BISSAU (Reuters) – Guinea Bissau’s former head of military intelligence was shot dead at a bar in the capital Bissau overnight just hours after a peaceful presidential vote, witnesses and a security source said on Monday.

The killing of Colonel Samba Diallo follows a rash of political assassinations in the tiny West African state, a known haven for cocaine smugglers, at a time when the election was meant to usher in a period of greater stability.

BISSAU (Reuters) – Guinea Bissau held a peaceful vote for a new president on Sunday in an election meant to steer the coup-prone West African state towards stability, but which could instead prolong its history of turmoil if the results are contested.

International partners are keen to see the tiny nation, whose president died in January after a long illness, clamp down on rampant drugs trafficking that has made it the main African transit point for South American cocaine bound for Europe.

BISSAU (Reuters) – Guinea Bissau’s former head of military intelligence was shot dead at a bar near his residence in the capital Bissau late on Sunday, hours after citizens voted peacefully in a presidential election, witnesses and a security source said.

The killing of Colonel Samba Diallo follows a rash of political assassinations in the tiny West African state, a known haven for cocaine smugglers, and places a cloud over a vote that was meant to usher in a period of greater stability.

BISSAU, March 18 (Reuters) – Voters in Guinea Bissau cast
their ballots in an election on Sunday which was meant to steer
the coup-prone West African state towards stability, but could
instead extend its decades-long history of turmoil if the
results are contested.

Its international partners are keen to see the tiny nation,
whose president died in January after a long illness, clamp down
on rampant drugs trafficking that has made it the main African
transit point for South American cocaine bound for Europe.

FREETOWN/DAKAR (Reuters) – On a recent mission pursuing pirate fishermen off Sierra Leone’s coast, the head of the Fisheries Protection Unit found himself adrift on the high seas with six crew after their rented motorboat ran out of fuel.

“We started rationing the food and water,” Victor Kargbo said. With no long-range radios to seek help, they improvised a makeshift sail from a tarpaulin, but with only one day’s supply of food and water remaining, they feared the worst.

DAKAR (Reuters) – Senegal is heading for its most contentious election in recent history on Sunday overshadowed by political violence and a constitutional row that could sully its enviable reputation as West Africa’s most stable democracy.

President Abdoulaye Wade is seeking a third term against a field of more than a dozen challengers and he appears to have the edge over a divided opposition.

DAKAR, Feb 8 (Reuters) – A cloud of Saharan dust stretching
thousands of kilometres dimmed the sun and grounded flights
across the western edge of Africa, the region’s worst sand storm
in two years.

A NASA satellite image showed a yellowish-brown plume
stretching north from Western Sahara and inland to Mali.

DAKAR (Reuters) – A growing trend of African countries promising to free up money for social spending by slashing fuel subsidies will test public faith in governments, amid widespread fear the cash will vanish in a haze of graft and mismanagement.

Nigeria, Ghana, Guinea, Chad and others have all cut back on expensive fuel subsidy programmes in recent months.

MONROVIA (Reuters) – Big mining and agriculture projects will fuel a rapid economic expansion in Liberia in the coming years, but the country faces challenges ensuring the boom will help ordinary Liberians.

The stakes are high for the West African state, which has attracted billions of dollars in resource investment since the end of a 1989-2003 civil war, but whose infrastructure remains in ruins and most of its 4 million people in poverty.

MONROVIA (Reuters) – Liberia’s Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has ambitious plans for her second presidential term but putting them into action has been made harder by election violence and an opposition boycott which has deepened the country’s divisions.

Political deadlock between her government and the opposition would be a setback for the West African nation as it struggles to rebuild after 14 years of civil war that left it in ruins and its people mired in poverty.