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Below is a version of the government's reaction to the recent wave of protests at the Embassies of Cameroon in Canada, South Africa, London and the town hall meeting which ended in a fiasco in Brussels Belguim.

The article was published by the country's state owned national TV (CRTV).

Communication Minister condemns vandalism in certain embassies

The Minister of Communication has condemned in very strong terms, acts of vandalism perpetrated by Cameroonians in the diaspora in some of Cameroon’s embassies abroad recently.

Issa Tchiroma Bakary said investigations as to what happened have been opened. 

He said information and videos of the incidents have been circulating on social media networks and some homebased media organs.

These mean acts were reported at a time when delegations from Cameroon were dispatched abroad to explain to compatriots of the diaspora the situation in the English speaking South West and North West regions of Cameroon.

The exchanges with Cameroonian communities were successful in some cases while serious incidents of vandalism were reported in other countries. In these countries, the national flag was desecrated, meetings were interrupted, violence and assault were reported.

The acts were said to be committed by secessionists activists who militate for the partition of Cameroon.

Some of them even went as far as to hoist in a diplomatic mission of Cameroon the flag of the imaginary country that they want to create.

The Minister said by desecrating the flag, the activities tempered with one of the core emblems of the country, for it represents the identity, sovereignty and authority of the Nation.

A symbol which is always treated with respect and admiration, its hoisting and lowering always a heraldry due to the solemnity attached to it.

Issa Tchiroma Bakary, government's spokesman, condemned with extreme energy these reprehensible acts and reiterated Cameroonian's determination to remain one and indivisibile.

The country Cameroon is the will of the people and it is also the will of the United Nations. The current borders of Cameroon are known and deposited at the United Nations and all member countries of this institution have an obligation and mission to respect the configuration of Cameroon as it is validated. The Minister added that there is no country in the world, member of the United Nations, that could derogate from the sacrosanct principle that was validated by that body.
Cameroon is a signatory of the Charter of the United Nations and to all conventions and charters protecting human rights.
The only thing that any country can ask of Cameroon is respect for human rights.

Issa Tchiroma said the founding fathers of our nation left a country at the cost of their blood, their sufferings, their lives, that they shaped this Cameroon, it is therefore an individual and collective responsibility to honour the memory of those who departed and to transmit this heritage.
He said all Cameroonians, Christians, Muslims, and animists, English or French, from North to South, East to West are determined to fight until the last drop of their blood to keep the nation united, strong and prosperous. 

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Rita Akana

17.Aug.2017

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The owner and director of nursing of a Houston home health agency was sentenced today to 75 years in prison for her role in a $13 million Medicare fraud scheme.

Acting Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Blanco of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, Acting U.S. Attorney Abe Martinez of the Southern District of Texas, Special Agent in Charge Perrye K. Turner of the FBI’s Houston Field Office, Special Agent in Charge C.J. Porter of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services-Office of Inspector General’s (HHS-OIG) Dallas Region and Special Agent in Charge D. Richard Goss of the Houston Field Office of IRS-Criminal Investigation Division (IRS-CI) made the announcement.

Marie Neba, 53, of Sugarland, Texas, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Melinda Harmon of the Southern District of Texas.  In November 2016, Neba was convicted after a two-week jury trial of one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud, three counts of health care fraud, one count of conspiracy to pay and receive health care kickbacks, one count of payment and receipt of health care kickbacks, one count of conspiracy to launder monetary instruments and one count of making health care false statements. 

According to the evidence presented at trial, from February 2006 through June 2015, Neba and others conspired to defraud Medicare by submitting over $10 million in false and fraudulent claims for home health services to Medicare through Fiango Home Healthcare Inc., owned by Neba and her husband, Ebong Tilong, 53, also of Sugarland, Texas.  The trial evidence showed that using the money that Medicare paid for such fraudulent claims, Neba paid illegal kickbacks to patient recruiters for referring Medicare beneficiaries to Fiango for home health services.  Neba also paid illegal kickbacks to Medicare beneficiaries for allowing Fiango to bill Medicare using beneficiaries’ Medicare information for home health services that were not medically necessary or not provided, the evidence showed.  Neba falsified medical records to make it appear as though the Medicare beneficiaries qualified for and received home health services.  Neba also attempted to suborn perjury from a co-defendant in the federal courthouse, the evidence showed.

According to the evidence presented at trial, from February 2006 to June 2015, Neba received more than $13 million from Medicare for home health services that were not medically necessary or not provided to Medicare beneficiaries.

To date, four others have pleaded guilty based on their roles in the fraudulent scheme at Fiango.  Nirmal Mazumdar, M.D., the former medical director of Fiango, pleaded guilty to a scheme to commit health care fraud for his role at Fiango.  Daisy Carter and Connie Ray Island, two patient recruiters for Fiango, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit health care fraud for their roles at Fiango.  On August 11, Island was sentenced to 33 months in prison.  Mazumdar and Carter are awaiting sentencing.  After the first week of trial, Tilong pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud, three counts of healthcare fraud, one count of conspiracy to pay and receive healthcare kickbacks, three counts of payment and receipt of healthcare kickbacks, and one count of conspiracy to launder monetary instruments.  Tilong is scheduled to be sentenced on October 13.

The case was investigated by the IRS-CI, FBI and HHS-OIG under the supervision of the Fraud Section of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas.  The case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorney William S.W. Chang and Senior Trial Attorney Jonathan T. Baum of the Fraud Section.

The Fraud Section leads the Medicare Fraud Strike Force, which is part of a joint initiative between the Department of Justice and HHS to focus their efforts to prevent and deter fraud and enforce current anti-fraud laws around the country.  The Medicare Fraud Strike Force operates in nine locations nationwide.  Since its inception in March 2007, the Medicare Fraud Strike Force has charged over 3,500 defendants who collectively have falsely billed the Medicare program for over $12.5 billion.

Source:justice.gov

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Rita Akana

15.Aug.2017

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Former Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zeidan is reported to have been kidnapped on Sunday by unknown gunmen. Local media portal Libya Herald reported that he was abducted at a hotel in central Tripoli.  

This is the second time he has been kidnapped since 2013 when he was abducted for a few hours as prime minister by the Libya Revolutionaries Operations Room. Perpetrators of Sunday’s abduction are unknown.

Africannews

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Rita Akana

15.Aug.2017

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The African Union Commission has called on Africans in the continent, diaspora and international partners to support Sierra Leone after at least 312 people died in a mudslide in the capital Freetown on Monday.

African Union Commission Chairperson Moussa Faki Mahamat made the appeal as more than 2,000 people have been left homeless after the heavy flood washed away their homes.

He also called for support of the country’s public health system to respond to the disaster. 

Sierra Leone’s security services and the Red Cross were deployed to locate and rescue citizens trapped in their homes or under rubble.

Several bodies were found floating in the flood that is termed as one of the worst natural disasters to ever hit the country.

It started after torrential rains early Monday morning that washed away mud houses and submerged many at hilltop communities. 

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Rita Akana

15.Aug.2017

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Hundreds of people are feared buried in a mudslide on Monday in the outskirts of Sierra Leone's capital, witnesses said. 

The mudslide happened in the early morning in the mountain town of Regent, where dozens of houses were submerged after a night of heavy rain.

A journalist in the country, Umaru Fofana, said the office of national security had confirmed the natural disaster but said it was too early to go into casualty figures.

He added that the rains that started since Sunday had not stopped as at Monday morning.

The affected areas were at an area known as Regent in greater Freetown, “and three communities inundated at Lumley in the west of Freetown,” Fofana added.

The United Nations office in the country has confirmed the disaster adding that they were “Assessing damage, preparing response.”

 

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Rita Akana

14.Aug.2017

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OUAGADOUGOU (Reuters) - Suspected jihadists killed at least 18 people and wounded several during a raid on a restaurant in Burkina Faso's capital overnight but security forces shot dead both attackers and freed people trapped inside the building.

"This is a terrorist attack," Communications Minister Remi Dandjinou told a news conference on Monday.

He said the toll was provisional because the security operation was still underway.

Burkina Faso, like other countries in West Africa, has been targeted sporadically by jihadist groups operating across Africa's Sahel. Most attacks have been along its remote northern border region with Mali, which has seen attacks by Islamist militants for more than a decade.

A Reuters witness saw customers running out of the Aziz Istanbul restaurant in central Ouagadougou as police and paramilitary gendarmerie surrounded it amid gunfire.

A woman said she was in the restaurant celebrating her brother's birthday when the shooting started. 

"I just ran but my brother was left inside," the woman told Reuters TV as she fled the building.

Earlier, authorities had suggested that three assailants had been killed, but the minister later revised down that figure and gave the death toll of victims as 18.

Thirty people were killed when gunmen attacked a restaurant and hotel in Ouagadougou in January 2016 in an incident claimed by al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).

AQIM and related Islamist groups were largely confined to the Sahara desert until they hijacked a Tuareg rebellion in Mali in 2012 and swept south.

French forces intervened to prevent them taking Mali's capital, Bamako, the following year, but they have since gradually expanded their reach, launching high-profile attacks on Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast.

A new al Qaeda-linked alliance of Malian jihadist groups claimed an attack in June that killed at least five people at a luxury Mali resort popular with Western expatriates just outside Bamako.

African nations launched a new multinational military force to tackle Islamist militants in the Sahel last month, but it will not be operational until later this year and faces a budget shortfall.

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Rita Akana

14.Aug.2017

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