The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and non-OPEC producers will be holding an extraordinary meeting to discuss the latest market situation in Algeria. The key focus of the meeting will be a proposal by Saudi Arabia for producers to keep their oil output at January levels – what Riyadh believes will help stabilize the prices in markets.

Iran has so far rejected the call to freeze its output as unfair and emphasized that it will go ahead with its plans to increase its oil production. Nevertheless, it had made it clear that it is ready to join the plan after its output reaches 4 barrels per day.

The country had been under multiple years of sanctions that limited its oil exports to 1 million barrels per day and also barred foreign investments in its oil industry. The sanctions were lifted in January after a nuclear deal that Iran had reached with the so-called P5+1 group of countries – the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany – came into effect.

Reuters reported on Friday that Saudi Arabia has informed Tehran that it is ready to reduce its oil output provided that Iran agrees to cap its own output at its current level of 3.6 million mb/d over the remaining months to the end of 2016.

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The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has expressed interest in investing in Cameroon’s agricultural sector. The desire was made public in Yaounde by a high powered delegation from Riyadh. The Saudi delegation of parliamentarians headed by a former Minister of Agriculture held productive discussions with the Minister of Finance, Alamine Ousmane Mey.

Waleed A. Elkhereiji indicated that Cameroon has potentials in the domain of agriculture hence his country was ready to strike partnership deals. The Finance Minister and the Saudi MPs also examined the negative economic consequences following the sharp drop in fuel prices. Both parties had intensive exchanges on the execution of Cameroon’s budget.

The nine-man Saudi Arabian delegation left Cameroon on the 23^rd of September 2016. During their three-day visit, they met with some senior Cameroon government officials including the Prime Minister and Head of Government, Philemon Yang, the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the National Assembly.

CRTV

The US internet giant Yahoo says seemingly state-sponsored hackers stole the information of half a billion of its users back in 2014, in what appears to be the largest publicly disclosed cyber-breach in history. Yahoo said in a statement on Thursday that “based on the ongoing investigation, Yahoo believes that information associated with at least 500 million user accounts was stolen.”

The internet company added that the attack came from “what it believes is a state-sponsored actor.” The company said the stolen information probably included names, email addresses, birth dates, passwords and security questions and answers. The internet giant has assured that looted data did not include unprotected passwords or information associated with payments or bank accounts. Yahoo officials said they were working closely with law enforcement regarding the issue. Analysts say the stolen data may also be used to access people’s information on other websites.

This is probably the largest breach of information from a company. On several occasions, internet companies have complained that the US government tried to force them to give away their users’ information. Yahoo’s confirmation of the major cyber breach came after a report earlier this year quoting a security researcher saying some 200 million accounts may have been accessed and that hacked data was being offered for sale online.

The users of Yahoo’s online services were urged to review accounts for suspicious activity. They were also asked to change passwords. “Online intrusions and thefts by state-sponsored actors have become increasingly common across the technology industry,” Yahoo said in the statement, adding, “Yahoo and other companies have launched programs to detect and notify users when a company strongly suspects that a state-sponsored actor has targeted an account.”

The developments come two months after Yahoo sealed a deal to sell its core internet business to telecom giant Verizon for 4.8 billion dollars, ending a two-decade run as an independent company. It was not immediately clear if the data breach could impact the price agreed to by Verizon.

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US Republicans are pushing new bills through Congress to prevent further return of Iranian money held since the Islamic Revolution in 1979.  Those measures are in response to President Barack Obama’s cash payments to Iran this year following a nuclear accord which requires Washington to lift its sanctions on Tehran.

Iran reportedly received $400 million first in January and another $1.3 billion less than two months later. The total sum of $1.7 billion was related to an arms deal that Iran signed before 1979 but Washington was refusing to give back.

Wooden pallets stacked with euros, Swiss francs and other currencies were reportedly flown into Iran in an unmarked cargo plane to cover the first $400 million, while the second payoff was likely made in cash since the US has no banking relationship with Tehran.

Republican lawmakers have now fielded new bills prohibiting any similar payments from the US, the country’s media reports say. A bill introduced by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce to ban future payments to Iran has reportedly attracted 36 co-sponsors and got a date squeezed into the body’s calendar for a vote.

In the Senate, Sen. Marco Rubio has introduced a similar measure which has attracted 20 co-sponsors in just three days, reports said.

In a statement, Rubio hit out at Obama’s “misguided policies,” accusing him of attempting “to appease our enemy with pallets of cash secretly delivered on an unmarked cargo plane.” The senator accused Iran of cheating on the nuclear deal even though the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) once again confirmed Tehran’s commitment to the accord in a report on Thursday.

Rubio’s bill is reportedly competing with another being pushed by Sen. Bob Corker, the GOP chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.Corker’s bill expands sanctions on Tehran over its ballistic missile program as well as Iran’s support for resistance groups such as Hezbollah. It also requires new sanctions for the transfer of conventional weapons to and from Iran, among other penalties.

According to weekly magazine the Washington Examiner, lawmakers know there’s no chance that Obama will sign the bills into law in the waning days of his time in office but they want to force Democrats up for election in conservative states to take a tough vote on the measure.

The $1.7 billion returned to Iran constitutes a fraction of tens of billions of dollars of the Iranian assets which the US has blocked since the Islamic Revolution. With the nuclear accord reached in February, US courts have scrambled through several cases, allowing American families to claim Iranian assets as compensation for a number of attacks which Tehran says have nothing to do with the country.

In April, the US Supreme Court ruled that Iran’s $2 billion of assets held in an American bank be turned over to families of those killed in a 1983 bombing in Beirut and other attacks. Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif denounced the move as “highway robbery” and pledged that Iran would retrieve the sum anyway.

Top Iranian authorities have also rebuked the US for “deception” on the nuclear accord and failing to fulfill its commitments. While Washington has to lift sanctions on Tehran under the accord, it has imposed even more penalties under numerous pretexts.

Last month, Deputy Petroleum Minister for trade and international affairs Amir Hossein Zamaninia said the US was terrorizing the Europeans into shunning business with Iran despite the lifting of sanctions.

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The British oil and gas operator, Victoria Oil & Gas has installed 2500 tons of equipment in Cameroon for the exploitation of the Logbaba gas field.  The UK operator has taken up residence in the economic capital of Douala in view of drilling two gas production wells.

Cameroon Concord News understands work on the wells will begin in the third quarter 2016 (July-September) to be completed by the end of the year. The management of the British group VOG estimated that the two wells are needed to meet the growing demand for gas.

Sama Ernest (Cameroon Concord News)