US Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders has slammed Washington’s attempt to blame Iran for purported attacks on oil tanker vessels in the Sea of Oman, warning that the move is aimed at generating a “pretext for war.”

“The Gulf of Oman incident must not be used as a pretext for war with Iran,” said Sanders on Twitter, insisting that any military action on Iran would not only be illegal, but “an unmitigated disaster for the United States, Iran, the region, and the world.”

The development came as officials from multiple countries, the United Nations as well as one of the owners of the ships struck in the recent incidents have discounted or contradicted Washington’s claim accusing Iran of staging the attacks.

While it remained unclear what exactly happened to the ships, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo insisted on Thursday that Iran had carried out the attacks on the two tanker vessels without offering any evidence. US client states in the Persian Gulf as well as the UK also followed suit the next day.

Moreover, the US military further published a blurry video clip on Friday with Pentagon officials claiming that it proves commandos of the Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) had planted explosives on one of the ships. The footage, however, proved not very convincing to authorities of other countries and organizations.

Japanese ship owner contradicts US version of attack

Yutaka Katada, the owner of the Japanese tanker attacked near the Strait of Hormuz, however, offered a different account of the attack on Friday, saying that the Filipino crew of the Kokuka Courageous believed that their vessel had been hit by flying objects rather than a mine.

“The crew are saying it was hit with a flying object. They say something came flying towards them, then there was an explosion, then there was a hole in the vessel,” he told reporters. “Then some crew witnessed a second shot.”

Further contradicting the US version of events, Katada added: “To put a bomb on the side is not something we are thinking. If it’s between an explosion and a penetrating bullet, I have a feeling it is a penetrating bullet. If it was an explosion, there would be damage in different places, but this is just an assumption or a guess.”

 “Not enough” to prove Iran’s guilt.

On Thursday, company officials said the vessel had first been hit by what appeared to be an artillery shell toward the stern, causing a fire in the engine room that was extinguished.

Three hours later, the ship was again attacked on the same side in the center of the hull, at which point the captain felt it was no longer safe and ordered the crew to take to the life boats, officials said.

“When the shell hit, it was above the water surface by quite a lot,” Katada further underlined on Friday. “Because of that there is no doubt that it wasn’t a torpedo.”

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, who recently visited Tehran to meet with his Iranian counterpart, Javad Zarif, emphasized that the video was “not enough” to prove Iran’s guilt.

Tehran, meanwhile, categorically denied any involvement in the suspicious incidents, with Zarif pointing to the odd timing of the alleged attacks and accusing Washington of moving to “Plan B: Sabotage diplomacy” in a bid to “cover up its economic terrorism” against the Islamic Republic.

As the government of Cameroon steps up its killings of citizens in the northwest and Southwest regions, the American Administration is considering sanctions against:

1) Cavaye Yegue Djibril
2) Joseph Beti Assoumo
3) Rene Sadi
4) Ferdinand Ngoh Ngoh
5) Fame Ndongo
6) Atanga Nji
7) Issa Tchiroma
as well as a number of military officials who have ordered their troops to kill civilians.

A source close to the State Department has hinted that a decision will be made before the end of the month, adding that measures being considered against these individuals include but not limited to the freezing of assets, travel bans and refusal of visas to their family members.

The US is still discussing with its partners and despite French efforts to plead Mr. Biya’s case, the Trump Administration has incontrovertible evidence against the Yaounde regime which makes it hard for the US to look the other way while Mr. Biya’s troops mow down their fellow citizens.

The Trump Administration is pissed off with the Biya regime for its continuous refusal to end hostilities in the two English-speaking regions of the country and its rejection of the call for inclusive dialogue.

The US undersecretary of State for African Affairs, Tibor Nagy, has been briefing Congressmen on the goings-on in Cameroon.

He has made it a duty to share the gruesome images coming from the two English-speaking regions of the country with US law-makers who are angry with the Cameroon government for its atrocities on its own citizens.

The latest being the mass killings in Ossing where soldiers killed a lady and her three children and buried them in a shallow grave.

Also, in Esu and Jakiri, soldiers beheaded many civilians. The people of Esu and Jakiri have been burying their dead today.

The world is shocked at those atrocities and the US is not amused, especially as the images have been shared with congressmen.

Relations between the two countries have been at their lowest ever since America withdrew its military assistance from Cameroon.

The Trump Administration is considering further measures that will help bring down the Yaounde government.

The American Administration is looking at its aid to the Cameroon government to see which of its loans and grants can deliver maximum pain to the Biya regime.

More will be yours in the days ahead in the Cameroon Concord News

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai.

A helicopter made a crash landing onto the roof of a midtown Manhattan skyscraper on Monday, killing at least one person and sending a plume of smoke skyward from the top of the building.

The crash occurred shortly before 2 pm (1800 GMT) on a rainy, foggy day at the 50-story AXA Equitable Center at 787 Seventh Avenue. Dozens of emergency vehicles swarmed the bpmy area, a few blocks north of Times Square.

The city fire department said on Twitter around 2:40 pm that one unidentified person was killed. Media reports said the person was the helicopter pilot.

Nathan Hutton, who works in information technology for the French bank BNP Paribas on the 29th floor, said the building shook when the helicopter slammed into the roof.

“It felt like you were jpmt standing there, and someone takes their hand and jpmt shoves you,” he said. “You felt it through the whole building.”

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who was at the scene soon after the crash, told reporters that it appeared a helicopter attempted a forced emergency landing on the roof and that no one inside the building had been injured. It was not clear if the weather was a contributing factor.

The Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement that the aircraft was an Agpmta A109E, a twin-engine, lightweight helicopter. The pilot was the only person aboard, and FAA air traffic controllers did not handle the  light, according to the agency.

The National Transportation Safety Board will investigate the capme of the crash, the FAA said.

Melvin Douglas, 50, who was selling umbrellas on the street, said he heard a “rumble” when the helicopter crash landed. “I didn’t see it, but I felt it,” said Douglas. “Smoke was on top of the building.”

A fire that broke out on the roof was quickly brought under control, the fire department said. The building was evacuated after the crash.

“Phenomenal job by our GREAT First Responders who are currently on the scene,” US President Donald Trump said on Twitter after being briefed on the crash. “The Trump Administration stands ready should you need anything at all.” The AXA Equitable Center is more than 750 feet (229m) tall and was built in 1985. A roof helipad is not listed as one of the building’s amenities on its website.

In addition to BNP Paribas, the building homes offices for a number of other corporate tenants, including law firms Willkie Farr & Gallagher and Sidley Apmtin and investment manager New Mountain Capital. Le Bernardin, one of New York City’s most celebrated restaurants, is also located in the AXA building.

The skyscraper is managed by the Los Angeles-based CommonWealth Partners. Reached by telephone, LeAnn Holsapple, the office manager for CommonWealth, said the company had “no comment at this time.”

Nearly a month ago, a chopper crashed into the Hudson River in New York City shortly after taking off from Manhattan, injuring two people. A sightseeing helicopter went down in New York City’s East River in March 2018, killing five passengers.

Source: Reuters

The United Nations (UN) has criticized the “ghastly” conditions in migrant detention centers in Libya, where some refugees have died of tuberculosis and many others have simply disappeared.

“We are deeply concerned about the ghastly conditions in which migrants and refugees are being held in detention in Libya,” the spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNCHR), Rupert Colville, told reporters in Geneva on Friday.

According to UN figures, some 3,400 migrants and refugees remain jailed in the capital, Tripoli, which has seen a surge in fighting since a mix of militia outfits — which have come together as the so-called Libyan National Army (LNA) — launched a major military offensive against the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) in Tripoli in early April.

Amid the rampant violence and insecurity, the Libyan Coast Guard has detained thousands of people off Libya’s coasts and handed them over to the country’s detention facilities.

Referring to the conditions in one detention center, in Zintan, which was recently visited by UN officials, Colville said that the refugees and migrants there were “severely malnourished, lacking water, locked in overcrowded warehouses reeking with the smell of rubbish and waste from overflowing latrines.”

He warned that the conditions in the prison, which houses 654 refugees and migrants, “amount to inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment, and may also amount to torture.”

‘This really is a crisis’

The UN human rights spokesman also said that 22 people had already died of tuberculosis in the Zintan detention center since last September.

Colville added that 90 other inmates had contracted the disease. Sixty of those, he said, had been locked in a separate isolation hangar, which he described as a “hell hole,” while the other 30 had been transferred to the Gharyan Detention Center, south of the capital.

“They have reportedly been sent there to die because there are no burial facilities for Christians in Zintan,” he said.

“Tuberculosis need not be a killer disease, but in these circumstances, clearly it is killing people and there is a risk that others will die,” Colville said. “This is really a crisis.”

He also expressed concern about the disappearance of hundreds of migrants from a facility in al-Khoms City, which is under the oversight of the Department for Combating Illegal Migration (DCIM).

“This is particularly worrying given reports that migrants are being sold for forced labor or to smugglers promising transit to Europe,” Colville said, also expressing concern about “reports that some women have been sold for sexual exploitation.”

The UN official urged the Libyan government to launch an immediate investigation “to locate these missing people.”

“The Libyan Coast Guard and the DCIM must ensure that they are accountable for every person in detention, and that their human rights are respected,” Colville said.

Libya has been in effective chaos since 2011, when longtime dictator Muammar Gaddafi was toppled from power after an uprising and a NATO military intervention.

The migrants fleeing Libya often attempt to reach Europe. Alarmed by increasing numbers of migrants, European countries have over the past years tried to convince Libya to crack down on such migration.

Source: Presstv

The world’s 10 most displacement crises—rendering millions of people homeless– have continued to worsen due either to political neglect, a shortage of funds or lack of media attention, according to a new report released by the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC).

NRC Secretary-General Jan Egeland says humanitarian assistance should be given based on needs– and needs alone. However, every day millions of displaced people are neglected because they have been struck by the wrong crisis and the dollars have dried up.

The countries faced with displacement crises last year were largely in Africa, with Cameroon heading the list, followed by the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the Central African Republic, Burundi, Mali, Libya and Ethiopia.

The remaining three, according to the NRC, were Ukraine, Venezuela and Palestine.

“This depressing list must serve as a wake-up call for all of us. Only by drawing attention to these crises, learning about them and placing them high on the international agenda, can we achieve much needed change,” said Egeland, a former UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator

Dr Martin Scott, from the University of East Anglia, UK, and lead author of a recent report into The State of Humanitarian Journalism, told IPS although reports like this are an important first step in raising the profile of these crises – but it is not enough to simply lament the lack of coverage.

“What’s needed is a clear-headed assessment of why these displacement crises receive so little coverage. Partly, it’s a reflection of the broken business models of most international journalism – which means news outlets often struggle to provide consistent coverage of real public value,” he argued.

But it is also a reflection of the political priorities of powerful countries – which news outlets often reflect, Dr Scott added.

These reports, he pointed out, also draw attention to what’s not working, in general, within international journalism.

“But there are news outlets which do, regularly, report on crises like these – such as Devex, News Deeply, The New Humanitarian and Inter Press Service (IPS),” he noted.

“It is important to highlight their work – so that audiences know there is coverage of these crises out there,” he declared.

Singling out Cameroon, Egeland said the international community is asleep at the wheel when it comes to the crisis in Cameroon. Brutal killings, burned-down villages and massive displacement have been met with deafening silence.

He said conflict has so far uprooted half a million people in South-West and North-West Cameroon. Hundreds of villages have been set ablaze. Hospitals have been attacked. Health workers fear being abducted or killed.

Over 780,000 children have seen their schools close and thousands of people, currently hiding in the bushes, have received no humanitarian relief. Still there has been no major mediation efforts, no large relief programmes, minimal media interest and too little pressure on parties to stop attacking civilians.

“This culture of paralysis by the international community has to end. Every day the conflict is allowed to continue, bitterness is building and the region edges closer towards full-blown war,” said Egeland, who recently visited the central African country.

The Norwegian Refugee Council is calling for increased attention to the crises on the list to prevent the suffering of millions of vulnerable people.

“This depressing list must serve as a wake-up call for all of us. Only by drawing attention to these crises, learning about them and placing them high on the international agenda, can we achieve much needed change,” Egeland said.

Asked if the United Nations and the international community were lagging behind in their support, NRC’s Tiril Skarstein told IPS: “We believe that the international community is not doing enough to solve these crises. The lack of political will to find solutions to these crises is often a result of lack of geopolitical interests in the area.”

However, he pointed out, there are also some countries on the list where several world powers have competing interests, leading to a deadlock and a lack of political solutions for people on the ground,–like for example in Palestine and Ukraine.

Asked if the shortfall in funding is due to neglect on the part of Western donors or domestic economic and financial constraints within donor nations, he said humanitarian assistance should be given based on needs alone.

Still, it is easier to attract humanitarian funding to some crises than others. Often, “ we see a close link between the amount of media attention a crisis receives and the amount of humanitarian funding. Some of the crises at the neglected crises list were less than 40 percent funded last year.”

But there is also a general funding shortfall, he conceded.

Last year, only about 60 percent of the total humanitarian appeals by UN and partner organizations were funded.

“This means that we need all donors to increase their humanitarian support so that we can meet the actual humanitarian needs, and we also need new donors, including several emerging economies, to step up.”

Asked why these crises were affecting mostly African nations, compared to Asian and Latin American nations, Skarstein told IPS “unfortunately, the crises on the African continent seldom make media headlines or reach foreign policy agendas before it is too late.”

The lack of funding and political attention has devastating consequences for the civilians who receive neither protection against attacks, nor the necessary relief when they have had to flee their homes in search of safety, he argued.

Most of those who flee head towards neighboring countries or are displaced within their own country. “However, the fact that most of these people do not turn up at our doorsteps here in Europe, for example, does not remove our responsibility to act,” he noted.

According to NRC, the crisis in Cameroon has its root in the country’s troubled colonial history. After World War One, the former German colony was split between a French and British mandate.

The country has now both English and French as official languages, but people in the English-speaking parts have been feeling increasingly marginalized, NRC said.

And in 2016, civilians took to the streets, and a heavy crackdown by security forces led to widespread violence and the formation of armed opposition groups.

Culled from Inter Press Service News

US President Donald Trump has downplayed North Korea’s missile tests amid negotiations with Washington, asserting that he is not disturbed by the “small weapons” fired by Kim Jong Un.

The US commander in chief took to Twitter on Sunday to express his “confidence” in Kim while on a visit to Japan.

“North Korea fired off some small weapons, which disturbed some of my people, and others, but not me,” Trump wrote on Twitter, apparently referring to weapons tests in early May.

The country fired two short-range missiles on May 9 after an earlier drill on May 4 — the first in 18 months.

Trump’s remarks ran counter to US National Security Adviser John Bolton’s comment on Saturday that Pyongyang’s  recent missile launches violated a UN Security Council resolution.

The US president further speculated that Kim was sending him a “signal” though the country’s state media, releasing a commentary on former Vice President Joe Biden, set to take on Trump in the 2020 presidential election.

 “I have confidence that Chairman Kim will keep his promise to me, & also smiled when he called Swampman Joe Bidan [sic] a low IQ individual, & worse. Perhaps that’s sending me a signal?”

The US president has so far held two historic summits with Kim in Singapore and Vietnam respectively but to no avail.

Trump is on a state visit to Japan, where he is scheduled to discuss North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Source: Presstv

British Prime Minister Theresa May on Friday said she would quit, triggering a contest that will bring a new leader to power who is likely to push for a more decisive Brexit divorce deal. May set out a timetable for her departure: She will resign as Conservative Party leader on June 7 with a leadership contest in the following week.

“I will resign as leader of the Conservative and Unionist party on Friday, 7 June so that a successor can be chosen,” May said outside 10 Downing Street. With her voice breaking up with emotion, May, who endured crises and humiliation in her effort to find a compromise Brexit deal that parliament could ratify, said she bore no ill will. “I will shortly leave the job that has been the honour of my life to hold,” May said. “The second female prime minister, but certainly not the last.” Who will succeed Theresa May? “I do so with no ill will but with enormous and enduring gratitude to have had the opportunity to serve the country I love,” May said.

May, once a reluctant supporter of EU membership, who won the top job in the turmoil that followed the 2016 Brexit vote, steps down with her central pledges — to lead the United Kingdom out of the bloc and heal its divisions — unfulfilled. May bequeaths a deeply divided country and a political elite that is deadlocked over how, when or whether to leave the EU.

She said her successor would need to find a consensus in parliament on Brexit. May’s departure will deepen the Brexit crisis as a new leader is likely to want a more decisive split, raising the chances of a confrontation with the European Union and a snap parliamentary election. The leading contenders to succeed May all want a tougher divorce deal, although the EU has said it will not renegotiate the Withdrawal Treaty it sealed in November. Sterling reversed initial gains it made on May’s resignation. (REUTERS)

The US Justice Department has charged WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange with espionage by publishing hundreds of thousands of secret military and diplomatic files about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The Justice Department said Thursday that Assange had violated the US Espionage Act by conspiring with and assisting ex-Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning in obtaining access to classified information.

Assange faces a maximum sentence of 175 years in prison in the US if convicted of all the charges against him.

“These unprecedented charges demonstrate the gravity of the threat the criminal prosecution of Julian Assange poses to all journalists in their endeavor to inform the public about actions that have been taken by the US government,” said Barry Pollack, an American attorney for Assange.

The Justice Department said Assange aided and encouraged Manning with the theft of classified materials.

Manning was arrested in May 2010 and convicted by court martial in 2013 of espionage in connection with the 2010 Wikileaks disclosures.

The US President Barack Obama reduced Manning’s sentence to 7 years from 35 years, but she is now in jail after repeatedly refusing to testify before a grand jury investigating Assange.

Assange is now fighting extradition to the United States, after Ecuador in April revoked his seven-year asylum in the country’s embassy in London.

He was arrested on April 11 by British police as he left the embassy.

He is now serving a 50-week sentence in a London jail for skipping bail when he fled to the Ecuadorean embassy in 2012.

Under extradition rules, the United States had only a 60-day window from the date of Assange’s arrest in London to add more charges. After that, foreign governments do not generally accept superseding charges.

Legal experts say the decision to charge Assange with espionage crimes is unusual since most cases involving the theft of classified information have targeted government employees, like Manning, and not the people who publish the information itself.

Following Assange’s arrest, prosecutors in Sweden re-opened a criminal investigation into allegations that Assange sexually assaulted a woman during a visit to Stockholm. Swedish authorities recently sent British authorities a fresh request for Assange’s extradition.

The decision regarding which country should have its chance to prosecute him first is now in the hands of UK Home Secretary Sajid Javid.

Source: Presstv

Four US senators have sent a letter to President Donald Trump to express growing concerns on Capitol Hill that his administration is “inflating threats and bending intelligence” to justify a potential armed confrontation with Iran.

The letter, from Democratic Senators Ed Markey, Jeff Merkley and Chris Van Hollen, as well as Independent Senator Bernie Sanders, and obtained by the Foreign Policymagazine, accuses the Trump administration of leading the US down a “path to another war in the Middle East.”

In the letter, the lawmakers warn that the Trump administration’s Iran strategy is “increasingly inconsistent and counterproductive” and “fits into a larger pattern of inflating threats and bending intelligence to justify dangerous, predetermined policies.”

They asked Trump to respond to their letter by June 15 with more clarification on his Iran policy.

The letter underscores the growing concern in the US Congress that the White House might stumble into an armed confrontation with Iran. It also highlights how rattled Democrats are by the administration’s overall Iran strategy.

Last week, two other Democratic senators, Dick Durbin and Tom Udall, published an op-ed in the Washington Post that delivered similar warnings.

The letter comes amid reports that Trump is angry at his National Security Advisor John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and other hawks in his administration who are pushing the United States into a military confrontation with Iran.

The four senators also said the administration’s threat assessment on Iran’s nuclear program is “inconsistent” with the findings of America’s own intelligence agencies, as well as those of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

In January, the Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said in a US congressional hearing, “we do not believe Iran is currently undertaking the key nuclear weapons-development activities we judge necessary to produce a nuclear device.”

In February, the IAEA backed up Coats’s assertion and once again reaffirmed Iran’s compliance with its nuclear-related commitments under the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.

“Your administration, however, is making assertions that are at odds with these findings,” the letter reads, citing Pompeo’s recent accusation that Iran was engaging in “nuclear blackmail.”

They also cited a new US State Department report that suggested Iran was not in compliance with obligations on nonproliferation.

“In sum, we fear that your administration is leading the United States down the path to another war in the Middle East, while spurning our allies and misleading the United States public,” the senators write. 

Earlier this month, Bolton said that Washington was preparing for possible attacks by Iran or its allied forces in the region.

Citing those “threats,” Washington sent military reinforcements to the region, including an aircraft carrier strike group, a squadron of B-52 bombers, and a battery of patriot missiles.

Presstv

Brazilian iron ore miner Vale SA told prosecutors in the state of Minas Gerais that a dam is at risk of rupturing at its Gongo Soco mine, about 40 miles from where its Brumadinho dam collapsed, killing more than 230 people.

According to a document published on Thursday, prosecutors said Vale is predicting the dam in the city of Barao de Cocais may collapse next week if the current rate of movement in the embankment of the mine pit close to the dam is maintained.

The warning underlines ongoing concern about the stability of dams in Brazil’s mining heartland of Minas Gerais in the aftermath of the Brumadinho accident, which itself came less than four years after another deadly dam collapse at a joint venture between Vale and BHP Group.

Vale said in a late afternoon statement it remained unclear whether the slippage in the embankment would actually trigger a collapse of the nearby Sul Superior dam, but said it was raising its level of alert and readiness for such an extreme case.

Earlier this week, Vale had identified movement close to the mine, which has not been active since 2016, the prosecutors said. About 500 people seen at risk from a collapse of the dam have been evacuated from their homes since February under orders from mining regulator ANM.

The dam holds 6 million cubic meters of mining waste, roughly half the amount that was released when the Brumadinho tailings dam burst in late January, burying nearby buildings including a company cafeteria and a bed and breakfast.

“If the movement of the northern embankment of the mine pit continues at the same pace, the rupture may happen between May 19 and May 25, which could cause liquefaction of the south dam,” the prosecutor’s document said.

Liquefaction, in which a dam’s barrier gets weakened as it turns to water, has been pegged as a likely cause of the Brumadinho collapse. Like Brumadinho, the dam at Gongo Soco has an upstream structure, known as the cheapest and least stable type of tailings dam design.

Vale shares fell 3.2% on Thursday, accelerating their drop after the reports on the potential dam burst. Prosecutors ordered Vale to issue urgent warnings about the risks to the local population.

Authorities in Brumadinho are still recovering bodies from the collapse of the Vale tailings dam there.

(Source: Reuters)