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Amnesty International is urging the Cameroonian authorities to immediately release Albert Mukong, a former executive director of the Human Rights Defence Group (HRDG) and a reputable human rights defender, who was arrested on 28 September by the gendarmerie at Ayukaba, in South West Province.

Cameroon's ruling party won 16 out of 17 seats in parliamentary re-elections held on Sunday, after irregularities in the original poll in June, Cameroon Radio and Television reported on Tuesday.

Opposition parties in Cameroon have continued to suffer the fallout of municipal and legislative elections on 30 June in which they lost much of the ground they won in 1997.

Troubling memories of Belgium's cruel colonial past have been reawakened by an exhibition in which eight pygmies from Cameroon perform for tourists in a manner which campaigners have claimed is racist and neo-colonial.

For years, populations in northern Cameroon have had to live with bandits and the impact of banditry on economic activities, transport and ordinary people's lives.

Most of the children at the Saint Theresa Charity Centre in Ngaoundere, some 622 km north of the Cameroonian capital, Yaounde, were taken there at an early age. "We receive children abandoned in the streets or in garbage dumps as well as newborns who lost their mothers at birth," said Sister Agnes Nana, who was temporarily in charge of the centre when IRIN visited it in late June. "We've received newborns who were still carrying their umbilical cord."

The International Secretariat of OMCT has been informed by a reliable source of the arbitrary dismissal of 12 workers and of the suspension of 9 workers’ representatives by Doba Logistics one of the main contractors for construction work on the Chad-Cameroon Oil Pipeline Project co-funded by the World Bank. It is reported that the suspensions and dismissals of the workers by Doba Logistics occurred on May 14 2002, after their strike action against the non-application of the collective agreement signed with Doba Logistics in March 2002. This first collective agreement represented a victory for the workers and encouraged workers in other companies to negotiate collective agreements.

Cameroon's Supreme Court has ordered fresh legislative elections in nine constituencies because of irregularities committed during polls held on 30 June.

Cameroon's main opposition Social Democratic Front (SDF) party has ended a boycott of parliament and municipal councils in protest against "flawed legislative and local government elections".

A military court has acquitted gendarmes accused of killing nine youths who disappeared after being arrested by members of an elite crime-fighting unit.

Church leaders and opposition politicians have described legislative and municipal elections held in Cameroon on 30 June as flawed. The politicians have also called for the polls to be annulled.

The opposition in Cameroon has said that Sunday's parliamentary and municipal elections were marred by fraud and should be annulled. The leader of the opposition Social Democratic Front (SDF), John Fru Ndi, said many voters had not been given voting cards in time for the poll or had not been registered.

Cameroon's President Paul Biya has sacked his interior minister after having to postpone parliamentary and municipal elections, which were scheduled to start on Sunday. Ferdinand Koungou Edima was accused of failing to prepare the vote properly after the state-run printing press had not finished producing the ballots.

Two global human rights watchdogs, Amnesty International (AI) and Survival have protested the arrest of four activists of the Mbororo ethnic group in Cameroon's North West province, and launched a campaign for their release. All the four suffered various types of torture, AI and Survival said, adding that the arrests were part of human rights abuses against the Mbororo Fulani of the North West Province.

The Southern Cameroon National Council (SCNC), which advocates autonomous rule for Anglophone Cameroon, has called for the electorate in that part of the country to boycott parliamentary and council elections slated for 23 June.

Cameroon's security forces came in for special mention this year in Amnesty International's latest report on human rights violations worldwide. However, local rights advocates say they are also worried by abuses committed by other sectors, including traditional chiefs. "Unbelievable and unacceptable things are happening in the traditional chiefdoms in the north of Cameroon," says Hilaire Kamga, president of the Cameroonian chapter of the France-based NGO, Nouveaux Droits de l'Homme.

The World Bank is allocating funds totaling 15.6 billion FCFA (just over US $22 million) to Camrail, the Cameroonian railway company announced in a news release on Wednesday. The European Investment Bank has already agreed to a loan of 7.9 billion FCFA and two Cameroonian banks have offered 2.9 billion FCFA, the utility said.

Doungou Alima Achille Arsene arrived in Cameroon in July 2001, after fleeing upheavals in his country, Central African Republic. However, life in the Cameroonian capital, Yaounde, is anything but easy for the 26-year-old tiler.