Deaths in the cholera epidemic raging in tiny Guinea-Bissau have passed the 300 mark, prompting authorities to ban the sale of drinks and food by street vendors as well as forbid all traditional ceremonies. The health ministry said on Wednesday that the epidemic has claimed 305 lives and stricken 19,054 people in four months. Sources in the ministry said that despite measures to halt the spread, the four-month-old epidemic was gaining ground.

West African leaders are urging quick international assistance for Guinea-Bissau, whose new president Joao Bernardo "Nino" Vieira was sworn in this weekend facing a massive cholera epidemic and fears of continuing political instability. "Donors must help Bissau now, and without conditions," Senegal's Foreign Minister Cheikh Tidiane Gadio told reporters on Monday.

Guinea Bissau is about to run out of intravenous fluids and equipment essential to the low-cost life-saving treatment for cholera, which has claimed 112 lives in this tiny West African nation since June. An additional 6,420 patients are still at risk. Portugal and France were the first countries to send medical aid in response to the current epidemic. One litre of IV fluid costs just over a dollar, and 3.5 litres are enough to save a cholera patient from death by dehydration.

Joao Bernardo "Nino" Vieira, the former military ruler of Guinea-Bissau, scored a narrow victory over Malam Bacai Sanha, the candidate of the ruling PAIGC party, in the second round of the country's presidential election, according to provisional results released last Thursday. Malam Mane, the chairman of the National Electoral Commission, said Vieira, of the African Party for the Independence of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde (PAIGC), won a majority of 52 percent, with 216,167 votes in last Sunday's ballot.

A cholera epidemic that broke out in the capital Bissau last month is spreading into the interior of the country, with more than 400 new cases reported nationwide over the past week, health officials said Friday. Since the beginning of the epidemic on 11 June, a total 1,027 cases have been registered, including 12 deaths, said Simao Mendes, director of Bissau’s General Hospital.

Presidential elections to complete Guinea-Bissau's return to democracy took place peacefully and in good order on Sunday. Early returns showed Malam Bacai Sanha, the candidate of the ruling PAIGC party, and former president Joao Bernardo Vieira leading the field in the country's main towns. Voters flocked to the polling stations in record numbers in this small West African country and voting started on time everywhere.

A visit to Guinea-Bissau by four West African leaders at the weekend failed to defuse tension that has been building up in the country ahead of next month's presidential election. Prime Minister Carlos Gomes Junior confirmed reports that have been circulating for several weeks that arms have been smuggled into the country to support civilian militias.

Police in Guinea-Bissau fired teargas on Tuesday to stop hundreds of supporters of an ousted former ruler, as the interim leader said the country risked sinking into political chaos. Hundreds of supporters gathered outside the house of Kumba Yalla, who was ousted as leader in a bloodless coup in 2003 but says he is still the rightful head of state and declared himself president at the weekend.

The main opposition party in Guinea-Bissau has chosen former president Kumba Yala as its candidate in presidential elections due on 19 June, even though Yala was banned from politics for five years following his overthrow in a bloodless 2003 coup. Yala, who was first elected president with a landslide majority in 2000, was overwhelmingly chosen as the presidential candidate of his Social Renovation Party (PRS) at a meeting of the party's national council on Saturday.

The desperate act by Guinea Bissau students holding their country’s ambassador hostage in Moscow speaks volume about the terrible conditions of African students studying abroad. The Bissau students had become so impoverished due to allowance arrears, that some of them have resorted to eating from waste bins and stealing to survive. Worse, those of them lucky enough to finish their studies under such terrible conditions are stranded and cannot go home. In Cuba, Bissau students who finished their studies five years ago, were still waiting for their return tickets back home last November.

Health authorities in Guinea Bissau said on Monday that a cholera outbreak in the Bijagos archipelago, off the capital, Bissau, had infected 58 people, killing three. The outbreak started in a fishing community in Orangozinho Island among fishermen from neighbouring Guinea and Senegal, Julio Sa Nogueira, Secretary-General of Guinea Bissau’s Health Ministry, told reporters on Monday.

The United Nations Peace-Building Office in Guinea-Bissau (UNOGBIS) has warned that "the current verbal escalation among the political actors" is endangering the political process in the small West African country ahead of presidential elections next March after years of conflict, including a coup d'état last year. "The Office calls on all political actors to show restraint and to settle all disputes in a peaceful manner as provided for by the law," it said in a statement, offering to help ease the current tension in the framework of its mandate.

The government of Guinea-Bissau is launching its first big push against HIV/AIDS with the help of a US$19 million aid package from the World Bank and the Global Fund against AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, Health Minister Odete Costa Semedo said. The money pledged recently by these two donors will be used to help fund a three-year strategic plan to control AIDS, she told IRIN.

Guinea-Bissau's recently elected parliament was sworn in on Friday, paving the way for the PAIGC, which controls nearly half the seats, to form a new government in this small West African country. PAIGC leader and prime minister designate Carlos Gomes Junior told IRIN that he would announce his new cabinet next week following formal consultations with transitional President Henrique Rosa.

PAIGC, which ruled Guinea-Bissau until it was ousted from power following a brief but bitter civil war five years ago, has emerged as the biggest party in the country’s new parliament, according to elections results published on Sunday. The PAIGC (African Party for the Independence of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde)won 45 of the 100 seats declared – leaving it just short of an absolute majority.

Several hundred students went on the rampage in the capital of Guinea-Bissau after police used baton charges, tear gas and shots in the air to break up a demonstration by secondary school pupils protesting at a strike by their teachers. Eyewitnesses said several dozen students were arrested in the disturbances that took place last Thursday. Bissau’s main avenue was closed to vehicle traffic and the city’s main market was shut down as a result of the clashes.

A student from Guinea-Bissau was stabbed to death in a southern Russian city in what appears to have been a racial attack, the African country's embassy said. Skinheads have been increasingly active in Russia recently, launching attacks on dark-skinned foreign students and migrant workers. Human rights groups have said the authorities weren't doing enough to combat hate crimes.

A strike by doctors, nurses and hospital technicians demanding the payment of salary arrears paralysed government hospitals in Guinea-Bissau for three days this week, forcing hundreds of patients to go home or seek treatment in private clinics if they could afford it. The strike was called by the two main trade unions in the health sector to protest at the government's failure to pay five months of salary arrears and special bonuses and to demand better food for patients.

Maria do Ceu Silva Monteiro, a 38-year-old woman judge, has been appointed president of the supreme court of Guinea-Bissau, filling a post that had been vacant for more than two years. She was elected on Monday on a six to one vote by other senior judges in this former Portuguese colony of 1.3 million people on the coast of West Africa.

A key decision-making body comprising representatives of Guinea-Bissau's main political parties and the armed forces has set March 28 as the date for legislative elections to return the country to constitutional rule following a coup in September. The National Transitional Council agreed the date last Thursday. Presidential elections are due to follow 12 months later.