US President Donald Trump is feeling the political heat after two of his associates were indicted in federal criminal investigations, with a growing number of congressmen calling for his impeachment.

Pressure is mounting on Trump in the wake of his former attorney Michael Cohen’s plea deal and a guilty verdict for his former campaign manager Paul Manafort.

Congressman Eric Swalwell, a Democrat from California, said on Friday that the now-shuttered Russia investigation conducted by the House Intelligence Committee was a “sham” and needed to be reopened.

Asked whether he believed Cohen lied to his committee last year when the president’s former longtime attorney testified on allegations of Russian collusion during a six-hour session, Swalwell said only that Cohen had appeared to not have been “forthcoming.”

“[But] the only way to really test that is if he comes back [and testifies],” Swalwell added.

Swalwell’s remarks come days after the Senate Intelligence Committee stated that it wanted Cohen to reappear before the committee to testify.

Trump’s impeachment 

Political observers say the current political trend shows that after the “countdown” for impeachment began, matters are spiraling out of Trump’s control, forcing him to either face the impeachment or resign.

In his first public acknowledgment of a possible impeachment, Trump claimed he was doing a great job, so he would not be impeached.

Why would Congress impeach “somebody who has done a great job,” Trump told Fox News on Thursday commenting about his impeachment.

“If I ever got impeached, I think the market would crash. I think everybody would be very poor,” he warned the people of the US.

Trump claimed that if he were to be impeached, the US economy would crash and the stock market would plunge to “numbers that you wouldn’t believe, in reverse.”

Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill efforts are underway to impeach Trump as soon as possible.

“The president has to realize that the countdown to impeachment has already started,” said congressman Al Green from Texas in a interview this week.

“He, at some point, will have to choose if he will face impeachment or if he will resign. It will be his choice. The congress will have no choice but to act,” the Democratic lawmaker pointed out.

Other congressmen made similar remarks.

“The president of the United States is now directly implicated in a criminal conspiracy, numerous members of both his campaign and administration have been convicted, pleaded guilty to felonies, or are ensnared in corruption investigations, and the Judiciary Committee has real work to do,” said New York congressman Jerry Nadler.

“If something comes out that is clear and convincing and impeachable, I think members will act,” said Tom Cole, a Republican member of the US House of Representatives.

Loyalty, not justice

In his Thursday interview with Fox News, Trump criticized his former lawyer Cohen for “flipping” amid pressure.

Trump suggested that anyone deciding to cooperate with the government by giving information about criminal cases to receive a reduced sentence from court is making up “stories” and “lies.”

The president said such practices should be banned. “It’s called flipping and it almost ought to be illegal,” he said.

Source: Presstv

Southern Cameroons Interim Government officials have condemned recent French Cameroun military attacks in the Menchum County precisely at Esu, Weh and Wum. Cameroon government forces killed at least 13 children in Esu and Weh prompting the Ambazonian Interim Government to renew calls for an impartial, independent and prompt investigation into attacks targeting Southern Cameroons civilians by the Francophone army.

Cameroon Concord News sources in Wum reported that elements of the Rapid Intervention Battalion killed 11 teenagers including the son of one Pa Souley resident in Holy Trinity Quarters as he was fleeing violence in the embattled Menchum County.  We gathered that an additional machine gun attack in the Menchum area killed four more children today in Weh.

This is the second time in three days that a French Cameroun military action has resulted in dozens of Southern Cameroons civilian casualties in the Northern Zone. According to Ambazonian Interim Government medical sources, over 89 people, including 66 children have been killed in Esu, Weh and Wum in the last 4 days.

Acting President Ikome Sako has been pushing the United States Congress to get the UN Security Council to take action and end this conflict once and for all. The Biya Francophone regime in Yaounde announced that it was opening an investigation into deadly attacks by its soldiers in Southern Cameroons, but rights groups and advocates say nothing has been done ever since the war started.

The Yaounde regime has prevented human rights groups including the UN from carrying out a proper investigation of war crimes emanating from Cameroon government troops against civilian targets. The 85 year old French Cameroun dictator launched a devastating military campaign against English speaking Southern Cameroonians with the aim of crushing the Anglophone uprising and quest for an independent state.

Some 2,000 Southern Cameroonians have been killed and thousands more injured since the onset of the French Cameroun aggression. More than 50,000 others have fled into neighboring Nigeria.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Former United Nations chief and Noble prize laureate Kofi Annan will be buried in his home country Ghana on Sept 13, the West African nation’s president said on Friday.

Nana Akufo-Addo told a delegation of Annan’s family that Annan would have a full state burial, “befitting his status as a global icon, diplomat and statesman”.

Annan died in a Swiss hospital in the early hours of Saturday at the age of 80. He was surrounded in his last days by his second wife Nane and children Kojo and Nina, his foundation and close associates said.

After rising through the ranks of the United Nations, Annan served two terms as U.N. Secretary-General in New York from 1997-2006 and retired to live in a Swiss village in the Geneva countryside. His 10-year-old foundation promotes good governance and the transformation of African agriculture.

Annan and the United Nations shared the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize for efforts to reform the world body and give priority to human rights issues.

REUTERS

Veteran US senator and war hero John McCain — a towering figure in American politics for decades — has stopped treatment for brain cancer, his family announced Friday, one year after the Republican went public with his diagnosis.

The announcement signals the beginning of the end of a tough battle with glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer — and of a storied life that took him from a Hanoi prison to the doorstep of the White House.

“The progress of disease and the inexorable advance of age render their verdict,” the 81-year-old senator’s loved ones said in a statement.

“With his usual strength of will, he has now chosen to discontinue medical treatment.”

McCain has spent more than three decades in the upper chamber of Congress, looming large in debates over war and peace and the moral direction of the nation.

The Navy fighter pilot spent years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam after being shot down while on a bombing mission over Hanoi.

He lost the 2008 presidential election to Barack Obama, and was pilloried for selecting controversial Alaska politician Sarah Palin as his running mate.

With no more elections to run, since 2016, he has been a rare and outspoken Republican critic of President Donald Trump.

Known for his combustive temper, he has accused the 45th president of “naivete”, “egotism” and of sympathizing with autocrats.

Following Trump’s recent summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, McCain caustically described the US leader’s behavior as “one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president in memory.”

‘Strength to carry on’

McCain has not been on the Senate floor in months, remaining at his Arizona home for treatment. Glioblastoma is the same form of brain cancer that took the life of another Senate giant, Democrat Ted Kennedy, in 2009.

“I love my husband with all of my heart. God bless everyone who has cared for my husband along this journey,” his wife Cindy said.

His daughter Meghan thanked the public for an outpouring of support.

“My family is deeply appreciative of all the love and generosity you have shown us during this past year,” she tweeted.

“Thank you for all your continued support and prayers. We could not have made it this far without you – you’ve given us strength to carry on.”

Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he was “very sad to hear this morning’s update from the family of our dear friend.”

“We are so fortunate to call him our friend and colleague. John, Cindy, and the entire McCain family are in our prayers at this incredibly difficult hour.”

(AFP)

Long serving Arsenal manager, Frenchman Arsene Wenger, has finally been awarded the highest national honour of Liberia at a ceremony held in the capital, Monrovia, on Friday.

Wenger has thus been inducted into the country’s Order of Distinction and given the title of Knight Grand Commander of the Humane Order of African Redemption.

His former protégé and current Liberian president George Weah announced the move to honour him this month. The announcement drew criticism over Wenger’s direct impact on the country as a whole along side the nature of award conferred on him.

Wenger has a close connection with the continent having managed a number of African players during his time in charge at Arsenal. Incidentally he coached Weah three decades ago in 1988. He signed Weah whiles at French side FC Monaco.

Another former coach of the president who was awarded at the ceremony was current coach of the Togolese national team, Claude Le Roy.

He coached Cameroon in 1988 and recommended that Wenger should sign George Weah, who was playing for Cameroonian side Tonnerre Yaoundé at the time.

Weah went on to play for AC Milan, Paris St Germain and Chelsea. In 1995 he was named World Footballer of the Year and won the Ballon d’Or, still the only African to win either award. He is also the first international sportsman to be elected president of a country.

Liberia’s Information Minister Eugene Nagbe in response to criticisms of the award told the BBC the award was not only about Wenger’s impact on Weah alone but a way to recognize that the Frenchman had “contributed to sports in Africa and has given many Africans opportunities”.

Source: Africa News

The French government and diplomats from French speaking African countries have for more than two years been covering up war crimes committed by the Biya Francophone Beti Ewondo regime in Southern Cameroons. The United Nations, Amnesty International and the International Crisis Group have all made public evidence of genocide in Southern Cameroons via investigative work carried out by their experts and representatives.

Yaoundé launched a war on Southern Cameroons in an attempt to crush the Anglophone uprising and quest for an independent state. The Interim Government of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia said recently that the African Union and the UN Office have failed to provide credible, impartial, and transparent report to the UN Security Council on the war violations and war crimes committed by French Cameroun soldiers in Southern Cameroons.

The France-Afrique diplomats represented by the current Chairperson of the African Union, Chad’s Moussa Faki have always concluded that the Southern Cameroons war is an internal affair and that the killings of more than 2000 Southern Camroons civilians were unintentional outcomes of legitimate military operations.  A senior aide to Acting President Ikome Sako was quoted as saying that the African Union and CEMAC countries were doing little more than covering up war crimes.

Some 2000 Southern Cameroons civilians, mostly women and children have been killed ever since the 85 year old French Cameroun dictator declared war on Southern Cameroons. The Ambazonian Interim Government has warned countries selling arms to French Cameroun, including the French government of President Macron that they are being complicit in serious violations in Southern Cameroons.

The President Macron administration faces increasing pressure even at home for its support for the French Cameroun dictator, President Paul Biya. France with the support of the President Buhari administration in Abuja has been supplying the Biya Francophone regime with advanced arms and intelligence sharing.

More than half a million Southern Cameroonians have been displaced by the conflict and thousands more injured since the onset of the French Cameroun invasion.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

US President Donald Trump’s National Security Adviser John Bolton says Washington will cut funding for the United Nations human rights agency in Geneva, Switzerland, the latest blow against the UN by the Trump administration.

Bolton announced the move against the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights during an interview with The Associated Press on Thursday.

The office is headed by the High Commissioner for Human Rights, who co-ordinates human rights activities throughout the UN system and supervises the Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva.

Bolton said US officials would calculate how much of the US annual budget goes to the human rights ffice and the Human Rights Council, and reduce its outlay by that amount.

The measure would make the UN agency lose one of its largest donors. The United States is the UN’s largest single funder, providing about 22 percent of its budget.

Ex-Chilean President Michelle Bachelet is set to replace Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein as the High Commissioner for Human Rights next month.

The US withdrew from 47-nation UNHRC in June over what it called the council’s entrenched bias against Israel.

Since Trump took office in January 2017, his administration has been pushing the UNHRC to end its scrutiny of Israel’s widespread human rights abuses against Palestinians.

Human Rights Watch called the withdrawal “a sad reflection of the US administration’s one-dimensional rights policy,” adding that Washington’s defense of Israeli rights abuses takes precedence above everything else.

Source: Presstv

An open letter was delivered this morning to representatives of President Paul Biya, requesting the immediate start of dialogue to resolve the Cameroon crisis. The letter, in English and French, was authored by five Returned Peace Corps Volunteers who previously served in Cameroon, echoing the feelings of numerous other RPCVs.

Open Letter to Cameroon President Paul Biya

August 22, 2018.

To His Excellency, President Paul Biya:

Since the creation of the United States Peace Corps in 1962, more than 3,600 Americans have served as Peace Corps Volunteers (PCV) in all ten regions of Cameroon.  PCVs have proudly worked alongside their Cameroonian counterparts in a wide range of service sectors. The warmth and welcome of Cameroonians towards volunteers and their generosity of spirit and hospitality profoundly changed and enriched our lives.

Cameroon has been respected throughout Africa for its history of stability and its protection of religious, cultural, and language diversity. That stability and diversity has contributed to Cameroon’s continued prosperity.

As Americans who were very fortunate to have lived and served in Cameroon as PCVs, we are concerned about the current situation. It is from our personal experience of living and working in Cameroon that we express our shock and distress over the rapidly deteriorating security situation in the North West and South West Regions..

We have seen the recent reports on the crisis from international groups such as Amnesty International, the International Crisis Group, and Human Rights Watch. Additionally, the news reports from international and Cameroonian media on the increasing violence and killings in the Anglophone regions are troubling.

We do not attempt to analyze or judge the many factors contributing to the current situation, but we call for the earliest cessation of all violence, killings, destruction, and suffering affecting the Cameroonian people. We strongly reiterate the recommendations of other groups that you invite an independent international third-party to help mediate an end to the conflict.

We have been in contact with experienced conflict mediation teams at the Kofi Annan Foundation, and at the Carter Center, led by former United States President Jimmy Carter. Both groups have indicated a strong interest in assisting Cameroon in mediation efforts if invited.

As you know, the world celebrated Nelson Mandela Day on July 18, which highlighted Mandela’s leadership and practice of national dialogue, forgiveness, reconciliation, and unity. We propose that Mandela’s legacy could also serve as a model for Cameroon during this difficult time.

We wish you well and respectfully urge you to announce the earliest convening of all relevant parties for mediation efforts, led by a third party.

Sincerely,

Dennis King, New York – 1971-1974 (Bambili)

Craig Kinzelman, Ohio – 1967-1972 (Buea, Bamenda)

Haley McLeod, Washington – 2013-2016 (Bapi)

Evan Schneider, Oregon – 1973-1975 (Banso)

Bill Strassberger, Florida – 1982-1986 (Njinikom, Bamenda)

Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer, pleaded guilty Tuesday to campaign-finance violations and other charges, saying he and Trump arranged the payment of hush money to a porn star and a former Playboy model to influence the election.

Cohen’s account appears to implicate Trump himself in a crime, though whether   or when   a president can be prosecuted remains a matter of legal dispute.

The guilty plea was part of a double dose of bad news for Trump: It came at almost the same moment his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort was convicted in Alexandria, Virginia, of eight financial crimes in the first trial to come out of special counsel Robert Mueller’s sprawling Russia investigation.

In a deal reached with federal prosecutors, Cohen, 51, pleaded guilty to eight counts, including tax evasion. He could get about four to five years in prison at sentencing Dec. 12.

In entering the plea, Cohen did not name the two women or even Trump, recounting instead that he worked with an “unnamed candidate.”

But the amounts and the dates all lined up with the $130,000 paid to porn star Stormy Daniels and the $150,000 that went to Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal to buy their silence in the weeks and months leading up to the 2016 White House election. Both women claimed to have had affairs with Trump, which he denies.

Cohen, his voice shaky as he answered questions from a federal judge, said one payment was “in coordination and at the direction of a candidate for federal office,” and the other was made “under direction of the same candidate.”

Daniel Petalas, a former prosecutor in the Justice Department’s public integrity section, said, “This brings President Trump closer into the criminal conduct.”

“The president has certain protections while a sitting president, but if it were true, and he was aware and tried to influence an election, that could be a federal felony offense,” Petalas said. “This strikes close to home.”

However, in the charging documents, a news release and comments outside the courthouse, prosecutors did not go as far as Cohen did in open court in pointing the finger at the president. Prosecutors said Cohen acted “in coordination with a candidate or campaign for federal office for purposes of influencing the election.”

As cable networks were showing split-screen coverage of the conviction and plea bargain by two former loyalists, Trump himself boarded Air Force One on his way to a rally in West Virginia and ignored shouted questions about the men.

Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, noted in a statement that “there is no allegation of any wrongdoing against the president in the government’s charges against Mr. Cohen.”

‘Take a bullet’

After the court hearing, which ended with Cohen released on $500,000 bail, the lawyer wiped away tears as he gazed out a courthouse window. He left the building and headed straight for a black SUV with tinted windows. A couple of people outside chanted, “Lock him up!” as they recorded the scene with their phones.

Under federal law, expenditures to protect a candidate’s political fortunes can be construed as campaign contributions, subject to federal laws that bar donations from corporations and set limits on how much can be given.

“If those payments were a crime for Michael Cohen, then why wouldn’t they be a crime for Donald Trump?” Cohen’s lawyer, Lanny Davis, tweeted.

Cohen’s plea follows months of scrutiny from federal investigations and a falling-out with the president, for whom Cohen once said he would “take a bullet.”

The FBI raided Cohen’s hotel room, home and office in April and seized more than 4 million items. The search sought bank records, communications with Trump’s campaign and information on the payments to the two women.

According to prosecutors, the payment to McDougal was made through the parent company of the National Enquirer. Cohen made the payment to Daniels through his own company and then was reimbursed by Trump, he said.

Trump denied to reporters in April that he knew anything about Cohen’s payments to Daniels, but the explanations from him and Giuliani have shifted multiple times since.

The president has fumed publicly about the raid, branding it “a witch hunt,” an assault on attorney-client privilege and a politically motivated attack by enemies in the FBI. But privately he has worried about what information Cohen may have after working for the Trump Organization for a decade.

“Obviously it’s not good for Trump,” Sol Wisenberg, who conducted grand jury questioning of President Bill Clinton during the Whitewater investigation, said of the plea bargain.

“I’m assuming he’s not going to be indicted because he’s a sitting president, Wisenberg added. “But it leads him closer to ultimate impeachment proceedings, particularly if the Democrats take back the House.”

The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel has held that a president cannot be indicted while in office. Trump’s lawyers have said that Mueller plans to adhere to that guidance, though Mueller’s office has never confirmed that. There would presumably be no bar against charging a president after he leaves the White House.

Daniels ‘vindicated’

Daniels said Tuesday that she and her lawyer, Michael Avenatti, feel vindicated and look forward to apologies “from the people who claimed we were wrong.”

Nothing made public so far indicates Cohen has agreed to cooperate with prosecutors, but Avenatti said he is certain that is happening.

Mueller’s team, which is looking into Russian interference in the presidential election, came across some of the evidence against Cohen in the course of its investigation and referred the matter to federal prosecutors in New York.

Deputy U.S. Attorney Robert Khuzami said that in addition to the campaign finance violations, Cohen failed to report more than $4 million in income between 2012 and 2016, including $1.3 million from his taxi medallion holdings.

Cohen also lied to a financial institution by failing to disclose more than $14 million in debt and obtaining a $500,000 home equity line of credit he wasn’t entitled to, Khuzami said. Cohen used that credit line to fund the Daniels payment, prosecutors said.

After making the hush money payments, Cohen submitted phony invoices to Trump’s company, ostensibly for services rendered in 2017, the prosecutor said.

“Those involves were a sham,” Khuzami said. “He provided no legal services for the year 2017. It was simply a means to obtain reimbursement for the unlawful contributions.”

Before the election, Cohen had been a trusted member of the Trump organization, working out of an office in Trump Tower next to one used by his boss. He raised millions for Trump’s campaign.

The president’s initial support for Cohen after the raid soon degenerated into a public feud, with Cohen hinting he might cut a deal with prosecutors.

When Cohen’s team produced a recording he had made of Trump discussing one of the hush-money payments, Trump tweeted: “What kind of lawyer would tape a client? So sad!”

(AP)

French Cameroun continues detention of more than three thousand Southern Cameroons citizens and its vicious military campaign currently going on deep within the Ambazonia territory not only shows that Biya’s human rights record as painted by the corrupt UN African structure are just a sham but also that the Biya Francophone regime are almost out of control. French Cameroun under the 85 year old dictator reportedly has the worst human rights record in Africa and the Yaoundé government is playing a game with the European Union and the United States including Canada saying they are working to improve via the so-called National Commission on Human Rights and Freedoms.

The war declared by the ailing Francophone head of state has demonstrated that French Cameroun human rights record, it’s just more of the same and even worse. The French Cameroun army particularly members of the Rapid Intervention Battalion (BIR) are executing women and children in Southern Cameroons towns and villages, which is condemned by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch,  the International Crisis Group and other organizations.

The Acting President of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia, Sisiku Ayuk Tabe and 46 senior aides of his government have been behind bars with no legal representation ever since they were extradited from the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Cameroon Concord News gathered that Francophone public prosecutors with strong ties to the Biya Francophone regime are calling for the death penalty for all Southern Cameroons detainees.

Yaounde has secretly executed several Anglophone human rights activists for supporting separation with French Cameroun. A majority of the Southern Cameroons human rights leaders arrested recently, came on French Cameroun government radars during the teachers and lawyers protests that demanded an end to discrimination against English speaking Cameroonians.

The French Cameroun government has arrested hundreds of Ambazonian women and children and many more have escaped into the bushes as the regime intensifies its crackdown against the people of Southern Cameroons. The United Nations said in a report that some 161, 000 Southern Cameroonians have been internally displaced by the war and that some 50,000 have fled to neighboring Nigeria.

French Cameroun security officials have also intensified security measures in the Southern Zone of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia including the oil-rich Bakassi Peninsular.  The Ambazonian Interim Government under the leadership of Dr. Ikome Sako says it won’t back down on its fight for an independent state for Southern Cameroons.

The French government of President Emmanuel Macron is supporting the Francophone regime in Yaoundé and both sides have been spending billions of Franc CFA on the military in an attempt to crush the Anglophone uprising. They have destroyed Southern Cameroons infrastructures and they are killing hundreds of Southern Cameroons young men and women with little or no strong condemnation from the international community.

By Chi Prudence Asong