Breaking News
Cameroon army confirms 1 soldier killed in Ambazonia attack
Cameroon military sources say an officer deployed to Ekondo Titi was murdered by the members of the Ambazonian Defense Force on Sunday, January 14, 2018. The department of the South West Gendarmerie Legion identified the soldier as Chief Warrant Officer Endaman.
“We were alerted in the morning of January 14th of the kidnapping of our comrade. After this announcement, a research was launched and in the evening we found his lifeless body, “noted a spokesperson for the Cameroon army.
Since President Biya declared war on the people of Southern Cameroons, more than fifteen soldiers have been murdered in Ambazonia. In his address to Cameroonians on December 31, 2017, President Paul Biya once again made the matter more intractable:
“I have instructed that all those who have taken up arms, who practice violence or who incite violence, be fought relentlessly and answer for their crimes in court.”
By Sama Ernest
UN seeks to expand plan for resettling Ambazonian refugees in Nigeria
The UNHCR Representative in Nigeria and ECOWAS, Antonio Jose Canhandula recently conducted a fact-finding mission to the various refugee camps hosting Ambazonians in the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Cameroon Concord News gathered that Mr. Antonio Jose made public a new UN plan to move all Southern Cameroons refugees further away from the Cameroonian border.
The decision that was taken on Thursday, 11 January 2018 by the Representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Nigeria and the Commission of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), Antonio Jose Canhandula has been welcomed by the Interim Government of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia.
“We are committed to working with the Government of Nigeria to ensure a safe community environment for Cameroonian refugees and their host communities in the Benue and Cross River states,” said Antonio Canhandula. UNHCR. “As such, our recommendation is that refugees should be removed from the border according to international standards,” he added.
UNHCR plans to set up temporary camps, “with a long-term vision to explore avenues that should allow refugees to live in host communities, to access opportunities where they can become more self-reliant and contribute to local economy of the host communities.
The UN body notes that since October 2017, refugees continue to arrive in the state of Cross River. “With regard to the number of Cameroonian refugees in Nigeria, the UNHCR representative noted that 8,050 refugees have been registered, mainly in Cross River State. Many more have not been registered.
According to UNHCR, the situation could worsen if a solution to the Ambazonia crisis is not quickly found. “The political dialogue is necessary because it will help put an end to the current crisis,” UNHCR advises.
www.cameroonconcordnews.com
‘I’m the least racist person you will ever interview’: Donald Trump
US President Donald Trump has rejected claims that he is a racist following his reported description of several nations as “shithole countries” during a White House meeting with lawmakers last week.
“No. I’m not a racist. I’m the least racist person you will ever interview,” Trump told reporters on Sunday, according to a White House pool report.
Trump once again denied that that he made the racist remarks while talking about immigrants from certain Latin American and African countries during the Oval Office meeting on Thursday, where he reportedly asked why “people from shithole countries come to” the United States.
His contemptuous comments, which were about immigrants from El Salvador, Haiti and African countries, have provoked severe criticism in the US and abroad.
“Did you see what various senators in the room said about my comments? They were not made,” Trump said.
The White House initially did not deny the comment but said the president supports an immigration policy that welcomes “those who can contribute to our society.”
But then Trump tweeted on Friday that he did not say “anything derogatory about Haitians.”
“Never said anything derogatory about Haitians other than Haiti is, obviously, a very poor and troubled country. Never said ‘take them out.’ Made up by Dems,” he tweeted.
Despite Trump’s denials, several lawmakers who attended the White House meeting including Senator Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), however, maintained that the president made the disparaging remarks.
On Friday, a US federal judge ruled that Trump’s plan to end and the Obama-era program that protects young immigrants from deportation was racially motivated.
US District Court Judge William Alsup wrote that it is “plausible” that Trump shut down the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program for racial reasons.
On Sunday, Trump told reporters that he wanted to reach a deal on DACA, but accused Democrats of not wanting to make a deal.
“We are ready willing and able to make a deal on DACA, but I don’t think the Democrats want to make a deal. The folks from DACA should know the Democrats are the ones that aren’t going to make a deal,” he said when asked whether they may be able to reach a deal.
Racism runs in Trump family
Congressman John Lewis suggested on Friday that racism runs in the family of Trump.
“I think the words and his actions tend to speak like one who knows something about being a racist,” Representative John Lewis (D-Ga.) said told MSNBC interview.
“It must be in his DNA, in his makeup, but it’s frightening to have someone in the office of the president in 2018 speaking the way that he’s speaking,” he added.
Meanwhile, American political analyst and former congressional staffer Rodney Martin revealed that Trump’s father, Fred Trump, was a member of Ku Klux Klan, a white supremacist group also known as the KKK which advocates extremist reactionary positions such as white supremacy, white nationalism, and anti-immigration.
“Trump’s father was once arrested in 1927 with a large group of Klansmen in a demonstration in New York City, which begs the question, why was he there and in that group?” Martin told Press TV.
He added that once Trump “paid for full paid Ads in The New York Times calling for the hanging of 5 black teenagers who were falsely accused of assaulting a white girl, they were proven innocent, yet Trump continued to pay for the Ads, never apologized and continued to personally attack the young men and to this day will not admit he was wrong.”
Source: Presstv
The abduction of Ambazonian leaders: Conflicting interests haunt the conscience of a federation
The prolonged holding of the President and prominent members of the Ambazonia interim government by a Nigerian Security Outfit after their abduction more than a week ago, underscores the dilemma facing the Nigerian government. The bungled operation was intended to be an assassination project blamed on alleged individuals from Ambazonia opposed to the interim government of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia. A claim of responsibility for the crime would have been made shortly after the assassination. The Federal Government would as it is required in such circumstances have condemned the assassination and promised a swift and efficient investigation to fish out the assassins. Ambazonian refugees in Nigeria would have been the primary targets of these investigations. Till this moment, the Federal Government of Nigeria has not come out with a comprehensive statement taking responsibility for the abduction and providing the reasons for the abduction. The inability of the Federal Government to make a comprehensive public statement on the matter portray the Federal government in very bad light. That an abduction occurred in Federal Capital territory, and seat of power without an official explanation, portray a negative image of the Federal government, its security and intelligence network with a mission to provide security to Nigerians and persons on the territory of Nigeria. If anything, an anxious analysis of the abduction appears to portray a miasma of conflicting interests whose unintended outcome if not well controlled, may haunt the soul of the soul of the federation for long.
It comes as no surprise that several French Cameroun’s intelligence operations with a mission to assassinate Ambazonian leaders and thousands of refugees in Nigeria are coordinated from its Embassy in Abuja and Consulate in Calabar. Some infiltrated military defectors whom we wrote about in a previous publication were deployed to join in a coordinated planned operation to abduct and assassinate our leaders. Others are French Cameroun’s certified Boko Haram hostage facilitators/negotiators with close links to the political Islam power base in Northern Nigeria and Northern French Cameroun. The ailing Ahmadou Ali and Isa Tchiroma Bakary are among the key members of this crime syndicate.
The prosecution of the war against Boko Haram and facilitating/negotiating hostage release is the Alibaba war chest on which the political empire of these zealots is built and sustained within and across national frontiers. Paul Biya and his Beti ethnic controlled neo-colonial army have benefitted from this war by corruptly amassing enormous wealth and by selectively deploying mainly Ambazonian and Bamileke military commanders and soldiers to be slaughtered. There is a disproportionate number of soldiers from these communities killed through sabotage operations or as war casualties. The same trend occurred during French Cameroun’s military deployments to Ambazonia territory of Bakassi. The same trend is occurring in the ongoing war of aggression against Ambazonia. Ambazonia is a cash cow for French Cameroun’s warlords’ crime syndicate.
The declaration of war against Ambazonia was not intended to keep cameroun one and indivisible, because it has never been. There is no international law and treaty base or justification for the existence of such a union. The war is intended to provide another opportunity for Paul Biya and his ethnic dominated army to mobilize resources on the precious blood of Ambazonians to enable him eternalize power and control over Ambazonia’s mineral and natural resources economy. French Cameroun citizens mobilized against Ambazonia for defending its citizens and its territorial integrity are mere puppets in the hands and control of the sanguinary butcher Paul Biya to attain his personal political power ambitions.
The Ambazonian revolution and its revolutionary leadership under President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe stood on the way of Paul and French Cameroun’s continued colonial annexation agenda. For this, Paul Biya initiated a plan to abduct and assassinate them in Nigeria. For this to materialize, he needed the complicity and support of influential power brokers within the corridors of power and security operatives within the intelligence services. This required an elaborate corruption scheme for the success of the operation and it’s cover up.
If the purpose of the abduction was to investigate an alleged violation, a summons, an invitation or a warrant properly obtained and executed would have fulfilled that legitimate rule of law purpose. They needed all Ambazonian to be in one place to facilitate their abduction and execution. The delayed flight schedule of Millan Atam and his late arrival at the venue of the meeting where the abductions occurred changed the fate of the operation. He eluded abduction upon being informed of the fate of the President and members of the interim government who were with him.
Political assassinations are a common fixture of the Nigeria society. This one would not have come as a surprise to most Nigerians although Ambazonians would have held French Cameroun accountable. The corruptive implications of some people within the Nigerian security and intelligence community would have been alleged but not that of official Nigerian government involvement. The official involvement of the Federal Government would not have been reasonably contemplated considering that the abductees are persons of considerable weight internationally who were legally in Nigeria and their respective residences were well known to Nigerian security and intelligence services. The interim President had just returned from a trip from the United States of America passing through Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport Abuja. Millan Atam travelled from South Africa passing through the same airport. The Federal Government would never have been reasonably suspected of being behind or complicit in the assassinations had they occurred as planned.
The failure of the operation left the Federal government struggling more than a week after to find a justification for the abductions. It still has not, underscoring the enormity of the embarrassment and confusion. The Federal Minister of Foreign Affairs lacked the appropriate words to characterize the abduction; telling newsmen who confronted him about the abduction that he had met security units who conducted the operation and did not know whether it as an arrest or an invitation to the abductees to submit to investigations which were ongoing. The answer provided by the Hon Minister underscores the embarrassment caused by the abductions as well the dilemma the Federal Government finds itself in on this matter.
It is possible that several units of the Nigerian intelligence and security community were not aware of the operation or were not informed after it occurred. It is also possible that several members of the Federal Government, possibly the President were not aware either. The surprise evident in the cursory information provided by the Federal Minister of Foreign Affairs points in that direction. This was unusual because intelligence sharing is a critical security operational imperative. The fact that neither the Attorney General of the Federation or the Inspector-General of Police made a statement on the abductions may also be a credible indicator.
The silence by the French Cameroun government through its genocide apologist and prominent member of the Boko Haram facilitation/negotiation criminal network Isa Tchiroma Bakary is a result of it’s total frustration for the failure of the operation and its fallout. In the aftermath of the failed operation, French Cameroun struggled to have the captives delivered to it but again this option failed. The request for Nigeria to deliver the abductees to French Cameroun in violation of international law, its national legislation and its constitution had it occurred, would have attained the same objective for French Cameroun of having them executed through a court-martial. Although, manifestly illegal, that would have at least whitewashed the execution process as an exercise of sovereignty by both nations. Judicially whitewashed assassinations and executions are standard practice in French Cameroun. This is not an acceptable policy in Nigeria under civilian rule where the rule of law is the pillar of Nigerian democracy and the legitimacy of its Federal institutions. Complicity in handing over Ambazonian leaders to a sanguinary genocidal regime would have stained the soul of Nigeria and provided a precedent for similar treatment to be meted out to Nigerian citizens worldwide. Nigeria prides itself as the giant of Africa and must not be influenced by French Cameroun to support its campaign of genocide against Ambazonia and Nigeria citizens on the territory of Ambazonia.
Nigeria must not forget so soon that the ICJ Bakassi Judgment left the question on the determination of nationality unresolved and thus outstanding. It was and is a sensitive matter touching on the life of the Federation. Politicians from Cross River State as well as their peers in all the border communities continue to raise this matter in the Nigerian Senate and the House of Representatives. French Cameroun gendarmes and soldiers continue to massacre these civilians without any concrete attempts on the part of the Nigerian government to abate the criminal and provocative attacks on this civilian population.
French Cameroun conceded before the ICJ that the citizens on the disputed territory of Ambazonia were Nigerians. Lately one of French Cameroun’s ethnic genocide ideologue Enoh Meyomesse in a widely publicized article stated that Ambazonians fighting back in self defence against French Cameroun aggression were Nigerians and should be exterminated. One Owona Nguini another ethnic genocide ideologue echoed the same sentiments. A television channel TV4 closed to the crime syndicate in power called Ambazonians rats, a colonial governor called them dogs and a colonial proconsul ordered Ambazonians in Manyu county to vacate their ancestral homes and close all human and economic activities within the county. Considered with the massacre and harassment of citizens whom French Cameroun conceded at the ICJ were of Nigerian nationality and required protections afforded by international law, and the ongoing genocide in Ambazonia aimed at Ambazonians of the same ethnic affiliation, must Nigeria continue to play the Ostrich while the genocide continues unabated?
The question that Nigeria must consider seriously in deciding which side to support in the ongoing genocide in Ambazonia is, with the nationality issue deferred by the ICJ unresolved, with the common ethnic and nationality composition of the declared war zones, with over two million Nigerian citizens facing the genocidal onslaught of French Cameroun, will Nigeria aid the genocide of Ambazonia and with it that of its ethnic nationalities? Where does the moral compass direct Nigeria to pitch its tent of national and human dignity and continental relevance in preventing an ongoing genocide at its door steps?
The declaration of war aiming the border communities with Nigeria and consistently closing the borders with Nigeria and violating the international borders with Nigeria were calculated acts of provocation against Nigeria. Should Nigeria reward these acts of international brigandage and criminality by supporting the genocide against Ambazonia? Nigeria pursuant to the Greentree Agreement, must give the criminal invader French Cameroun, an ultimatum to withdraw its forces to its borders at independence on January 1, 1960 which is at the River Mungo and nowhere near the war front within the Nigerian border communities which is within the territory of Ambazonia. Nigeria must additionally obey the Judgment of the Federal High Court Abuja that enjoined Nigeria to take the Southern Cameroons case to the UN and other international courts for adjudication. Nigeria cannot legally recognize or support the criminal activities of French Cameroun in Ambazonia in violation of the Judgment of its own Federal High Court Abuja. Were that to occur, then the rule of law on which the soul of the Federation is anchored will be significantly violated.
Chairman and Editor-in-Chief
Cameroon Concord News Group
Ambazonia ambassador to South Africa says ‘You can change friends, not neighbours’
The ambassador of the Federal Republic of Ambazonia to the Republic of South Africa, Ms Jessy Itambi has handed over a strongly worded petition to the Nigerian Consulate in Pretoria on the arrest of President Ayuk Tabe including nine of his aides in Abuja. Her Excellency Jessy Itambi who also moonlights as Ambazonia’s diplomatic representative to the SADC countries led a massive demonstration attended by hundreds of Ambazonians in South Africa.
Cameroon Concord News Bloemfontein reporter said the move taken by Ambassador Jessy Itambi is keeping with directives from the Interim Government that called on all Ambazonians in Pretoria and around the world to stage peaceful protest in front of all Nigeria foreign missions.
Ambassador Itambi further called on the Buhari administration to respect the rule of law and release the Ambazonian leadership. The chief diplomat in South Africa pointed out that by not granting President Ayuk Tabe access to lawyers hired by the Interim Government, the Nigerian State Security Service (SSS) was in violation of Section 6 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
On a lighter note, Ambassador Itambi was full of praise for the people of Nigeria and their government for helping to take care of the more than 50000 Ambazonian refugees in Nigeria. She was also grateful to the Nigerian High Commissioner to South Africa HE A.I. Musa for receiving the memo informing him that “Nigeria can change friends but cannot change its neighbours.” The Pretoria event was attended by Ambazonia’s Under Secretary for Communications, Hon. Milton Taka.
Ambazonia crisis is threatening to spin out of control
The fallout from Cameroon’s Anglophone crisis is spiraling, leading to a refugee emergency, escalating tensions with neighboring nations, and threatening to put a dent in global cocoa production.
In recent weeks, more than 15,000 people have fled the English-speaking Northwest and Southwest regions to neighboring Nigeria, as the government intensifies its crackdown on a pro-independence movement. Dozens of people have also been killed by security forces, with Cameroonian troops even crossing into Nigeria in pursuit of the rebels in December. Suspected separatists have also killed more than 10 gendarmes (armed police).
The Anglophone regions of Cameroon erupted in protest in 2016, with people calling for more autonomy from the majority French-speaking government. While the origin of the crisis is based on the imposition of the French language in English courts and schools, it also has roots in economic marginalization and the allocation of resources. The government responded by shutting the internet and arresting protestors until detention facilities were overwhelmed. When separatists declared an independent state called Ambazonia in October, that prompted a military clampdown, violent attacks, and the flight of refugees from the area.
Last week, separatist activists including the leader of the movement Sisiku Ayuk Tabe were taken into custody while meeting in Nigeria. The arrest drew criticism from advocates, who worried that they risked torture and unfair trials if extradited to Cameroon. “Authorities in Nigeria should immediately disclose the activists’ whereabouts, allow them access to a lawyer, and unless they have sufficient evidence to charge them with a recognizable crime, release them immediately,” Osai Ojigho, director of Amnesty International Nigeria, said.
The simmering tensions represent the most direct threat to president Paul Biya’s 35-year rule over the Central African nation. At 84 years of age, Biya is one of the longest-serving African leaders still in power and is expected to run in the October elections this year. As the world’s fifth largest cocoa producer, the violence also portends a problem for the nation’s cocoa output. Thousands of farmers have fled the government clampdown according to Reuters, with many saying buyers are afraid to come. One agent said the cocoa was “rotting in the bush.”
As more people cross into Nigeria, the UN refugee agency said it was working to get more refugees away from border areas, create temporary camps, and help them gain access to economic opportunities. Antonio Jose Canhandula, the agency’s representative in Nigeria, said more and more refugees kept coming. “They are still coming, and they are coming daily,” he said. “It is a crisis.”
Source: Quartz Media
Concerns over persecution of Cameroon academic
West African academics and intellectuals have expressed their concerns about the detention and withholding of their colleague’s Cameroonian passport by the government of Paul Biya.
Professor Patrice Nganang (37), a native of Cameroon who teaches cultural studies and comparative literature at Stony Brook University in New York State, was detained at the Douala International Airport in Cameroon on 6 December.
At the conclusion of his Christmas vacation in Cameroon, Nganang, who is a novelist, essayist and poet, was on his way to Zimbabwe via Kenyan Airlines to meet his wife and eight-year-old daughter. On his arrest, Nganang’s attorney, Emmanuel Simh, was informed by authorities that his client would be charged with insulting and defaming long-serving Cameroonian President Paul Biya.
The charges presumably related to an interview Nganang gave in November 2017 to Jeune Afrique, a weekly Francophone tabloid, in which Nganang indirectly criticised Biya’s handling of the ongoing political crisis in Anglophone Cameroon.
Senior lecturer in the department of political science at the University of Abuja, Dr Henrietta Williams described Nganang as “one of the prominent voices against the regime of terror in Anglophone Cameroon”.
Unexpected release
On 27 December, well before his scheduled court appearance on 19 January 2018, Nganang was released without explanation and deported to the United States via Addis Ababa. Although his United States passport was returned to him, his Cameroonian passport was not.
According to Dr Adewale Suenu, vice-chairman of the Nigerian Academic Staff Union of Universities, or ASUU, Lagos State University Chapter, Nganang’s release was the result of combined pressure from the United States embassy in Yaoundé and Baroness Patricia Scotland, secretary-general of the Commonwealth of Nations.
Adewale Suenu, who had mobilised ASUU members to campaign for the unconditional release of Nganang during his detention, said it was not the first time a community of writers, university teachers and journalists had to mount pressure on Biya to release ‘prisoners of conscience’.
He said in the past Biya had been irked by the ‘effrontery’ of Nganang who collaborated with PEN America, the African Literature Association and the Committee to Protect Journalists in pushing for the release in 2015 of Cameroonian writer and poet Enoh Meyomesse who was jailed for three years for challenging the ‘sit-tight syndrome’ embodied by Biya. Meyomesse published more than 15 books challenging Paul Biya’s 30-year rule and unsuccessfully ran for the Cameroon presidency in October 2011.
Little did Nganang realise that two years later he would be facing the same fate and reaping the dividends of the solidarity structures he helped to put in place.
In an interview after his release from detention, Nganang said: “What unites the people is also the tragedy of its history, which makes it a common destiny. Each of us should therefore be concerned about the teleology of violence that is taking shape step by step in the skeleton of the Cameroonian state.”
Academics speak
While academic and human rights communities have rejoiced over the release of Nganang, university teachers in Côte d’Ivoire, Benin Republic and Nigeria who spoke exclusively to University World News have expressed concerns over the implications of the withdrawal of Nganang’s Cameroon passport.
Francis Akindès, professor of sociology and anthropology at the University of Abidjan in Côte d’Ivoire said while he took strong exception to Patrice’s use of unprintable language to describe Biya and his wife, Chantal, it was no justification for his shabby treatment.
Professor of Constitutional Law Olamide Eyidara from the faculty of law at Olabisi Onabanjo University, Sagamu, Ogun State, Nigeria described the withdrawal of the passport as ‘pure lawlessness’ and a violation of Nganang’s basic and fundamental rights.
“Expelling Patrice has not removed his nationality because it was not renounced by the victim of oppression. This is outright crime against humanity punishable under the rules of the International Court of Justice. Since Cameroon is a signatory to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the Atlantic Charter of Man, there is no way Cameroon would not escape being sanctioned,” he said.
Dr Richard Etohaim based at the faculty of law, University of Jos, Plateau State, Nigeria, said Nganang had committed no crime which justified the withdrawal of his traditional nationality. “The prescriptions and conditions were not there in the first place and so, both local and international laws protect him,” he said.
Dr Richard Basset based in the faculty of law at the University of Calabar, Nigeria, described Nganang’s detention as ‘uncalled for’ and ‘unfortunate’.
Expulsion of African intellectuals
According to Dr Ajagbe Mathieu, a lecturer of political science at the University of Parakou in the Republic of Benin, this is not the first time African intellectuals have been expelled by post-colonial African states and returned to the ex-colonial metropolis.
He cited the example of Gilles Capo Chichi, an economist and naturalised French citizen who was expelled from Dakar in Senegal four months ago and sent to France. His offense was to publicly burn a French CFA note in symbolic protest against France’s domination of the economies of Francophone Africa.
“It is a pity that our independence has not been used to protect us from new colonial masters. I am referring to Frantz Fanon’s book Black Skin, White Masks,” he said.
Comparing intellectuals like Nganang to military generals, Dr Nathaniel Kitti, a constitutional lawyer, said the intellectual leads the troop which contains different soldiers with conflicting visions. He is the soothsayer who predicts the future of and for the civil society.
“Patrice is a soothsayer of Cameroon. He is in a paradoxical situation. Despite the fact that his passport has been withdrawn from him, he remains a Cameroonian soothsayer. In his writings, he predicts the eventual fall of Paul Biya’s regime. That is why he is expelled from his own country without justification,” he declared.
A press release produced by PEN America at the time of Nganang’s arrest last year stated: “Investigating corruption or commenting unfavourably on political or human rights issues frequently results in official repercussions for writers and journalists in Cameroon. Nganang is only the latest example of a string of writers commenting on sensitive subjects who risk police questioning, lawsuits, detention, or imprisonment.”
Meanwhile, the universities of Buea and Bamenda in Anglophone Cameroon have remained closed since last September. Some of the students and lecturers are taking refuge in Nigeria.
Israelis hold anti-corruption protest amid new scandal involving PM family
Thousands of Israelis have held another anti-corruption demonstration in Tel Aviv, calling on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to resign days after the release of an audiotape, in which the premier’s son is heard bragging about his father’s role in a shady gas deal.
Protesters took to the streets for a seventh consecutive week on Saturday, chanting slogans against the premier such as, “Shame” “Bibi go home,” “Corruption is going to be broken,” and “a corrupt government of corrupt tycoons.”
They also waved banners and signs, reading, “Brothers in the war against the corrupt,” “Out with the corrupt!” and “Not leftist, not rightist, but honest!”
Similar anti-graft protests were held Saturday in other cities, including in Haifa and Afula.
During the Tel Aviv event, minor scuffles erupted between anti-regime demonstrators and right-wing Israelis attending a counter protest.
This came less than a week after Israel’s Channel 2 television aired a 2015 secret recording from outside a strip club, where Netanyahu’s elder son, Yair, is heard making disparaging comments about women and trying to persuade gas tycoon Kobi Maimon’s son Ori to lend him money.
“My dad arranged $20bn for your dad – you can give me 400 shekels ($116),” Yair said.
Menny Naftali, an organizer of the Tel Aviv demonstration, criticized the Israeli prime minister over the secret recording.
“I have pity on these kids. The education you [Netanyahu] gave your children is what you are doing to this nation,” he told Haaretz.
Netnyahu is himself suspected of being involved in bribery, fraud and breach of trust.
He has been questioned in two separate cases, involving allegations that he received lavish gifts from wealthy businessmen and negotiated a deal with a newspaper owner for more favorable coverage. He has denied any wrongdoing.
Another bribery scandal, called the “submarine affair,” also involves Netanyahu associates.
Source: Presstv
False alert warning Hawaii residents of incoming ICBM causes panic
An emergency alert warning of an incoming ballistic missile has been sent across the US state of Hawaii urging people to seek immediate shelter before being called off by the state’s emergency management agency as a “false alarm.”
The emergency alert that was sent to mobile phones across the state on Saturday stated in all caps, “Ballistic missile threat inbound to Hawaii. Seek immediate shelter. This is not a drill.”
Hawaii Emergency Management Agency spokesman Richard Repoza later announced that it was a false alarm and the agency is trying to determine what happened.
This is while the US Pacific Command sent an email to media contacts early Saturday afternoon Eastern Time, stating “on the record” that the Navy command “has detected no ballistic missile threat to Hawaii.”
The alert, however, had already caused panic on the pacific island and across social media.
Following the incident, Hawaii’s Democratic Governor David Ige announced later in the day that he was working to get to the bottom of a false mobile alert with plans to meet with senior State Department and military officials on Saturday. He further insisted that such errors must be averted to ensure confidence in the alert system.
“While I am thankful this morning’s alert was a false alarm, the public must have confidence in our emergency alert system. I am working to get to the bottom of this so we can prevent an error of this type in the future,” Ige said in a statement.
The alert stirred confusion and panic across the island state and a major tourist attraction. Within minutes after the emergency warning was issues, US authorities assured the public that no ballistic missile had been fired and that the alert came as the result of an error.
Yet the false alarm drew quick condemnations from Hawaii lawmakers, who underlined that the incident highlighted flaws in the system for pushing out such emergency alerts. They further demanded a quick fix to the process.
Moreover, the White House also declared on Saturday that President Donald Trump had been briefed on the matter, and that the alert was “purely a state exercise.”
The false alarm came amid rising tensions between the US and North Korea, which has recently test launched a ballistic missile capable of striking the US mainland in response to persisting American military drills in the region joined by South Korean forces.
Source: Presstv