Troops kill 143 Boko Haram fighters in Cameroon

Cameroon’s army has said it killed 143 Boko Haram fighters, with the government saying it is the biggest defeat it has inflicted to date on the Islamist group.

The government spokesman, Issa Bakary, made the announcement on Tuesday in Yaoundé.

Bakary said the insurgents were killed after they attacked a military camp in Kolofata, in the north of Cameroon.

The military initially said 143 Boko Haram fighters had died in over five hours of fighting.

Aljazeeral had reported on Monday, quoting the Cameroonian Communication minster, that the country’s soldiers had killed 300 Boko Haram militants after the terrorists attacked a military base.

Bakary said the battle ended after the army bombed the attackers, forcing them to retreat to the Nigerian border.

“However, Cameroon lost one soldier,” he said.

The Central African country has deployed over 1,000 troops in its far north region, where Boko Haram members frequently enter from Nigeria to launch attacks.

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Mozambique poisoned beer leaves scores dead

Contaminated traditional beer has killed 56 people in Mozambique, health authorities in the southern African country said.
An additional 49 people were admitted to hospitals in the Chitima and Songo districts in the northeastern Tete province, and 146 more people have reported to hospitals to be examined for the poisoning, district health official Alex Albertini told Radio Mozambique.
Those who drank the contaminated brew were attending a funeral in the region on Saturday, Albertini said.
Pombe, a traditional Mozambican beer, is made from millet or corn flour. Authorities believe that the drink was poisoned with crocodile bile during the course of the funeral.
Blood and traditional beer samples were being sent to the capital Maputo to be tested, said provincial health director Carle Mosse.
“We don’t have the capacity to test the samples,” she told Radio Mozambique.
Mosse told Radio Mozambique on Sunday that she expected the situation to worsen because the region did not have the necessary resources to deal with the disaster.
Mourners who drank the beer in the morning reported no illness, while those who drank the beer in the afternoon, fell ill, authorities said. They believe the beer must have been poisoned while funeral goers were at the cemetery.
The woman who brewed the beer is also among the dead.
Police are investigating the incident.
Health authorities have begun collecting food parcels and other items for donation to the affected families.

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Beyoncé Pregnant With Baby No. 2?! See Her Cryptic Beach "Bump" Photo

Beyoncé, what did you just do? Could it be? Is she...

On Sunday, the 33-year-old pop star posted a cryptic photo on her Instagram page that suggests that she may be pregnant with baby No. 2! The picture shows Queen Bey lying on a sandy beach, with sand covering her up to her neck and displaying what appears to be a giant baby bump.

No caption was provided and it's unclear when the photo was taken. She and husband Jay Z, 45, have not commented.

The two are parents to daughter Blue Ivy, who just turned 3, and recently vacationed in Cambodia (see pic below) and Thailand.

Bey had said in 2013, in an interview with ABC News, that she "would like more children," adding that she thinks Blue Ivy "needs some company."

A year ago, she told Anderson Cooper that motherhood "just gives you purpose," adding, "I realized why I was born and, more than anything, all of the things I want to pass onto my child and the best way of doing that is not by preaching or telling her but showing her by example."

Bey and Jay tied the knot in April 2008 after about six years of dating. When Beyoncé was pregnant with their little girl, she had revealed her first pregnancy onstage at the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards.


The picture was posted hours before another award ceremony, the 2015 Golden Globes in Los Angeles. The two are not expected to attend.

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We’re not gay couple –Bracket

Bracket
Since they became popular with their hit song, Yori Yori, artistes, Vast and Smash also known as Bracket, have not been devoid of one controversy or the other.

Having not been linked with any lady since their career started, those who claim to know have alleged that the artistes are actually in love with each other and don’t have time for any woman.

In a chat with Saturday Beats recently, the singers denied the rumour, describing it as laughable.

They said, “We did not want to talk about it in public before but I guess we have to. We saw the story and it was a very laughable one. We did not believe it was that serious until one of our uncles called from Enugu. He was even laughing when he asked us. At the end of the day, there are certain things you do not say in public but people should wait till they see us get married. We would not begin to say that we have girlfriends in certain places or who they are. But to clear the air, we are not homosexuals. People that know us know that we are not gays.”

The singing duo further talked about their love life. While Smash said he was putting certain things in place before he is ready for a relationship, Vast, said that he is in a relationship with an Ethiopian lady.

Smash said, “I am a proper Igbo man and there are certain things that my people expect from me before I can get married and once those things are cleared, I would look for someone to marry.”

But Vast said, “I have somebody and when I am ready, people would go with me to Ethiopia to get married.”

The artistes are currently working on their foundation, Bracket Cancer Foundation, and their album, which they said would be released in the middle of the year. Already their song, Alive, featuring Tiwa Savage and Diamond from Tanzania is enjoying massive airplay.

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Terror suspect Cherif Kouachi: 'I was ready to go and die in battle'

One of the two main terrorists accused in this week's attacks in Paris had a long history of jihad and anti-Semitism, according to documents obtained by CNN.

In a 400-page court record, Cherif Kouachi was described as wanting to travel to Iraq through Syria "to go and combat the Americans."

See how the Hebdo suspects were taken down 01:57
On Friday, security forces surrounded and killed Kouachi, 32, and his older brother, Said, 34, in Dammartin-en-Goele, France, the town's mayor said. The Kouachi brothers were wanted in Wednesday's massacre at the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris that left 12 people dead.

In 2007 French court documents that CNN obtained in conjunction with French newsmagazine L'Express, Cherif Kouachi stated in a deposition, "I was ready to go and die in battle," and "I got this idea when I saw the injustices shown by television on what was going on over there. I am speaking about the torture that the Americans have inflicted on the Iraqis."

The court documents -- dated December 2007 -- stem from a 2005 arrest. They say Cherif Kouachi was raised in orphanages and foster homes from a young age, and became involved in a group in Paris' 19th arrondissement. He was arrested with other young men from that part of Paris for a conspiracy to go to Iraq and fight as jihadists.

In the documents, prosecutors outlined strong details of Kouachi's interest in jihad, interest in martyrdom and strong links to anti-Semitism, attacking and killing Jews.

Kouachi stated he came to the idea of jihad through Farid Benyettou, a well-known spiritual leader who's been long associated in France with supporting jihad and terrorism, and is associated with a mosque in the 19th arrondissement.

Through Benyettou, Kouachi was studying how to wield arms and use Kalashnikovs. Under a section titled "Motivations of Influence" describing Kouachi, court records said he stated "the wise leaders in Islam told him and his friends that if they die as martyrs in jihad they would go to heaven" and "that martyrs would be greeted by more than 60 virgins in a big palace in heaven."

The documents also said, "(F)or him any place on earth where there is such an injustice is justification for jihad; what was going on Iraq was in his eyes such an injustice."

The mosque, called La Mosquee de Stalingrad, has since been demolished and appears to be under construction.

Court records show Kouachi said he didn't consider himself a good enough Muslim, and said he had only been to the mosque two or three times before he met Benyettou, and he had been smoking cannabis.

Kouachi told investigators he committed himself to the idea of jihad during Ramadan in 2004. He told his friends he was going to Syria to fight.

The documents say when police interviewed his accomplices they stated that Kouachi "said he was ready to firebomb and to destroy Jewish shops in Paris."

When officials confronted Kouachi with that information, he told them "that's not exactly what I said. ... I don't hide having proposed anti-Semitic ideas, but I would note that I never really would have done that."

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