US President Donald Trump’s son suggests that officials serving at “the highest levels of government” are undermining his father’s efforts to take on the US establishment.

Donald Trump Jr. made the comments among a group of young conservatives in Florida on Tuesday.

“There is, and there are, people at the highest levels of government that don’t want to let America be America.”

Trump’s eldest son made the comments as his father and some of his closest allies were being investigated for alleged collusion with Russia by special counsel Robert Mueller.

“My father talked about a rigged system throughout the campaign, and people were like, ‘Oh, what are you talking about?'” Trump Jr. said. “But it is. And you’re seeing it.”

Earlier this month, Mueller dismissed Peter Strzok from his team after his anti-Trump text messages in 2016 were revealed.

Trump’s son asked the audience to “imagine what would happen if we rolled back the clock to 2008” and a politically compromised group of FBI officials sought to undermine a potential Obama presidency.

“What do you think would happen?” Trump Jr. asked. “Do you think the media would cover that? Yeah. Do you think it would be brushed under the rug like, ‘Oh, it’s nothing. It doesn’t mean anything.’ There’d be revolution in the streets. So I’m glad that this is coming out now, because it is good, because real people have to see this.”

In one exchange in August 2016, Strzok wrote, “There’s no way he gets elected — but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk. It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40.”

An investigation has been launched to find out whether the Russian government coordinated with Trump’s aides after the intelligence community’s conclusion that the Kremlin helped with the New York billionaire’s campaign effort ahead of winning the White House, an allegation dismissed both by Moscow and the president.

The president’s son arranged a meeting with a Russian lawyer at Trump Tower in the summer of 2016 to find damaging information about his father’s contender, Hillary Clinton

Reports emerged in June that Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, was also present at that meeting.

Source: Presstv

The UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) is stepping up its presence in Southern Nigeria, to provide life-saving support to thousands of people fleeing unrest in English-speaking areas of Cameroon. UNHCR spokesperson, Andrej Mahecic, said tensions between security forces and pro-independence demonstrators in Cameroon’s restive Anglophone region intensified in October.

Mahecic said “Joint UNHCR and government teams had registered some 7,204 arrivals in remote areas of Nigeria’s Cross River state. “As they report, thousands more are awaiting registration. “Some 70 per cent of the registered asylum seekers come from the area of Akwaya in South-west Cameroon.

“Women and children in their majority, they are hosted by local communities near the border. “As the unrest in Cameroon continues and more asylum seekers arrive, UNHCR is concerned that the local population’s capacity will soon be stretched to its limits”.

According to him, heavy wet season rains have worsened the state of the road network in the remote region, hampering efforts to deliver aid.

The UNHCR spokesperson said the UN refugee agency and partners distributed food, basic relief items and medical aid. Mr. Mahecic said UNHCR was also deploying more staff in the region and coordinated with partners, national and local authorities to ensure that the needs of all affected people were met.

According to him, however, additional resources will be necessary to support the arrivals and reinforce UNHCR’s coordination and response efforts.

“Currently, UNHCR in Nigeria and partners have elaborated a contingency plan in the event of new arrivals,” Mr. Mahecic said.

Source: Premium Times Nigeria

Just two days after the Mail published a detailed investigation into the new boss of the Commonwealth, exposing her links with evil tyrannies and questioning whether she was fit for public office, I was passed a copy of an email subsequently sent to her staff.

It was from the organisation’s corporate affairs chief, Gary Dunn, on behalf of Commonwealth Secretary-General Baroness Scotland, and had the subject line ‘Together we are so much stronger’.

This hackneyed phrase has been used by many in public relations and advertising over the years, and was even trotted out by Michelle Obama this week to endorse Hillary Clinton.

In an email the Commonwealth’s corporate affairs chief said the Mail’s coverage of Baroness Scotland was ‘distorted’ and ‘unfortunate’

Mr Dunn’s email — a round-robin to members of the Secretariat, or civil service, which runs the Commonwealth — was somewhat different in tone, and dropped into the inbox of staff at 9.50pm on Monday, when many were preparing for bed.

Mr Dunn was talking about leaked documents which formed part of the material used in my investigation, which was published in last Saturday’s Mail.

The article took a close look at Baroness Scotland, a Labour peer and close friend of Tony Blair, who took office as the Commonwealth’s Secretary-General, or effective boss, in May.

It detailed, among other things, how she is spending extraordinary and unprecedented amounts of public money on aggrandising herself and her office, and giving highly paid jobs to an assortment of loyal friends and political chums.

Baroness Scotland, pictured with Cherie Blair, took over as Commonwealth Secretary-General in May

Not only has she added a motley bunch of Blairite old boys to the Commonwealth’s (publicly funded) payroll, but another large portion of the organisation’s cash is being spent on a lavish refurbishment of her official residence in London’s Mayfair.

While no rules appear to have been broken, this comes at a time when the cash-strapped Commonwealth has a £6.7 million hole in its pension fund, a sum equal to its entire annual wage bill. Judging by Monday’s email, the Baroness was rattled that the Mail had exposed these awkward facts.

She also seemed anxious to employ her propaganda machine to silence any future whistle-blowers tempted to inform the media about developments at this important diplomatic body, which represents 53 sovereign states with 2.2 billion citizens.

The email from her factotum reminded staff of a diktat issued last month, when the Mail began investigating Baroness Scotland, announcing that the Secretariat has launched a draconian ‘internal review’ to find the source of our information.

Staff were warned they were being watched and that their bosses could ‘check and monitor official electronic communications and equipment where there are grounds to suspect serious misuse’. The Head of IT would also be carrying out ‘routine monitoring’ of their computer equipment.

Anyone caught talking to the Press would face disciplinary proceedings for ‘gross misconduct’ and dismissal.

This newspaper is also in the firing line: lawyers for Scotland have also (so far unsuccessfully) tried to stop us publishing leaked documents by arguing that it is illegal under the Data Protection Act.

So much for a free Press.

But then, how ironic that the Baroness’s contempt for the media is shared by two evil and corrupt dictatorships to which she has ties.

Shortly before taking office — as boss of a body whose charter talks of upholding ‘democracy, human rights and the rule of law’ — she undertook a mysterious ‘working visit’ to Kazakhstan, meeting key figures in its despotic government.

Baroness Scotland, pictured with the Queen, went on a mysterious ‘working visit’ to Kazakhstan shortly before taking on the Commonwealth job

The country has for 30 years been run as a personal fiefdom by Nursultan Nazarbayev, a deeply oppressive autocrat whose regime has fixed elections, imprisoned and murdered opponents, shut down opposition newspapers and siphoned vast wealth to his friends and family members.

Being visited by the Baroness was a PR coup for the regime, which has been accused by the U.S. State Department of presiding over ‘pervasive corruption’ along with ‘torture’, ‘restrictions on freedom of speech’, ‘arbitrary arrest’ and ‘discrimination and violence against women’.

Its official news agency circulated photographs to the domestic media of what it called the ‘Secretary-General of Commonwealth Nations’ shaking hands with senior politicians and discussing the ‘strengthening of the mutual relationship’ between the UK and Kazakhstan.

The trip looked especially curious, as Scotland has in recent years been a paid adviser to a secretive Swiss-based private investigation firm called Arcanum.

Run by a polo-playing financier called Ron Wahid, the ‘strategic intelligence firm’ was, at the time she worked for it, hired by the Kazakh regime to track down and investigate opposition dissidents who had fled overseas.

Kazakhstan, of course, has also paid Scotland’s friend Tony Blair to give its autocratic president advice on how (among other things) to manage his image after the slaughter of unarmed civilians protesting against his regime.

And Kazakhstan isn’t the only dictatorship to which the Baroness has been linked.

One of her first moves after taking office at the Commonwealth was to hold meetings with the brutal regime in charge of the Maldives, which had previously paid her £7,500 a day to do legal work.

Following her meeting with an envoy of the Maldivian dictator (a client of her friend Cherie Blair, and a man who has jailed more than 1,700 opposition activists since seizing power in a coup), it was revealed that the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (which deals with ‘persistent and serious violators of the Commonwealth’s shared principles’) will conveniently not be disciplining the Maldives, a member nation.

This ought to raise concerns about whether Scotland — nicknamed Baroness Shameless — is fit to lead an organisation of fine repute whose head is the Queen.

Yet depressingly, like increasing numbers of the so-called ‘great and good’, she appears blind to what might be regarded as everyday standards of moral probity.

How symbolic, therefore, that Scotland first came to public attention in 2009 as Attorney-General in Gordon Brown’s Cabinet, when she was found to be employing an illegal immigrant from Tonga called Loloahi Tapui as a housekeeper.

 Patricia Scotland, who became Baroness Scotland of Asthal, was born in Dominica although her parents moved to London when she was two

Despite being a multi-millionaire QC with a riverside house in Chiswick and a country home in the Cotswolds, Scotland, it emerged, was paying her domestic servant the minimum wage of just over £6 an hour. She was duly prosecuted for breaking the immigration laws that she had helped to draft, and fined £5,000. But her lack of contrition — she likened the misdeed to a motoring offence — was shameless.

Repentance is clearly not a word in Baroness Scotland’s vocabulary. She had already been accused of securing her job through an ‘utterly corrupt process’ in which she allegedly awarded bogus knighthoods and made offers of charitable donations in exchange for votes. What is more, aspects of her self-aggrandising would shame a monarch.

For example, the Mail has revealed how she recently appointed two spin-doctors to her retinue of staff. They are Blair’s former PR man Matthew Doyle, and Joe Phelan, an employee of slick city lobbyists Weber Shandwick — each being paid £16,000 a month, despite the Secretariat already having its own fully staffed press office.

She also agreed to hire — for £30,000 a month (plus a further £325,000) — a company controlled by her chum Lord Patel of Bradford, a Labour peer. It is apparently now advising her on how to run the Secretariat.

Thanks to the leaked documents, we have also discovered that because the Commonwealth’s code of ethics states that ‘purchasing decisions will never be made on the basis of personal friendships’, Patel was appointed after Scotland had secured ‘a waiver from the Secretariat’s preferred recruitment practices’.

Other documents recently revealed by the Mail detail the extraordinary steps taken to beautify Scotland’s five-storey grace-and-favour home in Mayfair, which is currently completely swathed in scaffolding in order to be extensively refurbished, at the Commonwealth’s expense.

Among those helping out on the project is famous interior designer Nicky Haslam.

While not being paid for his work, Haslam (whose memoir was entitled Sheer Opulence) has suggested improvements that would add almost £140,000 (plus VAT) to the initial £230,000 budget for the work, including £33,000 on luxury paint, £5,000 on a ‘vanity unit’ for her ‘powder room’ and £7,000 to upgrade her carpets to ‘top of the range’.

How on earth, one wonders, do the noble principles of the Commonwealth Secretariat, which looks after some of the world’s poorest people, fit with these grandiose plans to upgrade the Baroness’s home?  If you are looking for answers, they won’t come from her office, despite its overstaffed press team. They have refused to say how much the project is now costing, or how many of Haslam’s spreadsheet of recommendations have since been given the go-ahead. The organisation’s most substantive response to the Mail’s revelations have actually come in a letter sent this week to the High Commissioners of all 53 Commonwealth nations.

Marked ‘confidential’, but promptly leaked to me by one outraged recipient, it said her first 100 days in office had been ‘clouded by the publication of articles in one newspaper group which, with their half-truths and innuendo, could easily give rise to distrust’.

The letter accused the Mail of a ‘scurrilous and unwarranted attack’ based on ‘false allegations’.

Funnily enough, it failed to identify a single ‘false allegation’ in our coverage. No inaccuracies in our account of the refurbishment of her home were identified, either. The letter does not deny our revelation that she has employed two spin-doctors on £16,000 a month (a sum which exceeds not only Scotland’s £160,000 salary but the Prime Minister’s, too), or dispute our coverage of her chum Lord Patel’s recruitment.

What is more, the ‘confidential’ missive also failed to address an important claim, made by the Mail on Sunday, that the Commonwealth’s procurement manager has resigned because of his dismay at being asked to carry out various tasks.

Instead, it has sought to justify the hiring spree by arguing that ‘section 3:2 of the rules governing the recruitment of staff gives the Secretary-General the discretion to recruit persons the Secretary-General deems appropriate’.

In other words, like many a lawyer, Baroness Scotland seems to be arguing that because something isn’t illegal, it is right.

That is a line which generates short shrift from one of the many appalled Commonwealth staff members whose deep dismay at her stewardship has prompted them to raise concerns about her reign. One says: ‘It’s outrageous. Traditionally, Secretary-Generals only use rule 3:2 to appoint their deputy. She is putting an entire kitchen cabinet of friends on the payroll, at grossly inflated salaries.’

Seemingly impervious to criticism and in defiance of worried staff, Baroness Scotland, I learnt last night, is on the verge of appointing a third spin-doctor to her staff.

He is a former BBC journalist called Barnie Choudhury, who just happens to be a long-standing acquaintance of Scotland’s chum Lord Patel, with whom he shares a senior role at a charity called AWAAZ (its mission statement says it ‘envisions a just society that promotes and protects the rights of women, believes in gender equality and celebrates womanhood’).

Yet more wheels within wheels. But, to the continuing dismay of many who hold the Commonwealth dear, that would appear to be how, under Baroness Shameless, this noble diplomatic organisation is going to work.

Source: Daily Mail.Co.UK

Russia has been authorized to provide the Central African Republic (CAR)’s armed forces with light arms, under an exemption to an arms embargo on the country granted by the UN, diplomatic sources said Friday.

“It’s clear,” an official said on condition of anonymity.

London, Paris and Washington had asked that the request be put on hold as they sought additional information on the shipments.

They also called on Russia to strengthen measures related to the storage of the weapons in the Central African Republic, which has been under an arms embargo since 2013.

“Our only request was that the Russian delegation submit additional information on the serial numbers of the weapons… so that we can track weapons going into CAR,” said a US official.

“We think it is a reasonable request and underscores the importance of coordinating the physical protection, control, safe storage and management of transferred arms and ammunition.”

The Central African Republic’s leaders asked Russia several months ago to provide weapons for units being formed by the EU.

Moscow wants to equip two battalions totaling 1,300 men. Among the weapons to be shipped are 900 pistols, 5,200 assault rifles, 140 sniper rifles, 840 Kalashnikov machine guns, 270 RPGs and 20 anti-aircraft guns.

France blocked a previous request last month over concerns about the storage of the weapons in the volatile country, a council diplomat said.

In response, Russia promised reinforced security for warehouses and that it would stagger future deliveries. The first delivery is due next week, with two more on February 1 and April 1.

It also wants to train troops on use of the weapons, another proposal subject to the UN’s green light.

In the long term, the UN’s peacekeeping forces in the Central African Republic must be replaced by the country’s own armed forces.

The Central African Republic has faced instability since it exploded into violence after the 2013 overthrow of longtime leader Francois Bozize by the Seleka alliance.

(Source: AFP)

President Biya has secretly ordered all combat troops to be withdrawn from Manyu Division, Cameroon Concord News has learned from a well-placed official in Yaoundé. Biya informed the supreme command of the Cameroon armed forces earlier today Friday to end all military operations in the Manyu constituency which is one of the most divisive conflicts in Cameroon history.

The military leadership that travelled to Mamfe hinted some of the soldiers today that they will soon be leaving Manyu.  “After nearly two weeks, Biya regime’s war in Southern Cameroons will be over” our source said.

The withdrawal of the predominantly Francophone troops marks a turning point in the Yaoundé regime crackdown that started in 2016 and resulted in the creation of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia.

Biya, eyeing a 2018 re-election campaign likely to be fought over his handling of the Anglophone crisis and the economy is looking to wind down the one year old Southern Cameroons crisis that has done lasting damage to Biya’s image worldwide and stretched Cameroon military and budget to the brink.

Etoudi has been briefed of the military casualties and French speaking Cameroonians are beginning to question the wisdom behind a military solution to the Anglophone problem. Biya intends to use the traditional chiefs and reduce the military role to security in a territory where levels of violence has risen sharply and attacks on state institutions remain a daily occurrence.

Almost 85 Cameroon soldiers have died and the Manyu deployment has cost Cameroon taxpayers over 3 billion FCFA in military spending alone. Even as Anglophone political elites including those in the army seek to distance themselves from Yaoundé on the genocide in Anglophone Cameroon, Southern Cameroons will never get to its feet after the ferocious violence that has shattered its society and killed hundreds of people.

By Rita Akana in Yaounde

Source: Reuters

Dan Johnson, a Republican state lawmaker in Kentucky who has refused to resign after allegations that he sexually assaulted a teenage girl in his church, has apparently killed himself.

Johnson fatally shot himself on a bridge in a secluded area of Louisville in Mount Washington, Kentucky, on Wednesday night, Bullitt County sheriff Donnie Tinnell said.

The 57-year-old, who called himself “the Pope” and was pastor of the Heart of Fire Church, was elected to the state legislature in 2016.

On Tuesday, Johnson held a news conference in the pulpit of his church where he molested the 17-year-old some five years ago.

He rejected the allegations against him as “totally false” and that they were part of a nationwide strategy of defeating conservative Republicans.

On Wednesday evening, Johnson posted a message on his Facebook page and requested people to take care of his wife. He wrote that post-traumatic stress disorder “is a sickness that will take my life, I cannot handle it any longer. It has won this life, BUT HEAVEN IS MY HOME.”

It appears the post was later on removed.

According to court documents provided by the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting, the sexual assault incident happened at the Heart of Fire City Church where Johnson was a pastor on New Year’s Eve in 2012.

Johnson’s accuser told authorities that the molestation took place when she was staying in a living area of the Heart of Fire City Church, adding he had been drinking at the time.

According to the same documents, the case, however, was closed since the accuser was “very busy” and simply “didn’t have time” to cooperate.

This comes as the United States grapples with the sexual assault and harassment scandals that have left the world of entertainment, business and politics in a state of shock.

There have been numerous allegations of sexual harassment and abuse against media figures as well as senior politicians including Republican President Donald Trump himself. So far, at least 16 women have accused Trump of unwanted sexual advances, claims the White House has rejected as false.

Source: Presstv

Dozens of Democratic female lawmakers have called on the House Oversight Committee to launch an investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct against US President Donald Trump.

Fifty-six members of the Democratic Women’s Working Group (DWWG) wrote a letter on Monday and demanded Oversight Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) and ranking member Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) open an investigation into the sexual allegations after at least a dozen women have “publicly accused the President of sexual misconduct.”

The group is set to hold a news conference at Capitol Hill on Tuesday to highlight the demand, a day after three of Trump’s accusers told their stories at a press conference and called on Congress to investigate the sexual misconduct allegations against the president, amid the snowballing harassment allegations convulsing the country.

The DWWG move comes at a time when women are coming forward with their “Me Too” accounts and telling how Trump sexually harassed them.

The sexual misconduct accusations have led to a wave of resignations and ousters of prominent figures who served in politics, the media, Hollywood, and other industries.

“In the time of ‘Me Too,’ women across the country are coming forward with their own harrowing stories of sexual harassment and assault. Members of Congress have also come under scrutiny and investigation, with some resigning, for improper sexual conduct. We cannot ignore the multitude of women who have come forward with accusations against Mr. Trump,” the DWWG members wrote.

The female lawmakers said Trump’s “own remarks appear to back up the allegations.”

“The President has boasted in public and in crude terms that he feels at liberty to perpetrate such conduct against women. Subsequently, Mr. Trump apologized and called it ‘locker room talk.’ He has since called all his accusers liars,” they wrote.

More than a dozen women have accused Trump of unwanted sexual advances, including forcible kissing or groping.

There is growing concern within the administration that the president may not escape renewed scrutiny at a time when a number of powerful men have been forced to step down because of sexual impropriety.

Weeks before the presidential election last November, The Washington Post released a tape in which Trump boasted about how he sexually assaulted women because he was powerful.

On Sunday, US Senator Bernie Sanders suggested Trump should consider stepping down over the allegations.

The remarks by Sanders, who was a candidate in last year’s presidential race, follow similar calls from a number of Democratic Senators, including Cory Booker and Jeff Merkley.

Trump ‘angered’ by Haley

US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley has said women who have accused Trump of sexual misconduct “should be heard.”

“Women who accuse anyone should be heard. They should be heard and they should be dealt with,” Haley said on Monday when asked about allegations of misconduct leveled against the US president.

“And I think we heard from them prior to the election. And I think any woman who has felt violated or felt mistreated in any way, they have every right to speak up.”

Trump is reportedly furious with Haley over her statement. Haley’s comments angered Trump, two people familiar with the president told The Associated Press.

Haley, a former governor and one of the highest-ranking women in the Trump administration, said “the time has come” to bring “a conscience” to the way women are treated in the United States.

The comments were a surprising break from the assertion by the administration that the allegations are simply unfounded and that voters dismissed them when they elected Trump.

Source: Presstv