country:cameroon

  • The #Fairtrade Façade « (ou l’arnaque du #chocolat équitable)
    http://fairreporters.net/2012/12/18/comment-the-fairtrade-facade

    cocoa growers participating in Fairtrade programs in Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroon and Côte d’Ivoire see little of the additional money paid by Western consumers for Fairtrade certified chocolate. They are left in the dark about world market prices by the Fairtrade cooperatives meant to inform them of such things. For many, the membership fees they must pay to participate outpace the premiums they can earn.

    In #Côte_d’Ivoire and #Ghana, Fairtrade has become linked with the “cocoa mafia” and the historically corrupt state Cocoa Board, respectively. When FAIR team member Selay Kouassi first attemped to report that story, he was threatened and eventually forced to go into hiding. All this suggests that Fairtrade is not just ineffective; rather, it has been subjected to and complicated by the realities of the post-colonial African economy, namely elite dominance and the inability of the state to fully establish a legitimate monopoly on violence.

    But the report’s most damning finding is that, of everyone involved with the Fairtrade program, Fairtrade itself walks away with most of the money. In the Netherlands, for example, for each chocolate bar sold for $2.50, Fairtrade earns about six cents of the fair trade premium. West African cocoa farmers, on the other hand, earn only 2.5 cents.

    http://fairreporters.net/2012/11/14/the-fairtrade-rip-off
    http://fairreporters.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/the-fairtrade-chocolate-ripoff-investigation-20122.pd

    #cacao #commerce_équitable

  • Second Committee Approves Text Demanding End to Israel’s Exploitation of Natural Resources in Occupied Arab Lands
    http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2012/gaef3357.doc.htm

    In other action today, the Committee approved — by a recorded vote of 152 in favour to 7 against (Australia, Canada, Federated States of Micronesia, Israel, Marshall Islands, Nauru, United States), with 3 abstentions (Cameroon, Colombia, Panama) — a draft resolution titled “Oil slick on Lebanese shores”.

    By its terms, the Assembly would reiterate, for the seventh consecutive year, its deep concern over the destruction by the Israeli Air Force of oil storage tanks near Lebanon’s El-Jiyeh electric power plant due to its adverse implications for sustainable development in that country. By other terms, the Assembly would request that Israel assume responsibility for paying prompt and adequate compensation to Lebanon and Syria — whose shores had also been partially polluted — which should pay for the cost of restoring the marine environment and repairing environmental damage.

    Following the vote, Israel’s representative said he was disappointed that the Committee had chosen to participate in “this annual ritual”. Year after year, the crucial work of the Committee had been “hijacked” by some delegations driven by narrow political motivations. The text failed to put the 2006 war into context, ignoring the fact that the Hizbullah terrorist organization had been the agitator, having launched rockets across international borders. It also ignored the fact that Hizbullah rockets killed and maimed Israelis, and failed to mention the destruction that those rockets caused in Israel, including damage to endangered fauna and flora caused by forest fires.

  • UN calls for gay rights protection in Cameroon ahead of court appeals
    By Scott Roberts
    16 November 2012, Two of the men were jailed because they drank Baileys

    Two of the men were jailed because they drank Baileys

    The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) is calling on Cameroon to end the enforcement of homophobic laws ahead of an appeal involving three men.

    Addressing a news conference in Geneva on Friday, OHCHR spokesperson Rupert Colville said that the laws breach Cameroon’s international human rights commitments and violates rights to privacy and to freedom from discrimination.

    “While the penal code relates specifically to sexual conduct, we are seriously concerned that it is being applied in a broad-brush way to prosecute many individuals on the basis of their appearance, their mannerisms, style of speech or general conduct,” Mr Colville said.

    In 2011, Jean-Claude Roger Mbede was convicted of suspected homosexual conduct after authorities discovered he had sent a text message to another man that said: “I am very much in love with you.”

    In addition, Jonas Singa Kumie and Franky Djome were convicted on the basis of their appearance, which was perceived as effeminate, and the fact that they had been seen drinking Baileys.

    The pair were arrested in July 2011 in a car outside of a night club in the Cameroonian capital Yaoundé.

    All three men have an appeal hearing next week.

    Earlier this month, two prominent lawyers, who have been helping the men, revealed that they had been on the receiving end of death threats – with warnings also made to their families.

    In response, Mr Colville said: “The government of Cameroon has a duty to end these abuses. It should provide adequate protection to human rights defenders working to protect the rights of LGBT persons.”

  • Six Journalists Win Prestigious Media Awards Geared Towards Improving Reporting on Water, Sanitation and Hygiene | WSSCC
    http://www.wsscc.org/resources/resource-news-archive/six-journalists-win-prestigious-media-awards-geared-towards

    • Alain Tossounon (Benin): “Access to safe water in the town of Ava-Sô, A perilous conquest for survival.” (Accès à l’eau potable dans la commune de Sô-Ava, Une conquête périlleuse pour la survie.)
    http://washjournalists.wordpress.com/2012/03/24/acces-a-leau-potable-dans-la-commune-de-so-ava-une-conque
    • Ngala Killian Chimtom (Cameroon): “The Taps Have Run Dry”
    • Berta Tilmantaite (Lithuania): “The River Runs Back”
    • Francis Odupute (Nigeria): “The Strategists”
    • Francesca de Châtel (Belgium): “Water Around the Mediterranean”
    • Ketan Trivedi (India): “Alchemy of Earning Money through Wastes and Making a Village Clean, Hygienic and Lovely”

    #eau

  • Cameroon : Stop oil palm plantations from destroying Africa’s ancient rainforests
    http://farmlandgrab.org/post/view/20567

    In the southwest region of Cameroon, within a beautiful rainforest, several Indigenous communities are working hard to make their voices heard. Their struggle began in 2011 when the government of Cameroon granted a vast land concession to SG Sustainable Oils, a subsidiary of the New York-based Herakles Farms. What the government overlooked, was that this concession occurred on the homelands of the Oroko, Bakossi, and Upper Bayang peoples in the Ndian, Koupé-Manengouba, and Manyu divisions of Cameroon. Herakles Farms plans to clear and replace 300 square miles of virgin rainforest with mono-culture trees to establish an oil palm plantation. This plantation will have major impacts on approximately 52,000 Indigenous peoples in 88 villages who are dependent on the forest for their livelihoods and way of life.

    The Indigenous Oroko, Bakossi, and Upper Bayang peoples are claiming their legal rights to free, prior and informed consent as enshrined in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. They ask for the voice of the international community to join theirs in urging decision-makers at Herakles to listen. It’s time for the private sector to respect Indigenous Peoples’ rights to free, prior and informed consent.

    Si tu veux écrire à Paul Biya :
    http://www.culturalsurvival.org/take-action/cameroon-stop-oil-palm-plantations-destroying-africas-ancient-rainforests/take-action

    #Terres

  • How a U.S. company is breaking laws and grabbing land in Africa
    http://farmlandgrab.org/post/view/20496

    In recent years, large-scale land acquisitions in sub-Saharan Africa have increasingly attracted the attention of the media, environmental scientists and conservationists. But these acquisitions have come with enormous ecological costs that affect local people by cutting off access to the resources they depend on for their livelihoods.

    The current dispute raging between the American-owned SG Sustainable Oils Cameroon PLC (SGSOC) and the indigenous people of Toko and Nguti, in the southwest region of Cameroon, is an extraordinary case in point.

    #terres #agribusiness

  • Cameroon men arrested for ‘looking feminine’ - PinkNews.co.uk
    http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2011/08/19/cameron-men-arrested-for-looking-feminine

    The lawyer for two men facing trial in Cameroon for homosexuality offences says they were arrested for looking feminine.

    Alice Nkom, speaking to BBC News, said that her clients, aged 19 and 20, were accused of homosexuality because their hair was “dressed like women”.

    #lgtb #homophobie
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