Gabon has temporarily banned the activities of up to 20 non-governmental organisations for their alleged interference in politics. Interior Minister Andre Mba Obame said the ban would be lifted as soon as each NGO clearly defined its mission and structure with his ministry.

Environmental groups in Gabon demanded on Thursday the government reveal the terms of a $3 billion iron ore mining deal with China, saying they feared the huge project could damage an area of virgin forest. The project, awarded to state-owned China National Machinery & Equipment Import & Export Corp., is for the construction of an big iron ore mine in the Belinga mountains of Gabon's remote northeast Ogooue-Ivindo province. The Chinese group expects to complete the mine in three years.

The director of a private newspaper in Libreville, the capital of Gabon, was handed a suspended prison term and a fine today, but could not appear in court after he was hospitalized as the result of poor detention conditions, local journalists told CPJ. "We condemn this verdict and call on Gabonese President Omar Bongo to deliver on his 2004 pledge to eliminate prison sentences for press offences," said CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon.

Only a few years ago, oil-rich Gabon had to ask the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for help to reform its economy, which had accumulated an unsustainable level of foreign debts. Today, a recovered Gabonese economy enabled authorities to negotiate an early repayment of its US$ 2.3 billion debt burden.

An editorial critical of Gabonese President Omar Bongo, Africa's longest-serving head of state, has led authorities in the capital, Libreville, to arrest a publisher and suspend his newspaper, according to news reports and local journalists. Guy-Christian Mavioga, director of the private periodical L'Espoir, has been in police custody since Thursday on accusations of offending the head of state in connection with a June 14 editorial headlined "The last days of Bongo," local journalists told CPJ.

A court in the French city of Bordeaux ordered the President of Gabon, Omar Bongo Ondiba, to compensate the son of a French citizen, René Cardona, who was jailed in Gabon in 1996. The court found Mr Bongo guilty of official corruption. The court portrayed Mr Cardona as an “accomplice of President Bongo and his family in arms and fishing equipment firm” when a judicial inquiry that led to his jailing in Libreville was launched.

Citizens in the African state of Gabon have begun voting in parliamentary elections with Omar Bongo, the current president, looking to maintain his hold on power. Voting got under way slowly across the former French colony, with many of the largely Christian population preferring to attend mass before going to vote.

Gabon's main opposition leader says he has gone into hiding after government forces raided his party's headquarters. Pierre Mamboundou told the BBC that he was not about to leave the country, but said he was also considering seeking political asylum. He finished second in last November's presidential election, which he claimed was fraudulent. President Omar Bongo, Africa's longest-serving head of state, won with 79.2% of the vote. Mr Mamboundou told the BBC's French service that police had seized documents and computers during the raid on the headquarters of his Gabonese People's Union (UPG) early on Tuesday (March 21) morning.

The final results from Gabon's presidential vote are expected on Tuesday, election officials said. Gabon's public television and two private channels reported results from several cities and departments that showed, as expected, that President Omar Bongo would defeat his four challengers, reports the Mail and Guardian. The 69-year-old Bongo, the longest-serving African leader, was supported by a political coalition of more than 40 parties and has maintained an iron grip on the media.

Some women take the decision because they cannot contemplate supporting another child. Others are too young to take care of even one. Whatever their reasons, a growing number of Gabonese girls and women are choosing to have illegal abortions – often with disastrous consequences. According to statistics from the Ministry of Health, clandestine abortions are thought to have accounted for 28.8 percent of all abortions that took place last year – up from 25 percent in 2003, and 16 percent in 2001. A study conducted in 2003 indicated that 15 percent of women had had at least one abortion.

Omar Bongo and Gnassingbe Eyadema were both born in 1935. They came to power 32 years later in Gabon and Togo respectively; Bongo through constitutional succession, Eyadema by grabbing power in a coup d'etat. Eyadema died in office on 5 February and a few hours later his favoured son, Faure Gnassingbe, seized power with the backing of the army in defiance of the constitution. What would happen in Gabon if Bongo, now 69 and apparently in good health, were suddenly to depart from the scene?

For years young boys and girls have been trafficked into Gabon from all over West Africa for use as child labour in this relatively affluent oil-producing country. But finally, there are signs that the government is starting to crack down on the practice. Gabon passed a law against trafficking and child exploitation in 2002, but the first police roundup of child traffickers and their victims only took place on the 24 January - nearly three years later.

The typhoid outbreak in Gabon has spread to the capital Libreville, which has been grappling with water shortages for the past two weeks, Health Ministry officials said on Tuesday. The outbreak of this highly infectious water-borne disease began in the northern town of Oyem in December, but officials said there were now more than 100 cases nationwide, including 12 in Libreville.

Water supply problems in the Gabonese capital Libreville are going from bad to worse with residents used to drawing water from taps in their own homes forced to queue up with buckets at standpipes in the street. The privatisation of the state water and electricity company SEEG in 1997 and a doubling of capital investment last year by its new French owner Vivendi, has failed to ensure that supply keeps pace with a rapid growth in demand.

For those who are looking for an easy life in Gabon, small-scale fishing holds little appeal. As a young fisherman, Mathieu Koffi, told IPS, it is "difficult to get credit to buy new equipment, and it's not easy for fishermen to band together in order to limit expenses." The difficulties of working with outdated equipment combined with a depletion of fish stocks in certain areas have posed challenges to the small-scale fishing industry in recent years.

Even though Gabon has some 800 km of coastline, it is forced to import more than 7,000 tonnes of fish every year. But with a new grant from the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the government hopes to change all that. "The US$ 270,000 grant from the FAO will allow Gabon to plan a development strategy for the fishing industry for the long-term, something we've never done before," Georges Mba Asseko, the government official in charge of fisheries, told IRIN in an interview.

Cote d'Ivoire's opposition leaders, disappointed by President Laurent Gbagbo's decision not to reinstate three of their ministers, held talks on Friday with Gabon leader Omar Bongo, who is trying to help the feuding Ivorian sides out of their political impasse. Bongo, one of Africa's longest-serving presidents, is trying to pave the way for a regional summit to resolve the 22-month crisis in Cote d'Ivoire, which has been split into a rebel-held north and a government-controlled south since civil war broke out in September 2002.

The government of Gabon has announced a further cut in the price of anti-retroviral drugs for people living with AIDS and has slashed the price of HIV/AIDS testing for the country's 1.2 million population. Both measures were introduced in April following an announcement by the Global Funds to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria that it would grant the West African country US $3 million grant to help fight AIDS.

Marie-Julie Nse Ndzime has made a success of her printing company located in Gabon's capital, Libreville - no thanks to anyone else. "I never received a request for bids nor was lent any money by the banks," she told IPS. "I only got a leg up by hard work and networking." Only 10 percent of Gabonese businesswomen manage companies in the country. Many face an uphill struggle in trying to get fair treatment from their male counterparts, who have tended to judge them on their physical appearance alone.

As most people who've seen them will attest, Gabon's leatherback turtles are a majestic sight. "The leatherback turtles of Gabon are the largest sea turtles in the world. They can be seen on the open sea, and they can grow as long as three metres and weigh 850 kilogrammes,” says Guy Philippe Sounguet, President of Adventures Without Borders (ASF) - a non-governmental organisation. The females lay about 120 eggs on the beach during the breeding season, which lasts from January to March. Only half of these eggs hatch, and up to 45 percent of the hatchlings are eaten by predators before they make it to the relative safety of the sea. Turtles have managed to survive this natural rate of attrition for years. But, human intervention is now upping the odds against them substantially.