Headlines

Details

Rita Akana

19.Sep.2016

Hits: 2068

An explosion rocked the bustling Chelsea district of Manhattan on Saturday night, injuring at least 29 people in what authorities described as a deliberate, criminal act, while saying investigators had turned up no evidence of a "terror connection."

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and other city officials said investigators had ruled out a gas leak as the cause of the blast, but they stopped short of calling it a bombing and declined to specify precisely what they believed may have triggered the explosion.

Neha Jain, 24, who lives in the neighborhood, said she was sitting at home watching a movie when she heard a huge boom and everything shook.

"Pictures on my wall fell, the window curtain came flying as if there was a big gush of wind," she told Reuters. "Then we could smell smoke. We went downstairs to see what happened, and firemen immediately told us to go back."

Police said a sweep of the neighborhood following the blast had turned up a possible "secondary device" four blocks away consisting of a pressure cooker with wires attached to it and connected to a cell phone.

CNN, citing law enforcement sources, reported that a piece of paper with writing on it was found nearby.

Residents living nearby were advised to stay away from windows facing the street as a precaution, and the item was later safely moved to a police firing range for further examination, officer Christopher Pisano said.

Pressure cookers packed with explosives and detonated with timing devices were used by two Massachusetts brothers in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing that killed three people and wounded more than 260.

The latest blast came less than a week after law enforcement agencies around the country were on heightened alert for the 15th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, airline-hijacking attacks that killed nearly 3,000 Americans in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.

Remaining circumspect about the exact nature of the explosion in Chelsea, De Blasio said early indications were that it was "an intentional act." He added that the site of the blast, outside on a major thoroughfare in the fashionable lower West Side Manhattan neighborhood, was being treated as a crime scene.

Reuters

Details

Rita Akana

18.Sep.2016

Hits: 1283

CPDM militants of Meme IB Section in Fiango, Kumba, have hit back at Amnesty International, AI, over a recent report it published faulting Cameroonian security and defence forces.

The militants disclaimed the AI report at a meeting on Thursday, September 8 at the Bangante Family Meeting Hall on Gentil Street.

They rebuffed the report which accuses the security forces of violating the rights of people as it pursued the fight against Boko Haram in the north of the country. They described the report as being completely biased.

In a statement which the CPDM Section scribe, Andrew Tabi, read, the militants argued that Cameroonian security forces cannot be faulted for abusing human rights when its citizens are murdered daily.

Tabi said the report is plagued with falsehood.

In the same statement, the militants expressed regrets that AI cannot give out genuine information. They urged the human rights watchdog to verify the definition of ”abuse of human rights”

The statement holds that Boko Haram has diabolic plans of destroying life and property, reason why Cameroonian security forces should not relent their efforts in pushing them out of the country.

Jacob Matchou Kay, who signed the statement on behalf of the Section, said the AI report is full of lies.

He said with such information, it was obligatory for him to sensitise the militants and sympathisers of the CPDM.

Kay said the militants of the party stand in unison with their party chairman and the Head of State as he battles to guarantee security in Cameroon.

At the end of deliberations, the militants issued a motion of support urging President Biya not to relent in the fight against the deadly sect.

The Youth Wing President, Macmillan Sako, urged the youths of Meme IB to educate their peers against acts that may threaten the peace of the nation.

Sako said youths must be cautioned to shun drug addiction and other acts that could push them towards extremist ideas. He called for vigilance and challenged the militants to report any suspected person they find in their neighbourhoods.

Meanwhile, in a statement, AI’s Regional Director Alioune Tine disapproved Government for using the wrong means to fight Boko Haram.

“In seeking to protect its population from the brutality of Boko Haram, Cameroon is pursuing the right objective; but arbitrary arresting, torturing and subjecting people to enforced disappearances the authorities are using the wrong means,” Alioune Tine said.

AI reported that more than 1,000 people accused of supporting Boko Haram are currently detained in overcrowded prisons lacking food and water.

Besides, AI accused the security forces of arbitrary arrest, torture, malnutrition and prisoners dying of diseases.

The group said it had documented the cases of 29 people whom security forces tortured between November 2014 and October 2015.

Six of these, according to AI, subsequently died.

Cameroonpost

Details

Rita Akana

18.Sep.2016

Hits: 1402

Several passages of a speech Mr Buhari made on 8 September overlapped with President Obama's address after winning election in 2008.

His office admitted the sentences were "too close to be passed as coincidence".

The two men are due to meet at the UN General Assembly next week.

"There was a mistake by an overzealous staff and we regret that this has happened," Mr Buhari's spokesman Garba Shehu wrote on Twitter, saying those responsible would be punished.

"President Buhari urges Nigerians to look beyond this incident and focus on the message of change which the country needs in order to restore our cherished value systems."

Details

Rita Akana

18.Sep.2016

Hits: 1499

Rebels have killed 26 villagers in Central African Republic, a spokesman for the presidency said on Saturday, the worst bloodshed in recent months in a country trying to draw a line under years of religious violence and political turmoil.

The killings took place in the village of Ndomete, not far from the town of Kaga-Bandoro, about 350 km (220 miles) north of the capital Bangui.
Violence pitting the mainly Muslim Seleka fighters against rival Christian anti-Balaka militia members started on Friday in Ndomete before spreading to Kaga-Bandoro.

Central African Republic's U.N. peacekeeping mission, MINUSCA, dispatched troops to the area and separated the two groups. It said in a statement that it was reinforcing its positions in and around Kaga-Bandoro and stepping up patrols in an effort to protect civilians and prevent further violence.

The mission declined to give a death toll.

"MINUSCA regrets the loss of human life and the wounded that were recorded and also denounces attacks against the humanitarian community and United Nations personnel," it said, without elaborating further.

Central African Republic, which holds reserves of uranium, gold and diamonds, suffered the biggest crisis in its half-century of independence in early 2013 when Seleka toppled then-President Francois Bozize.

Christian militias responded by attacking Muslims. A fifth of the population fled their homes to escape the violence, leaving the impoverished nation even more divided along ethnic and religious lines.

Former prime minister Faustin-Archange Touadera won a presidential election in February that was meant to help the country emerge from its bloody past. However, rebels and militia fighters still stalk much of the country outside the capital.

(REUTERS)

Details

Rita Akana

18.Sep.2016

Hits: 1528

European oil companies, especially Swiss commodity traders, are exploiting weak African fuel standards by selling toxic diesel and gasoline across the continent, a campaign group said Thursday.

A three-year investigation published by Switzerland-based environmental and economic group Public Eye did not accuse oil companies of breaking any laws.

But it charged several firms with using an "illegitimate strategy" to boost profits, hawking so-called "African quality" fuels that have had devastating health and environmental impacts across many sub-Saharan states.

In a 160-page report based on research in eight African countries, Public Eye found fuels sold at the pump which contained high levels of toxins, notably sulphur.

Such toxic blends would be illegal to sell in Europe, which caps sulphur rates in fuel at 10 parts per million, Public Eye said.

In Africa, sulphur limits are on average 200 times higher.

"By selling such fuels at the pump in Africa, the traders increase outdoor air pollution, causing respiratory disease and premature death," said the report from Public Eye, a group previously known as the Bern Declaration and founded in 1968.

Among the key culprits, Public Eye named Swiss traders Vitol and Trafigura as well as the multi-national energy group Oryx, which specialises in the African market.

In a statement sent to AFP, Vitol called the report "inaccurate and misinformed," stressing that African governments were responsible for setting their own fuel standards.

Oryx made the same case, noting in a statement that it sells fuel products "that strictly comply with the national legislation of each client country."

Call to act

Public Eye tested fuel sold in Angola, Benin, Congo-Brazzaville, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Mali, Senegal and Zambia.

While sub-Saharan Africa includes major oil producers like Angola and Nigeria, limited refining capacity on the continent means that most African oil is sold as crude on the international market.

States then import fuel products refined abroad, often from European traders.

These transactions often involve regional brokers in Africa, who are sometimes responsible for mixing the fuel.

Public eye called on African governments "to set stringent fuel quality standards" in line with European levels, arguing that was the most effective way to crack down on toxic blends.

Fears that banning low-quality blends will raise costs for consumers are misguided, the report said.

It noted that measures in East Africa to limit sulphur continent had "no impact on prices at the pump."

Importing better fuel would also lower healthcare expenses and reduce vehicle maintenance costs in the long run, Public Eye argued.

With many of the toxic blends produced in Europe and the United States, Public Eye urged Western governments to ban the export of fuel products that do not meet their own domestic standards.

(AFP)

Details

Rita Akana

17.Sep.2016

Hits: 1442