Gabon : News

JOHANNESBURG 19 June 2012 (IRIN) - The UN World Food Programme (WFP) has halved food rations to refugees living in camps in at least four African countries citing a funding shortfall. (irinnews.org)

JOHANNESBURG 31 May 2012 (IRIN) - When night falls in the Dadaab refugee complex in eastern Kenya, nearly half a million refugees are plunged into darkness. The lack of light robs schoolchildren of the possibility of studying and provides perfect cover for thieves and rapists. (irinnews.org)

JOHANNESBURG 15 May 2012 (IRIN) - The UN Development Programme (UNDP) launched its first Africa Human Development Report today, stressing food security as a means to a better quality of life for all. (irinnews.org)

POINTE NOIRE 25 January 2012 (IRIN) - Forced child labour remains rampant in Central Africa, where poverty fuels the trafficking of children from poorer countries to oil-rich states such as Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and the Republic of Congo, according to experts. (irinnews.org)

JOHANNESBURG 18 October 2011 (IRIN) - Genetically modified (GM) food aid bound for Africa has long been a bone of contention among governments, scientists, activists, consumers and aid workers. (irinnews.org)

BRAZZAVILLE 16 September 2011 (IRIN) - The refugee status of 9,500 people from the Republic of Congo, who have been in neighbouring Gabon since the late 1990s, expired on 31 July, but many are still reluctant to return home. (irinnews.org)

DAKAR 09 August 2011 (IRIN) - Journalists and civil society members in West Africa analysed a “counter-terrorism plan” drawn up by the Economic Community for West African States (ECOWAS) at a 4-5 August meeting in the Senegalese capital Dakar. (irinnews.org)

LILONGWE 20 June 2011 (IRIN) - The malaria vaccine that has eluded medical science for decades is now within reach, with the final phase of clinical trials underway in seven African countries, including Malawi, where the disease claims 6,500 lives a year, most of them children under the age of five. (irinnews.org)

JOHANNESBURG 21 April 2011 (IRIN) - A group of international academic institutions and an NGO backed by the European Union (EU) have launched Sustainable Nutrition Research for Africa in the Years to come, or SUNRAY, to develop a nutrition agenda for Africa, with specific emphasis on the 34 sub-Saharan countries. (irinnews.org)

The government has denied reports that it spent Sh100 million in hiring a private jet for Deputy President William Ruto to use on his four African nation tour.

Deputy President William Ruto said the instability in Somalia is piling pressure on Kenya's security situation.

While some think of North Africa as a region of turmoil and unrest half a world away, one nation has emerged as a leader, demonstrating a commitment to cooperation and regional security that can ultimately benefit the interests of theU.S. Morocco, under the leadership of King Mohammed VI, recently deepened its ties in Africa and underscored the ... (more)

New York, May 16 : A neutral security force is urgently needed to help restore the stability and counter the absence of law and order in the Central African Republic , a United Nations envoy on Wednesday told the Security Council, while also calling on the body to consider sanctions against rebel groups for gross violations of human rights.

[]Reporters Without Borders wrote to the Gabonese government today with its recommendations for the government's planned reform of the 2001 broadcasting, cinematographic and print media law. (AllAfrica)

[]President Ali Bongo Ondimba of Gabon has invited President Paul Biya of Cameroon to attend two international events slated for Gabon in June 2013. (AllAfrica)

NAIROBI 08 April 2011 (IRIN) - What?s green, controversial, 15km wide, 7,775km long, cuts across 11 African countries and is designed to reduce livestock deaths and boost food security for millions of people? Nothing yet, but the Great Green Wall project, a pipe-dream for decades, was recently endorsed by a swathe of African states stretching from Senegal to Djibouti. (irinnews.org)

JOHANNESBURG 06 January 2011 (IRIN) - The record prices of staple grains in 2008 made investment in agriculture an attractive proposition for countries exporting as well as importing food. The African Union (AU), with its mix of producers and buyers, has been steadily gearing up for self-sufficiency. (irinnews.org)

BANGKOK 30 December 2010 (IRIN) - A century after the drawing of an anaemic patient?s sickle-shaped red blood cells came out of Chicago in the USA - a sketch that officially placed this still pervasive genetic disorder into medical books - confusion, discrimination and lack of treatment continue to surround sickle cell disease (SCD), especially in Africa where more than 200,000 babies are born every year with the disease. (irinnews.org)

DAKAR 30 December 2010 (IRIN) - This year in West Africa natural and man-made disasters - from floods to fighting - brought anguish and emergency assistance, and left communities, aid workers and analysts mulling the long-term causes. (irinnews.org)

NAIROBI 24 November 2010 (IRIN) - Gay rights groups have hailed the results of the first study to show that an antiretroviral (ARV) drug can prevent HIV as an important step in the fight against HIV, but say that in countries that criminalize homosexuality, the breakthrough is unlikely to have a significant impact. (irinnews.org)

BRAZZAVILLE 22 November 2010 (IRIN) - Officials and analysts expressed optimism that a convention signed in Brazzaville, the Congolese capital, on 19 November would succeed in stemming the flow of small arms in central Africa, as long as it is backed by robust implementation measures. (irinnews.org)

ADDIS ABABA 15 October 2010 (IRIN) - As rural Africa experiences an increasingly moody climate which will erode resilience, drive up hunger and threaten economic growth, it is time countries got serious about development, participants at the seventh African Development Forum in Addis Ababa were told. (irinnews.org)

Several thousand people protested in Gabon on Saturday against a spate of ritual killings that has seen mutilated bodies washing up on beaches in the central African state this year.

Thousands of Gabonese people marched to protest ritual killings, in which people are murdered so their body parts can be used in amulets to bring good luck.

President Ali Bongo Odimba of Gabon has tendered a letter of invitation to President Paul Biya to participate in two important events to take place at the Gabonese Capital Libreville in June 2013; the meeting of the New York Forum Africa and a summit of the African sub-region. A special envoy, who is Gabonese Minister of Foreign Affairs, ... (more)

ACCIONA, a global provider of renewable energy, infrastructure and water services, has been awarded a 50m contract to design and build Gabon's largest drinking water treatment plant .

A century ago, in 1913, Albert Schweitzer and his wife traveled 200 miles into the interior of what was then French Equatorial Africa to found a hospital.

Acciona SA , the Spanish construction company that has built more than 70 desalination plants globally, won a 50 million-euro contract to design and build Gabon's biggest drinking water-treatment plant.

[MDC]Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai on Thursday took his diplomatic offensive to Central and West Africa, where he met Gabon President Ali Bongo Ondimba and Nigerian leader President Goodluck Jonathan as part of his tour to press for Africa's support for free and fair elections in Zimbabwe. (AllAfrica)

NAIROBI 18 January 2013 (IRIN) - Africa could reduce its poverty levels faster by focusing more on the production of staples rather than export crops, according to a study by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). (irinnews.org)

JOHANNESBURG 14 October 2010 (IRIN) - With its coffers running at least US$1 billion short, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria is looking to the private sector to fill the funding gap. (irinnews.org)