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Cameroon is the 18th most prosperous country in Africa
Cameroon has been ranked the 18th most prosperous country in Africa and the 127th in the world respectively by the authoritative Legatum Institute. The 2016 Legatum Institute classification made public on November the 7th 2016 is actually an index that annually assesses the level of prosperity of states worldwide.
Liliane J. Ndangue who reported the news for Cameroun-Info.Net observed that the criteria on which the judgment is based are new. They cover the areas of education, health, governance, security and safety, economic quality including individual freedom, social capital and environment.
149 countries were reportedly screened for the review by Legatum Institute. The most prosperous countries in the world as revealed by the findings are New Zealand, Norway, Finland, Switzerland and Canada. The United Kingdom occupied the 10th place, Germany in 11th, the United States 17th and France in the 18th. In terms of the BRICS countries, South Africa came in the 48th spot. Followed by Brazil in the 52nd place, China in the 90th, Russia 95th position and India occupied the 104th place.
By Sama Ernest with cables from CIN
CRTV: Charles Ndongo says there is a picture quality revolution going on
The general manager of the state owned Cameroon Radio and television (CRTV) has praised the prowess of his technical crew that covered the friendly match Cameroon against Kenya last Sunday. The Indomitable Lionesses defeated their Kenyan rivals 2-1 in a fou fou foot encounter in Yaounde televised by the national television channel. It was a litmus test for the coverage of the female Africa Cup of Nations which begins on the 19th of November.
The veteran journalist now GM of CRTV was quoted as saying that “I think viewers can confirm that there is a picture quality revolution. These are the high-definition images and I think viewers can confirm tonight after what they saw.”
Ndongo revealed that the corporation used to work with six cameras but with what was recently acquired from China, CRTV deployed 12 cameras for the friendly against Kenya. The CRTV GM added that “We have expanded our range of possibilities and we could even go to 20 cameras. There replays that in the past take six different angles, can now be seen on sixteen different angles. Obviously in terms of reliability CRTV is far ahead. I must tell you that across Africa, there are not two or three countries that can deploy such a technical platform,” Charles Ndongo boasted.
As usual, Charles Ndongo did not miss the opportunity to thank (again) his hierarchy and President Paul Biya for the new material.
By Chi Prudence Asong with files from CIN
BICEC Financial Scandal: Trial of former deputy GM, others to begin soon in Douala
Cameroon Intelligence Report has learnt that all is now set for the trial of senior executives of the International Bank of Cameroon for Savings and Credit (BICEC) recently arrested and imprisoned at New Bell in Douala for forgery, breach of trust and aggravated fraud.
Information has also filtered out that all French nationals who were involved in some way in the financial scandal have been relieved of their duties by the French banking group. The Cameroonian justice system is now expected to examine the big man seen here on photo attached to this report, former Deputy Director Innocent Ondoa Nkou and his compatriots, Samuel Ngando Mbongue, Martin Nyam and others imprisoned at New Bell prison in Douala.
The State of Cameroon with 17.50% stake in BICEC has accused its citizens of betraying its interests. For its part, the French government has been very concerned to protect its image and its nationals, ever since the beginning of this incredible case. The General Directorate of BICEC is still maintaining a kind of deliberate silence and has blatantly refused to say more about the nature and extent of the fraud.
By Sama Ernest
The rich and the powerful basically control the US system
The bruising race between Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton is coming to an end and as the Election Day nears, one question keeps popping up: If we were to break down the American election system, how much of it would be in line with the true essence of democracy?
Trump and Clinton have spared no efforts to win more votes. Racism, sexism, wild accusations and legal scandals have all been part of the political roller coaster that has been this election cycle so far. On one side, there was Donald Trump, who claimed to be the “outsider” who was going to take America out of the hands of its “stupid” leaders.
A real estate mogul who knocked out all of his primary opponents and won the Republican Party’s nomination by making racist remarks that even attracted the Ku Klux Klan. “The fact that Trump paints himself as anti-establishment – and in some respects that is true—but let’s remember that he is not running as some impoverished blue-collar worker who earns minimum wage and barely gets by,” says Mark Glenn, an Idaho-based author and political analyst.
“He is a multi-billionaire and he only became a multi-billionaire as a result of his knowing how the system works and his cooperating with that system,” Glenn says. “The very same people who he is denouncing now as insiders.” On the other hand, there was Hillary Clinton, a former first lady and a veteran politician who knew the game very well and acted providentially from the get-go.
The race between the two was so lively that American allies across the globe started to shake in their boots, thinking about the uncertain prospects of their deep relations with Washington. Glenn believes that Trump is preferred by the wealthy, because Clinton’s rhetoric against traditional US adversaries such as Russia only risks more wars and that would endanger their wealth.
However, when it comes to the US presidential elections the process that leads to a candidate’s election has gotten less attention. According to the US government’s website, the popular vote “does not determine the winner” on Tuesday. Rather, it is the candidate with the “majority of electoral votes” who will win the top job.
The Electoral College was established after “the nation’s founders saw it as a compromise between electing the President by a popular vote among citizens and electing the President in Congress,” the government’s website notes. This means that, at the end of the day, the winner of the election is chosen by 538 electors who are doled out across different states based on each state’s representation in Congress. To win, a candidate needs to get at least 270 votes.
Almost all of the states, except for Maine and Nebraska, use the “winner-take-all” basis, which means the candidate with the most votes gets the most number of electors. There is one major flaw to this plan though: sometimes the candidate with the most popular vote would still lose the race to the candidate with the most electoral vote.
For example, former US president George W. Bush was able to defeat his Democratic rival Al Gore to the White House in 2000, using that very flaw. He was over 500,000 votes behind but had secured 271 electoral votes, compared to Gore’s 266.
Glenn says the US political system is “the most sophisticated form of repression that has existed in history.” “There is no democracy in America, it is an oligarchy in the sense that the rich and the powerful basically control the system and perpetuate the means by which they maintain that power,” he says.
Culled from Presstv
Email Scandal: FBI clears Clinton
The US Federal Bureau of Investigation has cleared Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton after a renewed probe into her use of private email server as the US secretary of state. FBI Director James Comey sent a letter to the Republican-controlled Congress on Sunday to make the announcement. Earlier, Comey had sent a letter, notifying the lawmakers of newly discovered emails pertinent to the case. Following an earlier probe, the FBI chief refused to recommend any charges against the Democratic flag-bearer.
In the new letter, Comey said that the new emails have not changed the situation and his previous recommendation still holds. “The FBI investigative team has been working around the clock to process and review a large volume of emails from a device obtained in connection with an unrelated criminal investigation,” Comey wrote in the letter. “During that process, we reviewed all of the communications that were to or from Hillary Clinton while she was secretary of state.”
Comey’s first letter caused turmoil in the US 2016 presidential election and harmed Clinton’s lead over GOP nominee Donald Trump. “I am very grateful to the professionals at the FBI for doing an extraordinary amount of high-quality work in a short period of time,” Comey added.
The Clinton campaign welcomed the decision with communications director Jennifer Palmieri saying, “We are glad the matter is resolved.” The Trump campaign has been using the case as a means to attack the former first lady, arguing she is corrupt. The new development comes the Tuesday presidential election approaches.
Presstv
Biya and the CPDM celebrates 34th anniversary of accession to power
Militants of the ruling Cameroon Peoples Democratic Movement have celebrated the 34th anniversary of the accession to power of President Paul Biya. This year’s November 6th festivities recorded a series of scantily attended meetings across the country in honour of the 83 year old leader who has misruled the nation for 34 years.
On the occasion, delegations led by party cadres braved the bad roads into the hinterlands pretending to mobilize support for a head of state that remains locked in his presidential palace. On the streets of the nation’s capital Yaoundé and the economic metropolis of Douala, young Cameroonians seem more amazingly shocked by their head of State’s low sense of judgment and criminal neglect of the nation.
Through numerous movements banned by the regime, the Cameroonian youth who make up the bulk of the electorate are currently criticizing the Biya government strongly marked by corruption. The office of the president changed hands on the 6th of November in 1982, from the late President Ahidjo to Paul Biya in a peaceful atmosphere.
By Rita Akana
Massive rally against the killing of a black man by French police
People in France have stage a rally in the capital city, Paris, to demand justice for Adama Traore, a black man who died in police custody in July. The demonstrators chanted “No justice, no peace” and “Cops everywhere, justice nowhere” as they marched against police brutality in downtown Paris on Saturday. Traore’s family members were also present at the rally and were carrying a banner reading, “Let us stand against the impunity of the police.” “Today, we march for Adama, for justice, for truth,” said Adama’s sister, Assa.
The 24-year-old, black man died of asphyxiation on July 9, according to an autopsy report, which contradicted a police report that cited infection as the cause of his death. His family claim he was in good health at the time of his arrest and was “beaten to death” by police after being taken into custody on charges of obstructing the arrest of his brother, who was wanted in an extortion case. Despite the autopsy, the exact cause of death of the young man could not be determined with certainty.
Local authorities said Traore had “fainted during the ride” to the police station and the paramedics who were called to the scene were unable to revive him. When arrested, the young man had been held down under “the weight of the body” of three officers, according to a source close to the investigation.
The three police officers suspected of causing the death of Adama Traore could face charges of assault leading to death without intention to kill. Traore’s death has triggered a wave of protests. The Saturday protest came as French security forces have already been busy for months with terror attacks and anti-government protest rallies in the country.
Presstv
Nigerian troops rescue Chibok girl carrying a baby boy
Nigerian troops have managed to rescue yet another Chibok girl carrying a baby boy, more than two years after she was taken into captivity by the Boko Haram Takfiri terrorist group along with over 200 other school girls in northeastern Nigeria.
According to a statement released by Colonel Sani Kukasheka Usman, a Nigerian army spokesman, the girl, identified as Maryam Ali Maiyanga, was discovered by army troops on Saturday morning in Pulka in the volatile state of Borno near the Mandara mountains, which separate Nigeria from Cameroon.
“She was rescued at about 06:00 a.m. (local time) to be carrying a 10-month-old son, while the army troops were screening (possible) escapees from Boko Haram terrorists’ hideout in Sambisa forest,” Usman said, adding that the girl had been taken to the unit’s medical facility for a proper medical checkup.
The announcement comes less than a month after 21 other Chibok girls were freed from the grips of the terrorist group. The girls were swapped for four Boko Harm prisoners held in the liberated town of Banki, which borders Cameroon, located in northeastern Nigeria.
In August, Boko Haram released a new video purportedly showing some of those girls and called for the release of comrades in exchange for the freedom of the abductees. The swap negotiations were brokered by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Swiss government.
On April 14, 2014, Boko Haram kidnapped 276 girls from their secondary school in the northeastern town of Chibok in Borno. About 60 of the girls managed to escape afterward, but the fate of the remaining others remains unknown.
The Bring Back Our Girls (BBOG), which has campaigned for releasing the girls from the grips of the terrorists over the past two years, confirmed the release of the girl on Saturday.
“We are happy with the news… We have confirmed the name of the freed girl to be among those on our data base,” BBOG campaigner Aisha Yesufu said in a statement. “Our hope is that the government will work towards an early release of the remaining girls so that we can bring this sad episode to a close,” she added.
Elsewhere in the statement, Usman said the army units managed to kill at least 14 suspected Boko Haram terrorists on Friday during a fighting at Mallam Fatori in Borno. He, however, added that the army lost an officer and four soldiers in the fight.
More than 20,000 people have been killed and some 2.6 million people have been displaced since Boko Haram began its terror activities in 2009. Many blame corrupt officials in the Nigerian government and army for the continued militancy. Recent reports say the terrorist group is receiving some of its arms and ammunition from corrupt Nigerian officials.
Presstv
So, Marafa Hamidou Yaya is still a member of the CPDM political bureau
The Council of Elders running the consortium of CPDM crime syndicates met recently at the Unity Palace in Yaoundé- among them, Peter Mafany Musonge who has been secretly celebrating the demise of his kinsman, Chief Inoni Ephraim. They were summoned by a visiting head of state, President Biya to guarantee his continued stay in power.
The political bureau members are men and women of “exceptional qualities” who only care about their stomachs and that of their dysfunctional families. Cameroon Intelligence Report was reliably informed that the Chief Priest of the CPDM cult house ordered the members to register their presence before deliberations.
The Secretary General, Jean Nkwete presented the attendance list to the general body stating that “One died, another is imprisoned and two others could not make it for health reasons.” The Thursday politburo meeting did what was expected and provided lame and ridiculous reasons to the Cameroonian public opinion. Consequently, Biya and his gang are no longer illegal political leaders in the country.
However, on the list of absentees, we of the Cameroon Concord News Group noticed with interest the name Marafa Hamidou Yaya. We agree with Secretary General Jean Nkwete that Delphine Medjo had passed to eternity and that age was telling on both Ayang Luc and Mongui Sossomba.
It is shameful, disgusting and disgraceful for a ruling party of a great nation like Cameroon to have in its political bureau, a chairman who is a visiting head of state and the name of a former senior cabinet minister, Marafa Hamidou Yaya arrested on April the 16th 2012 and sentenced by the Supreme Court to 20 years in jail for complicity to embezzlement of 24 billion CFA francs meant for the acquisition of a new aircraft for the president of the republic.
So, this is the political politburo that met and gotten the extension of the mandate of the National Chairman of the CPDM and all his disciples! Marafa Hamidou Yaya too had an extension of his mandate as an elected political bureau member of the ruling CPDM party!!!! We say so mindful of the resolutions of the just ended political bureau meeting. The CPDM IS INDEED A CRIME SYNDICATE
By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai