GABON – Gabon is voting in a referendum on whether to adopt a new constitution that would pave the way to democratic rule after the military deposed President Ali Bongo Ondimba last year, ending 55 years of rule by his family in the oil-rich nation.

An estimated 860,000 registered voters were expected to cast their ballots on Saturday on the draft charter, which proposes sweeping changes in the Central African nation that could prevent dynastic rule and sets presidential term limits. The proposed constitution needs more than 50 percent of votes to be adopted.

“We have a date with history,” General Brice Oligui Nguema, the transitional president who led the coup last year, said in a post on social media platform X alongside a photo of him in civilian dress and baseball cap, with a voting card in his hand. Nguema has been urging voters to support the new constitution, which he says embodies the military government’s commitment to charting a new course for Gabon.

He has promised to hand power back to civilians after a two-year transition but has made no secret of his desire to win the presidential election scheduled for August 2025. The referendum is seen as a crucial first step as the country seeks to transition to democracy since Bongo’s ouster in August 2023. He had governed since 2009, taking over the presidency from his father, Omar, who died that year after ruling the country since 1967.

Bongo was overthrown moments after being proclaimed the winner in an election the army and opposition declared fraudulent. A new constitution would introduce two-term limits on the presidency, remove the position of prime minister and recognise French as Gabon’s working language. It also says family members cannot succeed a president. The presidential term would be set at seven years. The current charter allows for five-year terms renewable without limit. (Al Jazeera) …[+]

NEW YORK – The United States has returned more than 1,400 looted artifacts worth $10 million to India as part of an ongoing initiative to repatriate stolen art from countries across South and Southeast Asia, the Manhattan District Attorney’s office announced Wednesday.

The trafficked goods recovered include items that, until recently, were on view at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Among them is a sandstone sculpture of a celestial dancer that was smuggled from central India to London, before being illegally sold to one of the Met’s patrons and donated to the museum.

The repatriations resulted from “several ongoing investigations” into looting networks, including those operated by convicted art traffickers Nancy Wiener and Subhash Kapoor, an American antiquities dealer who was sentenced to 10 years in jail for running a multimillion-dollar looting network through his New York gallery, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office said in press release.

Kapoor was sent to face charges in India’s Tamil Nadu state following his arrest in Germany in 2011. The DA’s office obtained an arrest warrant for him in 2012though he remains in custody in India, pending his extradition to the US. “Today’s repatriation marks another victory in what has been a multiyear international investigation into antiquities trafficked by one of history’s most prolific offenders,” William Walker, the federal Homeland Security Investigation’s New York special agent in charge, said in a press statement.

The items were formally returned at a ceremony at the Indian consulate in New York Wednesday. Since its creation over a decade ago, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Antiquities Trafficking Unit –– a task force of lawyers, investigators and art experts –– has recovered 5,800 antiquities valued at almost $460 million. The unit has also convicted 16 people of trafficking offenses and filed for the extradition of six others linked to stolen cultural property. In July, the US and India signed an agreement to protect cultural property by preventing illegal trades and streamlining the process of returning stolen antiquities back to India. (CNN) …[+]