AFCON 2017: Best photos from 25 January

Gabon's sports minister has assured that the venues for the Africa Cup of Nations are ready ahead of the tournament, despite violence that erupted after the recent presidential election.

Africa Cup of Nations hosts Gabon are again held to a 1-1 draw by Burkina Faso in Libreville. Qualification for the quarter-finals will now be decided in the last round of group games on Sunday.

Gabon's president in Riyadh hospital for severe fatigue - government spokesman

Military officers in Gabon staged an apparent coup attempt early on Monday (January 7), seizing the state radio station and declaring their dissatisfaction with President Ali Bongo, who is recovering from a stroke in Morocco.

Gabon coup attempt: rebel chief arrested and two soldiers killed

A large fire burns near an entrance to a besieged Hong Kong campus after protesters threw Molotov cocktails to fend off a police advance on the university, according to AFP reporters at the scene.

Leo Ramirez, Hector Retamal and Sebastien Ricci, reporters with Agence France Presse, are among the few journalists who covered the new Coronavirus outbreak from the epicentre of the disease in Wuhan, China, before being repatriated to France and quarantined at the Carry-le-Rouet centre.

Hundreds of mourners attend the funeral of Nabil Hasan al-Quaety, a Yemeni journalist who contributed to AFP, two days after he was killed in the southern city of Aden. Raising his portraits and describing him as a "martyr", angry crowds shouted slogans against groups that are hostile to freedom of expression in Yemen, praising the talents of the young photographer and videojournalist who died aged 34, leaving behind young children and a pregnant widow.

In an exclusive interview with AFP in Rome, Italian Prime minister Giuseppe Conte remembers the first days of the COVID-19 pandemic and addresses the Black Lives Matter movement saying 'internal policies' need to be put in place to stop racism and discrimination from occurring, while also commenting on the M5S fundings allegations and the future of the EU as he sees it. President of the Council since June 2018, at the head of a coalition first with the far-right, and today with the centre-left, Giuseppe Conte, 55, a law professor still unknown two years ago, has emerged stronger from the coronavirus pandemic.

Former Defense Minister Rose Christiane Ossouka Raponda has been promoted to prime minister, making her the first woman to hold the role in Gabon's history.

Since April, Gabon has been under a health state of emergency. The Central African country is facing a major economic hit as a result of Covid-19 lockdown measures and the fall in oil prices. The scars from this unprecedented crisis could remain on Port-Gentil, its oil capital, for a while. Businesses, shops, transport, tourism and other sectors in the country's economic hub are all struggling. Port Gentil has lost millions of euros over the last six months and is relying on public investment to survive. Our team reports.

The mats are falling apart, the safety ropes have snapped and the acrobatic nets are long gone. Gabon's only circus troupe -- and its only circus school -- is facing ruin. Demand for circus shows was dwindling even before the pandemic hit, a disaster that has cemented the troupe's problems.