just a thought

Anyone ever consider the the recent (ie past few days) drop i share price might be connected with the current situation in Cameroon?


http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iG8xiu5ZfwzCyRsPQqEJtuuAAm-g

Cameroon clashes claim more lives

12 hours ago

DOUALA, Cameroon (AFP) — Renewed violence broke out Wednesday in Cameroon, where eight were reported killed in the western town of Njombe and President Paul Biya accused rioters of trying to topple him.

The latest reports of violence bring the death toll to 17 since an opposition protest in the economic capital Douala on Saturday, according to an AFP tally, but unconfirmed reports put the figure much higher.

Opposition protests against a proposal to change the constitution to enable Biya to run for office again in 2011 have dovetailed with a strike by taxi drivers that began on Monday to protest about the price of fuel.

In a televised address, Biya said the unrest was the result of an orchestrated campaign by "apprentice sorcerers" who wanted to topple him and had led to a "probably very heavy" human and material losses.

"For some ... the objective is to obtain by violence what they have not achieved through the ballot box," Biya said on state television.

"What we're looking at here is the exploitation (...) of the transport strike for political ends," he added, denouncing, without naming "the apprentice sorcerers in the shadows."

National radio reported Wednesday that unions representing transport workers had won a small cut in petrol prices and had called off the strike they launched on Monday.

Eric Kingue, a member of the ruling Cameroon People's Democratic Rally, told private Canal 2 television that two people were killed on Wednesday morning in Njombe and six others died on Tuesday night in Loum, further north.

Witnesses reported further clashes between protestors and riot police in several districts of the western port city of Douala, the central African country's economic capital.

"What's happening in Cameroon has nothing to do with a simple strike against a rise in fuel prices," Joshua Osih, vice-president of the opposition Social Democratic Front (SDF), said Wednesday.

"It's the expression of multiple frustrations among the Cameroonian people. The trouble runs deep," Osih added, pointing out that most of those engaged in vandalism were unemployed people under 30.

Douala authorities in mid-January banned rallies and demonstrations in the city because of political opposition to a constitutional change Biya wants that would enable him to run for another term of office.

Biya, 75, has been in power since 1982, with the opposition, spearheaded by veteran John Fru Ndi and his SDF, accusing his government and ruling party of plunging the country into corruption and poverty.

The head of state's intentions remained unclear until early January, when he said that a current constitutional bar on a third elected presidential term "sits badly with the very idea of democratic choice."

Protest banners carried in several towns since have combined protests at the cost of living with calls for Biya's resignation.

The Roman Catholic archbishop of Yaounde, Christian Tumi, called for an end to the unrest on Wednesday, after trouble spread to the capital.

Gunfire again broke out in the Bonaberi district of Douala, a stronghold of opposition to Biya, as riot police took up positions on the main bridge over the Wouri river in the city, where streets were empty of traffic.

Witnesses said that the police on the bridge turned water cannon on protesters there and some people fell into the river.

There were also reports of gunfire and columns of smoke in the southwestern town of Buea.

In Yaounde, after a tense night, traffic reappeared in the morning but ground to a halt later, as bands of vandals roamed the streets and petrol stations remained closed for fear of attacks, an AFP correspondent noted.

One witness said that rioters burned a bus.

"Shops and stores are closed. Everybody's trying to get home," a Yaounde resident told AFP.