National And International News Roundup – 17th August 2020

Today marks a year after Samuel Abunaw AKA Wazizi died in custody. The pressman was arrested and held in custody till he died. Government only acknowledged his death after pressure from rights groups and pressmen nationwide and beyond. Till date his corpse is yet to be seen.

Mokum Thomas says he is experiencing pains in his head and eyes after military molestation at the weekend. The journalist working for Ndefcam radio station in Bamenda was arrested by elements of the gendarmerie in Small Babanki on accusations that he was there to report the activities of separatist fighters.

There was tension in Yaounde today after an alleged bomb was found today. CRTV however later reported that what was thought to be a bomb at the ministry of public service and administrative reforms turned out to be an insulin pump. Some three bombs had gone off weeks ago in the nation’s capital leaving many in fear.

Government’s decision banning holiday classes has not been welcomed by some teachers. To those who think it is a bad decision, they argue that kids have been in the house for over five months and therefore need to refresh their brains through holiday classes. They want Minister Pauline Nalova Lyonga to reverse the decision.

Sea waves swept away a boat anchored at the shore of Idenau in the South West region of Cameroon. Goods worth millions of francs cfa have been lost. The boat arrived Idenau last night from the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

The town of Kumba remained deserted today Monday despite calls by authorities for traders and inhabitants to violate threats from separatist fighters.They stayed in their homes respecting
ghost town while blaming government for total incompetence to offer protection against the fighters.

Benjamin Mboutou-SDO of Wouri Division in the Littoral region says measures are underway to pay workers of Douala V council. The 6th deputy Mayor of the council blocked the door of the office of the revenue collector officer today. Joseph Espoir Bijong says decentralisation has failed as council workers have gone for months without pay.

Seven officials of the office of Baccalaureate have been suspended for a period of three months for leaking Bacc examination that led to the cancellation of the exam. The Minister of Secondary Education read the sanctions this afternoon in Yaounde.

Foreign shop-owners in Ghana – the majority of whom are Nigerian – say they fear they have little choice but to leave the country after their businesses were sealed. “We are used to shops being locked, but this is the first time the government is involved,” the head of the Nigerian Traders’ Association in Ashanti region told the BBC. Under Ghanaian law foreign citizens are required to have an investment of at least $1m (£750,000) to trade in the country, which many complain is extortionate.

Police in the Sudanese capital Khartoum have fired tear gas and clashed with protesters. The demonstrators are calling for the transitional government to speed up the pace of reforms and deliver justice for human rights abuses.

Zambia’s President Edgar Lungu has accused the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) of having designs to dislodge him from power, according to a state-owned newspaper. “I have told you that the fight against corruption is anchored on politics. Those fighting corruption are only trying to get rid of government and those doing well,” the state-owned Times of Zambia newspaper quotes him as saying. “They know where corruption is and where it is rampant but they do not want to go there. All they want is to get rid of me and my government.”

South Africa’s police minister has said the suspect who killed himself in police custody had confessed to the murders of several women in rural KwaZulu-Natal. Hundreds of community members gathered outside the Mzumbe magistrates’ court on Monday hoping to catch a glimpse of the suspects who were arrested for the murders of five women – whose bodies had been found on a sugarcane farm between April and August. People who live here were angered when they were told that the main suspect killed himself in custody. Some were even demanding to see his body as proof.

Human rights campaigners are calling on the Egyptian authorities to release a group of female social media influencers who have been imprisoned for making videos which “breach Egyptian family values”. The “TikTok girls” were jailed after publishing videos on social media apps in which they dance in fashionable clothes. Five of them have already been sentenced to two years in prison, and fined nearly $20,000 (£15,300) each.

At least 17 people are now believed to have died following a siege at a beach-side hotel in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu that was ended by special forces. More than a dozen others were injured in the violence, which Somalia’s president has blamed on militant Islamist group, al-Shabab. Nearly 200 people were rescued from the four-storey hotel.