Gabon

The leader of a coup that ousted Gabon’s President Ali Bongo was sworn in as interim president and cheered by jubilant supporters in a televised ceremony designed to cast the military as liberators of an oppressed society.

It’s sometimes democracy as we know it—albeit with twists and turns—but there is certainly a new appetite for political pluralism developing in Africa.

As most Francophone African countries celebrate their 55 years of independence this year, this may be a good time to reassess relations between them and France.

Reflecting its lessening oil clout, OPEC decided Thursday to keep its output target on hold and sit out falling crude prices that will likely spiral even lower as a result.

OPEC oil ministers meeting in Vienna on Thursday are in a bind. Prices are plunging — and in the short term, the cartel may not be able to do much about it.

On Wednesday in Sydney, Australia, at the opening of the once-a-decade IUCN World Parks Congress, the Central African nation announced it would create a network of new marine protected areas amounting to 23 percent of its territorial waters and Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).