Spanish Court Allows Autopsy Of Former Angolan Leader Dos Santos

A Spanish court has ruled that an autopsy be performed on the body of Angola’s former president José Eduardo dos Santos who died in a clinic in Barcelona on Friday at the age of 79, a court spokeswoman said on Monday.

She said the court had granted the request of a family member for the autopsy, which was yet to take place, but provided no further details.

The Carmen Varela family law firm representing dos Santos’ daughter Tchizé dos Santos, said earlier she had asked for her father’s body to be kept in Spain for a full autopsy due to alleged “suspicious circumstances of his death”, without providing evidence.

According to the office of Angolan President João Lourenço, his predecessor, who stepped down five years ago, died at the Teknon clinic in Barcelona, where he was being treated following a prolonged illness. The clinic declined to comment on the request for an autopsy or the details of his death. read more

He had been receiving medical treatment since 2019 and Portuguese news agency Lusa reported in June he was in intensive care in Barcelona, citing a source close to him, as the Angolan government said the former leader had suffered a deterioration in his health. read more

Tchizé and her lawyers also argue that dos Santos’ wish was to be buried in Barcelona rather than his body being returned to Angola for a state funeral.

Despite being handpicked by dos Santos to succeed him, Lourenço swiftly moved to investigate allegations of multi-billion dollar corruption during the former president’s era, often involving the dos Santos family.

Dos Santos, who said in a rare 2013 interview he would like to be remembered “as a good patriot”, never specifically responded to the allegations that he had allowed corruption to become rampant.

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Jailbreak: 64 Boko Haram Terrorists Likely Hiding In Ghana – GIS

The Ghana Immigration Service (GIS) has announced that about 64 Nigerian terrorist group, Boko Haram who escaped from in Abuja are likely to be hiding in Ghana.

The inmates at the Nigeria Prison at Kuje near Abuja were freed by the Islamic extremist rebels and are currently on the run and believed to be hiding in Ghana.

Last Tuesday night, nearly 900 inmates escaped in a jailbreak at the Kuje Maximum Security Prison in Abuja.

According to reports, about 443 of the 879 escapees are still missing, Umar Abubakar, a spokesman for the Nigerian Correctional Service said, while hundreds of others have either been recaptured or turned themselves in at police stations.

Officials will “track all fleeing inmates and return them to custody,” said Abubakar.

Due to that the Ghana Immigration Service in a statement urged the public to be on alert and report to the security agencies in case they identify any strangers around in town across the country.

The reports intercepted by DGN Online indicated that it is believed that the Jihadist group Boko Haram is behind the attack which saw the use of high-end explosives and guns, that freed all 64 Boko Haram-linked inmates at the prison and are among the escapees who are still on the run.

“Considering current migration trends of Nigerians within the sub-region, it is likely most of the escapees will attempt to enter Ghana through both approved and unapproved routes”.

The Deputy Comptroller-General, Laud O. Affrifah, who issued the statement said “I have been directed to inform you to institute stringent measures at all points of Entry and intensify patrols to deter and intercept all escapees who will attempt to infiltrate the country”.

After the prison break out, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari visited the prison where senior officials showed him around the facility.

He then tweeted he was “saddened” by the attack and “disappointed” with Nigeria’s intelligence system.

“How can terrorists organize, have weapons, attack a security installation and get away with it?” Buhari asked.

The “very determined” rebels attacked the Kuje maximum prison in Abuja on Tuesday night with “very high-grade explosives,” killing one guard on duty, according to Shuaib Belgore, permanent secretary of Nigeria’s Ministry of Interior.

Explosions and gunfire were heard at about 10 p.m. in the Kuje area when the attackers arrived and forced their way into the prison through a hole created by the blasts.

The Islamic extremist rebels who attacked the prison have waged an insurgency in the country’s northeast for over a decade. Their attack on the detention facility freed many of their members who are inmates, prison officials said.

The Kuje maximum security prison had nearly 1,000 inmates including 64 suspects of the Boko Haram extremist group all of whom have escaped, said Maj. Gen. Bashir Salihi Magashi, Nigeria’s Minister of Defense.

He told reporters that security officials on the ground did “their best” to prevent the jailbreak. “We are trying to see what we can do to ensure that all escapees are brought back,” he said.

As of last Wednesday morning, bullet shells lay scattered around the prison premises while helicopters hovered over the Kuje area as security agents combed nearby bushes in search of escapees. Several vehicles were razed during the late-night shootout.

Some recaptured inmates lay on the ground by the prison entrance near the bodies of those who died in the attack.

The Abuja jailbreak occurred around the same time that gunmen launched a daring attack on an advance security convoy preparing for the visit of Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari in the northwest Katsina state.

Those attackers “opened fire on the convoy from ambush positions but were repelled by the military,” a presidential spokesman said.

Nigeria’s jihadi rebels and other armed groups have carried out several jailbreaks in the country’s northeast in recent years, but this is the first in the capital city in recent years.

Below are the attached pictures with the names of the escaped Boko Haram suspects:

      

DNT News

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Mercedes Sales Slump In Q2 As Supply Problems Continue

Mercedes-Benz sales fell sharply in the second quarter, hampered by supply problems and coronavirus-related lockdowns in China, the German carmaker said on Monday.

The automaker delivered 490,000 passenger cars from April to June, down 16% from the same period last year, it said.

For the first half of 2022, its Cars division saw a 16% decrease in sales, for a total of 998,000 deliveries.

Second-quarter sales slumped the most in China, the most important single market, falling 25% to 163,700 vehicles, the carmaker said.

Sales in the Asia region fell 20%, due mainly to lockdown measures, while sales in Europe were down 10% and North America saw a dip of 3% in the quarter.

However, Mercedes-Benz is sticking with its 2022 forecast for a slight increase in sales compared with 2021, said a spokesperson. Despite concerns about rising inflation, “customer demand remains high”, sales director Britta Seeger said.

Luxury models in particular, such as the Maybach and electric cars in the EQ model series, are especially popular, Seeger said in a statement.

The smaller Mercedes-Benz Vans business remained just under last year’s level with 100,000 units sold worldwide in the second quarter, according to the carmaker.

Source: Reuters

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Sri Lanka President Confirms Resignation

Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has confirmed he will resign, the prime minister’s office has said after tens of thousands of protesters stormed the official residences of both men.

Sri Lanka is in a deep financial crisis and the crowds say they won’t leave until both men quit their posts.

The parliament Speaker had earlier said the president would resign on 13 July.

Mr Rajapaksa, whose whereabouts are unknown, has not spoken publicly since his residence was stormed on Saturday.

Sources have told the BBC he is on a navy vessel in Sri Lankan waters. He was moved to safety before protesters entered the presidential palace.

The president has been blamed for the country’s economic mismanagement, which has caused dire shortages of food, fuel and medicine for months. His resignation was first announced by the Parliament Speaker on Saturday, but many Sri Lankans responded with scepticism to the idea that he would relinquish power.

On Monday, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s office said in a statement it had been informed by Mr Rajapaksa that he would step down on Wednesday.

But under Sri Lanka’s constitution, his resignation can only formally be accepted when he resigns by letter to the Speaker – which has yet to happen.

Prime Minister Wickremesinghe had earlier also said he would step down from his position. His house was set on fire during Saturday’s unrest.

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JAPAN – Abe’s assassin cites mother’s bankruptcy after donation to church the former PM promoted

TOKYO (Reuters) -A police investigation into the assassination of former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe prompted the head of the country’s branch the Unification Church to confirm on Monday that the mother of the suspect in the killing is a member.

Tetsuya Yamagami, an unemployed 41-year-old, has been identified by police as the suspect who approached Abe and opened fire during a campaign speech on Friday.

Yamagami believed Abe had promoted a religious group to which his mother made a “huge donation”, Kyodo news agency has said, citing investigative sources.

The suspect told police his mother subsequently went bankrupt, the Yomiuri newspaper and other media have reported.

Tomihiro Tanaka, president of the Japanese branch of Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, known as the Unification Church, confirmed to reporters in Tokyo that the suspect’s mother was a church member. He declined to comment on her donations.

Neither Abe nor the suspected killer were members, Tanaka said. Nor was Abe an adviser to the church, he said.

The Unification Church was founded in South Korea in 1954 by Sun Myung Moon, a self-declared messiah and strident anti-communist.

It has gained global media attention for its mass weddings where it marries thousands of couples at a time.

The church’s affiliates include daily newspapers in South Korea, Japan and the United States. Moon ran a business empire and founded the conservative Washington Times newspaper.

Reuters was not able to contact Yamagami’s mother and could not determine whether she belonged to any other religious organisations.

Abe, who held conservative views, appeared at an event hosted by an organisation affiliated with the church last September and delivered a speech praising the affiliate’s work towards peace on the Korean peninsula, according to the church’s website.

Critics have for years said the church is a cult and questioned what they say are murky finances. The church rejects such views and says it is a legitimate religious movement.

Police have confirmed that the suspect said he held a grudge against a specific organisation, but they have not named it.

QUIET LIFE

Reuters visited the home of Yamagami’s mother in Nara on Monday. The white house is tucked away at the end of a quiet cul de sac in a well-to-do neighbourhood one stop on the train from where Abe was gunned down. She did not appear to be at home. Two uniformed policemen sat outside in an unmarked car.

A next door neighbour, a woman who only gave her surname Ishii, said she did not know the family and had only ever greeted the mother.

“I don’t see her around much, I say hello, but that is all,” she said, adding that the mother appeared to live a quiet life.

Another neighbour, an 87-year-old woman who only gave her surname Tanida, said the mother had lived alone for a long time.

Yamagami’s mother first joined the church around 1998 but stopped attendance between 2009 and 2017, Tanaka said. About two to three years ago she re-established communication with church members and in the last half year or so has been attending church events about once a month, he said.

Tanaka said the church learned of the mother’s financial difficulties only after talking to those close to her. He said he did not know what caused those difficulties.

Nara police on Monday said they found apparent bullet holes at a facility run by the church, and that the suspect told them he had fired practice rounds at the facility the day before he shot Abe.

ABE’S GRANDFATHER

Tanaka said Abe had sent messages to events held by church affiliates and expressed support for its global peace movement.

Moon, who spoke fluent Japanese, launched an anti-communist group in Japan in the late 1960s, the International Federation for Victory Over Communism, and built relations with Japanese politicians, according to the church’s publications.

Nobusuke Kishi, Abe’s maternal grandfather and a former prime minister, was an honorary executive chair at a group banquet hosted by Moon, the International Federation for Victory Over Communism said on its website.

Moon died in 2012. The church has about 600,000 members in Japan, out of 10 million globally, a spokesperson for the church said.

(Reporting by Kiyoshi Takenaka in Tokyo, Ju-min Park in Seoul and Tim Kelly in Nara; Additional reporting by Chang-Ran Kim in Tokyo and Satoshi Sugiyama in Nara; Editing by David Dolan, Kenneth Maxwell and Angus MacSwan)

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Republic Square welcomes tributes to José Eduardo dos Santos

Luanda – The Republic Square, in Luanda City, opens from 09h00 Monday for the homage to the former President of the Republic, José Eduardo dos Santos, who died Friday in Spain, victim of an illness.

The Head of State, João Lourenço, is expected to be present at the spot in order to also pay tribute to José Eduardo dos Santos.

 

Speaking as the spokesman of the Interministerial Commission for Funeral Service, minister Marcy Lopes said that as from 2.00 pm the Republic Square will be open to the public, so that citizens may pay homage to the former Angolan Head of State.

 

Regarding the death of the former Head of State, José Eduardo dos Santos, the Government decreed seven days of National Mourning.

 

During this period, the National Flag is placed at half-mast and public performances and demonstrations are cancelled. The National Mourning period came into effect on Saturday.

 

José Eduardo dos Santos, who died at the age of 79, came to power in September 1979, following the death of the first Angolan President, António Agostinho Neto.

 

Mr Dos Santos was in office as President of the Republic for 38 years, until September 2017, when he was succeeded by the current Head of State, João Lourenço.

 

In addition to being President of the Republic, José Eduardo dos Santos was Commander-in-Chief of the Angolan Armed Forces (FAA) and President of MPLA the ruling party since the proclamation of national independence on 11 November 1975.

 

The late president was also the minister of Foreign Affairs and other positions in the State and in the MPLA party. He led the process which ended with the signing of the Peace Agreement on 04 April 2022, following the death of the UNITA founding leader Jonas Savimbi.

UAE President sends condolences on the death of José Eduardo dos Santos

 Luanda - The President of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, has expressed his dismay at the death of former Angolan President, José Eduardo dos Santos.

Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan has sent a message of condolences to the Head of State, João Lourenço, following the death of José Eduardo dos Santos on Friday, in Spain, victim of illness.

 

 

With the same purpose, the vice president, prime minister and governor of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, also addressed a similar message to President João Lourenço.

 

The former Angolan President died at the age of 79. José Eduardo dos Santos came to power in September 1979, following the death of the First President of Angola, António Agostinho Neto.

 

He served as President of the Republic for 38 years, until September 2017, when he was succeeded by the current Head of State, João Lourenço. In addition to being President of the Republic, he was Commander-in-Chief of the Angolan Armed Forces (FAA) and President of the MPLA, the party that has governed the country since the proclamation of national independence on 11 November 1975.

 

Mr Dos Santos’ political record also includes the position of minister of Foreign Affairs, and other functions in the State and in the MPLA. He led the process that culminated in the signing of the Peace Accords on 4 April 2002, following the death of the then founding leader of UNITA, Jonas Savimbi.