The Bush administration maintains reasonably friendly relations with the African nation of Equatorial Guinea despite the extreme human rights violations perpetrated by the government against its own people. The country sells nearly two thirds of its oil to the United States and, though a small nation, produces more crude per capita than Saudi Arabia. One might expect there to be plenty of money for everyone by way of revitalizing the economy and building up infrastructure. But most Equatoguineans are malnourished, typically with no running water or electricity. Malaria and yellow fever are rampant. The average life expectancy is 54.

The new government of the Democratic Republic of Congo has encountered a diamond scandal in its infancy, as gems worth $10 million go missing from a state company. The missing gems are equivalent to 80% of the monthly production the Congolese state diamond company, the Miba.

The Ministry of Water Development has been asked to help slow down water pollution in the Coast region instead of ignoring it. The Environment Trust of Kenya (ETK) wants the Minister for Water, Mrs Martha Karua, to rectify water contamination in the province to avert impending health disasters. The recent findings by Kenya Bureau of Standards (Kebs) and Kenya Marine and Fisheries Research Institute (Kemfri) that water in the region is unfit for human consumption has continued to cause panic among the residents, ETK said.

Six African states are far advanced in a plan to save the world's second largest rain forest and enable a growing population to benefit from the region's resources without destroying them. According to the Republic of Congo's Forestry Minister, Henri Djombo, the "convergence plan", in which the six states will make specific commitments for the sustainable development of the Congo Basin forest, is likely to be incorporated in a treaty to be drawn up by heads of state in Brazzaville next March.

At 83 years old Emmanuel Kouang is the oldest person in Ebome. Even now he leans forward with his fists clenched and his rhumy eyes wide in remembered excitement. "They lived in the rocks out to sea. But they've gone now". The rocks have vanished too, and with them the villagers' main source of livelihood. The reef was a rich feeding ground for fish caught by the villagers. For generations villagers relied upon its natural abundance of marine life. But their way of life was disrupted four years ago by the construction of an oil pipeline. News of the project caused great excitement. The pipeline came, but the pipe dreams did not.

Exxon's £1.3bn Chad-Cameroon pipeline stretches 1,000km across arid lands and equatorial forest to the African coast. When it reaches west Cameroon it runs adjacent to an old wildlife reserve where, for centuries, thousands of indigenous Bagyeli pygmies have depended on the forest for hunting and medicines. As "compensation" for any disturbance, the World Bank, the Dutch government and international conservation group Tropenbos combined in 1999 to create the giant Campo Ma'an national park. The stated aim was to protect the forest, alleviate poverty and to allow scientific research. But a new book, From Principles to Practice, documenting nine major African conservation efforts in six central African countries, claims that the Campo Ma'an project is a disaster, threatening to destroy the Bagyeli cultural heritage and knowledge and impoverish the people further.

Kenyan scientists are embroiled in a deepening controversy over whether Kenya should lift a ban on the pesticide DDT in a bid to reduce deaths from malaria. A government-commissioned taskforce is poised to reveal its advice on whether the pesticide should be reintroduced. Meanwhile sharp divisions are appearing between two of the country's leading research organisations, the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) and the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE), both based in Nairobi.

Arid countries fighting the loss of fertile soil caused by deforestation and drought, notably in Africa, appealed for money from rich nations this week at a United Nations conference in Cuba. The gradual decline in soil productivity resulting from deforestation, over-grazing, and climate change threatens the food security of 1.2 billion people in 110 countries, said the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).

In the past decade, the Gash-Barka region in Eritrea's western lowlands on the borders of Sudan and Ethiopia has become a site of resettlement for refugees returning from Sudan and those displaced by border clashes with Ethiopia. What impact has their arrival had on an already fragile natural resource base? What lessons can be applied to other settlement schemes for displaced people?

The carbon-based life form calculator is an easy way to estimate personal carbon dioxide emissions. We are all carbon-based life forms in more ways than one. Our use of fossil fuels leads to the emission of carbon dioxide, a key contributor to global climate change. Use the form at the web page provided to estimate your contribution to climate change.

Transparency is not one of oil's properties. Corruption seems to rise to the surface wherever it is found. Is oil intrinsically dirty? "Oil rents have tended to impede democratization and have sustained a long line of authoritarian rulers -- from the Shah of Iran to Sani Abacha of Nigeria to the House of Saud to Saddam Hussein," the independent watchdog Catholic Relief Services (CRS) says in a report 'Bottom of the Barrel'. Several other reports point the same way. Oil and gas produce the biggest kickbacks after arms deals, Transparency International (TI) says in its latest report on bribery.

The department of environment affairs says it has demanded "as a matter or urgency" that the owners of the stricken Sealand Express come up with a plan to remove its cargo. It also revealed on Friday that in addition to 50 tons of uranium ore concentrate and hazardous industrial chemicals, the vessel is carrying 18 000kg of a form of the toxic metal antimony.

South Africa has still not found a buyer for the 30 tons of ivory it wants to sell. The country was last year given the go-ahead by the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) to do a once-off sale of its ivory stockpile. But the discovery of a huge illegal haul of ivory from Africa has sparked fears that poaching is on the rise on the continent since the Cites decision. The ivory, valued at more than R700 000, came from Mali and arrived at Bangkok International Airport last Monday.

A 40-year-old man has become the first Cameroonian to be sentenced for trying to sell a female baby chimpanzee, nine years after a law prohibiting trade in endangered animals was passed. Opinion is varied on whether the sentence will have any impact on the sale and consumption of bush meat.

Usakos residents took to the streets after the water supply to two of the town's suburbs was cut by 50 per cent. Water debts owed by residents, mostly from Hakhaseb and Erongosig, already total 2,5 Namiban million.

''They say oil is spurting out of the ground, but I haven't seen it yet,” says Faustin Gayande, a young man from the Chadian capital of N'djamena. He fears the oil revenue will not trickle down to the poor as a result of corruption and political repression. “There is a proverb from my area which says that when you catch a silurid, you've got to grab it by the head if you want to hang onto it; if you hold it by the tail, it could slip away. So Chadian oil is like a silurid because I haven't been able to grab it,'' says Gayande.

The impoverished West African nation of Burkina Faso is giving serious consideration to planting genetically modified cotton due to the destruction of nearly half its crop seeds annually by caterpillars resistant to pesticides.

Patrick Bond

In addition to the pomp and ceremony associated with the second post-apartheid state visit by a U.S. president, a string of protests greeted George W. Bush when he met South African president Thabo Mbeki in Pretoria on July 9. It was a complicated welcome from many perspectives. South Africa had not joined the "coalition of the willing" against Saddam Hussein, and former president Nelson Mandela remains a staunch opponent of Bush's foreign policy. On the other hand, Pretoria profited nicely from the hostilities, not merely through selling arms but also by taking advantage of Bush's attempt to restore some legitimacy on this trip. Mbeki's muddled reaction to the U.S.-led war on Hussein's Iraq deserves a review, because continuing ambivalence in the political sphere is contradicted by closer U.S.-South African economic relationships that threaten the rest of Africa.

A halt to extraction and trade of Liberian gold, diamonds and timber would help stop the fighting that has killed at least 600 civilians in the capital in the past five days, according to the Environmental Lawyers Association of Liberia and two other nongovernmental organisations.

This paper investigates the origins and current operation of the Amadiba Horse and Hiking Trail, a community-based initiative located on South Africa's Wild Coast. The trail project presents itself as a people-centred project, designed to involve the Amadiba people in all aspects of running a project including planning, implementation, management and decision making. The benefits from the project are intended to accrue primarily to the Amadiba community.