Foreign 28 Cameroon crushes opposition to dominance of French over English
ÎÎÎThe
strike by Englishspeaking professionals in Cameroon has taken another turn with the government shutting down an independent radio station. The station hosted a discussion of what the striking lawyers and teachers say is the overbearing use of French in the bilingual country. Cameroon is officially a bilingual country but only about a fifth of the population speaks English. Professionals in Anglophone parts of the country complain that English is being sidelined. For example, they say the government has failed to provide official documents in English as well as French. Teachers are also demanding reforms amid what they say is the proliferation of French-oriented schools. However, the months-long strike has actually pushed some families in affected areas to move their children to Frenchspeaking schools so they won’t miss the academic year. Radio Hot Cocoa is based in Bamenda in Cameroon’s northwest region, the center of the strike by English-speaking lawyers and educators. Authorities sealed the station’s offices Thursday, after a call-in program in which participants criticized the government over its handling of striking professionals’ grievances. VOA reached the manager of Radio Hot Cocoa, Gideon Taka, by phone. “The governor’s office accused us of broadcasting information that could incite the public to violence, incite the public to hatred, and incite the public to civil disobedience,” he said. Taka said the region’s governor is mad that the show’s hosts took the side of the callers, not the government, during the live debate. Activists say the radio shutdown is part of a wider clampdown on public debate in Cameroon.
Daily Times Nigeria Friday, January 13, 2017
Damascus water supply cutoff could trigger military action UN warns ÎÎÎ A senior United Nations
official says a water crisis affecting Syria’s capital, Damascus, could trigger military action with devastating consequences unless vital supplies from the nearby, rebel-held Wadi Barada area, are restored. Damascus gets most of its water from the Wadi Barada Valley. Damage to the infrastructure during battles between rebel and Syrian forces has cut off this vital source of water to the Syrian capital’s population of 5 million since
December 22. The U.N. special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, says it is a matter of great urgency that Syrian government engineers be allowed to go into the area to repair the damage so water once more can be pumped to Damascus. He says rebels in charge of the main water source in one of the five Wadi Barada villages will not agree to this. “Therefore, there is a danger, substantial danger, imminent danger that this may develop into a further mili-
tary escalation and the consequence of it, unavoidably, no
water solution for the people in Damascus,” he said.
day outside the Moscow headquarters of the Alexandrov Ensemble to The U.S. Justice Department’s Inspector General announced Thursday that he will investigate the actions of the Justice Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) prior to the November 2016 presidential election. President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the CIA promised to maintain a
“clear-eyed” view of Russia and said he would not comply with any White House order to restart the use of torture tactics. “You have my commitment that every day I will speak truth to power,” said Republican Congressman Mike Pompeo of Kansas at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee Thursday. Pompeo said he accepts the U.S. intelligence community’s assessment that Russia meddled in last year’s presidential
Damascus People queue as they fill containers with water in the government controlled al-Rabwah area, a suburb of Damascus, Jan. 10, 2017.
election won by Trump, describing the report as “sound.” “It’s a longstanding effort of the Russians,” he added. “It is something America needs to take seriously and a threat that we are vulnerable to today.” Enhanced interrogation Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein of California noted that, during the campaign, Trump spoke favorably of so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques” to extract information from terror sus-
pects. Pompeo himself criticized President Barack Obama for reining in the tactics. “If you were ordered by the president to restart the CIA’s use of enhanced interrogation techniques that fall outside of the Army Field Manual, would you comply?” Feinstein asked. “Absolutely not,” Pompeo replied. “I can’t imagine that I would be asked that by the president-elect or, then, the president … I’ll always comply with the law.”
Gambian official says sacked envoys failed government ÎÎÎGambian President Yahya
Jammeh was right to fire 12 top envoys who failed to defend the Banjul government after the disputed December 1 election, the country’s acting U.N. ambassador says. The 12 envoys had called on Jammeh to hand over power peacefully to Adama Barrow, whom the Independent Electoral Commission declared winner of the vote. The fired envoys included the ambassadors to the United States, Senegal, China and Turkey. “They did not defend the
government that they are supposed to represent at this very trying time, when they were expected to do so,” Samsudeen Sarr, Gambia’s acting permanent representative to the United Nations, said this week. “The Gambian government really gave them the position with the expectation that during circumstances like this, they would stand by the government and explain at least the conditions or the situations that are not very clear to the world.” Opposition supporters said the dismissed envoys were true
heroes who had spoken on behalf of the people, following more than two decades of gross human rights violations and a clampdown on free speech during Jammeh’s rule. Sarr disagreed. One could understand the envoys’ actions, he said, “if there were to be no controversy over the election.” But Jammeh, who initially accepted the election results, later backtracked, alleging that voting irregularities had tainted the outcome. “I think these guys owe it to the government they are represent-
ing to show it to the world,” Sarr said of the dismissed envoys. “But the world has seen that they made their decision even before the facts were presented.” Civil society groups have said that if Jammeh loves the country as he claims, then he should peacefully hand over power without bloodshed. Meanwhile, Senegal reportedly put its army on standby, waiting to see whether the regional Economic Community of West African States bloc, of which Senegal is a member, decides to use force to remove Jammeh.
US confirms airstrike killed 33 Afghan civilians in Kunduz
ÎÎÎUnited States military said
Thursday while releasing details of its investigation into the incident A joint military operation in northern Afghanistan in early November killed 33 Afghan civilians and wounded 27 more, the. The deadly attack in Boz village in the restive Kunduz province flattened dozens of houses, according to residents and Taliban insurgents. The joint operation was conducted to capture
Afghan villagers gather around several victims of clashes between Taliban and Afghan security forces
ÎÎÎTurkey is still reeling from
the deadly New Year’s shooting at an Istanbul nightclub, in which 39 people were killed. Far from bringing the country together, the attack has further deepened national divisions. With the gunman still on the loose, fears are growing about the threat so-called Islamic State poses to Turkey. The threat comes from within and abroad.
US justice department to investigate FBI actions before election ÎÎÎMourners gathered Sun-
Turkey IS threat heightens after New Year’s attack
Taliban leaders who were plotting to seize the provincial capital of Kunduz, according to Afghan and U.S. military officials. “To defend themselves and Afghan forces, U.S. forces returned fire in self-defense at Taliban who were using civilian houses as firing positions,” the U.S. military said Thursday. “Regardless of the circumstances, I deeply regret the loss of innocent lives. … I wish to assure President Ghani and the people of Afghanistan that we
will take all possible measures to protect Afghan civilian,” the statement quoted General John Nicholson, commander of U.S. Forces in Afghanistan, as saying. Afghan special forces planned the raid against the Taliban hideout in Kunduz with the help of a small group of American military advisors. But the insurgents swiftly engaged them, opening fire from multiple civilian buildings, the U.S. military explained in its investigation.
Rather than uniting the country in grief, the shooting appeared to only deepen societal divisions, Posts were placed on social media in support of the incident, denigrating the revelers as decadent and anti-Islamic and therefore getting what they deserved. One theologian declared the attack was a message that “Turkey is not the old Turkey, and that the pious will bring all others to their knees.”
Political columnist Semih Idiz of Turkey’s Al Monitor website says the attack has exacerbated worrying tensions. “There were those who gloated over this attack and who seem to celebrate it, rather than mark the tragedy that happened in front of them,” said Idiz. “This all goes back to this post-modern civil war that has been going on between Islamist and secularists, between the ultra-conservative nationalists and the more pro-European elements. And we have a government that hasn’t really helped in overcoming divisions, in fact at times, the approach of the government and the president is divisive rather than unifying.”
Ban Ki-moon advances toward South Korean presidential bid ÎÎÎFormer Secretary-General
of the United Nations Ban Kimoon arrived back home Thursday in South Korea amid mounting expectations that he will run for office of the president. Ban was greeted by crowds of supporters at Incheon Airport near Seoul when he arrived in the early evening. When asked about entering the race for president, he would not commit, but he did indicate he is leaning in that direction. “I have already said that I am ready to give my all [for the country] and my determination remains unchanged,” he said to the cheering crowd
Former U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon