Cameroon

Sarkozy, Paul Biya and his silly wife

2009-10-29T15:18:00.000-07:00

I dislike the man intensely. He spends most of his time in Switzerland. Biya is utterly useless and the only power that keeps him on the throne is France.

Wicked domain that generates Cash

2006-12-20T16:08:00.000-08:00

Wickedly brilliant!

Cameroon seems to have discovered a path to riches, by capitalizing on the fact that millions of people each day forget to type the ‘O’ in ‘.com’. You see .cm is Cameroon’s internet domain or top level domain (tld), and they have decided to point all those spelling mistakes straight to the bank ($$$). Here are a few good examples:

www.microsoft.cm
www.google.cm
www.bbc.cm

As of this writing, the above links point to a site hosted by ‘agoga.com’ that has Ad driven links targeting travel, shopping, cars etc. The ads are less conspicuous on links with names owned by bigger companies that might take all this to offense.
Domains belonging to those without high profile lawyers (like me for instance), have their sites redirected somewhere else…

Camtel, the company that runs this tld for Cameroon has outsourced the management of this revenue generator to a seemingly clandestine operation that can be traced back to Vancouver. This whole thing really stinks… but I have to hand it to whoever came up with the idea for being wickedly brilliant.

Great article as written by another blogger, called let me check again..

Smuggled Gorillas are not yet returned to Cameroon

2006-12-12T07:08:00.000-08:00

Years of dispute over the gorillas' return to Cameroon from Malaysia — lobbied for by, among others, the Born Free Foundation and the Last Great Ape Organisation ended in dissapointment because of red tape. The 'Taiping Four' western lowland gorillas were sent to the Pretoria zoo in South Africa in 2004 at the request of Malaysia, which confiscated them in 2002 after discovering they had been illegally imported to its Taiping zoo from Nigeria. Some groups have argued that the animals will be safer in South Africa than Cameroon, where they will be protected from poachers who might hunt them for meat.

The languages of Cameroon and China - scratch your head

2006-12-11T04:12:00.000-08:00

It is quite incredible that on an area not larger than California 247 distinct languages could be spoken, but this is the case in Cameroon 247 indigenous languages, one so-called lingua franca ( def. any language widely used beyond the population of its native speakers is 'Cameroon Pidgin or Contact English' only spoken in West Cameroon) and two administrative languages (English and French) are spoken by 17 million people. This compares with 400 Chinese dialects spken by 1.3 billion Chinese people. Mind blowing.

Definition of Pidgin: A pidgin, or contact language, is the name given to any language created, usually spontaneously, out of a mixture of other languages as a means of communication between speakers of different tongues

The CIA, Oil and Cameroon

2006-12-08T07:33:00.000-08:00

According to the CIA fact book Cameroon procudes 82,300 bbl per day (bbl = abbreviation for barrel, one barrel equals 42 US gallons or approximately 159 litres) and consumes 23,000 per day. This means that approximately 59,300 per day goes into reserve. Almost 18 mio bbl per year. Now let's calculate quickly 1bbl of crude oil today is sold at around $62 per barrel. This means that the country could have gotten $1,260,000,000 in April 2006 when the prices climbed to above $70 today for last years reserve. And again according to the CIA, Cameroon has in fact 85 mio bbl deposited, meaning the country could get 5,270,000,000 more than £5 billion dollars today. Hmm, makes me wonder.
CIA fact book on Cameroon:
Cameroon produces 82,300 bbl per day (2005 est.)
Oil - consumption:
23,000 bbl/day (2001 est.)
Oil - exports:
NA bbl/day
Oil - imports:
NA bbl/day
Oil - proved reserves:
85 million bbl (2005 est.)
Pipelines:
oil 1,107 km (2006)
More on the oil interest of the US and China in Cameroon in tomorrows blog

Why the Oil reserves in the Gulf of Guinea are the cause that the political course of the US is changing towards Iraq

2006-12-07T11:07:00.000-08:00

Not a lot of people know that Africa's oil/gas resources are concentrated in the area of the Gulf of Guinea. Nor do a lot of people know that the main oil-producing area of this region is in the sea, far removed from the center of political and other conflicts.
This means oil production is relatively safe, in addition the quality of the oil is higher because as it contains less sulfur. The advantages don't end here, the low transport cost compared to the Caspian Sea and the Middle East from this region to the US are considered ideal.
Reports say that 7 billion barrels of the globe's newly proven deposit of 8 billion barrels of crude oil in 2001 are produced in the region of the Gulf of Guinea.
Does anyone know that Exxon, Chervron and other companies have invested US$3.7 billion, the largest US investment in Africa to date, in building an oil pipeline leading from Chad to Cameroon?
The reason why murderers like the president of Equatorial-Guinea Obiang are invited to the White House is because of the oil resources before the coast.
And this is why China, which holds 40% of the oil resources in Sudan, shrug their shoulders when accused by the US to ignore the murdering of black Sudanese by Arab Sudanese.

I should add that the US is the largest oil consumption country in today's world, its average daily oil consumption accounts for almost one-third of the world total consumption. Absolutely crazy, this looks to me like ascramble over resources between China and the US.

Gallup poll of corrupt countries, Cameroon comes in 5th

2006-12-06T06:23:00.000-08:00

The Gallup corruption index was based on responses from adults in 101 countries. Over the course of the last year, respondents were asked two questions: Is corruption widespread throughout the government in your country? Is corruption widespread within businesses located in your country?
One should add that people have different definitions of corruption. What is considered corrupt in one country is considered rather normal in another. A recent poll in Russia suggested that 44 per cent of Russians consider some form of bribing acceptable. Poland, which joined the European Union in 2004, was ranked as the second most corrupt country by its own citizens. 89 per cent of Poles said they believed corruption was widespread in the former national government.
Lithuania emerged as the country perceived to be most corrupt, followed by Poland, Lebanon, Thailand, Cameroon, Ukraine and Russia. Nigeria, an African country with rampant corruption, ranked 75 out of 101 countries. Who would have thought that Cameroon ranks before Nigeria : ) ?

Yesterday was World Aids Day

2006-12-02T08:52:00.000-08:00

I do hope that this disease will be entirely eradicated pretty soon. 25 years is just too long.

Cameroon HiV and Aids

2006-11-30T08:09:00.000-08:00

In the run-up to World Aids Day, I will be writing a little bit more about my personal approach and findings regarding HIV and Aids in Cameroon. As is widely known there are two types of HIV, HIV-1 and HIV-2, both have quite a number of subtypes. Interestingly HIV-2 is mostly concentrated in West Africa. It is more difficult to transmit, one of it's subtypes has been first found in Cameroon. The transmission amongst heterosexuals is through mucous (sperm), whereas transmission via blood is generally concentrated within drug users and homosexuals. You can work out for yourself how that's possible. During my visit to the country, I heard that literally every family in Cameroon has at least one member that is affected by the virus. More tomorrow.

The US and Cameroon

2006-11-29T05:07:00.000-08:00

In the brief time we visited the country we had the chance to see one of the new busses introduced to the capital, which was built by the private company Transnational Automotive Group of Nevada.The new urban bus system called LeBus, was launched in the capital city, Yaounde'. 13 bus lines are planned for Yaounde. TAUG hopes to become a leading provider of transportation management and vehicle sales in the developing world. We'll see I guess.

Le Chine and Cameroon

2006-11-28T05:27:00.000-08:00

It seems as if China has well and truly arrived in Cameroon. The reason being is to shore up resources for their own country and to supply an infrastructure in other countries which will guarantee a future business partner. To the shock and horror of Cameroonians the Chinese are even selling the national take-away sweet called 'beignet' in Douala. Beignets are small donuts that are typically sold by street vendors on every corner. The streets were packed with motorbikes called 'Nafang' which were manufactured in China. I heard the rumour that for the lack of women in China the Chinese are going elsewhere to procreate. Doesn't that sound like standard nationalistic tripe? At the same time, there aren't a lot of women in China, haha. The mobile phone business is also thriving, it appears that most cheap handsets are bought in Dubai.

Arriving in Yaounde

2006-11-27T06:42:00.000-08:00

Yaounde like any other capital has its better and lesser areas. So-called quartiers that are considered not particularly great, were quite enjoyable I thought, blaring music from every corner. Then again I don't mind noise that much, I liked it. On the other hand there are quiter places with high walls surrounding gardens where the rich people are living, of which Bastos seems the most popular! It is probably in the long run the best option to live if you are thinking of living in Yaounde for a while. This is also the area where the embassies are concentrated.

Airlines flying to Cameroon

2006-11-26T04:32:00.000-08:00

After getting over the initial hurdles of preparing, getting American Express cheques from the Post Office (alternatively send money via Western Union in advance) as the currency there is CFA which can NOT be bought in advance at your regular Thomas Cook travel agent, I could finally start early in the morning from London Heathrow.
Direct flights to the Cameroon from Europe tend to go either from Brussels or Paris. I flew from London with British Airways to Brussels where I had a connection flight with SN Brussels to Yaounde. Air France and Cameroon Airlines fly from Paris. Air Afrique flies into Cameroon via Abidjan. KLM Airlines and Air Kenya have joint flights via Nairobi. My flight from Brussels took a mere 6.5 hrs, and there was just a one hour time difference from the UK . Cameroon is in the same time zone as Brussels. Economy class tickets cost between £400 to £600 or around 900 Euros, business class around £1500..

Jumping through hoops to get a Visa

2006-11-25T07:28:00.000-08:00

It's not as easy to get a Visa from the UK to the Cameroon as one might hope. A country that lacks any industry of note (does that remind you of the UK?) should look at putting few obstacles in the way of Tourism I thought. My suggestion is to simplify the Visa procedure.

Currently there is the Cameroonian High Comission in Holland Park, London, UK standing squarely between the holiday maker and Cameroon. The process of getting a Visa is okay if you are either well prepared or you live in London. It is possible to get a Visa within two working days, but beware of the pitfalls most first time visitors fall into. I witnessed three baffled would-be tourists including myself when I waited for my Visa. Without an invitation to the country or a hotel booking you will be scolded by the woman who checks your application and then sent away like a little child. The costs for a three months Visa stand currently at £59 (too expensive). A Yellow Fever vaccination is required, should you forget it, you'll be taken aside by a medic on arrival at the airport and vaccinated there and then. Go to a vaccination clinic or your GP for it, some travel agencies like STA travel offer it as well.

Room For Improvements to invite Tourism: Drop the request for an invitation, drop the price for the Visa. Why is it not possible to get a Visa on arrival?

Cameroon, Kamerun, Cameroun

2006-11-24T01:53:00.000-08:00

I am interested in contributions about anything relating to Cameroon. Send pictures, content, travel destinations within the country, hotels, restaurants. Send political comments as well if you like.