Guinea Bissau

Guinea-Bissau's Supreme Court on Wednesday cleared Pedro Nfanda to contest the 28 June presidential election. This brings to 13 the number of candidates who want to succeed President Joao Bernardo “Nino” Vieira, who was assassinated on 2 March. The candidacy of Pedro Nfanda, a lawyer, had initially been rejected by the Supr eme Court because the policy-making committee of the Environmental Protection League (LIFE), on whose ticket he was standing, had not taken action to replace the governing...read more

Two army officers in Guinea have been arrested on suspicion of plotting a coup, security sources told the BBC. The arrests were made as new military leader Captain Moussa Dadis Camara was preparing to make his first trip out of Guinea since seizing power in December. He led a bloodless coup after the death of Lansana Conte, who had ruled the West African country since 1984.

The strike by teachers of the four main senior high schools in Bissau entered day four on Thursday, sources close to the Education Ministry told PANA. A similar strike on 19-20 March, observed by 95 per cent of teachers all over the nation, had earlier disrupted the school calendar. "Classes only began in January and have been interrupted by several strike actions of teachers. We have not learnt anything this year. It is better government cancels this school year,” Mr. Pansao Blaté, a final y...read more

Dozens of Chinese students who saw little prospect of getting into a top medical school have secured admission by becoming nationals of the tiny west African country of Guinea-Bissau, a newspaper said on Thursday. Among the 112 international students that entered Peking University Health Science Center in 2007 and 2008 were 48 from Guinea-Bissau -- all ethnic Chinese from Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, the Shanghai Morning Post said.

The Security Council has welcomed the convening of presidential polls in Guinea-Bissau this June, following last month’s assassination of the West African nation’s leader, calling for continued international support for the election process. In a presidential statement read out by Ambassador Claude Heller of Mexico, which holds the rotating Council presidency for the month, the 15-member body also welcomed the swearing-in of M. Raimundo Pereira, the Interim President, and the commitment of th...read more

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