ACCRA

Five foreigners and a Ghanaian were sentenced to 20 years in jail with hard labour on Monday for their part in smuggling nearly 600kg of cocaine into Ghana for onward shipment to Europe. The High Court in Accra found all six men guilty of conspiracy and possessing narcotic drugs without lawful authority.

Cocoa producers have until July 1, 2005 to prove that their beans were produced without child labour, to be able to sell on the international market, the Ghana News Agency reported on Wednesday. Kwame Sarpong, chief executive of the Ghana Cocoa Board said that the certification had become necessary because of concerns raised by global consumers over the use of child labour in the cultivation of cocoa beans.

United Nations investigators say the ”highest authorities” in the Côte d’Ivoire government were behind a crackdown by the security forces in which more than 120 civilians died, a news report said on Monday. Security forces ”indiscriminately” killed civilians even though the protestors posed no serious threat, the inquiry found.

Opposition parties and former rebels in Côte d’Ivoire said they would continue their protests against President Laurent Gbagbo on Friday despite a violent crackdown by security forces that left at least 25 people dead a day earlier. The events prompted two key groups to pull out of the government of national unity.

Ghana’s Parliament gave its long-awaited approval on Wednesday to a merger between Ashanti Goldfields and the South African-owned Anglogold that would create the world’s largest gold producer, parliamentary sources said.

Former Ghanaian president Jerry Rawlings was to testify on Thursday before a national reconciliation commission investigating human rights abuses during his 19-year regime in the west African state.

A suspected Togolese political assassin was on Sunday arrested in the Ghanaian capital in a joint Ghanaian-Togolese police operation, the Ghana News Agnecy (GNA) reported.

Liberians attending peace talks in Ghana on Thursday appointed a relatively unknown businessman, Gyude Bryant, to lead the country’s next interim government which will take power in October.

Liberia’s warring factions were on Monday poised to sign a deal to form an interim government and end 14 years of almost uninterrupted war, a week after warlord turned president Charles Taylor was forced to resign and go into exile.

A Liberian rebel group engaged in an all-out battle for the country’s war-torn capital said on Tuesday they have ordered their troops to stop fighting.

Delegates to the Liberian talks in Accra, have shifted focus from discussing a peace agreement between the country’s warring parties, to intense negotiations over the transitional government that is to replace President Charles Taylor.

The main points of a landmark truce signed on Tuesday between Liberian rebels and President Charles Taylor’s government to end the west African country’s four-year civil war include peace talks to be held over the next 30 days on the formation of an interim government which will not include Taylor.

Liberian President Charles Taylor and rebels fighting his regime since 1999 will meet face to face for the first time from Wednesday in Ghana to try and end a festering war that has spread chaos in west Africa.

So glaring are the disparities in the performance of Ghana’s two schooling systems that there is mounting public concern to find the causes and resolve them quickly. The move comes amid concerns that the differences may be leading to the foundation of a class system.

Ghana’s National Reconciliation Commission (NRC) has asked former president Jerry Rawlings to answer allegations that he witnessed the torture and murder of political activists in 1984, while he was head of state.

Ghana police have charged former finance minister Kwame Peprah for causing financial loss of more that 24,6-million pounds sterling to the state while in office, the Ghana News Agency reported on Monday.

Junior doctors at Ghana’s largest hospital launched a strike on Monday, citing poor working conditions and the government’s delay in implementing a package promised to them.

Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo on Wednesday met with President John Kufuor of neighbouring Ghana, who urged him to implement a peace deal brokered by Paris to end a ruinous five-month war in Ivory Coast, diplomatic sources said.

Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo on Friday agreed to ground helicopter gunships and expel mercenaries imported to fight rebels battling his government, telling French radio that he was ready for ”total ceasefire”.

Despite church elders’ protests, authorities forcibly vaccinated about a dozen children whose parents are members of a Ghana church that shuns modern medicine, officials said Wednesday.

Ghana’s former leader Jerry Rawlings has been summoned by the national investigating agency after he urged Ghanaians to ”defy” President John Kufuor’s government

Ghanaian security agencies said on Saturday they had destroyed a 100-acre marijuana farm in the West African country.