News stories by Ngala Killian Chimtom

YAOUNDÉ, Cameroon, Aug 09 (IPS) - It is a sunny afternoon in Boui, a small village in the Boumba and Ngoko Division of Cameroon's South East Region. A primary school teacher is drawing some wild animals on the blackboard. Then she turns to the class of fifteen pupils.

YAOUNDE, Jul 15 (IPS) - Her lips are quavering her hands trembling. Susan (not her real name) struggles to suppress stubborn tears, but the outburst comes, spontaneously, and the tears stream down her cheeks as she sobs profusely.

MAROUA, Cameroon, Jun 10 (IPS) - Twelve-year-old Bienvienue Taguieke was expected to obey her parents and marry a man 40 years her senior, but an association of women in Cameroon's Far North Region, where child marriages are rife, put a stop to it in a sign that women are starting to speaking out against the practice.

MBOMAO, Gabon, Mar 13 (IPS) - There is rising anger among trade unionists, environmentalists and civil society groups in Gabon after a wood company, Rain Forest Management (RFM), sacked 38 fixed-term workers last month in Mbomao, Ogooué-Ivindo province.

MAROUA, Far North Region, Jan 14 (IPS) - "I'd quit my job before going to work in a place like that." That is how a primary school teacher responded when IPS asked him why he had not accepted a job in Cameroon's Far North region.

YAOUNDE, Dic 05 (IPS) - Legislators in Cameroon have voted in a draft law proposing the death sentence for all those guilty of carrying out, abetting or sponsoring acts of terrorism. The draft law, which is now being examined by the Cameroon Senate, call for punishment acts of terrorism committed by citizens, either individually or in complicity, with death.

YAOUNDE, Sep 23 (IPS) - "You can't measure the joy in my heart," Marceline Duba, from Lagdo in Cameroon's Far North Region, tells IPS as she holds her grandson in her arms.  

KOUOPTOMO, Cameroon, Aug 05 (IPS) - Issah Mounde Nsangou combs his 6.5-hectare Kouoptomo coffee plantation in Cameroon's West Region, pulling up unwanted weeds and clipping off parasitic plants. For the 50-year-old farmer, the health of his coffee plants are of prime importance.

YAOUNDE, Jul 31 (IPS) - Motari Hamissou used to get along well with his pupils at the government primary school in Sabga, an area in Bamenda, the capital of Cameroon's North West Region.

In the past, Hamissou also lived in peace with his neighbours. No one was bothered by his long, thick beard or the veil his wife, Aisha Hamissou, wore, or the religion they followed.