The Poverty Related Diseases College coordinated by the University of Yaounde I is pleased to announce its first call for the International advanced Training Programme in Biomedicine and Development. The programme bridges the gap between the biological sciences, health and development in Africa by training scientists to perform research on diseases such as HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis and applying it to sustainable development. The deadline for applications is November 15th, 2009.

Cholera has killed at least 51 people in the past few weeks in northern Cameroon, where health experts say safe water and proper sanitation are sorely lacking. “[The fight against cholera] here will be difficult because the hygiene conditions are awful,” said a health official who was not authorized to be quoted. He noted that most people defecate in open areas.

Panic has gripped the Far North Region of Cameroon after five people died of what has been reported to be cholera. A cholera epidemic was recently reported in Mayo Tsanaga division in the Far North Region of the country. The outbreak first reported on 2 September 2009 has now spread to Mayor Sawa Division still in the Far North region.

Crouched on a low wooden stool in front of his mud hut in the village of Pangar, Alain Selembe puffs away at his clay pipe, his gaze lost in the surrounding forest, quite oblivious to the noise made by his two playing daughters. All he hears is the rumbling of bulldozers opening up a 30 kilometre road from Deng Deng village to the confluence of the Lom and Pangar rivers, where the government plans to construct a new dam.

Gay rights organisations in Cameroon have accused the country’s Catholic Church and the media of deliberately causing confusion about the Maputo Protocol with the intention to influence the public to have negative attitudes towards homosexuality. This comes after Cameroonian President Paul Biya ratified the Maputo Protocol, known in full as, the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights of Women in Africa, during the sixth anniversary of the Maputo Protocol on 11 July this year.

A gay rights group in Cameroon is calling on the justice department to immediately drop charges against and release Yves Noe Ewane, arrested in May this year, allegedly for being gay. Ewane was charged under sections 74 for criminal intention, 346 for gross indecency and 347 for homosexual conduct under the Cameroonian Penal Code, following a complaint filed against him by the mother of a supposed minor who accused Ewane of having sexual relations with his son.

Talk openly about rape. That is the gist of a new campaign in Cameroon, where according to a study an estimated 432,000 women and girls have been raped in the past 20 years. Some 200 rape survivors gathered on 28 May in the capital Yaoundé, several of the women and girls telling their stories during the campaign’s opening ceremony.

The rural poor across Cameroon are set to receive a cash injection of close to $14 million from the United Nations in an effort to reduce poverty, increase income and improve livelihoods. The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) will support the Rural Microfinance Development project in the West African country with a $13.5 million loan and $200,000 grant.

The first ever telemedicine centre in Cameroon has gone operational. Known as Genesis Telecare, it was inaugurated in Yaounde by the Secretary General in the Ministry of Public Health, Professor Fru Angwafor III. Prof. Fru Angwafor III said the initiative is a major step towards reducing longstanding problems in the health sector. Telemedicine provides a timely remedy to the numerous difficulties encountered by medical practitioners and patients, he noted.

Chinese officials plan to open a malaria research center in the Cameroonian capital of Yaounde, Shen Yi, a Chinese embassy official, said recently ahead of an opening ceremony for the center, Xinhuanet reports. The center is expected to cost three million Chinese yuan, or about $440,000, Xinhuanet reports. China also plans to send four malaria experts to Cameroon for 50 days, Shen said. Shen added that China sends a team of malaria experts to Cameroon annually but that the team plans to work with a Cameroonian team this year to share China's experience in controlling the disease.

Authorities in Cameroon have arrested 25 separatist activists from a movement that has called for independence for the former French colony’s English-speaking minority, the group and police said on Tuesday. The Southern Cameroon National Council (SCNC) said the activists were arrested in Tiko, 50 km (30 miles) west of the southern city of Douala, where they went to support a colleague standing trial for holding an illegal meeting last October.

A telemedicine programme will start in Cameroon this month in partnership with several international institutions, including UNESCO, the main promoter of the project, Cameroonian scientist and economist, Jacques Bonjawo, has said. Telemedicine is a rapidly developing application of clinical medicine where medical information is transferred via telephone, the Internet or other networks.

The human rights group, Amnesty International, says security forces in Cameroon routinely use force to put down anti-government protests. Political opposition was not tolerated in Cameroon, Amnesty's deputy Africa director, Tawanda Hondora, said. Dissent was suppressed by violence or abuse of the legal system, he said.

Reporters Without Borders today condemned a three-year prison sentence handed down to Lewis Medjo, managing editor of the weekly La Détente libre, and urged the authorities to allow him bail. He has been in Douala central prison in the west of the country since 22 September 2008.

Indian engineering firm Angelique International will build two hydro power plants in Cameroon as part of a 125 billion CFA francs ($251.5 million) aid deal, the central African country said late on Tuesday. State-owned Export-Import Bank of India will loan the money to Cameroon, the second such deal signed between the Gulf of Guinea nation and Angelique in the past two months.

Measles outbreak has hit the town of Maroua in northern Cameroon, leaving two dead and over 160 infected. Medical officials in the town are on high alert to abate the progress of what they now refer to as an epidemic.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has welcomed the signing last November of the Collective Bargaining Agreement for journalists and media workers in Cameroon. In a letter to the Prime Ministre of Cameroon on Wednesday, the IFJ expressed "confidence that the implementation of the agreement will contribute to the professionalisation of the media sector and to the promotion of ethics in the media in Cameroon."

Cameroon has budgeted $309 million for the military in 2009 and $105 million for the president’s office and services to the presidency, compared with $106 million for agriculture, which employs 70 percent of its people… In smaller villages, such as Mvomeka’a in the South Province, most Cameroonians live in shacks made of mud bricks and sticks. Only 20 percent of Cameroon’s households have electricity.

This April, Cameroon adopted an amendment to its constitution that eliminated term limits for the President, as well as granted him immunity for any acts committed while in office. No one was smiling more prettily than President Paul Biya, who at 75 has been in office for 26 years and is seeking re-election in 2011. But one of the country's best-known singers, Lapiro de Mbanga, wasn't happy about it, so he voiced his disillusion in song.

On 24 September, almost six months after his arrest and detention, Mbanga (51) was found guilty of taking part in riots against the high cost of living in Cameroon in February and sentenced to three years in prison. The songwriter was convicted of three of the six charges against him: "complicity in looting, destruction of property, arson, obstructing streets, degrading the public or classified property, and forming illegal gatherings".