Côte d’Ivoire was in turmoil on Monday as rivals challenging Laurent Gbagbo’s claim to the presidency declared they had formed a government.
Côte d’Ivoire was in lockdown on Friday with ports, borders, and airports sealed as President Laurent Gbagbo’s allies rejected election results.
A second-round run-off looms in the Côte d’Ivoire presidential elections after incumbent Laurent Gbagbo took a narrow lead over his chief rival.
Côte d’Ivoire’s election commission and the main political parties gathered in results from across the country on Monday.
Côte d’Ivoire ‘s five million voters prepare to go to the polls on Sunday, seven years after the country was devastated by a vicious civil war.
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/ 22 December 2009
Marguerite Abouet’s popular series of books, centred on the life of a young woman in a Côte d’Ivoire suburb, show an Africa far from stereotypes.
A stampede at a World Cup qualifying soccer match in Côte d’Ivoire killed at least 22 people and wounded 132 on Sunday.
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/ 23 October 2008
A Côte d’Ivoire court on Wednesday handed down jail terms of 20 years and five years to two people for dumping of toxic waste in 2006.
Calm returned to the streets of Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, on Wednesday as the presidential palace prepared for a crisis meeting after two days of protests over rising prices in which one man died. Markets and shops re-opened in Yopougon, eastern Abidjan, where protesters clashed with police on Monday, and in the economic capital’s Port-Bouet area.
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/ 22 December 2007
Côte d’Ivoire on Friday announced the launch of a national civic service programme to help former rebels and fighters train for jobs in the West African country emerging from a low-level civil war. The service was a key part of a peace accord signed in March this year.
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/ 7 November 2007
In certain parts of Africa, female genital mutilation (FGM) has been linked to religion, with Muslim communities mistakenly believing that the practice is a religious requirement. But in Côte d’Ivoire, religion is also being put at the service of fighting FGM — sometimes referred to as female circumcision.
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/ 14 October 2007
Côte d’Ivoire President Laurent Gbagbo has called for an investigation into long-standing accusations that cocoa and coffee boards have embezzled funds meant to aid the producers of the country’s lucrative crops, a spokesperson said. The boards set prices for crops, oversee exports and provide development assistance.
West Africa will miss a December 31 deadline to sign a new trade partnership with the European Union and hopes to keep its preferential commercial privileges for up to two years while it negotiates. Ministers from the Economic Community of West African States were meeting on Friday in Côte d’Ivoire to agree a common approach ahead of talks later this month with the EU.
Côte d’Ivoire’s Justice Department is pursuing a new lead in the disappearance of a French-Canadian journalist, the state prosecutor said on Saturday. Guy-Andre Kieffer, who had dual French and Canadian citizenship, disappeared three years ago and is presumed dead.
Côte d’Ivoire’s government has paid out more than -million to about one-third of the people poisoned a year ago when toxic fumes swept across Abidjan, officials said on Saturday. But about 66 000 others are still waiting for their share of compensation.
President Laurent Gbagbo will on Monday be in Bouake, the headquarters of the former rebel New Forces, for the first time since a 2002 uprising aimed at toppling him divided Côte d’Ivoire in half. It was from Bouake that the northern half of this West African country was controlled by rebels for nearly five years.
Côte d’Ivoire Prime Minister Guillaume Soro said he knows who tried to kill him by firing rockets at his plane last week and it was not members of his own movement, local media reported Wednesday. ”It is an attack and we know who did it. There are traces, but I am not going to pre-empt the investigation,” he was quoted as saying.
Côte d’Ivoire Prime Minister Guillaume Soro narrowly escaped a rocket attack on his plane on Friday that killed at least four people and dealt a blow to the divided country’s fragile peace process. The UN Security Council and secretary general condemned the attack and said they feared for the future of a negotiated peace plan.
Libyan leader Moammar Gadaffi said on Wednesday his plan for a United States of Africa should include creating a two million-strong army to staunch recurrent conflicts that have ravaged many of the continent’s nations. Gaddafi was addressing hundreds of youths in Côte d’Ivoire’s economic capital, Abidjan.
From Cape Town to Algiers, many Africans welcome Libyan leader Moammar Gadaffi’s plan for a United States of Africa, but most say it simply comes too soon for a divided continent. Gadaffi, long regarded as a pariah in the West for his anti-colonial rhetoric, is touring West Africa to promote the long-standing plan for a pan-African government.
Western and emerging Asian powers so keen to diversify oil supply sources to feed growing needs have recast their attention to West Africa following the latest discovery of new potential reserves. British oil and gas company Tullow Oil last week annonced that it had discovered up to 600-million barrels of oil on the West Cape Three Points block off Ghana’s coast.
Côte d’Ivoire is seeking up to €340-million from Dutch-based multinational Trafigura to clear up pollution that killed 15 people, in a draft settlement proposal seen by Agence France-Presse. This would be in addition to the €152-million already agreed by Trafigura in February in an out-of-court settlement.
The rebel leader who has controlled the northern half of war-divided Côte d’Ivoire for four years took office as the country’s prime minister on Wednesday — the first step in a peace accord Ivorians hope will be their last. Charles Konan Banny, the outgoing prime minister, handed Soro documents symbolising the tasks left to be completed.
The people of Côte d’Ivoire expressed hope on Monday that a home-grown peace deal signed on the weekend would succeed where four years of international efforts to re-unite the war-divided West African state had failed. President Laurent Gbagbo and rebel leader Guillaume Soro signed the deal on Sunday in neighbouring Burkina Faso.
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/ 13 January 2007
The peace process in troubled Côte d’Ivoire is at a ”total deadlock”, an international working group chaired by the United Nations and the African Union announced on Friday after a meeting in Abidjan. President Laurent Gbagbo won support on Friday from the European Union for his proposal to hold direct talks.
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/ 7 December 2006
Nearly four months after tons of toxic chemical waste were dumped in Côte d’Ivoire’s teeming economic capital of Abidjan, poisoning hundreds, residents are haunted by fears of long-term health complications. Poisonous fumes emitted by the petroleum waste were blamed for the deaths of 10 people out of the scores sickened by the discharge from a ship chartered by a European company.
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/ 9 November 2006
The government in Côte d’Ivoire has culled more than 200 pigs that were being raised near sites polluted by toxic waste dumped in Abidjan in August for fear of contamination of the food chain. The government announced that as part of its management of the toxic-waste crisis, farms located near the polluted sites have been monitored.
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/ 4 November 2006
Four people, including at least two pro-presidential militiamen, were killed on Friday during a demonstration in Abidjan against militia members accused of racketeering and abuse, national public television reported. The victims included two soldiers from a militia group loyal to President Laurent Gbagbo.
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/ 18 October 2006
More than 4 500 tonnes of substances contaminated by more than 500 tonnes of toxic sludge dumped in Abidjan in August have been collected since a clean-up began in mid-September, an Ivorian official said on Tuesday. The waste was dumped in Abidjan on August 19 and 20 by Ivorian company Tommy.
Customs officials in Côte d’Ivoire began a strike on Tuesday to demand the release of three colleagues imprisoned over a toxic-waste scandal, preventing registration of cocoa shipments for export, an official said. ”Ships which already have their [customs] documents signed can leave [the port] but ships which will try to obtain them today [Tuesday] will be blocked,” one customs officer said.
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/ 26 September 2006
South African President Thabo Mbeki and his Ivorian counterpart Laurent Gbagbo were tight-lipped on Monday after a meeting to tackle the West African country’s stalled peace process. Nigeria, meanwhile, highlighted widespread African fears over tensions in Côte d’Ivoire and called for United Nations Security Council action if an election is not held by the end of the year.
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/ 23 September 2006
Suspects charged in connection with the dumping of toxic waste in Côte d’Ivoire, which killed seven people and made thousands ill, could face up to 20 years in jail if convicted, a Justice Ministry official said. Ten people have been charged under the West African state’s toxic waste laws and imprisoned in the main city Abidjan, where the deadly black sludge was discarded at several open-air sites after being unloaded from a tanker.