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Biya is in Paris

22, June 2023

Biya is in Paris 0

Paul Biya is in the French capital, Paris this Thursday 22 June 2023 to attend the opening ceremony of the summit for new global financial pact at the Palais Brongniart in Paris. The 90-year-old Cameroonian dictator was received at the summit venue by Madam Catherine Colonna, the French Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs.

Speaking at the opening ceremony, French President Emmanuel Macron welcomed all participants and praised their determination to fight against poverty and to safe planet earth. Macron highlighted the efforts of youths and civil society organisations in the preparation and orientation of the summit.

For his part, the Secretary General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, said the global financial architecture is outdated, dysfunctional and unjust. He urged participants at the summit for a new global financial pact to take action to meet the urgent needs of developing countries.

Work at the summit is divided into six workshops such as rethinking the multilateral banking model to meet new challenges, adopting a new method/partnerships for green growth or showing solidarity to break free from the debt trap, etc. The conclusions will be presented at the closing session of the summit tomorrow.

Mr. BIYA and his wife Chantal will later this evening attend a working dinner offered by French President Emmanuel Macron at the Elysee Palace.

Culled from the PRC

Orphan Kids Help Foundation to fund annual scholarships to 100 secondary school students

22, June 2023

Orphan Kids Help Foundation to fund annual scholarships to 100 secondary school students 0

As part of its 10000 Kids Education Project, the board of directors of the Orphan Kids Help Foundation has announced plans to provide annual scholarships to poor and needy secondary school students in the Republic of Cameroon.

Cameroon Concord News understands the scholarships will pay for 100 school students to study science, technology and global health.

A statement released by the Orphan Kids Help Foundation revealed that the students will be given enough money to cover the costs of tuition and accommodation throughout the period of their studies.

The money will come from the Orphan Kids Help Foundation that has for the past thirteen years provided resources to orphanages in Africa enabling children to sustain their physical, emotional, and spiritual needs.

The scholarships are expected to be formally announced in Cameroon next week by Dr. Ngasu Betek Etengeneng– a senior Lecturer at the University of Douala. Dr. Ngasu has also been tasked to actively recruit qualified students and to make sure that all candidates must be orphans or poor and needy individuals. In addition, the students must be of good moral and academic standing and above all, must be of Cameroonian nationality.

Orphan Kids Help Foundation is known in Cameroon and beyond as one of the philanthropic foundations based in the United States of America supporting orphans all over Africa. Some of the orphanages that have benefitted from the Orphan Kids Help Foundation in Africa include Love kids orphanage (Ghana), Little Saints Orphanage (Nigeria), Footprints Orphanage (Kenya), Mission of Hope Orphanage (Uganda), Hoptec Orphanage (Cameroon), Wellington Orphanage (Sierra Leone), Rainbow Orphanage (Cameroon), Amity Social Assistance Family (Cameroon)  and St. Arnile Orphanage in Cameroon.

The donation to fund the scholarships in Cameroon will be the largest given by Orphan Kids Help Foundation for any single cause.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai with files from our US Bureau         

French Cameroun: World Bank Approves $330M for Rehabilitation of the Maroua-Kousseri Road

22, June 2023

French Cameroun: World Bank Approves $330M for Rehabilitation of the Maroua-Kousseri Road 0

The World Bank approved financing of $330 million (CFA198.2 billion) for the rehabilitation of the Maroua-Kousseri road in Cameroon’s Far North region. “More than 920,000 people, including refugees and internally displaced persons, will benefit from the restoration of the Mora-Kousseri section (205 kilometers) on national road 1 (RN1), which will improve access to schools, health facilities, and markets,” said the Bretton Woods institution in an official statement.

The financing includes a credit of $280 million (CFA168.2 billion) from the International Development Association (IDA), World Bank’s concessional window, and a grant of $50 million (CFA30 billion) from the IDA window for host communities and refugees (WHR).

This is the second time the World Bank is funding the road’s rehabilitation. The first time, the works were hindered by structural delays and Boko Haram’s incursions in the Far North.

Military Engineering

Shortly after launching, the first attempt to repair the road was halted on May 16, 2014, after the Nigerian group of terrorists attacked the base life of Sinohydro, the then-contractor of the project. At the time, 10 of the Chinese firm’s staff members were kidnapped. Yaoundé, however, was able to have them released after tough negotiations.

Subsequently, Sinohydro promised on multiple occasions to return to the project but gave up. The government then trusted the project to the army, with the World Bank’s approval. Resumed in March 2018, the project was scheduled to be completed within 24 months but was delayed until early 2020. To speed up things, the Military Engineering team hired three subcontractors who especially worked on the 175 km long Mora-Dabanga-Kousseri section of the road.

Still, the project was not completed on the due date set by the World Bank–June 30, 2020. It was the date by which the Bank had set to close the line of credit it opened for the previous decade.

Source: Business in Cameroon

Ocean gate: More ships join search for missing Titanic sub amid fears of dwindling oxygen supply

22, June 2023

Ocean gate: More ships join search for missing Titanic sub amid fears of dwindling oxygen supply 0

The race against time to find a submersible that disappeared on its way to the Titanic wreckage site entered a new phase of desperation on Thursday morning as the final hours of oxygen possibly left on board the tiny vessel ticked off the clock.

Rescuers have rushed more ships and vessels to the site of the disappearance, hoping underwater sounds they detected for a second straight day might help narrow their search in the urgent, international mission. But the crew had only a four-day oxygen supply when the vessel, called the Titan, set off around 6 a.m. Sunday.

Even those who expressed optimism warned that many obstacles remain: from pinpointing the vessel’s location, to reaching it with rescue equipment, to bringing it to the surface — assuming it’s still intact. And all that has to happen before the passengers’ oxygen supply runs out.

The full area being searched was twice the size of Connecticut in waters as deep as 13,200 feet (4,020 meters). Captain Jamie Frederick of the First Coast Guard District said authorities were still holding out hope of saving the five passengers onboard.

“This is a search and rescue mission, 100%,” he said Wednesday.

The area of the North Atlantic where the Titan vanished Sunday is also prone to fog and stormy conditions, making it an extremely challenging environment to conduct a search-and-rescue mission, said Donald Murphy, an oceanographer who served as chief scientist of the Coast Guard’s International Ice Patrol.

Meanwhile, newly uncovered allegations suggest there had been significant warnings made about vessel safety during the submersible’s development.

Frederick said while the sounds that have been detected offered a chance to narrow the search, their exact location and source hadn’t yet been determined.

“We don’t know what they are, to be frank,” he said.

Retired Navy Capt. Carl Hartsfield, now the director of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Systems Laboratory, said the sounds have been described as “banging noises,” but he warned that search crews “have to put the whole picture together in context and they have to eliminate potential manmade sources other than the Titan.”

The report was encouraging to some experts because submarine crews unable to communicate with the surface are taught to bang on their submersible’s hull to be detected by sonar.

Ninety-six hour oxygen supply

The U.S. Navy said in a statement Wednesday that it was sending a specialized salvage system that’s capable of hoisting “large, bulky and heavy undersea objects such as aircraft or small vessels.”

The Titan weighs 20,000 pounds (9,071 kilograms). The U.S. Navy’s Flyaway Deep Ocean Salvage System is designed to lift up to 60,000 pounds (27,216 kilograms), the Navy said on its website.

Lost aboard the vessel are pilot Stockton Rush, the CEO of the company leading the expedition. His passengers are a British adventurer, two members of a Pakistani business family and a Titanic expert. OceanGate Expeditions oversaw the mission.

Authorities reported the 22-foot (6.7-meter) carbon-fiber vessel overdue Sunday night, setting off the search in waters about 435 miles (700 kilometers) south of St. John’s.

Officials have said the vessel had a 96-hour oxygen supply, giving them a deadline of early Thursday morning to find and raise the Titan.

Frank Owen, a submarine search and rescue expert, said the estimated oxygen supply is a useful “target” for searchers, but is only based on a “nominal amount of consumption.” Owen said the diver on board the Titan would likely be advising passengers to “do anything to reduce your metabolic levels so that you can actually extend this.”

At least 46 people successfully traveled on OceanGate’s submersible to the Titanic wreck site in 2021 and 2022, according to letters the company filed with a U.S. District Court in Norfolk, Virginia, that oversees matters involving the Titanic shipwreck.  

One of the company’s first customers characterized a dive he made to the site two years ago as a “kamikaze operation.”

“Imagine a metal tube a few meters long with a sheet of metal for a floor. You can’t stand. You can’t kneel. Everyone is sitting close to or on top of each other,” said Arthur Loibl, a retired businessman and adventurer from Germany. “You can’t be claustrophobic.”

During the 2.5-hour descent and ascent, the lights were turned off to conserve energy, he said, with the only illumination coming from a fluorescent glow stick.

The dive was repeatedly delayed to fix a problem with the battery and the balancing weights. In total, the voyage took 10.5 hours.

‘Like being in a snow cave’

OceanGate has been criticized for the use of a simple commercially available video game controller to steer the Titan. But the company has said that many of the vessel’s parts are off-the-shelf because they have proved to be dependable.

“It’s meant for a 16-year-old to throw it around,” and is “super durable,” Rush told the CBC in an interview last year while he demonstrated by throwing the controller around the Titan’s tiny cabin. He said a couple of spares are kept on board “just in case.”

The submersible had seven backup systems to return to the surface, including sandbags and lead pipes that drop off and an inflatable balloon.

Jeff Karson, a professor emeritus of earth and environmental sciences at Syracuse University, said the temperature is just above freezing, and the vessel is too deep for human divers to get to it. The best chance to reach the submersible could be to use a remotely operated robot on a fiber optic cable, he said.

“I am sure it is horrible down there,” Karson said. “It is like being in a snow cave and hypothermia is a real danger.”

Documents show that OceanGate had been warned there might be catastrophic safety problems posed by the way the experimental vessel was developed.

David Lochridge, OceanGate’s director of marine operations, said in a 2018 lawsuit that the company’s testing and certification was insufficient and would “subject passengers to potential extreme danger in an experimental submersible.”

The company insisted that Lochridge was “not an engineer and was not hired or asked to perform engineering services on the Titan.” The firm also says the vessel under development was a prototype, not the now-missing Titan.

The Marine Technology Society, which describes itself as “a professional group of ocean engineers, technologists, policy-makers, and educators,” also expressed concern that year in a letter to Rush, OceanGate’s chief executive. The society said it was critical that the company submit its prototype to tests overseen by an expert third party before launching in order to safeguard passengers. The New York Times first reported on those documents.

The passengers lost on the Titan are British adventurer Hamish Harding; Pakistani nationals Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman, whose eponymous firm invests across the country; and French explorer and Titanic expert Paul-Henry Nargeolet.

Retired Navy Vice Admiral Robert Murrett, who is now deputy director of the Institute for Security Policy and Law at Syracuse University, said the disappearance underscores the dangers associated with operating in deep water and the recreational exploration of the sea and space.

“I think some people believe that because modern technology is so good, that you can do things like this and not have accidents, but that’s just not the case,” he said.

Source: AP

Kondengui Ambazonia Revolt: Biya regime to be brought to its knees

22, June 2023

Kondengui Ambazonia Revolt: Biya regime to be brought to its knees 0

The exiled leader of the Ambazonia Interim Government has praised the sacrifices made by Southern Cameroons detainees in the Kondengui Maximum Security Prison in Yaoundé, saying French Cameroun detention centers is one area where La Republique du Cameroun will be brought to its knees.

Dabney Yerima made the remarks in a meeting with the Southern Cameroons war cabinet late last night in Holland. Yerima told Southern Cameroons leaders that the Ambazonia revolt took place deep within the Kondengui Central Prison and that the leader of the Ambazonian people, President Sisiku Ayuk Tabe was safe and sound at KPPY.

Vice President Dabney Yerima commended the strong sense of solidarity among all Southern Cameroons detainees and prisoners of conscience for their individual and collective struggle against French Cameroun occupation.

He emphasized that French Cameroun political and military institutions are crumbling at catastrophic rapidity and a new era including a bright future with complete victory is near.

Dabney Yerima also pointed to the noticeable changes in Ground Zero over the past couple of months, particularly increased in attacks against French Cameroun army soldiers and gendarmerie posts.

Vice President Dabney Yerima highlighted the importance of enhanced unity and coordination among all Southern Cameroons resistance groups and called on the Southern Cameroons diaspora to concentrate more on the issue of unity and coordination and tread this right path with strength.

By Soter Tarh Agbaw-Ebai

Football: N’Golo Kante joins Benzema at Saudi football club Al-Ittihad

21, June 2023

Football: N’Golo Kante joins Benzema at Saudi football club Al-Ittihad 0

Saudi Arabian soccer champion Al-Ittihad has another high-profile French player to accompany Karim Benzema at the team next season.

N’Golo Kante completed his move on a three-year deal on Wednesday after leaving Chelsea, with Al-Ittihad welcoming the 32-year-old midfielder with a series of tweets containing the hashtag “WelcomeBox2Box” — referring to his hard-running style of play.

He will reportedly earn more than $100 million across the length of the deal at a club based in Jeddah and coached by former Tottenham and Wolverhampton manager Nuno Espirito Santo. It recently won the Saudi league ahead of Cristiano Ronaldo’s Al-Nassr.

Kante, who won the World Cup with France in 2018, the Champions League with Chelsea in 2021 and has been one of the best players in the Premier League in recent years as a back-to-back champion with Leicester and Chelsea, has struggled with injuries over the past two seasons.

That hasn’t put off Al-Ittihad from apparently spending big on Kante, a few weeks after bringing in Benzema after the expiry of the reigning world player of the year’s contract at Real Madrid.

“It is part of the club’s efforts to establish itself as a top choice for world-class players in the Saudi Professional League,” Al-Ittihad said.

The big names — albeit players nearing the end of their careers — are being enticed to the Saudi league, where spending is being fueled by a move by the kingdom’s sovereign wealth Public Investment Fund to take a majority ownership stake in four of the country’s top clubs, including Al-Ittihad and Al-Nassr. The move is part of a nationalization project that encourages public sector organizations to invest in sports, with soccer teams a priority under the initiative backed by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Another of those four teams, Al-Hilal, tried to buy Lionel Messi but Argentina’s World Cup winner decided to join Inter Miami in the United States.

A slew of leading players are being linked with moves to Saudi Arabia in this European offseason, including Manchester City winger Riyad Mahrez, Chelsea goalkeeper Edouard Mendy and Wolverhampton midfielder Ruben Neves.

Source: AP

What difference does Jesus Christ make? (Part 2)

21, June 2023

What difference does Jesus Christ make? (Part 2) 0

In the first part of our reflection on the topic of what difference Jesus makes that we published this past Easter, we ended on the position that the Temptations constitute, at their innermost core, a theological debate between Satan and Jesus. The hectic nature of my schedule did not allow for the completion of this reflection until now. I apologize to my readers for this belatedness. Now, let us return to where we break off this past Easter on this topic, namely, the challenge for Jesus to prove his identity as the Son of God. It is likewise important to keep the overarching question in view, that is, Jesus’ identity in the light  of the difference that Jesus makes in today’s world. In effect, if Jesus is who he claims to be, if Jesus is authentic – if you are the Son of God – as Satan threw at him, then there must be a difference in the world with the coming of Jesus. Within the context of the Temptations, Jesus does not take the bait put forth by Satan. He refuses to turn stones into bread, or to fall from the lofty heights of the Temple pinnacle. The Cardinal Inquisitor has it right in The Grand Inquisitor when he laments before Jesus: You refused the offer of the Mighty Spirit because you wanted men and women to follow you out of freedom! In other words, succumbing to the Temptations would have been an easier and faster part for Jesus to accomplish his mission. But the fastest and easiest do not always translate into the truly enduring, beautiful and good.

To Ratzinger, the Temptations are not only Christological, that is, pertaining only to the person of Christ. They likewise have an inherent Ecclesiological character, in that the Church down the ages has often faced the challenge to prove itself, to prove its credibility. If you are the Church of Christ, then demonstrate it in a more convincing manner. If you are the Church of Christ, then why is there so much sin and evil in your members? Why couldn’t Christ make you as perfect as he Jesus is? And this temptation to prove one’s identity and authenticity can be very overwhelming even for the priest of today, with all the media hype. In my own life as a Christian and as a priest, I am learning, with every passing day, the wisdom in Jesus’ refusal to take the bait. I am learning that the most meaningful response to the challenge to prove one’s identity and authenticity is to create time for more prayer before God, the all-knowing One. In prayer, the priest and the Christian feels the Lord’s closeness and support, and if my own limited experience in the spiritual life is anything to go by, there is really no substitute for prayer in the life of a priest and a Christian.

Fr Maurice with Gerhard Cardinal Müller, Prefect Emeritus of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Custodian of Ratzinger’s Theological Legacy (Meeting at Vatican City)

When one enters into an Ignatian contemplation of the Temptations of Jesus, one can discern, overtime, that the issue of the Temptations boils down to the question about the fulfillment of the human heart. What really satisfies the human heart? Wealth (bread), Power (Temple Pinnacle/the cities of the world)? I believe that to understand Jesus’ resistance to the seductive offers of Satan provides the definitive response to the central question of the difference that Jesus makes in our lives today. And a proper understanding of this question possesses a historical pedigree to it, namely, engaging Jesus’ identity and uniqueness from the living faith of Israel, specifically with the figure and mission of Moses.

With Moses at the helm, Israel left Egypt for the promised land. What shaped this journey in large measure was the sense of hope, for a promised land that would meet the aspirations and yearnings of Israel. The particular issues and demands met by manna and other nutritional and safety needs embodied the need for hope in an otherwise hopeless context. The question of difference Jesus makes appears in an antecedent format at this point: What difference does the God of Israel make, to the people of Israel? In a sense, the yearnings of Israel’s heart is captured in the request Moses makes to Yahweh: Show me your face. Some translations render  it as show me your glory (Exodus 33:18). God strikes a compromise with Moses that from the angle of a retrospective reading, lays the foundation for the difference that the coming of Christ makes in history. Moses will still have the privilege and joy of encountering, somewhat, the beatific vision while still on this side of human existence, that is, the Back of God, but no more, for the human being cannot see the face of God and live (Exodus 33:20). In the event of Moses, the light of faith (lumen fidei) and the light of glory (lumen gloriae) converge, a rarity, because the light of faith is meant to accompany us in this earthly life, while the light of glory is what enables us to see God in the next life. As I think further about this mysterious text of Exodus 33, this interpretation already much present especially in Eastern Theology occurs to me: the light of faith could correspond to the Back of God, and the light of glory, the Face of God, to the extent that only in followership/discipleship captured in the image of the back, would one eventually arrive at the longing that moves or drives the human heart, captured in the image of the face. From this incident of Moses, there emerged, in the consciousness of Israel’s faith and later on taken up in Christian mysticism, the theology of the Face of God as the fulfilment of the greatest longing of the human heart, as we see in the lives of the saints and Doctors of the Church.

Let’s remain a little bit more with the figure of Moses and the images of the Back and Face of God. In his The Life of Moses, St. Gregory of Nyssa offers a truly moving Christological  reading of this mystical event as narrated in the Book of Deuteronomy. Gregory asks:

What is his back which God promised to Moses when he asked to see him face-to-face? (…) But when the Lord who spoke to Moses came to fulfill his own law, he likewise gave a clear explanation to his disciples, laying bare the meaning of what had previously been said in a figure when he said, ‘if anyone wants to be a follower of mine.’ And to the one asking about eternal life he proposed the same thing, for he said, ‘Come, follow me’ (18:22). Now, he who follows sees the back. So, Moses, who eagerly seeks to behold God, is now taught how he can behold him: to follow God where ever he might lead is to behold God. His passing by signifies his guiding the one who follows, for someone who does not know the way cannot complete his journey safely in any other way than by following behind his guide. HE who leads, then, by his guidance shows the way to the one following. He who follows will not turn aside from the right way if he always keeps the back of his leader in view. (Gregory of Nyssa, The Life of Moses, HarperCollins Publishers, 2006), 106 & 110.

Some spiritual insights from this engagement between Moses and God:

Firstly, as Aquinas beautifully expresses it – and as many Christians likewise get a glimpse of it particularly during moments of prayer, – only God can satisfy the human heart – Nil Nisi Te Domine. Augustine had said it best centuries before Aquinas: You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until it rest in Thee.

Secondly, notwithstanding all the material blessings that come our way in this life, there remains that longing that nothing corporeal is capable of filling. There is a void, what the French philosopher Maurice Blondel trenchantly characterizes as the wedge between the willed will and the willing will, in his philosophy of action.

Thirdly, because this quest for God is in the DNA of the human being, we are somewhat impatient for the beatific vision, for what Aquinas calls the light of glory. Even in this life, which is guided by the light of faith, we want to have the fullness that the light of glory brings with it. And this is quite understandable, for who wants to live with half measures?

But even more, we cannot deny that our brokenness and sinfulness, what Blaise Pascal calls our wretchedness, is likewise a motivation for our desire for the fullness that comes with the light of glory, the Face of God. I love Dante’s DivineComedy precisely because sin is not presented in a despairing form, but as a starting point for the journey to the Face of God, as the soul moves from the Inferno through the Purgatorio and finally, Paradiso. Too often, Christians get chained in the melancholy of their sinful past and present, forgetting to realize that our sins, my own sins as Maurice, is really the raw material that God uses to place me on the journey towards Him.

And this is the context in which Jesus Christ enters the scene, making all the difference, as particularly captured in the dual dynamisms of Deuteronomy 18 and Matthew 17. (To be continued…)

By Maurice Agbaw-Ebai

Port of Douala says its partnership with Port of Antwerp is the most beneficial

21, June 2023

Port of Douala says its partnership with Port of Antwerp is the most beneficial 0

The partnership with the Dutch port of Antwerp is the most beneficial that the port of Douala has. This was stated by the Douala Autonomous Port (PAD), the State company that manages the eponymous port.

The PAD made the statement in a technical note issued on the sidelines of a mission of Antwerp port officials to Douala, Cameroon’s economic capital. The mission began on June 19, 2023.

“To date, the collaboration has yielded 14 capacity-strengthening grants for PAD employees and a project supporting the establishment of a port-related professions training center,” the note reads.

The visit aims to renew the partnership between the two ports with an enhanced focus on accelerating the modernization of the port of Douala. Throughout the mission, “the PAD will outline its requirements for the development of specific economic zones at the Douala port, towards implementing the principles of an industrial-port complex”.

Besides the Douala port, the Port of Antwerp works in partnership with the deep-water port of Kribi, southern Cameroon. “The Autonomous Port of Kribi (PAK) and the Port of Antwerp have been diligently formulating a new, more ambitious agreement that covers a broader range of activities and better aligns with the Port of Kribi’s challenges,” said Patrice Melom, Director General of PAK, on July 1, 2021.

According to Melom, the PAK’s challenges include “increasing its reception capabilities and operational performances, making its industrial zone more appealing to foster value and traffic generating logistical and transformational activities; improving accessibility and connectivity with the hinterland; and ensuring harmonious integration into its environment through sustainable and inclusive development of its zone of influence.”

Source: Business in Cameroon

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Bill passed to recognise English and French as two sub-systems

21, June 2023

Southern Cameroons Crisis: Bill passed to recognise English and French as two sub-systems 0

Cameroon’s Parliament has approved a higher education reform bill aimed at modernising and improving the quality of university education – and, significantly, it will officially recognise the two sub-systems of public university education in the country – one English, and one French.

According to officials, two key reforms the new legislation envisages include the strengthening of the economic autonomy of universities and addressing the challenge of having a public system in which nine institutions are francophone and two are anglophone.

“The higher education system used this far was developed since 2001. After 22 years, things have evolved in university programmes. That is why we had to introduce some innovations. There was also a need to address the concerns of the English sub-system of education,” said Wilfred Gabsa Nyongbet, secretary general in the ministry of higher education.

The 2001 higher education law and the 1998 law to lay down guidelines on education in Cameroon (which covers early childhood, primary, secondary, technical, and teacher training education) existed, he said, after the bill was defended in parliament on 16 June.

Recognising two sub-systems

Article 4(3) of the 2023 Higher Education legislation now provides that “the state shall ordain and organise the system of higher education by taking into account the specificities of the two education sub-systems, Anglo-Saxon and francophone, as a contributing ingredient to the influence and performance of the higher education system”.

Each sub-system, according to the lawmakers, is “characterised by a body of specific and cohesive principles, which reflect its historical, cultural and philosophical peculiarities”.

According to Professor Simo Bobda of the University of Yaoundé 1, there has been no recognition of the existence of two education sub-systems in higher education (universities) in Cameroon prior to the bill.

By contrast, as far back as 1998, the law that governs the other tiers of education (primary, secondary, teacher training) had already explicitly recognised that Cameroon had two education sub-systems, each preserving specificities in its certification and assessment methods (as well as in pedagogic approaches), he explained.

Prior to the June 2023 bill, the only texts which recognised the existence of sub-systems in higher education were the decrees establishing the universities of Buea and of Bamenda (in 1993 and 2010 respectively) which chartered them as universities “in the Anglo-Saxon tradition”.

Language division contributes to conflict

Only on the basis of this provision was it obtained that English would constitute the language of instruction in both universities, for all substantive programmes other than French language learning. He said that injustice and discrimination, especially in the higher education sector, has proved a flashpoint in the ongoing anglophone crisis.

“This discrimination has been one of the causes of Cameroon’s anglophone crisis, which started off in the education and legal sectors before spiralling into political demands, strikes and armed activity in 2016,” Bobda said.

The anglophone crisis running for its seventh year is a source of turmoil in the two English-speaking regions of the Southwest and Northwest with armed groups and government forces in continuous battle.

Separatists, who have violently enforced a boycott on education since 2017, continued to attack schools, students and education professionals, destroying buildings and depriving hundreds of thousands of children of their fundamental right to education, according to a Human Rights Watch 2023 report.

He added that the fact that the recognition of the two systems and the recognition of common law as the legal system in anglophone regions built up resentment among Anglo-Saxon higher education lecturers, leading to a public protest in 2017.

“We had to go to the streets in protest, especially after the union got information of plans to harmonise the two curricula of all state universities in Cameroon. The reason the government advanced, was to enhance student mobility between universities,” he said.

The lecturers’ union at the universities of Buea and Bamenda objected, on grounds that harmonising their programmes directly with the other French-speaking universities would dilute their Anglo-Saxon specificities, especially since the templates for harmonisation used were strongly inspired by the French-dominant universities, Bobda said.

“After a hard struggle, we obtained the resolution to allow the universities of Buea and Bamenda to harmonise their programmes between themselves (and future universities in the Anglo-Saxon tradition could harmonise their programmes within them). We are happy the new law now comes to lay to rest the long-existing discrimination,” Bobda said.

Protection of both sub-systems

Experts say the new law will protect the Anglo-Saxon system of education from abuse just as the reforms that recognised the common law did in the legal system.

“Before the crisis, we had cases of French-speaking lecturers sent to teach in the two English-speaking universities, French-speaking magistrates who could not express themselves in English were sent to work in the anglophone regions, with challenges in communication.

The new law will protect each of the systems and prevent any unwarranted invasion or dominance of one language over the other,” Dr Livinus Esambe Njume, a lecturer and a member of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative Cameroon, told University World News.

Another key innovation in the June 2023 higher education reforms is the creation of entrepreneurial universities. The new law permits universities to create and run their own businesses.

“The government cannot do it all alone with the surge in university population and unemployment challenges. Building en entrepreneurial spirit in our universities provides opportunities for additional sources of income for them,” Jacques Fame Ndongo, the minister of higher education, explained after defending the bill in parliament.

Fame Ndongo said innovation in higher education is a continuous process that must reflect the realities of every country. “Higher education reforms are the key to quality growth. We are permanently in this process, moving at a pace that reflects the realities of the country,” he said.

Source: University World News

Cough syrup suspected of killing 12 kids in Cameroon might be Made in India

20, June 2023

Cough syrup suspected of killing 12 kids in Cameroon might be Made in India 0

A variety of cough syrup suspected by Cameroonian authorities of killing a dozen children in the central African country in recent months bears markings indicating it was made in India.

Photographs of a box of Naturcold medication show a manufacturing license number matching that of Riemann Labs Pvt. Ltd., based in Indore in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. The photos, provided by Eko Eko Filbert, a regional health official in Cameroon, don’t show a manufacturer’s name.

The drugs in the photo “look like ours,” said a director at Riemann, Navin Bhatia, in a phone interview. He said Riemann follows strict quality controls and couldn’t have made tainted medicine, and that counterfeiting is common.

The revelation raises the prospect of a third mass death event linked to exported Indian cough syrups in less than a year. Medicines from two other Indian companies killed more than 60 children in Gambia and about 20 in Uzbekistan last year. In those cases, the syrup medications were found to have been contaminated with two toxic chemicals, ethylene glycol and diethylene glycol. Two more Indian companies are suspected of making similarly tainted syrups found in Liberia and in the Marshall Island.

“Based on your questions, we have sent a team to investigate and we are waiting for the reports,” an official at the Madhya Pradesh Food and Drugs Administration told Bloomberg.

The Cameroonian authorities are still investigating the cause of the outbreak and plan to test the Naturcold samples connected to the deaths, Filbert said in a text message on June 5. The death toll stood at 12 children as of that date, he said.

Filbert said the medicine was not authorized to be imported into Cameroon and was probably smuggled into the country. He said authorities don’t have information about the drugs’ origin.

According to the product label visible in the photos, the bottle of cough syrup was made in March 2022. It bears the name and logo of Fraken International, a marketing company with a UK address. Attempts to reach people at that address by email and LinkedIn messages were unsuccessful.

Bhatia said that Riemann last produced a batch of Naturcold under contract for Fraken in early 2022 and provided it to an exporter who reported sending it to Cameroon. Riemann is one of several Indian companies that have made the product, he said.

Propylene glycol and glycerin are key raw materials for syrups. Riemann buys these chemicals only in sealed containers from name-brand manufacturers, and then hires a third-party lab to test them prior to use, Bhatia said.

“We pay extra attention to quality,” he said. “Everything is done to ensure safety.”

Duplicacy, a term for when a drug is disguised to look like another company’s product, is common in some parts of Africa, Bhatia said.

“They look like ours, but we cannot be sure. There is so much duplicacy there. Based on the quality of our product, it is doubtful,” he said. “I am 110% sure that my product is not contaminated — what we sent from here.”

Culled from Bloomberg

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