Military seizes power in Africa’s first ‘narco-state’

"A group of military officers has seized power in Guinea-Bissau and claimed to have arrested the president.

The coup came a day before the West African nation, one of the poorest in the world, with a booming cocaine trade, was scheduled to announce the provisional results of its presidential election.
At about 1pm GMT on Wednesday, heavy gunfire rang out near the presidential palace and national electoral commission headquarters in Bissau, the capital, lasting for about an hour.
There were scenes of pandemonium, with hundreds fleeing on foot and in vehicles amid fears of mass casualties.
Gen Denis N’Canha, head of the presidential military office, then appeared on state television to announce that Umaro Embaló, the president who had been favoured to win Sunday’s election, had been arrested.
In his speech, flanked by heavily armed soldiers, Gen N’Canha claimed to have uncovered a plan to destabilise the country “involving national drug lords” that had included “the introduction of weapons into the country to alter the constitutional order”. msn