Lansana Conté

Gravely ill with complications from diabetes President Lansana Conté has withdrawn to his home village of Moussayah leaving the army and the divided opposition holding their breath (AC Vol 44 No 6)...

President Lansana Conté who has heart trouble diabetes and a heavy smoking habit seems too ill to succeed himself when his term runs out in December...

Whitehall is also busy: the astonishing visit to all three countries by Africa Minister Valerie Amos (with according to a Foreign and Commonwealth Office source a bulging handbag) at least ended speculation in Paris that President Lansana Conté was dead since she trekked out to his village to meet him...

Containing Liberian President Charles Taylor is one priority while in Guinea President Lansana Conté's declining health (he has just returned from three weeks in hospital in Morocco being treated for diabetes) is another destabilising factor...

Guinean President Lansana Conté is in the eye of the storm...

Guinean President Lansana Conté is also up for re-election next year and in a bizarre offshoot of the Ivorian crisis a document is circulating in Conakry accusing former Prime Minister Sidya Touré of planning a coup...

Apart from Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo those causing most concern include Togo's President Gnassingbé Eyadéma (who has promised to stand down next year but does everything to prepare for another term) and Guinea's President Lansana Conté Congo-Brazzaville's Denis Sassou Nguesso Central African Republic's Ange-Félix Patassé and Burkina Faso's Blaise Compaoré...

Its President Lansana Conté was criticised at home for making no mention of the conflict in his national day speech on 2 October although somewhere between 250 000 and a million Guineans live in Côte d'Ivoire...

Compaoré has pragmatically distanced himself from his former ally but the frosty relations between Taylor and Guinea's President Lansana Conté have grown slightly warmer...

So there will be a welcome if few favours for the African leaders who claim to be Chirac's friends notably Presidents Omar Bongo (Gabon) Gnassingbé Eyadéma (Togo) Lansana Conté (Guinea) Paul Biya (Cameroon) and Denis Sassou-Nguesso once lauded by Chirac as the man to hold Congo-Brazzaville together (AC Vol 42 No 25)...