In a demonstration of its openhanded cooperative relationship with the Cangele administration, UpLink International has offered to defray a large portion of the highway’s construction cost with corporate funding. While no specific financial amount has been disclosed, its promised subsidy is rumored to be in excess of $10 million U.S., ensuring that no unfair tax burden will be imposed on residents of Port-Gentil and its surrounding districts.

Shortly before this story went to press, President Cangele was asked about media stories of political opposition to his aggressive backing of the UpLink licenses. “The stories were classic sensationalistic exaggerations,” he told our reporter, adding, “It is praiseworthy that none such accounts appeared in L’Union, our national beacon of journalistic integrity and accuracy.”

The president went on to explain that there has been no significant governmental dispute over the idea that UpLink International represents the nation’s telecommunications future.

“Any divisions that may have emerged concerned minor timing and procedural issues and were settled by brotherly, well-ordered debate,” he said. “My appearance with the foremost members of all our coalition parties will show that, regardless of political or tribal affiliations, the Gabonese people are joined by common principle, and a wish to champion West Africa’s shift from continuous cycles of violence and revolution to progressive, harmonious evolution at the dawn of the twenty-first century.”

From L’Union Online
(limited content English version):

CAMEROONIAN AND CONGOLESE
LAWLESSNESS: WHO IS IN CHARGE NEXT
DOOR?

FRANCEVILLE—Before sunrise on September 25, Abasi Aseme, 64, left his home in the village of Garabinzam accompanied by his three adult sons and several carts packed with furs, ivory, and a modest quantity of panned gold bought from Minkébé camp diggers, their little mule train bound for a trader’s market thirty miles to the south at the northern edge of Djoua Valley. They had made the trip through the lower Minkébé Forest every week for decades and were welcome callers at supply outposts along their sparsely traveled path. One of these posts was owned by Abasi’s older brother, Youssou.

When the Aseme family did not make their regular stop around noon, Youssou became concerned: in the remote bushland, a dangerous stalking ground for animal and human predators, locals know to travel by daylight or not at all. By early evening Youssou’s concern had turned to unease, and then to worry. The Asemes still had not appeared. Nor would they after darkness fell. Abasi did not have a telephone, and there was no way of contacting his brother’s wife to see whether anything might have occurred to delay his usual market visit.

Early the next morning Youssou and a small party of friends went out in search of his relatives, striking out north toward Garabinzam. Two hours later, the missing traders were found murdered, their wagons and merchandise gone. The killings had been savage. All four victims had their throats cut, their bodies lined in a row on the trail, their legs hacked off below the knees and tossed into the nearby brush, where it must have been evident the body parts would be discovered immediately.