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Mixed picture emerges of global gay rightsBy DAVID CRARY, AP National Writer Sat Jul 1, 2:24 PM ET A security officer in tights leads the annual Gay pride Rainbow Parade in downtown Vienna, on Saturday, July 1, 2006. (AP Photo/Lilli Strauss) NEW YORK - While cities around the world hosted upbeat gay pride parades in recent weeks, human-rights activists kept watch on a contrasting set of developments: gays beaten by demonstrators in Moscow, convicted on sodomy charges in Cameroon, targeted by sweeping anti-gay legislation in Nigeria. "It shows there are still dangers in just being gay — and dangers in...

By studying chimpanzee droppings in remote African jungles, scientists reported yesterday, they have found direct evidence of a missing link between a chimpanzee virus and the one that causes human AIDS. Scientists have long suspected that chimpanzees are the source of the human AIDS pandemic because at least one subspecies carries a simian immune deficiency virus closely related to H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS. But because the simian virus, known as S.I.V.cpz, was identified in chimpanzees in captivity, researchers could not be sure that the same simian virus existed among these apes in the wild. It does, the team...

AP News Alert ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) -- Nigerian police say they have arrested Liberian warlord Charles Taylor.

They call Douala the “armpit of Africa.” Lodged beneath the bulging shoulder of West Africa, this malaria-infested city in southwestern Cameroon is humid, unattractive, and smelly. On a torrid evening in late 2001, I was guided out of the chaotic Douala International Airport by my friend Andrew and his driver, Sam, who would have whisked us immediately to the cooler hillside town of Buea if Douala were at all conducive to being whisked anywhere. It isn’t. Douala, a city of 2 million people, has no real roads. A typical Douala street is 50 yards wide from shack to shack. It’s...

The clues lie on a bumpy road leading to the world’s worst library. They call Douala the “armpit of Africa.” Lodged beneath the bulging shoulder of West Africa, this malaria-infested city in southwestern Cameroon is humid, unattractive, and smelly. On a torrid evening in late 2001, I was guided out of the chaotic Douala International Airport by my friend Andrew and his driver, Sam, who would have whisked us immediately to the cooler hillside town of Buea if Douala were at all conducive to being whisked anywhere. It isn’t. Douala, a city of 2 million people, has no real roads....

Cameroon has been rocked by an anti-gay crusade in newspapers that have accused more than 50 prominent figures of homosexuality. Homosexuality is illegal in Cameroon as in many African countries, with jail sentences of up to five years, and editors say they are on a campaign against "deviant behaviour". The latest list by the weekly tabloid L'Anecdote sold out within hours and vendors resorted to selling photocopies. Those named included government ministers, news readers, popular singers and sports stars. "Men making love to other men ... is filthy. It may be normal in the west, but in Africa and Cameroon...

Why blacks should stay in Africa. by Constant Sabang in "Le Quotidien Mutations" Africans dreaming of a better life shouldn’t look to America, said Constant Sabang in Yaounde’s Le Quotidien Mutations. Every year when the U.S. visa lottery comes around, thousands of Africans, among them many Cameroonians, apply for a chance to “become a nephew of Uncle Sam.” A few of them even win one of the coveted green cards allotted to African countries. But what do they find when they leave Cameroon? They have given up their national identity, not to mention their passports, to become second-class citizens. For...

A ten-year survey in Cameroon by scientists from the UK's Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew has turned up more than 200 previously unknown plants. The researchers have found a higher diversity of plants in the Kupe-Bakossi region than any other site in tropical Africa. Highlights include new species of coffee, spectacular orchids and new relatives of the fig. The researchers say their work has led to local conservation initiatives. Mountain road Kupe-Bakossi lies around 100 kilometres north of Douala, Cameroon's second city - a two-hour journey by bumpy road. At the end of it is a treasure-trove of specimens for...

A naturalized U.S. citizen from Cameroon who fled last year to her home country after being convicted in Maryland of enslaving an 11-year-old girl has been returned to the United States to serve a 17-year prison sentence. Theresa Mubang, 42, was returned Saturday after being detained in Cameroon at the request of the U.S. government, said Manny Van Pelt, spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). "Cooperation between Cameroon and the United States has ensured Mubang will serve the prison term she earned," said Marcy Forman, who heads ICE's Office of Investigations.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two new retroviruses never before seen in humans have turned up among people who regularly hunt monkeys in Cameroon, researchers reported on Friday. Like the AIDS (news - web sites) virus, these viruses insert their genetic material directly into cells and perhaps even into a person's or animal's chromosomes. Closely related versions of the viruses cause leukemia, inflammatory and neurological diseases. The two new viruses are called human T-lymphotropic virus types 3 and 4 or HTLV-3 and HTLV-4. They are closely related to two known viruses called HTLV-1 and HTLV-2, which experts believe were transmitted to people,...

BOSTON, Feb. 25 - American scientists said Friday that they had discovered two new human viruses in Africa that belong to the same family, retroviruses, as the virus that causes AIDS. So far, the scientists said, the new viruses have not been linked to any disease, but they are being monitored out of concern that they or similar retroviruses might conceivably spawn another epidemic. The viruses, found in rural Cameroon among people who hunt monkeys and other primates, were probably transmitted from the animals through blood from bites and scratches received in hunting, butchering and keeping the primates as pets,...

PARIS - Police investigating a bomb attack at the Indonesian Embassy have arrested a man at an Internet cafe from where an e-mail was sent claiming responsibility, judicial officials said Monday. The man, who said he is from Cameroon, was detained Sunday and was still being held Monday, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Investigators were checking his identity and background. The e-mail, sent to police in Paris and to some French media, claimed responsibility for the blast Friday that slightly injured a handful of people. Officials said the man appeared to be mentally troubled. He claimed that...

AUSTRALIA  (ANS) -- Cameroon, which shares its entire porous western border with Nigeria, sits atop the same volatile ethnic/religious fault-line as Ivory Coast, Nigeria and Sudan. Fulani nomads, who arrived in Cameroon in the 16th Century, conquered the northern savannahs in the early 19th Century under the leadership of Mobido Adama. The indigenous forest peoples of Cameroon migrated south after the Fulani invasion. Cameroon is Africa's most complex nation. Operation World reports it has more than 280 languages spoken and around 500 ethnic groups. Cameroon, which has a history of appalling corruption, is a secular state with full religious freedom....

The alleged mercenaries arrested in Zimbabwe are believed to have been on their way to a covert military training camp in Cameroon. The men were remnants of South Africa's defunct mercenary company Executive Outcomes. They were planning to join another former Executives Outcomes operative in Equatorial Guinea in an elaborate plot to overthrow President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, which was supposed to have taken place next week. The coup plot has been denied by the British-based company Logo Logistics, which employs the suspected mercenaries. The company claims they were going to provide security for mining operations in the Democratic...

How the French Plunder Africa France's unchallenged political, economic, and military domination of its former sub-Saharan African colonies is rooted in a currency, the CFA franc. Created in 1948 to help France control the destiny of its colonies, fourteen countries--Benin, Burkina-Faso, Ivory Coast, Mali, Niger, Senegal, Togo, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Bissau Guinea, and Chad--maintained the franc zone even after they gained independence decades ago. In exchange for France guaranteeing the CFA franc's convertibility, these countries agreed to deposit 65% of their foreign exchange reserves in a special account within the French Treasury and granted to...

All her life, Heather Uber loved adventure and the outdoors, so when her older daughter joined the Peace Corps and moved to the West African nation of Cameroon in September 2002, Uber eagerly made plans to travel there. But that visit ended tragically Thursday morning when Uber, a 55-year old mother of four, was killed by a rampaging elephant while visiting a wildlife park with her husband and daughter. Uber, of Point Breeze, suffered internal injuries when she was knocked down by the elephant, which suddenly charged at the group from a distance of about 40 feet, said Ned Uber....

One of Africa's most ambitious - but typically controversial - oil projects will come to fruition this month, when Chad begins pumping oil for export via Cameroon. The total cost of extracting the oil from Chad and piping it to Cameroon is estimated at $3.7bn (£2.2bn), one of the biggest investments ever made in the region. When production gets up to full speed next year, this one project alone is expected to account for 45-50% of Chad's national budget. The project is in the final stages of testing, Esso Chad's spokesman Miles Shaw told BBC News Online, with the first...

I've been going over google trying to find information about the status of the oil pipeline to be built in cameroon and chad (never thought I'd use that word again), but I keep getting only stuff from left wing communist and socialist groups and there propaganda, I don't know how accurate they are in this, but I would hate to use them as sources for my MBA project. Any help from fellow freepers is appreciated.

When Guinea, Cameroon and Angola Call the ShotsBy Chris WeinkopfFrontPageMagazine.com | March 12, 2003 OUTSIDE OF THE WORLD CUP, Americans don’t much hear about countries like Guinea, Cameroon, and Angola—and for good reason. Other than their ability to field competitive soccer teams, they are known for little more than human-rights abuses and political corruption. Between them, the three have an average life expectancy of 46 years and a literacy rate of 47 percent. On Freedom House’s most recent annual ratings of political rights and civil liberties, all three received the "not free" designation. Yet upon these three nations—and, of course,...

LUANDA (AFP) - French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin arrived in Angola on a lightning tour of the three African nations on the UN Security Council to win support for France's position on Iraq. De Villepin is to meet President Jose Eduardo Dos Santos before heading off to Cameroon and Guinea later Monday as France rallies support to block a UN resolution that would authorise the use of force against Baghdad. He is expected to tell leaders of the three nations that there is little point in backing the US-British-Spanish resolution as France will be sure to use its...