide.

Source: Presstv

15, February 2018

French raid in Mali leaves at least 10 dead ⁰

French air power on Wednesday killed at least 10 jihadists in northeast Mali near the border with Algeria, local and foreign military sources said.

“French forces on Wednesday led at least one raid near Tinzaouatene, at the Algerian border, against the terrorists,” a local Malian military source told AFP.

“There were at least 10 deaths and two vehicles were destroyed.” An ex colonel in the Malian army who had defected, who is close to the jihadists’ leader, was killed in the raid, according to an army statement.

“This was the base of the head of the network, Iyad Ag Ghaly, at Tinzaouatene, which was the main target of the operation,” a foreign security source in Mali told AFP.

The offensive was part of France’s Operation Barkhane, active in Mali as well as four other former French colonies in west Africa Mauritania, Niger, Chad and Burkina Faso.

These countries form the so-called G5 Sahel, a French-supported group that launched a joint military force to combat jihadists last year.

The Malian source said the French force had been conducting operations in northeastern Mali for several days.

A foreign military source confirmed that “several” raids had been carried out in the region on Wednesday, killing at least 10 jihadists.

Islamic extremists linked to Al-Qaeda took control of the desert north of Mali in early 2012, but were largely driven out in a French-led military operation launched in January 2013.

However large tracts of the country remain lawless despite a peace accord signed with ethnic Tuareg leaders in mid-2015 aimed at isolating the jihadists.

On Tuesday in neighbouring Burkina Faso meanwhile, a policeman was killed and two were injured in an attack at a village near the eastern town of Fada N’Gourma, in a region that has largely escaped Islamist unrest.

The assailants’ identity was unknown.

Northern Burkina Faso has seen frequent attacks by suspected jihadists, with two police killed late last month in the town of Baraboule.

(AFP)

15, February 2018

US: At least 17 dead in Florida school shooting ⁰

At least 17 people have been killed and several others injured in a shooting at a high school in the US state of Florida.

The shooting occurred on Wednesday at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

Florida Govover Rick Scott ordered government flags flown at half-staff through Monday in honor of victims of the shooting.

Authorities closed the school for the rest of the week, and the district will offer grief counseling to students and their families.

Police took a suspect into custody, announcing that the person was not a current student there.

Students and adults leave following the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, a city about 50 miles (80 kilometers) north of Miami on February 14, 2018. (Photos by AFP)

The gunman, a former student who was said to be 19 years old, quietly surrendered to police after opening fire with an assault-style rifle.

Identified as Nikolaus Cruz, the shooter had previously been expelled for unspecified disciplinary reasons.

He was reportedly part of the US military-sponsored Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corp (JROTC) program at the school, but “no one ever took him seriously,” according to a recent graduate and former fellow JROTC member at Stoneman Douglas High.

People are brought out of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School amid the deadly shooting at the school on February 14, 2018 in Parkland, Florida.

Broward County Public Schools Superintendent Robert Runcie, described that situation as “you pray … that you will never have to see,” adding that “We cannot live in a world that’s built on fear.”

“There are numerous fatalities. It’s a horrific situation.”

The school, which has more than 3,000 students, was placed on a “code red” lockdown in the wake of the shooting.

Florida Democratic Senator Bill Nelson also said that “This is a really bad day,” adding there were “a number of fatalities.”

Police started dealing with the active shooter situation at the high school around 2:30 pm local time.

Source: Presstv

15, February 2018

Prime Minister May envoy visits Buea, urges Cameroon to pursue dialogue in Anglophone crisis ⁰

A United Kingdom Member Parliament has stressed the need for Cameroon to adopt dialogue to resolve unrest in the Anglophone region.

Harriet Baldwin of West Worchestershire who doubles as a Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) made the call after a trip to Cameroon.

The trip afforded her the opportunity to meet with a number of stakeholders in the restive region especially in the southwest capital of Buea.

“Important visit to Buea in South West Anglophone region hearing from local people about the impact of the ongoing dispute and the urgent need for dialogue,” she said in a tweet accompanied by a photo of a meeting of leaders in Buea.

Some other work she did had to do with environment conservation and the opening of an educational facility.

The Central African country is currently suffering from an armed insurgency in its English – speaking regions – Northwest and Southwest, in what has become known as the ‘Anglophone crisis.’

Addressing a cross-section of political and diplomatic actors over lunch, Scotland said “Cameroon is renowned for its tradition of peaceful and harmonious interactions. So it is with great sadness that we see it in challenging times.

“However, as the Commonwealth family, we will do everything we can to preserve the unity and peaceful existence of any member of the family. As we all know, friction and division will not enhance the ability to deliver the peace that each and every one of Cameroon’s citizen wants.

“I therefore encourage Cameroonians from all walks of life to embrace peace, unity and resolve any differences through peaceful dialogue,” the Secretary-General concluded.

Cameroon joined the Commonwealth in 1995 even though it has a dominant French population. It is also part of the International Organization of La Francophonie (OIF) – the French equivalent of Commonwealth led by France.

Source: Africa News

14, February 2018

Chicago police commander shot dead ⁰

A high-ranking police official has been fatally shot while responding to a call in downtown Chicago, authorities say, marking the fifth officer who has been shot and killed across America in a little over a week-span.

Commander Paul Bauer, 53, was shot on Tuesday at the Thompson Center after chasing a man, who had fled following an altercation with other officers.

After confronting the suspect, the two started struggling with the man opening fire, shooting Bauer several times.

The 31-year department veteran had been in the area after attending “active shooter” training, which prepares officers for mass shootings.

At first, police Superintendent Eddie Johnson had said Bauer was off-duty when he responded to a radio call by tactical officers, who were patrolling a nearby area.

However, Officer Anthony Guglielmi, a spokesman for Chicago Police, said in a tweet early Wednesday that he was on duty.

“CPD Commander Paul Bauer was on duty when he was murdered this afternoon,” Guglielmi said. “Initial reports from the scene of him being off duty were incorrect and updated.”

Members of the Chicago Police Department and Chicago Fire Department leave after saluting the body of 18th District Cmdr. Paul Bauer at the Cook County medical examiner’s office, Feb. 13, 2018. (Photo via Chicago Tribune)

The Chicago Police Memorial Foundation issued a statement, calling Bauer’s death “senseless.”

“The idea that Paul would act so unselfishly and would sacrifice his own safety for the safety of the people of Chicago and his fellow officers comes as no surprise to those of us who knew him,” the statement read.

Bauer is the highest-ranking officer killed in decades and the first officer in Chicago shot and killed since the 2011 killing of Officer Clifton Lewis.

The suspect, a four-time felon and former prison inmate, aged 44, had an arrest record dating to at least 1994.

Gang and gun violence has been a big problem in the city, although the Chicago Police Department is the third-largest in the country with more than 12,000 employees.

According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), firearms are the cause of death for more than 33,000 people in the United States every year, a number that includes accidental discharge, murder, and suicides.

Source: Presstv

13, February 2018

Ambazonia Defense Force claim to have kidnapped Cameroon official ⁰

Namata Diteng, the deputy head of the anglophone Batibo district, has been missing since Sunday, when his burnt-out car was found in an isolated area

Cameroon’s army said on Monday that it was continuing to search for a local official after separatists in a restive English-speaking region claimed to have captured him.

Namata Diteng, the deputy head of the anglophone Batibo district, has been missing since Sunday, when his burnt-out car was found in an isolated area.

He had been meant to preside over local festivities for Cameroon Youth Day, a controversial day in the country’s two anglophone regions — in the northwest and southwest — where dozens of people have been killed since October after a violent crackdown on protests against the mainly French-speaking government.

The leader of an anglophone separatist movement, Ayaba Lucas Cho, said on social media Sunday that his group had captured Diteng. There were numerous appeals by separatists online to “kill the prisoner” of the “colonial army”.

Army spokesman Colonel Didier Badjeck told AFP that Cameroon forces were continuing their search for Diteng on Monday night.

Badjeck also dismissed as “fake news” a picture of a dead man circulating online that some separatists claimed was Diteng.

A week-long curfew was imposed on Saturday after separatists made threats on social media to disrupt the celebrations on February 11, the date a referendum was held in 1961 on whether the English-speaking regions would join French-speaking Cameroon.

Cameroon forces killed 23 assailants on Sunday in the southwestern village of Kembong, Badjeck said, in an attack in which three soldiers also died.

Badjeck said there was another separatist attack on a police station in Ekok, in the southwest of the country near the border with Nigeria, on Sunday night.

Members of the Cameroonian army and the Rapid Intervention Battalion (BIR) “routed the attackers”, he said, adding that “15 terrorists” were arrested in the area on Monday.

The bloodshed is the latest episode in an escalating crisis in the country’s southwest and northwest regions, home to an English-speaking minority that accounts for about a fifth of the population.

Many English-speakers have accused the francophone majority of discrimination and that has fuelled a separatist movement.

In October, the separatists declared the anglophone regions as the self-proclaimed republic of “Ambazonia”, prompting a forceful reaction by the government.

Source: Mail Online

13, February 2018

Cameroon villagers killed, Church torched, As Boko Haram Militants Attack Christians ⁰

A Christian advocacy and aid group has urged prayers for “traumatized” Christians in Cameroon after at least four villagers were reportedly killed by Islamic militants.

Voice Of the Martyrs Canada (VOMC) said fighters of the Islamic terror group Boko Haram stormed the village of Roum in Cameroon’s Far North Region late January 16 and destroyed churches and other properties. “Residents…were abruptly awoken…as blazing fires engulfed two churches and numerous homes in their village community,” VOMC added in a statement to BosNewsLife.

“In addition to the destruction of the Union des Eglise Evangelique Church and a Catholic parish, the fire also destroyed 93 huts, 20 food storehouses, and 11 motorbikes,” VOMC noted. Near the village, a health center of the evangelical church was also attacked, Christians said.

Nigeria-based Boko Haram reportedly claimed responsibility for the violence, which followed its raids in nearby towns, including Mozogo and Moskota, BosNewsLife learned.

Christian communities in the Far North Region sharing a border with Nigeria have been most affected by Boko Haram’s suicide bombings and raids for some nine years said activists familiar with the situation.

ISLAMIST INSURGENCY

The Islamist insurgency spilled over the border from Nigeria, killing 20,000 and uprooting nearly 3 million in the Lake Chad region, according to several estimates.

“The department of Mayo-Tsanga, which includes Mozogo and Moskota, is one of the militants’ constant targets,” VOMC explained.

In August last year, six siblings were reportedly kidnapped from Moskota during a night raid by Boko Haram. Their father, Adamu Nguda, who served as a church elder, was killed and their mother “left behind in a state of total shock,” VOMC recalled.

“Thankfully, the children, who were between the ages of three and 15 at the time, managed to escape from captivity safely. They were later found close to the country’s border near Nigeria by a group of vigilantes,” the group said.

URGING PRAYERS

VOMC urged its supporters to pray that “these many traumatized victims of terrorism be kept safe from any further threats or attacks.” And, it’s crucial to “Ask the Lord to lovingly minister great comfort and hope as they recover from their loss,” the group stressed.

VOMC said Christians in the region should also “receive practical assistance — such as shelter, food, transportation, places of worship — so they will know of His provision and restoration in their lives and communities.”

Church followers comprise a majority of Cameroon’s population of roughly 25 million people but are facing increasingly Islamic attacks.

Poverty also remains an issue with life expectancy low at about 55 years due to the prevalence of the AIDS virus HIV and an elevated maternal mortality rate, which has remained high since 1990, according to the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

“Cameroon, particularly the northern region, is [also] vulnerable to food insecurity largely because of government mismanagement, corruption, high production costs, inadequate infrastructure, and natural disasters,” the agency added in a recent assessment.

Source: Bosnewslife

12, February 2018

Trump administration to propose $1.5 trillion for crumbling US infrastructure ⁰

The Trump administration will finally unveil his long-awaited infrastructure plan via a $1.5 trillion proposal intended to fulfill the president’s campaign promises, but relies heavily on state and local governments to generate much of the funding.

Trump’s plan is to use $200 billion in federal money to leverage local and state tax dollars to fix America’s infrastructure. State and local governments, are expected to match any federal allocation by at least a four-to-one ratio. States have gradually assumed more of the responsibility for funding infrastructure in recent years, and the White House says it wants to accelerate that trend.

“Every federal dollar should be leveraged by partnering with state and local governments and where appropriate tapping into private sector investment to permanently fix the infrastructure deficit,” Trump said at his State of the Union address last month.

The president has repeatedly blamed the “crumbling” state of the nation’s roads and highways for preventing the American economy from reaching its full potential.

Initial plan outline

The plan is structured around four goals: to generate $1.5 trillion for an infrastructure proposal, to streamline the current long and arduous permitting process down to a shorter and efficient one, to invest in rural infrastructure projects and to advance workforce training.

“The current system is fundamentally broken and it’s broken in two different ways,” a senior administration official told reporters in a Saturday phone call.

“We are underinvesting in our infrastructure and we have a permitting process that takes so long that even when funds are adequate, it can take a decade to build critical infrastructure.”

To shorten that process, the administration will use a “one agency one decision” method, one of the officials said Saturday. That procedure would place the agency with the relevant “expertise” needed in charge of the permitting.

“A large part of the problem currently is that the federal government’s rules and restrictions get in the way of building a better America,” one of the officials said. “So we want to get out of the way to that regard.”

Potential opposition to the plan

Trump is scheduled to host both Democratic and Republican leaders at the White House on Wednesday to discuss the infrastructure proposal. The plan will probably face opposition from Congressional Democrats, who have long pressed the federal government’s historic and direct role in rebuilding. House Democrats last week released their own infrastructure plan that boasted a $1 trillion direct government spend on an overhaul.

Over the past year, Democrats have also accused Trump of seeking to create the $200 billion infrastructure fund by proposing cuts to other infrastructure-related programs.

Environmental groups are also expected to voice their opposition to the plan.

“President Trump’s infrastructure proposal is a disaster,” said Shelley Poticha, of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

“It fails to offer the investment needed to bring our country into the 21st century. Even worse, his plan includes an unacceptable corporate giveaway by truncating environmental reviews,” she said.

Source: Presstv

12, February 2018

Battle for Southern Cameroons: “ADF forces carried out the attacks,” Cho Ayaba ⁰

Separatist fighters in Cameroon killed three soldiers and wounded four others during an attack overnight in the English-speaking Southwest region, two military sources and a separatist commander said on Sunday.

The attack in the village of Kembong came hours after President Paul Biya said in a televised address that the situation in Anglophone Cameroon was stable, despite ongoing widespread fighting.

Separatists have killed 25 soldiers and policemen in a series of raids over the past year in a bid to gain independence for the Anglophone Southwest and Northwest regions.

“ADF forces carried out the attacks,” said Cho Ayaba, the leader of the Ambazonian Defense Force, an armed separatist group.

The crisis began in 2016 when the government cracked down on English-speaking lawyers and teachers who protested against working in French.

Civilians were killed, and subsequent violence against protesters has helped boost support for a separatist movement, including armed groups looking to form a new state called Ambazonia, in a campaign to split Cameroon’s English-speaking minority from Yaounde.

An army crackdown on the insurgency has forced more than 40,000 people to flee to neighboring Nigeria, according to the United Nations.

Residents in the Anglophone regions told Reuters last week that the army burned houses in the village of Bole and shot residents on Feb. 2.

An army spokesman said claims that houses were burned and people shot in Bole were “totally false”, and he denied that soldiers were mistreating residents in other villages.

(Source: Reuters)