Full Coverage: West Africa

23.01.2005 An opportunity to write to Biwater plc, a British company bidding for ownership of urban water supplies in Ghana in a privatisation tender which will divert precious resources away from providing water and sanitation to poor people who currently lack access.

21.01.2005 The Asian tsunami demonstrated how the media can positively affect efforts to bring relief to people in crisis. Well, Liberia is still in crisis. Tuberculosis has staged an alarming comeback in much of the world. Starvation is rampant in North Korea. Civilan victims of fighting in the Congo and Colombia made the list for the sixth straight year. See what else didn't top the news--but should have--in 2004.

14.01.2005 South Africa's neutrality and history give it a moral authority in Africa that many richer countries (and former colonial powers) can't claim. From Burundi to Cote d'Ivoire, Congo, and Darfur, President Thabo Mbeki has drawn on this standing to try to spread peack across the continent in 2004, demonstrating to the world that Africa can be relied upon to solve its own problems.

07.01.2005 Journalists in Gambia, Senegal and Mali collectively mourned the death of their colleague Deyda Hydara, co-founder and owner of the tri-weekly newspaper “The Point” in Gambia. Hydara was murdered in the capital of Banjul on the evening of 16 December. In a display of solidarity, over three hundred journalists marched through the streets of Banjul on 22 December to protest the murder and push for an immediate investigation into the case.