The Governor of the US state of Ohio John Kasich says the two-party system that has dominated US politics for over a century might be nearing its end.

“We may be beginning to see the end of a two-party system,” Kasich, a Republican, told ABC News on Sunday. “I’m starting to really wonder if we are going to see a multiparty system at some point in the future in this country because I don’t think either party is answering people’s deepest concerns and needs.”

The governor, who ran a failed bid Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential primaries, said the Republican Party was his “vehicle” and not his “master.”

However, asked would he run as an independent if he was to mount another White House bid, the 65-year-old said he would not because he was still a Republican.

He is rumored to be preparing for a possible 2020 bipartisan bid with Colorado’s Democratic governor, John Hickenlooper, as his running mate.

Kasich has been a firm critic of Trump ever since he launched his presidential campaign and defeated all Republican and Democratic candidates to become president.

He did not have high hopes for his own party in 2018, the year both Republicans and Democrats face the fateful mid-term congressional elections.

The governor predicted that Democrats were going to have a better year overall despite lacking a clear agenda.

It was this lack of agenda on both sides that could ultimately lead to a collapse of the two-party system, he further argued.

“That’s exactly why I’m saying that our young people are fed up and why I’m saying that the prospect of a multiparty system in this country is a real possibility,” Kasich said.

The Republican and Democratic Parties are able to take turns electing US presidents and controlling Congress because the American political system discourages people from supporting third parties, such as the Greens and Libertarians.

Third party candidates face major challenges in the United States, such as the failure to meet the criteria for ballot access. Due to debate access rules, they are even often excluded from participating in presidential debates.

According to political observers, the two major US political parties are heavily influenced by corporate money and the financial markets and lack the power to implement meaningful reforms in the country.

Source: Presstv

A majority of Americans think the direction of the United States has worsened over the last year, mainly due to a surge in racism and violence fueled by President Donald Trump, according to a new survey.

Some 53 percent say the country’s overall direction is pretty grim, despite improvements in the economy, according to a poll released Friday by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Despite that gloomy outlook, Americans are more likely to see the US economy as having improved rather than worsened in the past 12 months, 39 percent to 24 percent, the poll found.

“Well, I hold a job again,” said 67-year-old David Peterson of Torrance, California, a quality assurance manager at an aerospace company who was forced to work at a security job for a year. “But recent events would point toward things getting worse. … It’s a lot of violence in the news. A lot of violence in the country. A lot of natural disasters.”

Americans’ view of the nation has darkened in the 13 months since Trump took office, amid devastating mass shootings, a deadly race riot in Charlottesville, Virginia, record-setting hurricanes and Trump’s volatile White House and his feud with North Korea.

The poll also found that most people, nearly two-thirds, continue to disapprove of how Trump is handling his job as president, while just 35 percent approve.

Even among Democrats, just 8 percent of whom say they approve of how Trump is handling his job overall, 21 percent say they approve of his handling of the economy. Among Republicans, three-quarters approve Trump’s overall performance while 82 percent back his performance on the economy.

A recent US poll released last month showed that most Americans think Trump’s first year in office was a failure and that he has divided the nation.

Trump ended his first year in office in January with the lowest average approval rating of any elected president in his first year.

Source: Presstv

A top adviser to the detained President of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia has dubbed the United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres as a “henchman” of France and by extrapolation La Republique du Cameroun after he expressed support for the fake dialogue called for by President Biya.

The President Ayuk Tabe aide who opted for anonymity told Cameroon Concord News that the deliberate silence maintain by Mr. Guterres ever since he met the French Cameroun dictator in Paris, France demonstrates an absurd sophistry inappropriate to his duty as secretary general of the United Nations.

Discussing the long-running Southern Cameroons crisis, Guterres has only echoed the position of France and French Cameroun in resolving the conflict. Southern Cameroonians had denounced remarks made by Guterres and the Secretary General of the Commonwealth as ill-minded.

The UN Security Council is yet to apply sanctions on the Biya regime over its genocide campaign that has claimed the lives of hundreds of Southern Cameroonians. We gathered that the UN was responsible for the abduction and subsequent extradition of the Ambazonia Interim Government in Abuja, Nigeria.

By Chi Prudence Asong

The President of the Council of Ministers Saad Hariri received this evening at the “Center House” the candidate for the Presidential elections in Cameroon, barrister Akere Muna heading a delegation.

After the meeting, Akere Muna said: “The relations between the Lebanese residing in Africa and the countries they are living in must be upgraded to an institutional level. As a Presidential candidate in my country, we must find ways to raise this relationship to this level, especially with the challenges that Lebanon faces at this stage.”

Earlier, Hariri chaired at the Grand Serail the meeting of the Ministerial Committee tasked with studying the draft budget.  The meeting was attended by Deputy Prime Minister Ghassan Hasbani, Ministers Ali Hasan Khalil, Michel Pharaon, Mohamed Fneich, Jamal Jarrah, Raed Khoury, Ayman Choucair and Youssef Fenianos and the Secretary General of the Council of Ministers Fouad Fleifel.

After the meeting, Minister Khalil said: “We completed most of the items of the budget draft, including some of the reform related items and we will continue the discussions with numbers on Monday.”  He added: “If the political forces and the representatives of the committee bear their responsibility and if we work on decreasing the numbers to be able to reduce the deficit, this will be very important.”

He said: “New taxes were not discussed, contrary to what was said today, and the issue that was raised during the meeting had to do with increasing the electricity tariff when it would be supplied 24 hours a day. There are no numbers from outside the draft and all expenses should be from within the budget.”

Source: NNA

Australia’s scandal-hit deputy leader Barnaby Joyce announced Friday he was quitting and moving to the backbench amid claims of sexual harassment and controversy over an affair with a now-pregnant former aide.

Joyce, whose National Party rules alongside Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s Liberals, has been front-page news in Australia for two weeks since it emerged he had left his wife of 24 years for his younger former media adviser, who is now expecting their baby boy.

The 50-year-old had insisted he would ride out the storm but his position became untenable on Friday when a sexual harassment complaint against him, which he denies, was lodged with the party.

“I will say on Monday morning at the party room (meeting), I will step down as the leader of the National Party and deputy leader of Australia,” Joyce said at a press conference in Armidale, his country New South Wales electorate.

Joyce was due to be the acting prime minister this week with Turnbull meeting US President Donald Trump in Washington, but opted to take leave.

With Foreign Minister Julie Bishop also out of the country, the role has been assumed by Senate leader Mathias Cormann, who said ahead of Joyce’s decision that any harassment claim must be taken seriously.

“Any allegation of sexual harassment is a very serious allegation,” he told reporters.

Joyce called the allegation “spurious and defamatory” and said he wanted it investigated by the authorities.

“I have asked that that be referred to the police,” he said, while admitting it had been “the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

His decision to quit came with colleagues reportedly growing increasingly frustrated with his handling of the love-child scandal.

Joyce had opted to give several media interviews this week, at a time when he was expected to be on leave and out of the spotlight and two of the party’s backbenchers had publicly called on him to resign.

A furious Turnbull, who relies on the smaller National Party to govern, slapped a formal ban on sex between cabinet members and their staff in the wake of the Joyce affair.

He twice declined to offer support for his deputy when asked by reporters in Washington on Thursday.

Junior Nationals minister David Gillespie has indicated he would be a candidate for the vacancy, while reports said Veterans Affairs Minister Michael McCormack had significant backing.

The new Nationals leader will automatically become deputy prime minister, under a coalition agreement between the two major parties of the center-right.

The daily media headlines on the scandal have riveted the Australian public and sparked debate about workplace culture amid the global #MeToo movement against sexual harassment.

But it has also highlighted the perilous state of the coalition government, which just a few months ago survived a crisis over lawmakers’ dual citizenship that threatened its wafer-thin parliamentary majority.

(Source: AFP)

Separatists in Cameroon’s restive English-speaking regions have faced a violent crackdown since declaring the creation of “Ambazonia”, a self-proclaimed republic independent from the majority French-speaking country.

The violence has helped fuel support for a growing separatist movement, including armed groups, who in turn have carried out a string of attacks on police and the military. Dozens on both sides have died, and tens of thousands have fled into neighbouring Nigeria.

ENGLISH

The political drive for the separatist cause began in 2016 after police broke up demonstrations by English-speaking lawyers and teachers who protested against working in French.

The Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium (CACSC), locally known as “the Consortium”, was formed to campaign against what they viewed as discrimination and marginalisation by the francophone majority.

Although it campaigned for federal ties — not secessionism — the campaign met with unyielding opposition from octogenarian President Paul Biya.

The Consortium was dissolved in January 2017, two of its leaders were arrested, and within the anglophone protest movement, the pendulum began to swing in favour of independence.

On October 1, prominent leader Sisiku Ayuk Tabe declared the self-proclaimed republic of “Ambazonia”, named after Ambas Bay on the Atlantic Ocean. The state has not been recognised internationally.

Biya countered with a crackdown and enlisted the help of neighbouring Nigeria in denying a haven to the “terrorists”.

ASYLUM

In January, Ayuk Tabe and 46 of his supporters were extradited by Nigeria to Cameroon despite claims that many of them had lodged asylum applications.

In this climate of spiralling mistrust and revenge, calls for separatism, rather than federalism, are dominant.

The loudest calls have come from the Southern Cameroons Ambazonia Consortium United Front (SCACUF), headed by Ayuk Tabe, which advocates peaceful means to advance independence.

Many of its members are activists with a background in teaching, law or farming, but it also counts former leaders of the outlawed Southern Cameroon National Council (SCNC), which began the campaign for independence back in 1995.

“Negotiations are our best weapon,” said Millan Atam, a SCACUF leader.

But since the crackdown and the roundup of Ayuk Tabe, the peaceful stance is being outflanked by radicals, some of whom advocate taking up arms against “the colonialist occupying forces”.

KIDNAPPING

The International Crisis Group (ICG) estimates that there are likely to be several hundred fighters.

On February 11, these groups and some other separatist movements gathered in an umbrella organisation called the Ambazonia Recognition Collaboration Council (ARCC).

Its most prominent member is a firebrand former student trade unionist, Lucas Cho Ayaba, who heads an armed group that calls itself the Ambazonia Defence Forces (ADF).

The ADF claimed responsibility for kidnapping a government official on Sunday in Batibo, a town near the Nigerian border.

It says it has “thousands of fighters,” although commentators say the figure more likely to be around a hundred or so.

“We have a bloc defence strategy — every village, every group of young people can fight for Ambazonia, and we are ready to help them,” he told AFP.

FORCE

Another armed group is Southern Cameroons Defence Forces (SOCADEF), led by Ebenezer Akwanga, like Cho Ayaba an ex-student trade unionist.

In the late 1990s, the two were allies in challenging the moderate strand of separatism, taking their slogan about “the force of argument” and reversing it, to “the argument of force.”

The ADF and SOCADEF have claimed responsibility for most of the attacks in the anglophone areas. Other smaller, armed factions are also engaged in the conflict, such as the Tigers of Ambazonia, Vipers and the Ambaland Forces, but their impact is unclear.

Attempts have been made to unite the various independence groups, with at least four “conclaves” in Nigeria. The groups have so far failed to unite behind a single leader or structure.

“Today, we are divided, it can not work like this,” a leader said via the WhatsApp messenger service.

Source: AFP

Democratic lawmakers in the US House of Representatives are attempting to give a national platform to President Donald Trump’s sexual harassment accusers if they win back the lower chamber of Congress in November’s midterm elections.

As the snowballing sexual harassment allegations sweep the US, toppling powerful men in business, entertainment, the media and a handful of lawmakers in Congress, a growing number of Democrats think Congress should lend a voice to Trump’s accusers if their political party controls the House next year.

“I think it would be most appropriate,” said Representative Steve Cohen, a Democrat from Tennessee who is among the handful of Democrats pushing to impeach Trump.

“I mean, this is the most unusual circumstance that you have a president with over a dozen accusers of sexual harassment occupying the most prestigious position in the country.”

Several Democratic lawmakers in the upper chamber of Congress have called for congressional hearings for Trump’s accusers, who number at least 19.

“The President has shown through words and actions that he doesn’t value women. It’s not surprising that he doesn’t believe survivors or understand the national conversation that is happening,” said Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a Democrat from New York.

“If he wants due process for the over dozen sexual assault allegations against him, let’s have Congressional hearings tomorrow,” she tweeted. “I would support that and my colleagues should too.”

Sexual harassment accusations have swirled around Trump long before he was elected president in November 2016.

Nearly 20 women have accused Trump of sexual misconduct dating back decades, ranging from unwanted touching to groping to assault. Trump has denied any wrongdoing. The White House has called his accusers liars.

Source: Presstv

South African lawmakers formally named wealthy former businessman Cyril Ramaphosa as new president Thursday after scandal-tainted Jacob Zuma resigned under intense pressure from his own party.

Ramaphosa, the only candidate, was approved without a vote by the parliament in Cape Town, chief justice Mogoeng Mogoeng told assembled lawmakers to loud cheers.

Zuma announced his resignation late Wednesday, and aimed barbs at the African National Congress (ANC) party for vowing to oust him via a no-confidence vote in parliament.

In a 30-minute televised address, Zuma said he had “come to the decision to resign as president of the republic with immediate effect”.

“I have only asked my party to articulate my transgressions and the reason for its immediate instruction that I vacate office,” he said.

Zuma, 75, had been embroiled in a divisive power struggle with Ramaphosa, the deputy president.

Ramaphosa won control of the ANC when he was elected as its head in December.

Benchmark South African stocks scored their biggest gains since June 2016 after news that a pro-business reformist would be taking the helm.

The FTSE/JSE Africa All Share Index rose as much as 2.7 percent, while the rand reached its strongest level since February 2015, gaining 0.5 percent at 11.6570 to the dollar in early trade.

Zuma said in a TV interview earlier Wednesday that he had received “very unfair” treatment from the party he joined in 1959 and in which he had fought for decades against apartheid white-minority rule.

He said he was angered over “the manner in which the decision is being implemented… I don’t agree, as there is no evidence of if I have done anything wrong.”

‘We are not celebrating’

The party’s national executive committee had ordered Zuma’s recall from office on Tuesday, after a 13-hour meeting at a hotel outside Pretoria, but he at first refused.

ANC officials then said that if Zuma did not resign, the party’s lawmakers in the Cape Town parliament would vote him out on Thursday.

But, after the resignation, party deputy secretary general Jesse Duarte cautioned: “We are not celebrating.”

“We have had to recall a cadre of the movement that has served this organisation for over 60 years, it’s not a small matter.”

Zuma, who had no formal education, was jailed on Robben Island for 10 years alongside Nelson Mandela under apartheid and rose through the ranks of the ANC to take power in 2009.

But his rule was dominated by graft scandals, economic slowdown and falling popularity for the celebrated liberation party.

In a day of high drama, police early Wednesday raided the Johannesburg home of the Gupta business family, which is accused of overseeing a web of corruption in Zuma’s government.

Police said three unidentified people had been arrested in investigations into “Vrede Farm” — allegations that millions of dollars of public money meant for poor dairy farmers was siphoned off by the Guptas.

Local media reported that Zuma had been pushing for a resignation deal that included his legal fees to fight multiple criminal charges — but he denied the allegations in his resignation speech.

One case against him relates to 783 payments he allegedly received linked to an arms deal before he came to power.

Other graft allegations have centered on the three Gupta brothers, who are accused of unfairly obtaining lucrative government contracts and even hand-picking Zuma’s ministerial appointments.

The political standoff in recent weeks plunged South Africa — the continent’s most developed economy — into confusion over who was running the country, with last Thursday’s annual State of the Nation address cancelled at the last-minute.

Instead, Ramaphosa is to deliver the State of the Nation on Friday.

 Decline of Mandela’s party

Zuma, a Zulu traditionalist with four wives and a proud singing voice, had been scheduled to stand down next year after serving the maximum two terms.

In local polls in 2016, the ANC recorded its worst electoral result since coming to power in 1994 with Mandela at the helm as white-minority rule fell.

Ramaphosa, 65, must revive the economy and crack down on what he has admitted is rampant government corruption if he is to boost the party’s tarnished reputation before a tricky general election next year.

He is a former trade unionist and Mandela ally who led talks to end apartheid in the early 1990s and then became a hugely wealthy businessman before returning to politics.

Zuma’s hold over the ANC was broken in December when his chosen successor — his former wife Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma — narrowly lost to Ramaphosa in a vote for the new party leader.

South Africa’s new president vows to tackle corruption

Ramaphosa, on Thursday, used his first speech in office to vow to fight government corruption, in a direct reference to accusations leveled against his predecessor Jacob Zuma.

“Issues to do with corruption, issues of how we can straighten out our state-owned enterprises and how we deal with ‘state capture’ are issues that are on our radar screen,” he told lawmakers in parliament.

“Those are issues we are going to be addressing and tomorrow we will also have an opportunity to outline some of the steps we are going to be taking,” said Ramaphosa, who got a standing ovation at the end of the speech.

“State capture” refers to alleged corruption of state institutions and state-owned businesses by private individuals seeking illegal profits.

(Source: AFP)

US President Donald Trump’s presidency is a “tragedy,” says former Vice president Joe Biden, accusing the Republican head of state of “shredding” America’s core values.

“I look at the Trump presidency as a tragedy in two acts,” Biden said last week, addressing the House Democrats Issues Conference at the US Capitol, Newsweek reported Monday night.

“The first is to what we stand for as a nation, with the core values and our standing in the world and in many cases, the democracy,” he argued.

The second act of Trump’s presidency, according to Biden, was his behavior that kept members of the US Congress from doing their job.

“This president is doing great damage,” Biden added. “We are so concerned with stopping the attack, as we should be, on American values, on our principles, that we’re having great trouble getting to the point of doing the real work of restoring the middle class and the working class.”

The former VP,  who served under President Barack Obama and is said to be one of the Democratic Party’s hopefuls to confront Trump in the 2020 race for the White House, called on Trump to stop acting like “the neighborhood bully” by using insulting words to refer to others.

Trump has stirred controversy by calling  top Democratic Senator Adam Schiff as “little Adam Schiff” and attacking North Korean leader Kim Jong-un as a “short and fat madman.”

Biden also blasted the president for mixing his act with an “ugly and phony populism” that was putting the “moral fabric” of American society to the test.

“You know what that fabric’s made of. It’s made of decency. Just simple honesty; just the notion that dignity and respect… treat your opponent as well as your friend with respect,” Biden said.

Biden said he had decided not to publicly criticize Trump but could no longer keep quiet after the president’s handling of violent clashes between white supremacists and counter protesters in Charlottesville, last August.

Trump blamed both sides for the violence, which killed a young woman and injured several others.

Back in November, Biden took another shot at Trump, this time calling him a “charlatan” for taking advantage of frustrated middle class voters.

Source: Presstv

Cameroon President Paul Biya has addressed his countrymen, saying tensions in the English-speaking regions that began more than a year ago have abated. Biya also congratulated his military for successfully curbing Boko Haram atrocities.

Cameroon President Paul Biya, in a nationwide message, thanked the country’s youth, saying they have been instrumental in bringing peace and order along the northern border with Nigeria, where Boko Haram has been active, and in the English speaking northwest and southwest regions where complaints by teachers and lawyers about the overbearing influence of the French language degenerated into separatists calls for independence that resulted in armed conflicts with the Cameroon military.

“The situation in the southwest and the northwest is stabilizing. Indeed, the characteristic resilience of the Cameroonian people deserves to be hailed once again. Allow me once again to underscore the heroism of our defense and security forces, mostly young people,” he said.

In his speech, Biya urged Cameroon’s to youth prepare for the decades ahead, when they will be leaders. He said they need to be up for the task and acquire the necessary skills and experience.

Biya acknowledged that economic growth had slowed due to outside factors, but said he would forge ahead in various sectors of development. He said 2018 will mark the completion of his major road and hydro power development projects.

Cabral Libii, a 38-year-old Cameroonian who has announced his intention to run for president and challenge Biya this year, said he had expected Biya to call for reconciliation to solve the long-standing problems his country has been facing but feels that Biya instead gave an impression all was well and launched his campaign for this year’s presidential election.

Libii said Cameroonian youth only have residual roles to play in Cameroon politics and at the same time they face rising unemployment, a questionable education system, and an underperforming health care system. He said a majority of young people are in despair and suffocating under Biya’s regime, which does not want to leave power. Libii said the youth should be ready to sacrifice to stop Biya’s long hold on power.

Cameroon has been enveloped by the Boko Haram insurgency that has claimed thousands of lives on its northern border with Nigeria, displaced hundreds of thousands of people, and pushed 80,000 Nigerian refugees into its territory.

The central African state also is affected by the crisis in neighboring Central African Republic, with regular attacks and kidnappings for ransom in its territory. And, recently, the crisis in the English-speaking regions of the country have led to hundreds of people, including 23 policemen and soldiers, being killed.

In spite of the continuing threats from Boko Haram and the English speaking separatists which opposition political parties say may hamper the organization of elections, the 85-year-old president, who has served for 35 years, insisted that elections will be held this year since peace is returning. Biya has said party supporters have urged him to run again.

“2018 will be an important election year and all youths aged 20 years and above should be able to — or rather should — exercise their right to vote because by voting, they will be performing an act of responsible citizenship and, thus, participating in forging their destiny,” said Biya.

Source: VOA