More than a decade ago, cocoa producers in Sao Tome and Principe were suffering because of falling global prices for cocoa. Many of them abandoned their cocoa plantations, while others cut down the trees to clear land for maize or other crops. Thanks to IFAD and its partners, nearly 2,200 farmers are now growing cocoa certified as organic or fair-trade for the international chocolate industry.

President Fradique de Menezes of São Tomé and Príncipe has decreed that local and legislative elections will be held in July and August, after government had been unable to follow the original election schedule.

São Tomé and Príncipe government has charged 38 people for allegedly trying to topple President Fradique de Menezes last Thursday, government has confirmed. Last Friday, justice ministry spokesman Justino Veiga announced the arrest of a group of men after the foiled coup and the confiscation of more than 310 assault rifles in the home of one of the opposition party leaders.

The new hit being sung by everyone in São Tomé and Príncipe goes like this: "Bleguê Bleguê ... A mi na mecê Bleguê, anda com bebê..." The lyrics, in São Tomé's Forro language, have two simple but important messages: when you go out, always take condoms with you, and when you have sex, always use a condom.

The government of São Tomé and Príncipe is brimming with joy over the news that Paris Club has agreed to write off 100 percent of the country’s debts. This was agreed at a meeting of the representatives of the club’s creditor countries today after it was realised that Sao Tome and Principe has reached its completion point under the enhanced initiative for Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) in March 2007.

The foreign minister of Sao Tome and Principe has resigned after coming under widespread criticism for spending nearly US $500,000 of aid from Morocco without reference to other members of the government. Meanwhile, a group of disgruntled police officers firing guns in the air has seized the main police station in the capital to protest at unpaid salaries and poor working conditions, according to the Portuguese news agency Lusa.

The Attorney General’s Office of Sao Tome and Principe says it has found “serious flaws” in the way that contracts were awarded to oil companies to explore offshore waters shared with Nigeria. It said in a report published on December 9 that several of the companies chosen six months ago to explore the Joint Development Zone (JDZ) shared by Sao Tome and Nigeria lacked the technical know-how and the financial muscle necessary to carry out the work.

Take profits from billions of barrels of offshore oil, divide them among a population of just 150,000, and this dirt-poor archipelago of flimsy wooden shacks could be transformed into one of the world's affluent petro-states. Factor in the potential for war, conflict or corruption - painful realities in many oil-rich African nations - and the dream of development can quickly become a nightmare, reports Associated Press.

Arlindo Carvalho has resigned as Minister of Natural Resources of the tiny island state of Sao Tome and Principe amid allegations of irregular procedure and high-level corruption in the award of offshore oil exploration rights. This row is continuing to delay the award of fresh acreage in offshore waters shared with Nigeria.

The Nigerian Senate this week declared the $45million loan granted to Ghana and Sao Tome by President Obasanjo as illegal, noting that the money was taken out of public funds without satisfying the requirements of the 1999 constitution. Obasanjo was also found to be in breach of the due process necessary in such transactions.

Nigeria, Africa's leading oil producer, and its newly oil-rich neighbour Sao Tome and Principe, on Sunday signed a joint declaration regarding transparency and governance in the Joint Development Zone shared by the two countries. The President of Nigeria, Olusegun Obasanjo, and visiting President of Sao Tome and Principe, Fradique De Menezes, agreed at a meeting in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, to full public disclosure of all transactions in respect of oil companies’ activities in the zone, which spans the two countries' waters in the Gulf of Guinea.

São Tomé and Principe, one of Africa's smallest and poorest countries, is poised to reap a windfall of up to $200m - 50 times annual average export earnings. But the prospect of new wealth has already heightened instability in the island state, where there have been frequent changes of government in recent years and concerns about corruption.

The military junta which seized power in the potentially oil-rich island state of Sao Tome and Principe last week, signed an agreement with international mediators on Wednesday to allow the reinstatement of the elected government of President Fradique de Menezes, news agencies with local correspondents reported.

Efforts are under way to hold talks with the leaders of the coup which toppled the government of the West African island state of Sao Tome and Principe on Wednesday. Rebel army officers in the tiny former Portuguese colony seized the prime minister and other cabinet members in the dawn coup, which appears to have been largely bloodless. Sao Tome and Principe, one of the world's poorest states, has offshore oilfields which are due to begin producing within the next four years.

Seismic data suggest billions of barrels of oil could lie off Sao Tome's coast near oil-rich Nigeria, Gabon and Equatorial Guinea in an increasingly important oil-producing region far from the risks of the Middle East. And that is driving an intense local struggle for power, complicated by the involvement of big outside players drawn to islands that had been getting by in quiet poverty, exporting a little cocoa and some bananas.

Sao Tome and Principe President Fradique de Menezes last Thursday appointed Maria das Neves the archipelago's first woman Prime Minister, news agencies reported.