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British Prime Minister David Cameron is expected to announce a new anti-terrorism bill due for introduction in the UK Queen’s upcoming speech. The PM will tell the National Security Council a counter-extremism bill will be in the Queen's speech on 27 of May, the state-run BBC reported Wednesday. The premier is reportedly due to introduce a raft of new powers against radicalization, saying the UK has been a "passively tolerant society" for too long.

The bill will include new immigration rules, powers to close down premises used by extremists and "extremism disruption orders." Cameron will say a "poisonous" extremist ideology must be confronted, the report added. The ideas were initially put forth by Home Secretary Theresa May at the parliament before the May 7 general election. British Conservatives have so far been unable to secure the backing of their previous coalition partners (Liberal Democrats) for the measures.

But now that a full-Tory government is in place, the bill might face less friction at Westminster. The measures are also expected to introduce banning orders for ‘extremist organizations who use hate speech in public places,’ but whose activities fall short of it being proscribed as a terror group. This is while the UK’s terror threat level was raised from substantial to severe last August in response to the conflicts in Syria and Iraq. The bill has already created controversy, with campaigners accusing the government of infringing on human rights and civil liberties.

Details: Ngwa Bertrand; 13.May.2015; Hits: 1924

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The Former head of the intelligence service of Burundi, General Godefroid Nyombare, has announced the removal of President Pierre Nkurunziza, who is presently en route to Dar es Salaam for a summit on the Burundi crisis. Godefroid Nyombare, a former senior Burundian army officer said on Wednesday that he ousted President Pierre Nkurunziza because his candidacy for a third term has caused nearly three weeks of a bloody political crisis in Burundi.

President Pierre Nkurunziza has now been removed from office and the government dissolved. General Nyombare who was sacked in February by the head of state after having recommended that President Nkurunziza should not seek a third mandate is now in charge. Soldiers have taken up positions around state radio and television. President Nkurunziza is currently in Tanzania for a summit on the crisis in Burundi.

Details: Ngwa Bertrand; 13.May.2015; Hits: 2943

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Global media are assessing Iran's recent announcement over the purchase of several commercial airliners as a sign that the crippling sanctions against Iran are already beginning to collapse. Bloomberg in a report says the delivery of the planes – that come at a crucial moment of nuclear talks between Iran and P5+1 – have added to several other emerging signs that the world is impatient with the removal of the US-engineered sanctions. “Last month Russia's president Vladimir Putin announced he would resume the sale of a sophisticated air defense system, known as the S300, to Iran,” it said in its report. “Western oil companies are already meeting with Iranian officials to discuss how to get back into the country's lucrative oil and gas markets.”

On Sunday, Iran's Minister of Road and Urban Development Abbas Akhoundi told reporters that the country is in the process of buying a number of new planes. The new purchases, he said, are in order to renovate the sector despite international sanctions imposed on the country over its peaceful nuclear program. “We have conducted extensive negotiations with companies supplying planes … so that when sanctions are removed, contracts can be signed immediately,” said Akhoundi. Mahan Air has been quoted in the media as the Iranian airline that will acquire most of the new planes. This is while it is already in the list of sanctioned Iranian companies and plane makers are thus prohibited from any dealings with it.

Bloomberg has quoted analysts as saying that news over Mahan Air’s emerging plane purchase deals show how the sanctions against Iran were collapsing ahead of the June 30 deadline for a nuclear deal between Iran and P5+1. “Mahan Air’s case shows that US sanctions no longer deter Western companies from doing big business with Iran," Emanuele Ottolenghi, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington think tank that has advocated for tough sanctions on Iran, has told Bloomberg. Earlier in April, head of Iran Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) said the country needs to buy up to 500 passenger planes in the next 10 years to renovate its aging fleet. Ali Reza Jahangirian added that Iranian airlines are currently operating with a fleet of about 140 aircraft, which is “very lower than average international norms in terms of international indexes of population and area.” On May 4, vice president of Boeing for sales in Middle East, Russia, and Central Asia, told a United Arab Emirates newspaper that his company has set its sights on the Iranian aviation market and expects a “very strong” demand in the country. “We’ve done a pretty good assessment on our side and we think the demand, should things open up, would be very strong,” Martin Bentrott added.

Details: Ngwa Bertrand; 12.May.2015; Hits: 2164

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Outgoing Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan said Sunday that some of his friends deserted him shortly after he conceded defeat to his rival General Muhammadu Buhari in the March election. Jonathan publicly conceded defeat to Buhari on March 31, a decision which was commended by local and foreign commentators and doused tension in the country. "Some hard decisions have their own costs. No doubt about that. It is a very costly decision but I must be very ready to pay for it," Jonathan said during a farewell church service in Abuja.

Jonathan's public admission of defeat in the nail-biting election came more than six hours after he rang Buhari to concede, earning him widespread praise for statesmanship. "If you take certain decisions, you should know that people close to you will even abandon you at some point. I tell people that more of my so-called friends will disappear." Many party faithful and erstwhile loyalists of Jonathan have either crossed over to Buhari's All Progressives Congress or made harsh statements against Jonathan's party or its leaders.

Jonathan said he was not surprised by the desertions or statements by his former loyalists, adding that former South African president Frederik de Klerk faced a similar situation when he decided to abolish minority rule in that country. Jonathan said that de Klerk's marriage to his wife, Marike, broke down after he took that decision. "But that is the only decision that made South Africa to still be a global player. If by this time w still have minority rule in South africa, nobody would have been talking about South Africa in the present generation," he said. He said that ministers who served under him should brace themselves for "persecution" following his loss and his decision to concede defeat.Buhari, a former military leader, is scheduled to be sworn into office on May 29.

Details: Ngwa Bertrand; 11.May.2015; Hits: 2221

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A Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist has claimed that Barack Obama lied about the killing of Osama bin Laden for his own political advantage, and that the former al-Qaeda leader was in fact an unarmed “invalid” when he was shot by US Navy Seals in 2011. President Obama was accused of making up a number of key details that were fed to the public in the wake of the assassination, including that Bin Laden died in a fire-fight and that the Pakistani government had no role to play in the mission.

Seymour Hersh, whose previous investigations have included the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian government, cited unnamed intelligence officials as part of what he called his “alternative history of the war on terror”. Writing in the London Review of Books, Mr Hersh claimed that rather than hiding out in a compound in Abbottabad, Bin Laden was in fact being held prisoner by the Pakistani intelligence services when he was killed. The article quotes “a retired senior intelligence official who was knowledgeable about the initial intelligence about Bin Laden’s presence in Abbottabad”, who said Pakistan had secretly detained the wanted terrorist for years to use “as leverage against Taliban and al-Qaeda activities”.

In the immediate aftermath of the killing, Obama told the media the mission had been a secret incursion into Pakistan and that a small team of Seals fought a dramatic gun battle with men inside Bin Laden’s compound. But according to Mr Hersh’s source, senior Pakistani officials willingly gave up Bin Laden’s location to maintain good relations with the US and in exchange for a slice of a $25 million reward fund. They also facilitated the Navy Seals mission by cutting power to the compound and diverting the local military, it was alleged, and had even agreed with the White House upon an elaborate back story where it would be claimed that Bin Laden was killed in a drone strike in mountains on the Pakistan-Afghan border.

The White House has repeatedly insisted that Bin Laden would have been taken alive if he surrendered – but according to the retired official quoted by Hersh, “it was clearly and absolutely a premeditated murder”. The Seals were given “absolute authority to kill the guy”, the official was quoted as saying, even if they only “suspected he might have some means of opposition, like an explosive vest under his robe”. “The truth is that bin Laden was an invalid, but we cannot say that,” the retired official reportedly said. Mr Hersh also reports that White House claims Bin Laden was still receiving information from and giving orders to al-Qaeda were “lies, misstatements and betrayal”. “The White House had to give the impression that bin Laden was still operationally important,” he quoted the official as saying. “Otherwise, why kill him?”

Details: Ngwa Bertrand; 11.May.2015; Hits: 2669

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Saadi Gaddafi, the son of Colonel Gaddafi who fled abroad during Libya’s 2011 revolution and was extradited from Niger last year, has appeared before a Tripoli court. Gaddafi is being tried for killing a football player and unlawful imprisonment. But the judge adjourned his case until July, after defence lawyers asked for more time.

The 41-year-old, who had a brief career as a football player in Italy and had the reputation of a playboy during his father’s long rule, appeared in the Tripoli courtroom wearing a blue jumpsuit and watched the proceedings from behind bars. Since escaping Libya in 2011, Saadi had been held under house arrest in the Niger capital Niamey. He was extradited back to Libya in March 2014.

Col Gaddafi’s more prominent son, Saif al-Islam, is being held captive by fighters in the western Libyan town of Zintan. They refuse to hand him over to a government they deem too weak to hold him. Since the 2011 fall of Col Gaddafi, Libya has slipped deeper into chaos with two rival governments and the armed factions that back them fighting for control. Islamist militants have gained ground during the period of lawlessness.