4. Bilingual tensions The Republic of Cameroon is a union of two former United Nations trust territories—French Cameroun, which became independent in 1960, and southern British Cameroons, which joined it after a 1961 UN-sponsored referendum. English and French are both official languages, but there is growing tension between the country's five million English speakers and the government.
5. Climagraph The south is hot and dry between November and February. The main rainy season is from July to October. On the Adamaoua Plateau, temperatures drop sharply at night; the rainy season is from May to October. Grassland areas inland are much cooler than the coast with regular rainfall.
6. Fishing is a major industry in Cameroon. Portuguese explorers in the 15 th century found prawns in such abundance that they named the area Rio dos Camarões ("River of Prawns"), the name from which Cameroon derives.
8. Cameroon Volcanic Line This CVL to which belongs Mt. Cameroon extends more than 1600 kms and is formed of an alignment of volcanoes. Natural phenomenon recorded along the CVL had been the release of toxic gas in lakes Monoun and Nyos that, respectively in 1984 and 1986, killed 37 and 1746 people.
9. Mt. Cameroon at sunset from Douala This stratovolcanic edifice on the west coast of Africa, rises directly from sea level to over 13000 ft (4000 m). Large lava flows often erupt from fissures in the summit region and on the flanks, endangering base villages.
10. Mount Cameroon and Bioko montane forests Unique plant and animal species can be found on the slopes of recently erupted volcanoes such as Mount Cameroon and St. Isobel.
13. Lake Nyos Very rarely, CO 2 /CO is emitted from volcanoes in high enough concentrations to kill people by asphyxiation. The sudden overturn of Lake Nyos, Cameroon, partially occupying a volcanic caldera, released a CO 2 cloud of gas that settled in nearby villages, killing 1746 people.
14. Deforestation Greenpeace activists paint 'Ancient-Forest-Crime ' on tropical wood from Cameroon at the Midgard harbor in Nordenham. Cameroonian authorities and environmentalists warned that Africa's second largest forestland faces being wiped out if illegal logging and quota-busting are not brought under control. (AFP/DPA/File)
17. U. S. Ambassador Colin Powell meets with Cameroon’s President Paul Biya
18. Chantal Biya Chantal Biya was just 23 when she became President Biya's second wife in 1994. He (38 years her senior and now 76) had already been Cameroon's president for 12 years and even now is showing little sign of giving up the job.
22. Sports Cameroonian triple jump champion, Francoise Mbango Etone, won the Olympic gold medal in her discipline with the second-longest jump in history – 15.39 meters – just 11 centimeters off the world record. This was Mbango’s second consecutive Olympic gold medal. National team mascot
24. Mutual Health Organizations Cameroon, known as "Africa in miniature" because of its geological and cultural diversity, is in particular need of MHOs because most Cameroonians live in poverty as subsistence farmers and have very limited physical and financial access to health care. Photo: Abt Associates/Abdoulaye BaWomen in Bangwa, gather to launch a community MHO. USAID is helping communities find affordable health care options through a novel approach to health insurance.
26. Premium Cigars The Cameroon wrapper is originally from the Sumatran black tobacco plant. Grown in Central Africa, the climate is so temperate, that the plants are completely sun grown, which is made even easier by semi-permanent cloud cover which help keep uniformity in the leaf’s appearance.
