logo
Cameroon's Biya, 92, reshuffles military top brass ahead of vote

Cameroon's Biya, 92, reshuffles military top brass ahead of vote

Straits Times16-07-2025
YAOUNDE - Cameroon's 92-year-old President Paul Biya, the world's oldest head of state, has overhauled the military's top ranks in what analysts say is an effort to ensure the armed forces back his bid for an eighth term after a public outcry.
The personnel moves, announced late on Tuesday in a series of presidential decrees, affect nearly all branches of the armed forces. They include the appointment of new chiefs of staff for the infantry, air force and navy as well as the promotion of eight brigadier generals to the rank of major general.
One of the promoted generals is the coordinator of the elite Rapid Intervention Battalion (BIR), a special forces unit often deployed in counter-terrorism operations and seen as central to Biya's security apparatus. The decrees also named a new special presidential military adviser.
The decrees were published two days after Biya, in power since 1982, announced he would run for his eighth term in office in Cameroon's presidential election scheduled for October 12. The seven-year term could keep him in office until he is nearly 100.
The announcement prompted an unprecedented public outcry in the press and on social media in Cameroon, where Biya's age and long absences have raised questions about his fitness to rule.
The government has said Biya is in good health and dismissed any suggestions otherwise.
The decrees concerning the armed forces reflect "a strategy by President Biya and his collaborators to consolidate power by building a fortress of loyal army generals around him" that can suppress any protest to his continued rule, said Anthony Antem, peace and security analyst at the Nkafu Policy Institute in Yaounde.
Top stories
Swipe. Select. Stay informed.
Singapore Over 600 Telegram groups in Singapore selling, advertising vapes removed by HSA
Singapore 2 weeks' jail for man caught smuggling over 1,800 vapes and pods into Singapore
Singapore Jail for man who fatally hit his daughter, 2, while driving van without licence
Sport 'Like being in a washing machine with 40 deg C water': Open water swimmers brave challenging conditions
Singapore Primary 1 registration: 38 primary schools to conduct ballot in Phase 2A
Singapore ComfortDelGro to introduce new taxi cancellation, waiting fee policy
Business Cathay Cineplexes gets fresh demands to pay up $3.3m debt for Century Square, Causeway Point outlets
Singapore Countering misinformation requires both laws and access to trusted news sources: Josephine Teo
Celestin Delanga, researcher at the Institute for Security Studies (ISS), said the decrees "come in a unique political and security context."
Biya wants to ensure stability during and after the election and "additional trusted personnel are needed" for that, he said.
The cocoa- and oil-producing Central African nation also faces a host of serious security challenges, notably a conflict with Anglophone separatists and threats from Nigeria-based Islamist fighters in the north.
The government gave no explanation for the overhaul.
The last significant military shake-up in Cameroon came just last year, shortly after Biya returned in October from his latest extended stay abroad which revived speculation about his health. REUTERS
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

US, China to resume tariff talks in effort to extend truce
US, China to resume tariff talks in effort to extend truce

Business Times

time11 hours ago

  • Business Times

US, China to resume tariff talks in effort to extend truce

[STOCKHOLM] Senior US and Chinese negotiators meet in Stockholm on Monday to tackle longstanding economic disputes at the centre of a trade war between the world's top two economies, aiming to extend a truce keeping sharply higher tariffs at bay. China is facing an Aug 12 deadline to reach a durable tariff agreement with President Donald Trump's administration, after Beijing and Washington reached a preliminary deal in June to end weeks of escalating tit-for-tat tariffs. Without an agreement, global supply chains could face renewed turmoil from duties exceeding 100 per cent. The Stockholm talks, led by US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice-Premier He Lifeng, come right on the heels of Trump's biggest trade deal yet, with the European Union accepting a 15 per cent tariff on its goods exports to the US and agreeing to make significant EU purchases of US energy and military equipment. That deal struck with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Sunday in Scotland also calls for US$600 billion in investments in the US by the EU, Trump told reporters. No similar breakthrough is expected in the US-China talks, but trade analysts said that another 90-day extension of a tariff and export control truce struck in mid-May was likely. BT in your inbox Start and end each day with the latest news stories and analyses delivered straight to your inbox. Sign Up Sign Up An extension of that length would prevent further escalation and help create conditions for a potential meeting between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping in late October or early November. Spokespersons for the White House and US Trade Representative's office did not immediately respond to requests for comment on a South China Morning Post report quoting unnamed sources as saying the two sides would refrain from introducing new tariffs or take other steps that could escalate the trade war for another 90 days. Trump's administration is poised to impose new sectoral tariffs that will impact China, including on semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, ship-to-shore cranes and other products. 'We're very close to a deal with China. We really sort of made a deal with China, but we'll see how that goes,' Trump told reporters before his meeting with von der Leyen, providing no further details. Deeper issues Previous US-China trade talks in Geneva and London in May and June focused on bringing US and Chinese retaliatory tariffs down from triple-digit levels and restoring the flow of rare earth minerals halted by China and Nvidia's H20 AI chips and other goods halted by the United States. So far, the talks have not delved into broader economic issues. They include US complaints that China's state-led, export-driven model is flooding world markets with cheap goods, and Beijing's complaints that US national security export controls on tech goods seek to stunt Chinese growth. 'Stockholm will be the first meaningful round of US-China trade talks,' said Bo Zhengyuan, Shanghai-based partner at China consultancy firm Plenum. Trump has been successful in pressuring some other trading partners, including Japan, Vietnam and the Philippines, into deals accepting higher US tariffs of 15 per cent to 20 per cent. Analysts say the US-China negotiations are far more complex and will require more time. China's grip on the global market for rare earth minerals and magnets, used in everything from military hardware to car windshield wiper motors, has proved to be an effective leverage point on US industries. Trump-Xi meeting? In the background of the talks is speculation about a possible meeting between Trump and Xi in late October. Trump has said he will decide soon whether to visit China in a landmark trip to address trade and security tensions. A new flare-up of tariffs and export controls would likely derail any plans for a meeting with Xi. 'The Stockholm meeting is an opportunity to start laying the groundwork for a Trump visit to China,' said Wendy Cutler, vice-president at the Asia Society Policy Institute. Bessent has already said he wants to work out an extension of the Aug 12 deadline to prevent tariffs snapping back to 145 per cent on the US side and 125 per cent on the Chinese side. Still, China will likely request a reduction of multi-layered US tariffs totaling 55 per cent on most goods and further easing of US high-tech export controls, analysts said. Beijing has argued that such purchases would help reduce the US trade deficit with China, which reached US$295.5 billion in 2024. China is currently facing a 20 per cent tariff related to the US fentanyl crisis, a 10 per cent reciprocal tariff, and 25 per cent duties on most industrial goods imposed during Trump's first term. Bessent has also said he would discuss with He the need for China to rebalance its economy away from exports toward domestic consumer demand. The shift would require China to put an end to a protracted property crisis and boost social safety nets to encourage household spending. Michael Froman, a former US trade representative during Barack Obama's administration, said such a shift has been a goal of US policymakers for two decades. 'Can we effectively use tariffs to get China to fundamentally change their economic strategy? That remains to be seen,' said Froman, now president of the Council on Foreign Relations think tank. REUTERS

Iran executes two members of banned group for targeting infrastructure
Iran executes two members of banned group for targeting infrastructure

Straits Times

timea day ago

  • Straits Times

Iran executes two members of banned group for targeting infrastructure

DUBAI - Iran executed two members of the outlawed Mujahideen-e-Khalq opposition group for targeting civilian infrastructure with homemade projectiles, the judiciary news outlet Mizan reported on Sunday. Mehdi Hassani and Behrouz Ehsani-Eslamloo, "operational elements" of the MEK, were sentenced to death in a verdict upheld by the Supreme Court, Mizan said. "The terrorists, in coordination with MEK leaders, had set up a team house in Tehran, where they built launchers and hand-held mortars in line with the group's goals, fired projectiles heedlessly at citizens, homes, service and administrative facilities, educational and charity centres, and also carried out propaganda and information-gathering activities in support of the MEK," the report said. The defendants were indicted with "moharebeh", an Islamic term meaning waging war against God, destroying public property and "membership in a terrorist organisation with the aim of disrupting national security." The report did not say whether the defendants' actions took place during last month's Israel-Iran war, during which Tehran accused opposition groups like MEK of providing support to Israel from within Iran. The MEK, known in English as People's Mujahideen Organisation of Iran, were a powerful leftist-Islamist group that staged bombing campaigns against the shah's government and U.S. targets in the 1970s but ultimately fell out with the other factions of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Since then, the MEK has opposed the Islamic Republic and its leadership in exile has been Paris-based. The group was listed as a terrorist organisation by the U.S. and the European Union until 2012. REUTERS

Trump tariffs leave costly China supply question unanswered
Trump tariffs leave costly China supply question unanswered

Business Times

time2 days ago

  • Business Times

Trump tariffs leave costly China supply question unanswered

[BEIJING] US President Donald Trump's recent flurry of trade deals have given Asian exporters some clarity on tariffs, but missing are key details on how to avoid punitive rates that target China's supply chains. Trump unveiled tariffs of 20 per cent for Vietnam and 19 per cent for Indonesia and the Philippines, signalling that those are the levels the US will likely settle on for most of South-east Asia, a region that ships US$352 billion worth of goods annually to the US. He's also threatened to rocket rates up to 40 per cent for products deemed to be transshipped, or re-routed, through those countries, a move largely directed at curbing Chinese goods circumventing higher US tariffs. But still unclear to manufacturers is how the US will calculate and apply local-content requirements, key to how it will determine what constitutes transshipped goods. South-east Asian nations are highly reliant on Chinese components and raw materials, and US firms that source from the region would bear the extra tariff damage. That's left companies, investors and economists facing several unanswered questions about Trump's tariffs that appear aimed at squeezing out Chinese content, according to Deborah Elms, head of trade policy at the Hinrich Foundation in Singapore. 'Is that raw materials? All raw materials? Above a certain percentage?' she said. 'How about parts? What about labour or services? What about investment?' BT in your inbox Start and end each day with the latest news stories and analyses delivered straight to your inbox. Sign Up Sign Up In an agreement with Indonesia last week, the White House said the two countries would negotiate 'rules of origin' to ensure a third country would not benefit. The deal with Vietnam earlier this month outlined a higher 40 per cent tariff rate for transshipped goods. And Thai officials, who have yet to secure a deal, detailed that they likely need to boost local content in exports to the US. Missing details The Trump administration is not providing much clarity on the matter right now. US officials are still working out details with trading partners and looking at value-based local content requirements, to ensure exports are more than just assembled imported parts, according to a source familiar with the matter, who did not want to be identified discussing private talks. A senior Trump administration official also said this week that details on the approach to transhipment are expected to be released before Aug 1, the deadline for when higher US tariffs kick in. Some factories are already adjusting their supply chains to comply with rules that will require more locally-made components in production. Frank Deng, an executive at a Shanghai-based furniture exporter with operations in Vietnam, and which gets about 80 per cent of business from the US, said in an interview that his firm is making adjustments as authorities appear to be more strictly enforcing country-of-origin rules. Vietnam has always had specific local content requirements for manufacturers, Deng added, including that a maximum of 30 per cent of the volume of raw materials originates from China, and the value after production in Vietnam must be 40 per cent higher than the imported raw materials. 'We have been struggling to meet all the standards so that we can still stay in the game,' Deng said. 'But I guess that's the only way to survive now.' For most of South-east Asia, reducing the amount of Chinese-made components in manufacturing will require a complete overhaul of their supply chains. Estimates from Eurasia Group show that Chinese components make up about 60 to 70 per cent of exports from South-east Asia – primarily industrial inputs that go into manufacturing assembly. About 15 per cent of the region's exports now head to the US, up about four percentage points from 2018. Local content The US has become increasingly vigilant about China's ability to bypass US trade tariffs and other restrictions through third countries since Trump's first trade war in 2017. Thailand signalled its frustration over the lack of clarity for how much local content is needed in goods exported to the US to avert transhipment rates, but noted it will likely be much higher than a traditional measure of 40 per cent. 'From what we have heard, the required percentage could be significantly higher, perhaps 60 per cent, 70 per cent, or even 80 per cent,' Deputy Prime Minister Pichai Chunhavajira said on Jul 14. 'Emerging countries or new production bases are clearly at a disadvantage,' he said, as their manufacturing capabilities are still at an early stage and must rely on other countries for raw goods. Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia have all taken steps this year to address Trump's concerns, increasing scrutiny of trade that passes through their ports, including new rule-of-origin policies that centralise processing and imposing harsh penalties on transshippers. Developing nations may still struggle to enforce Trump's rules or comply with the rules if it means going up against China, their largest trading partner and geopolitical partner. 'The reality is it's not enforceable at all,' said Dan Wang, China director at Eurasia Group. 'Chinese companies have all kinds of ways to get around it and those other countries have no incentive to enforce those measures, or capacity to collect the data and determine local content.' BLOOMBERG

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store