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YAOUNDE, Cameroon (CNS) -- A group of Pygmies showed up to give Pope Benedict XVI an unscheduled send-off from Cameroon, and presented him with a live turtle to take back with him to the Vatican. The 15 Pygmies from the Baka ethnic group came to the pope's residence at the apostolic nunciature in Yaounde March 20 as the pontiff was preparing to leave for Angola. They built a ceremonial hut out of leaves in the garden of the residence, and the pope came out to greet them. The Pygmies, including grandparents, parents and children, sang songs and danced to the...

Yaounde, Cameroon, Mar 19, 2009 / 11:06 am (CNA).- Today, on the Feast of St. Joseph, the Holy Father spoke to a vast crowd at the Amadou Ahidjo stadium in Yaounde, Cameroon. He encouraged the faithful to make Africa the continent of hope by following the example of St. Joseph, especially in times of trouble. Upon arriving at the stadium, the Pope wove his way through the crowd in the popemobile, before entering the sacristy and beginning the celebration of a Mass marking the publication of the "Instrumentum laboris" (working document), of the Second Special Assembly for Africa of...

Piracy is common off Nigeria and often linked to militants Pirates have seized a ship owned by a French company off the Nigerian coast, taking nine crew members hostage. The company - Bourbon - said the captain had assured them that all crew members were unharmed. Bourbon - which provides specialist boats for the oil and gas industry - said it was working to free the crew. The hostages are from Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroon and Indonesia. Piracy is common in Nigerian waters, often linked to militants targeting oil companies. Militants attack vessels and strip them of valuables, taking hostages for...

FBI Warns of Potential Terror Attacks The FBI and Department of Homeland Security today issued an analytical "note" to U.S. law-enforcement officials cautioning that al-Qaida terrorists have in the past expressed interest in attacking public buildings using a dozen suicide bombers each carrying 20 kilograms of explosives. Authors with the U.S. Office of Intelligence and Analysis added that they have "no credible or specific information that terrorists are planning operations against public buildings in the United States." The FBI and DHS analysts said they were releasing the note because "it is important for local authorities and building owners and...

BAGHDAD, Sept. 15, 2008 – Many soldiers join the Army as a way of saying thanks, while others feel it is their patriotic duty to serve the country that has offered them a life full of endless opportunities. Army Pfc. Rudolph Foliwe, a native of Cameroon, Africa, who serves as a cook in Multinational Division Baghdad with the 4th Infantry Division’s Company D, 1st Battalion, 66th Armored Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, serves dinner to a fellow soldier Sept. 4, 2008. Foliwe lived in the United States for a little more than three months before joining the Army as...

CALABAR, Nigeria (AFP) - Nigeria on Thursday handed over the Bakassi peninsula to Cameroon to end a 15-year dispute over the territory believed to be rich in oil and gas. < > After a drawn-out legal battle, the ICJ ruled in October 2002 that the peninsula should be given to Cameroon. It based its decision largely on a 1913 treaty between former colonial powers Britain and Germany.

Here’s the story of how scientists unlocked the secrets of the worst natural disaster in the history of the West African nation of Cameroon… and what they’re doing to try and stop it from happening again. THE DISCOVERY On the morning of August 22, 1986, a man hopped onto his bicycle and began riding from Wum, a village in Cameroon, towards the village of Nyos. On the way he noticed an antelope lying dead next to the road. Why let it go to waste? The man tied the antelope onto his bicycle and continued on. A short distance later he...

Excerpt - YAOUNDE, May 6 (Reuters) - A Kenya Airways plane reported missing on Saturday with 114 people aboard, was found on Sunday in southern Cameroon, the central African country's state radio said. The radio interrupted its programming to report the find, but made no mention of casualties or the state of the aircraft. The plane was found near the village of Awanda, near the town of Mvengue, southwest of the capital Yaounde, the radio said. ~ snip ~

Report: Kenya Airways 737 airliner crashes Cameroon radio says missing plane carrying 115 went down in south YAOUNDE, Cameroon - A Kenya Airways flight with more than 100 people aboard crashed in southern Cameroon, state radio reported Saturday. The radio report said the flight, which lost contact with airport controllers soon after taking off around midnight from Douala, Cameroon, crashed near the southern town of Niete.

Excerpt - Kenya Airways said Saturday it has lost contact with a 737-800 aircraft that took off from Cameroon. "The last message from the aircraft was received by the control tower in Douala immediately after take-off," Kenya Airways said on its Web site. The flight departed Douala at 12:05 a.m. and was to arrive in Nairobi at 6:15 a.m. ~ snip ~

YAOUNDE - An Islamic cleric has been sentenced to 15 years imprisonment in the west African state of Cameroon for raping 20 pupils in a Koranic school, court sources said. Judges at the trial in Ngaoundere, a leading Muslim community in the country, also banned the defendant Modibo Mamadou Babba for life from exercising the duties of an imam. The defendant was arrested at the beginning of this year following a collective complaint by the parents of the youngsters, aged between 16 and 21. The affair caused a major scandal locally, where a section of the Muslim community was angry...

WORRIED that her daughters' budding breasts would expose them to the risk of sexual harassment and even rape, Philomene Moungang started "ironing" the girls' bosoms with a heated stone. "I did it to my two girls when they were eight years old. I would take the grinding stone, heat it in the fire and press it hard on the breasts," the mother said. "They cried and said it was painful. But I explained that it was for their own good." Breast "ironing" - the use of hard or heated objects to try to stunt breast growth in girls - is...

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...