More than 5,000 of the 25,000 young school leavers who were recently recruited into the public service have failed to show up to sign their employment contracts. 'I am a university graduate and they are offering me a monthly salary of $200 plus the equivalent of $40 as rents allowance. There is no way I can accept that kind of salary. Since graduating from the university, I have been farming in the village and what I earn from the farm is triple what they are offering me so I cannot accept that,' one of the recruits who sought anonymity told Africa Review.

This Global Press Institute article says that few rape cases result in conviction in Cameroon. 'Doctors, police officers and lawyers say frequent false reports make it difficult to confirm when rapes occur. But this culture of skepticism leads to underreporting as victims say they doubt anyone will believe them.'

Although the medical, legal and judicial mechanisms are in place to receive rape victims in Cameroon, the heavy burden placed on victims to prove that the rape occurred and that they didn’t contribute to it makes justice rare. Underreporting also hampers the justice and healing processes.

Biochar is touted as a solution to climate change, soil degradation and low crop yields, despite scientific field trials disproving these claims. With Africa the focus of many biochar 'demonstration' and 'feasibility' projects, Almuth Ernsting writes about

Alternatives Cameroon, an LGBTI organisation, reports that government policy makers last week convened to endorse a preliminary draft of a law that imposes harsher penalties for homosexual acts. The organisation revealed that the government convened a validation meeting on Friday 2 December during which a revision of the current law regarding homosexuality was discussed.

President Paul Biya’s regime has deeply disillusioned the Cameroonian people, writes Peter Wuteh Vakunta. But Biya will not be president forever, so the challenge for Cameroonians is to look beyond the failed leadership and begin to imagine a new future for themselves.

The Cameroonian authorities must immediately release two men who have been sentenced to five years in prison by a court in Yaounde for homosexual acts, Amnesty International said. A third man was sentenced without being present after jumping bail. The men were arrested in July after police alleged they were caught in a sexual act in a car.

Barely a few weeks after incumbent president Biya won another seven year mandate after 28 years in power, many Cameroonians would prefer to allow the dust to settle than to be drawn into worrying headlines, says this article posted on the site. The article highlights some concerns in a number of areas; the electoral process, socio-economic and regional tensions within the country which might push Cameroonians to street protest. Should Mr Biya listen?

The Cameroon government has introduced a bill to the national assembly that would give formal, political backing to section 347 of the country's penal code that criminalises consensual sex between adults of the same gender. 'It's getting worse,' Cameroonian lawyer Alice Nkom told the Guardian during a visit to London. 'These laws are illegal – the declaration of human rights is part of our constitution – but the judges still apply them. It's very difficult to prove you have had sex. Under the procedural code you cannot be put in jail unless caught in delecto flagrante.'

Peter Wuteh Vakunta celebrates the works of three dissident Cameroonian musicians who are unafraid to tell President Paul Biya to his face about the sufferings of the people under his very long rule.

Cameroon's President Paul Biya promised more jobs for young people and said he would set Cameroon on the path to being an emerging nation in a speech after he was declared winner of this month's presidential election. Cameroon's supreme court said 78-year-old Biya was re-elected by a widely expected landslide in a vote that US and French authorities have said was marred by irregularities.

Women in Cameroon have developed a vision for a gender-sensitive approach for their country’s nascent Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) programme. They have put together a roadmap to ensure that women are involved in the formulation of Cameroon’s national REDD+ strategy. The premise is that women should be given equal opportunities to learn about REDD+ initiatives, and their capacity strengthened so they can influence, participate in and benefit from the programme. The roadmap will be presented at the UN Climate Convention in Durban in December.

Cameroon's opposition parties said on Wednesday they would ask the Supreme Court to annul a presidential election because of widespread irregularities. Joshua Osih, vice-president of the main opposition Social Democratic Front (SDF), said evidence of double-voting and a lack of ballot papers in some polling stations meant the results, which are due in coming days, could not be credible.

Reporters Without Borders visited Cameroon from 26 September to 2 October to assess the degree of media freedom during the campaign for the 9 October presidential election and to promote a series of reforms that are needed to improve media freedom, including a new media law and the decriminalization of press offences. 'The media's coverage of the campaign is trying to be balanced but the campaign itself is not,' Reporters Without Borders said. 'President Paul Biya, who is running for reelection, and the ruling Cameroon People's Democratic Rally (RDPC) are everywhere. Biya is the only candidate to be seen on campaign posters. The opposition is hardly managing to make its voice heard. Everyone agrees that there is little political debate and this is reflected in the media.'

Voting got off to a slow start on Sunday in Cameroon’s presidential elections, which incumbent Paul Biya seems assured of winning to extend his 29-year rule. The 78-year-old veteran is seeking a sixth term against 22 other candidates, with opposition complaining that his control over the electoral system is so complete the outcome is a foregone conclusion. On paper, seven million people are eligible to vote.

This Cameroon Elections 2011 page from Google displays which party leader people are searching Google for the most and which issues are most important in the election campaign.

Police are preventing the man chosen by a group of Southern Cameroon separatists living abroad to lead the 'Home Front' in their struggle for a separate state for English-speaking Cameroonians, from leaving his home. Mola Njoh Litumbe issued a statement in which he declared: 'Comrades, having failed to locate my driver to take me to the Police Station where some of our compatriots are detained, or to the Nigerian Consulate where others are camped, I attempted to drive the car out myself and was met by a strong police contingent outside my gate who stopped me from leaving my premises, alleging that they were on orders to keep me under house arrest, on orders from the Governor of the South-West Region.'

Breast ironing is a traditional ritual in which, by using heated and flat objects, a girl's growing breasts are pressed in order to suppress and reverse their development. 'Breast ironing has existed as long as Cameroon has existed,' says Sinou Tchana, Cameroonian gynaecologist and vice-president of the Cameroonian Association of Female Doctors. In the early nineties, when her association started touring the ten regions of Cameroon to find out what practices could have been affecting female sexuality, they were shocked by the prevalence of breast ironing in most parts of the country.

Are the 23 candidates in Cameroon’s October 9 presidential elections only in it for the money? Without a unifying opposition figure what hope for change is there? These are among the questions raised in this week’s round-up of the African blogosphere, compiled by Dibussi Tande, which also takes a look at elections in Zambia and Liberia.

So far more than twenty Cameroonian political and civil society actors have indicated their intention to run for the country's top job, the president of the republic. As Cameroonians look forward to the 2011 Presidential Poll, due October, the aspirants have also been making public what they will do for the country, but some observers hold that the presidential aspirants are not proposing issues, which are realistic.