Guinea-Bissau conservationist Ms Augusta Henriques has won a Ramsar Wetland Conservation Award for Management, for her central role in the foundation of NGO Tiniguena (‘This land is ours’) and her long-term leadership and work with communities towards the creation of a Community Marine Protected Area at Urok Islands – the first marine protected area recognised by the Government of Guinea-Bissau.

This past June, the National Popular Assembly (ANP) of Guinea-Bissau approved a law prohibiting female genital mutilation and cutting (FGM/C) nationwide. The controversial law had been on the table for discussion for 16 years, before it was ultimately approved by 64 votes in favour to 1 vote against.

Thousands took to the streets of Bissau Friday 5 August for the third rally in three weeks to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Carlos Gomes Junior, who is accused of hindering an assassination probe. 'Carlos, get out', 'Carlos to court', chanted protesters, according to an AFP journalist, during a march to the presidency. The rally was called by a coalition of 17 opposition parties accusing Gomes Junior of failing to shed light on a spate of high profile political assassinations in 2009. Two earlier protests were held on 14 and 19 July.

The prices of foodstuffs have risen in Guinea-Bissau since mid-August, the chairman of the Association of Consumers of Goods and Services (ACOBES), Bambo Sanha, has said. The price of a bag of 50 kg of rice, the basic food in the country, increased from 12,000 to 14,000 FCFA, while that of the 50 kg of sugar increased from 15,000 to 27,000 FCFA, he said in Bissau.

Guinea-Bissau does not make international headlines very often, and when it does, the news is usually pessimistic: turbulence within the small West African country’s army, repeated coups and killings, and growing problems of drug trafficking. Reflecting the frustrations of international donor institutions, the European Union (EU) has just announced that by 30 September it will pull out a small mission that it originally sent to Guinea-Bissau in June 2008 to support reforms of the security sector.

The progress made by Guinea-Bissau following last year’s political crisis could be jeopardized unless major reforms in the areas of defence and security are carried out, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says in a new report. Recent months have witnessed rising political and security tensions in the country, where a series of political assassinations last year had threatened security and stability but where order was restored with the election of Malam Bacai Sanhá in the June 2009 presidential election.

A four-member delegation of ECOWAS Chiefs of Defence Staff arrived in Guinea Bissau on Monday, on a fact-finding mission in connection with the 1 April incident by a section of the country's armed forces that resulted in the brief detention of the Prime Minister and the Chief of Defence Staff.

A group of army officers in Guinea-Bissau is reported to have detained the chief of staff and the prime minister. Prime Minister Carlos Gomes Junior was set free after several hours. The whereabouts of President Malam Bacai Sanha are unknown. Heavily armed troops attempted to gain access to the UN headquarters, where a former head of the navy had fled.

This is a petition to reiterate the necessity for donors, European Governments and European NGOs not to give in to current trends of aid concentration that very clearly contribute to further marginalizing countries such as Guinea-Bissau, and to reconsider their present relationship with Guinea-Bissau.

A growing understanding of the role of family planning and the spread of contraception use resulting from greater access to reproductive healthcare is helping to save lives in Guinea-Bissau, according to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

Guinea-Bissau's electoral body has declared Malam Bacai Sanha as winner of Sunday's presidential run-off vote. Sanha, former head of state (1999-2000) and candidate of ruling party PAIGC, scored 224, 259 votes (63%) defeating rival Kumba Yala, another ex-head of state, who got 129,973 votes.

Elections in Guinea-Bissau to replace assassinated President Joao Bernardo Vieira are to go to a second round, the electoral commissioner says. Mr Vieira was killed in March in apparent revenge for the death of the head of the army in a bomb blast. The two frontrunners from Sunday's vote are the ruling party's Malam Bacai Sanha with 39.6% of the vote and former President Kumba Yala with 29.4%.

Guinea-Bissau’s election on Sunday to replace its slain president will be a test for West Africa’s ability to stop the retreat of democracy as well as for a state destabilised by drug smugglers and army rivalries. The fact the vote is happening at all is something of an achievement within four months of President Joao Bernardo “Nino” Vieira being shot dead and after the killing of a top contender and another senior politician during the campaign.

This latest policy briefing from the International Crisis Group warns that the killings of General Tagme (the chief of defence staff) and President Vieira in March, as well as the recent assassinations of opposition leaders and former ministers, are an indication the democratic process cannot cope. The military’s use of force has overwhelmed state institutions. Both the political elites and the international community must send a strong message condemning the widespread abuses committed by the armed forces.

The security forces in Guinea-Bissau have shot dead a minister and candidate in this month's presidential elections. The authorities say Baciro Dabo died in an exchange of fire when he resisted arrest over an alleged coup plot. But his supporters say he was asleep next to his wife when men in uniform burst into his house at 0400 local time (and GMT) and shot him several times.

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 body of the party after its chairman had died

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 year student of the Agostinho Neto Senior High School, said.

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 the new authorities to uphold the country’s constitutional order.