Gabon

Gabon’s Ba’aka pygmy population may soon be saying au revoir to smoked fish and nihao to tofu, if the $3.5 billion Belinga iron-ore mining deal, awarded to a Chinese consortium in 2006, goes off without a hitch.

2009 was a turbulent year for the small central African country of Gabon. El Hadj Omar Bongo Ondimba, the country’s president since 1967, passed away in June 2009 and the presidential elections in August 2009 to appoint his successor were fraught with accusations of election rigging.