The WWF is calling on the European Union to work with West African nations to avert a potentially catastrophic collapse in fish stocks that provide a much-needed source of food and income in countries such as Senegal and Mauritania.

Every time a parent gets ill or dies of HIV/AIDS, children become grossly vulnerable to hosts of physical, emotional and societal dangers.In the wake of today's AIDS crisis in Africa, at least 14 million orphans have been left grappling with the dangers associated with the disease. That number, according to a survey, is expected to double if nothing is done.

The office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees sent a mission to The Gambia on Tuesday to take stock of possible population displacement following an announcement last week by the Senegalese army that it had launched security operations in Casamance, a UNHCR source told IRIN on Wednesday. The Senegalese army announced last weekend that it had begun an operation to curb increased insecurity and banditry in Casamance, an area in southern Senegal that borders on The Gambia.

Your Excellency, I am writing on behalf of Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE), a non-profit, non-governmental organization advocating for a free press and freedom of expression around the world. We wish to express our concern about the state of press freedom in Senegal, in particular, with the recent sentencing of journalists Mamadou Oumar Ndiaye and Pape Ndiaye, publication
director and reporter, respectively, of the Dakar-based weekly Le Témoin.