British newspaper editor Francis Matthew has been charged with murdering his wife with a hammer in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates.

Matthew, 60, editor of the Dubai-based Gulf News newspaper, was arrested after he called police last week to his home in an upscale neighborhood in Dubai where the body of his wife, Jane Matthew, 62, was found, The Independent reported on Tuesday. According to Dubai authorities, Matthew admitted throwing a hammer at her but said he did not intend to “kill her.” The couple married in 1985.

Matthew has been a well-known reporter and commentator in the Persian Gulf since he arrived there back in the 1980s. He was editor of the newspaper from 1995 to 2005. The Dubai Media Office issued a statement, saying the journalist had been charged with murder and that investigations were underway.

The statement said Matthew had confessed “to killing his wife because of marital issues.” “Dubai Police received a call on Tuesday from the defendant claiming that his wife was assaulted by burglars at their house in Jumeirah, Dubai,” the media office said.

“Initial reports showed that death resulted from a strong blow on the head with a hard object, which raised suspicion about the husband,” it added. “Suspect confessed during public prosecution’s interrogation that he assaulted his wife and threw hammer at her without intending to kill her,” it noted. The staff of the English-language daily said they were “shocked and saddened” at the tragedy.

Source: Presstv

President Ali Bongo of Gabon has met with the President of the Council of State and the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Cuba, Raúl Castro Ruz. Bongo arrived Cuba since on Thursday and has held talks with the Cuban head of state at the Palais de la Revolution.

Both leaders have reportedly highlighted the intensity of the ties of cooperation and friendship that unites the two nations with fifteen multisectoral agreements forged over more than forty years of diplomatic relations. Ali Bongo was also received by the president of the National Assembly, Estéban Lazo Hernandez.

Gabon and Cuba have signed an intergovernmental agreement on the mutual recognition of studies, qualifications and diplomas in higher education confirming the shared ambition to amplify a partnership strategy largely focused on Medical training (250 places for Gabonese students in Cuban universities), the support of a brigade of Cuban doctors in Gabon and the assessment of the needs of specialized practitioners for the major university hospitals.

Recognized internationally, Cuba’s medical and health expertise naturally finds its place in the implementation of the National Health Development Plan 2017-2021 proposed by the Minister of Public Health and Population, Léon Nzouba, who accompanied Ali Bongo to Cuba. The discussions with the Cuban authorities will also open up new avenues for cooperation in the areas of trade, with the holding of a Gabon-Cuba economic forum, agriculture, sport and tourism.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai
Cameroon Intelligence Report

The European Union has decided to extend financial support to Libya to stem the flow of refugees headed to the EU. EU interior ministers decided on Thursday that giving money to Libyan officials was the only way to stop the flow of asylum-seekers headed from the African country to Europe.

“Tens of millions of euros of project money have been allocated to rebuild the Libyan coast guard, increase the ability to perform sea rescue operations, and this crisis will only end once it can’t get beyond the Libyan coast any longer,” said Estonian Interior Minister Andres Anvelt.

Anvelt is chairing the EU interior ministers’ gathering in Tallinn, Estonia on Thursday and Friday to discuss the rising numbers of asylum-seekers arriving in Italy from Libya. The EU interior ministers vowed to crack down on the countries that refuse to take back their nationals when their asylum bids fail in Europe.

Meanwhile, Italy, which has received more than 85,000 refugees since January, said it can no longer shoulder the burden of Europe’s refugee crisis alone. Italy has accused some aid groups conducting rescue operations in the Mediterranean of complicity with Libyan-based traffickers.

“This is an unprecedented initiative,” Italian Interior Minister Marco Minniti said. Italy has threatened to close its ports to non-Italian flagged rescue ships to force other European countries to take the refugees in. Ahead of the meeting, human rights group Amnesty International issued a highly critical report emphasizing that EU giving money to Libya to prevent asylum-seekers from leaving risked victimizing refugees even more.

Amnesty said it was “deeply problematic to fund a country where human rights are lacking and the coast guard has been known for violence against refugees.” Not only do they face the risk of dying at sea, they risk grave human rights abuses once they are returned to Libya and trapped there, the human rights group said.

The search-and-rescue director for Save the Children, Rob MacGillivray, said in a statement that rescued asylum-seekers have recounted horrors from Libya, including claims of sexual assaults, sales to others for work and whippings and electrical shocks in detention centers.

“Simply pushing desperate people back to Libya, which many describe as hell, is not a solution,” MacGillivray said. Rights groups have described the EU refugee policy as “reckless”.

EU Migration Commissioner Dimitri Avramopoulos said at a recent news conference in Paris that the situation in Libya was unreliable. The EU is drawing on a country in “very precarious conditions”, he said.

More than 2,000 asylum-seekers have died crossing the Mediterranean Sea so far this year. Last year, refugees from the Middle East and North Africa were headed to the EU from Turkey. Turkey closed that route after Ankara’s leaders cinched a multi-billion euro deal with the EU.

Source: Presstv

Judges at the International Criminal Court (ICC) will rule on Thursday on whether South Africa violated ICC rules by failing to arrest Sudan’s president during a 2015 visit to Johannesburg, in a case that will test international support for the court.

There is an outstanding ICC warrant for President Omar Hassan al-Bashir’s arrest on genocide charges, which he denies. Thursday’s ruling will be closely watched for its possible implications for Bashir and other sitting heads of state as well as for the court itself.

If the ICC rules that South Africa’s decision to let Bashir go was an act of non-compliance, the court could then either report Pretoria to the United Nations Security Council or to the ICC’s own member states. In either case, South Africa would only likely suffer the diplomatic setback of a court reprimand, rather than any further fine or sanction.

It is also possible that the court may accept South Africa’s argument that it was not obliged to implement the warrant. Pretoria has argued that the ICC’s warrant for Bashir’s arrest was void in the face of a South African law that grants sitting heads of state immunity from prosecution, in line with customary international law.

However, the ICC’s statutes explicitly state that sitting heads of states do not have immunity in war crimes cases. Bashir, who came to power in Sudan in a 1989 military-backed coup, was charged with genocide and crimes against humanity in 2008 over the deaths and persecution of ethnic groups in Darfur Province.

He denies the charges and continues to travel abroad, trailed by human rights activists and shunned by Western diplomats. Though Sudan is not a member of the ICC, the court has jurisdiction there due to a 2005 Security Council resolution that referred the conflict to The Hague court.

The ICC faces the risk that any action it takes will only underline waning international support for its own existence. The United States, Russia, and China never became ICC members. In Africa, resentment over the court’s indictments of Africans has led Kenya to threaten withdrawal, and the African Union also called in February for mass withdrawals.

(Source: Reuters)

It has been revealed that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has dispatched a team of investigators to Cameroon in a case involving 602 suspected cyber-criminals. Cameroon Intelligence Report gathered that 90 suspects have already been arrested in the cities of Yaounde, Douala, Bamenda, Buea and Kumba.

The 602 Cameroonian alleged cyber-criminals are accused of having scammed via Facebook 2,700 people. The amount is estimated at 4 billion FCFA. In March 2017, the FBI gave the Cameroonian authorities a list of the 602 suspected cyber-criminals. Local media reports say some of the suspected criminals have pleaded guilty and have made public their mode of operation.

The Cameroonian gang used false Face book profiles, belonging to white people, to rip off their victims. Interested customers, paid as well as with the shipping costs, by Visa or Master Card. The victims had to provide details of their cards to the scammers via Facebook. This enabled them to make withdrawals from Cameroon.

The trial of these cyber-criminals has opened at the Court of First Instance at Mfoundi in Yaoundé.

By Rita Akana
Cameroon Intelligence Report

The president of the National Communications Council has said that the distribution of the Southern Cameroons Broadcasting Corporation channel in the Anglophone regions is rebellious, illegal and clandestine.

Peter Essoka made the observation during a presentation to media professionals in the Bamenda County of Southern Cameroons. The Biya acolyte hinted that cable distributors and viewers of the Southern Cameroons Broadcasting Corporation news channel will be severely punished by the National Communications Council and the Francophone forces of law and order.

The pro Biya comedian further pointed out that the channel that is based in South Africa is intended to destabilize the country. He warned cable operators not to distribute the content of SCBC stating that the legality is unknown. The veteran media guru also noted that the SCBC’s vision is contrary to the fundamental principles of nation building.

Peter Esooka urged cable distributors to legalize their status or defend themselves against the authorities. The Southern Cameroons Broadcasting Corporation is becoming very popular in Anglophone Cameroon.
The Essoka CPDM warning comes after the arrest of a cable distributor in Ndop, who was detained for broadcasting SCBC signals.

By Sama Ernest
Cameroon Intelligence Report

A British think tank says Saudi Arabia is the main sponsor of extremism in the UK, urging a probe into sources of the money being injected mainly by the Riyadh regime into the institutions promoting radicalism in the European state. In a report released on Wednesday, the Henry Jackson Society said Saudi Arabia has, since the 1960s, sponsored a multimillion-dollar effort to export the radical Wahhabi ideology across the Islamic world, including to Muslim communities in the west, adding that foreign funding for extremism in Britain mainly comes from the Saudi kingdom.

In the UK, the report said, the funding “has taken the form of endowments” to institutions, which have played host to “extremist preachers and the distribution of extremist literature.” “Influence has also been exerted through the training of British Muslim religious leaders in Saudi Arabia, as well as the use of Saudi textbooks in a number of the UK’s independent Islamic schools,” the report said.

A number of “hate preachers” in the UK sit within the Wahhabi ideology and are connected with overseas-sponsored extremism, it added. The report further found a surge in the level of Saudi funding to promote Wahhabism worldwide, which doubled in 2015 compared to an estimated $2 billion annually in 2007.

It also revealed that “numerous” cases of British nationals fighting alongside the Takfiri terror groups in Iraq and Syria are thought to have been radicalized through foreign-funded institutions and preachers. Wahhabism is the extremist ideology dominant in Saudi Arabia and freely preached by clerics supported by the regime in Riyadh. The ideology has been a source of inspiration for terrorists worldwide.

Daesh and other Takfiri terrorist groups take advantage of Wahhabism to declare people of other faiths “infidels.” The idea provides a justification for the terrorists to kill those individuals. Tom Wilson, author of the report, said, “Saudi Arabia is undoubtedly at the top of the list” of the countries involved in advancing extremism.

“Research indicates that some Saudi individuals and foundations have been heavily involved in exporting an illiberal, bigoted Wahhabi ideology. So it is ironic, to say the least, that Saudi Arabia is singling out Qatar for links to extremism when it has patently failed to get its own house in order,” he said. Riyadh and its Persian Gulf ties have cut ties with Qatar and imposed a siege on the country, which they accuse of supporting terrorism and destabilizing the region.

The Saudi embassy in London has reacted angrily to the Henry Jackson Society report and claimed that its findings “are baseless.” Wednesday’s report comes at a time when British Prime Minister Theresa May is under pressure to publish the findings of the government’s own investigation into foreign funding of terrorism.

The government inquiry has been completed, but No 10 says ministers are still deciding on its publication. Fresh reports said the British premier was not likely to release the findings of the probe out of the fear that the move would hurt relations with Saudi Arabia.

Source: Presstv

The Francophone political elites running the ruling CPDM crime syndicate have released a statement on the late Bishop Jean Balla affair. The document described by our senior intelligence officer in Yaoundé as fake and misleading was signed by the Attorney General of the Court of Appeal in the Center region. The Attorney General for the first time in the history of our nation issued a press release in the English language in which he revealed that the Bishop of Bafia may have actually died by drowning.

The Biya regime document attached to this report used the appellation “Procureur General” instead of Attorney General indicating that it was written by a French speaking Cameroonian. The said document spoke of a post-mortem examination that was carried out on the remains of the Bishop of Bafia by two Cameroonian medical doctors on the 2nd and 22nd of June 2017 but did not make public the names and the findings of the local medical practitioners.

The so-called Procureur General was quick to publish the independent, preliminary autopsy performed on the body of Bishop Balla by forensic medical doctors whom the Yaoundé regime claimed to have hired via Interpol including naming the experts: Professor Michael Tsokos and Dr. Mark Mulder.

Cameroon Intelligence Report understands the hierarchy of the Episcopal Conference of Cameroon was never consulted by the government over the decision to conduct an independent autopsy. It is evidently clear that the Cameroonian doctors had conducted an unbiased examination of the late Bishop, who was killed in circumstances that remain unclear.

A highly placed Cameroon government official was heard murmuring privately that any statement from the investigation team should have been accompanied with autopsy diagram presented to the Cameroonian people in a news conference. The European autopsy noted the Center Region Attorney General did not reveal signs of any violence which casts doubt on an earlier popular revelation that Bishop Jean Balla was strangled.

Jean Fils Ntamack was adamant in his political declaration that he would need to continue with the investigation and that the body has been handed to the Roman Church leadership for burial. Bishop Balla’s clothing was not available for Prof. Michael Tsokos and Dr. Mark Mulder to examine, though it was almost certainly examined during the late Bishop’s first autopsy performed by Cameroon medical examiners.

In a country where judge and jury are the same, Jean Fils Ntamack observed that drowning was the most probable cause of the Bishop’s death. This is consistent with the note that was left in the Bishop’s car. The government did not announce they would conduct a second autopsy, so Roman Catholic authorities should conduct a third. Results of the first, official, autopsy have not been publicly released, though we reported with files from our sources that the Bishop of Bafia was brutally murdered.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai
Cameroon Intelligence Report

It has been revealed that Cameroonians are living in many other African countries than Europe and North America with Gabon topping the chart as the most favorite destination.

The figures were made public during the so-called Forum of the Diaspora 2017 organized in Yaoundé by the Biya regime.

The statistics released indicated that 30 126 Cameroonians are residing in Gabon, 5,135 in Chad and 5,103 in the troubled Central Africa Republic. The Asian continent harbors some 5000 Cameroonians while European countries such as the Netherlands, France and Germany are reportedly hosting thousands of Cameroonian migrants.

By Sama Ernest
Cameroon Intelligence Report

A wave of demonstrations are planned to hit the northern German city of Hamburg where leaders of the Group of 20 major economies, known as the G20, are set to meet next week. German media reported that some 30 protests are scheduled to be held on July 1-9 while the organizers expect the participation of more than 100,000 anti-capitalist and environmentalist activists at the largest events.

One of the rallies, dubbed “Welcome to Hell,” will take place on July 6. The march, which is organized by several left-wing groups, is expected to attract some 5,000 protesters. “It’s a combative message … but it’s also meant to symbolize that G20 policies worldwide are responsible for hellish conditions like hunger, war and the climate disaster,” said Andreas Blechschmidt, one of the organizers of the July 6 march. Another protest, called “Protest Wave,” will also take place on July 2, with participants expressing their outrage at climate change, capitalism and global conflicts.

Involving a huge rally and a flotilla of 200 boats on Hamburg’s waterways, it is called by the German Trade Union Confederation, Greenpeace NGO, Oxfam charity and 12 other organizations. Svenja Angenendt, the Protest Wave spokesperson in Hamburg, told Germany’s public broadcaster Deutsche Welle that the demonstration calls for significant political changes. “We want democracy to be strengthened, better protection for our climate, social justice in Germany and worldwide and we demand a fair global trade regime,” Angenendt said.

She further raised alarm about possible violence in the protest. “That’s why we’ve decided to demonstrate a week ahead – before Hamburg is turned into a high-security zone. We hope that we can, therefore, demonstrate peacefully and that many people will join us,” she added.

Meanwhile, Georg Ismael, a member of the leftist group ArbeiterInnenMacht, warned that German policemen could be violent against demonstrators. Arne Schoenbohm, president of Germany’s Federal Office for Information Security, said about 20,000 police with dogs, horses and helicopters will be deployed to deal with tens of thousands of expected demonstrators.

Reports say two security zones are being set up around the G20 conference center. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said recently that the July 7-8 summit will focus on the Paris Agreement. The accord was signed by more than 190 countries in December 2015 and came into effect in November 2016 in a bid to curb carbon emissions.US President Donald Trump pulled America out of the deal on 1 June, arguing that the agreement will disadvantage and impoverish his country. The move prompted worldwide condemnations.

Source: Presstv