A Us drone has crashed in the island nation of Seychelles, an incident that comes just over a week after a US drone went down in Iran. The latest crash comes just hours after Defense Secretary Leon Panetta visited Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti, the base that houses troops assigned to a unit in the horn of Africa and is home to a fleet of drones assigned to fly over the horn of Africa and some areas in the Middle East.

Elections for the presidency of the Seychelles will be held from 19 -21 May 2011. A Commonwealth Expert Team has been sent to observe the poll. The opposition leader, Wavel Ramkalawan, told Think Africa Press that the Seychellois people are 'ready for democracy' – a strange phrase to use in a country that has officially been a multi-party democracy since 1993. The current government has been in power since a military coup in the mid-70s overthrew then president, Sir James Mancham.

The Indian Ocean archipelago of Seychelles has become the latest country to ratify the pact establishing the International Criminal Court (ICC), which is tasked with trying people accused of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. Seychelles ratified the 1998 Rome Statute yesterday, which means it will enter into force for that country on 1 November, according to a press release issued by the court in The Hague, the Dutch city where it is headquartered

Seychelles has said it had agreed with creditors to swap old debt worth $283 million, representing 89 percent of the debt it sought to restructure in an exchange offer.

China's top legislator Wu Bangguo on Monday pledged to work with Seychelles to push forward relations between the two countries and their parliaments. Wu, chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), China's top legislature, made the remarks when meeting with Seychelles National Assembly Speaker Patrick Herminie.

The distorted world trade regime is an obstacle to development, the leader of the Seychelles told the General Assembly, calling for increased justice and fairness to recognize the specific needs of small island nations. “We should abandon ‘solutions’ which continue to enrich the rich and impoverish the poor and the vulnerable,” President James Alix Michel told the body’s annual high-level event.

Annette* is a small, lively woman in her early sixties. Married to an abusive husband -- who once threw boiling water on her, landing her in hospital -- she was not repeating the story with her alcoholic and drug-addicted son. Just as her husband was growing older and calmer, her son was getting increasingly violent.

The government of Seychelles shows its commitment to the use of ICTs in education despite simmering opposition to its tendering procedures. The first consignment of subsidized laptops promised to Seychellois teachers earlier this year was delivered this week. The 1500 Inspiron 1501 and 6400 Dell laptop computers are selling at only 25% of the local market price in order to popularise the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in education.

Government services in Seychelles are undergoing a major transformation as various departments are making information and resources available online to the public. Seychelles e-government goal is to make information and communication technologies (ICT) integral to the delivery of government information, services and processes. The implementations have encountered delays since Vice President Joseph Belmont first announced it in January 2006.

The Seychelles has banned the cutting off of sharks' fins by foreign fishermen to curb a flourishing global trade that is threatening the survival of the sea predator and marine ecosystems. The United Nations estimates that 100 million sharks are killed every year world-wide, mostly for their fins which are a delicacy in East Asia where a bowl of shark fin soup can command high prices. Dozens of countries have banned the practice of slicing off of sharks' fins in the last few years. The Seychelles Fishing Authority (SFA) ban took effect this week and covers all foreign vessels fishing in the territorial waters of the Indian Ocean archipelago. The ban does not include domestic vessels, which the government says are few and controlled, or shark fishing where the whole shark is caught.

The Seychellois government has announced that Seychelles has become the first small island nation in the world to develop an integrated national strategy for plant conservation under the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation.