Something is not quite right in the way women are made to feel inferior to the opposite sex even though they may be more intelligent, more determined, more serious and even more capable than the men who are born to assert dominance as their birthright.

A recent TV programme about refugees in The Gambia explored why the country has become a magnet for displaced people. The programme revealed that, unlike in most countries, refugees in The Gambia are not confined to camps. The majority live in the community, and are actively encouraged to seek employment in all professions.

Amnesty International expressed concern last Wednesday at "increasing attacks on freedom of expression" in The Gambia following the arrest of three journalists.

Amnesty International expressed concern last Wednesday at "increasing attacks on freedom of expression" in The Gambia following the arrest of three journalists.

Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF) has called for the release of journalist Pa Ousman Darboe, who has been held since 2 August following an article in the Banjul biweekly The Independent reporting that the vice-president had remarried. The article referred to the legal problems of the vice-president’s late husband.

On 29 July, RSF called for the immediate and unconditional release of journalist Guy-Patrick Massoloka, a Banjul-based correspondent for the Pan African News Agency (PANA) of Congolese nationality. Massoloka was arrested by National Intelligence Agency officials on 19 July and is still being held without charge.

Religious leaders in the country have made denunciations against what they called the indiscriminate application and distribution of contraceptive devices, which are designed to check population growth at the national level.

The Gambian parliament passed a tough media bill on Wednesday, two months after President Yahya Jammeh refused to sign an earlier version and returned it to the legislators for amendment. The bill was passed by 53 votes to three, with members of parliament from the ruling party castigating the independent media for being "unpatriotic" and always reporting "the bad side" of the government.

The formerly thick forests of The Gambia have been degraded and reduced during the last century because of large-scale destruction through bush fire, exploitation of forestry resources and cultivation. Because of this development, the government reacted in the early eighties in the western parts of the country through the Gambian-German Forestry Project (GGFP) and in 1996 a forestry project was started.

A two-week mass vaccination exercise against meningitis, which kills hundreds of people in West Africa each year, began on Monday in The Gambia.

Trachoma is an infectious eye disease that can cause blindness. It effects an estimated 150 million people worldwide, mostly in poor rural areas of Africa and Asia. Existing treatments, including tetracycline eye ointment, are unsatisfactory. So how can the World Health Organisation achieve its goal of a trachoma-free world by 2020?

In 1997, The Gambia carried out a biodiversity country study to gather and analyse biological and socio-economic data as the basis for preparing its national strategy and action-plan. A national task force was formed comprising representatives from the relevant government institutions and NGOs, was established to provide both policy and technical guidance to a team of national consultants contracted from relevant institutions to handle specific sectoral and sub-sectoral issues covered in the study. According to the research and development officer at the Department of Parks and Wildlife Management (DPWM), Famara Drammeh, biological resources are vital to humanity's economic and social development, and as a result, there is a growing recognition that biological diversity is a global asset of tremendous value to present and future generations.

The African Development Bank has approved a grant of about US $1.5 million to finance a water and sanitation study in The Gambia, a news release from the Bank said on Wednesday.

The Vice President and secretary of State for women's affairs Isatou Njie Saidy will launch a book entitled 'Olimatou' by Matty Chama, a primary school drop herself.

Gambian plain clothes police have arrested 400 prostitutes in bars, hotels and nightclubs over the past few days, police in the West African tourist destination said on Wednesday.

Ms. Khaddijatou Baldeh, the Principal Education Officer at the Department of State for Education, and member of The Gambia Library and Information Service Association (GAMLISA), has stated that effective dissemination of information cannot be achieved if librarians and information workers are not equipped with necessary skills to transform and ensure access to, and efficient use of all available electronic information resources in the country.

Your Excellency, we are writing on behalf of the World Association of Newspapers and the World Editors Forum, which represent 18,000 publications in 100 countries, to express our serious concern at the passing of a media law that threatens freedom of the press. According to reports, on 2 May the National Assembly approved a draft law that provides for the creation of a commission to control the media. Under the law, the commission, whose chairman will be appointed by Your Excellency, will have the powers of a court and will be charged with licensing journalists and media organs and with adjudicating in complaints brought against journalists and the private media.

Genital mutilation increases infections, researchers say. Women who have undergone female genital mutilation in Gambia have a higher prevalence of bacterial and viral infections.

The controversial Media Commission Bill whose presentation was postponed a couple of times before, is expected to be finally tabled for debate before week ending May 3rd by honourable members at the National Assembly.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) on 30th April called on the speaker of the Gambian parliament, Sheriff Mustapha Dibba, to do everything he could to block passage of a new press bill that it said would seriously endanger press freedom.