Gabon
Gabon appoints first woman prime minister amid government shakeup
Ossouka Raponda, 56, is the sixth prime minister appointed since Ali Bongo succeeded his father in 2009. Her first job is to form a new government after her...
The central African country’s National Assembly had voted late Tuesday to adopt an amendment to criminal legislation to remove a paragraph prohibiting 'sexual relations between persons of the same sex'.
The Central African nation has one only confirmed COVID-19 case so far, but fears linger after an Ebola epidemic in 1995 wiped out more than 90% of the gorillas in the verdant north.
Nearly two dozen people, some of them in the inner circle of power, have been ousted from office, arrested or given other duties.
Gabonese President Ali Bongo Ondimba on Wednesday completed a decade in office, vowing to push ahead with economic reforms and an anti-corruption drive despite questions over his health after suffering a stroke nearly a year ago.
The central African CFA union comprises former French colonies Chad, Congo Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Cameroon and Central African Republic.
Franceville was the capital of the Haut-Ogooue region where Bongo was born in 1935, and also where he was laid to rest.
In late February and early March, the authorities uncovered and seized 392 containers with 5,000 cubic metres of illegally felled kevazingo wood in the port of Owendo - but by the end of April, 353 of the containers had disappeared.
Customs officers had discovered the collection of rare hardwood worth millions of dollars in February and March at two Chinese-owned depots at the Owendo timber port on the Libreville peninsula.
Contradictory information about Bongo’s health and an extended convalescence in Morocco have fuelled instability in Gabon which his family has ruled for over 50 years.
The 59-year-old has been recuperating abroad for more than two months, following a stroke in October last year.
Gabon has been without an effective government for months since President Ali Bongo fell ill while attending an economic forum in Saudi Arabia on 24 October.
Two of the five coup leaders have been killed as the army restores control, closing down the internet and broadcasting services in the oil-rich, small West African state.
A group of five soldiers sought to take power while Ali Bongo, the country’s ailing president, convalesces abroad following a stroke while he was in Saudi Arabia in October.
The Gabonese government on Monday claimed to have foiled an attempted takeover.
According to a government spokesman, security forces have been deployed in the capital and will remain there over the coming days in order to maintain order.
Military officers in Gabon staged an apparent coup early Monday morning, seizing the state radio station and declaring their dissatisfaction with President Ali Bongo.
The 59-year-old leader has not been back to Gabon since he fell ill in Saudi Arabia on 24 October and will address his nation from Morocco's capital Rabat, where he is recovering, a source told AFP.
Bongo suffered a stroke while at a conference in Saudi Arabia on 24 October, sources told Reuters.