African dictator's corrupt domain

Equatorial Guinea is perhaps the richest, most corrupt and most unstable African dictatorship.

The discovery of vast gas and oil deposits off the coast in the mid-Nineties has concentrated immense wealth in the hands of a few leading families. It now pumps 350,000 barrels of oil a day and has become Africa's third largest oil producer. But the rest of the population of 500,000 have seen little benefit from the new riches.

Since independence in 1968 following 190 years of Spanish rule, it has been governed by two men from the same family, both of whom gained appalling records for human rights abuses.

President Francisco Nguema's rule in the Seventies was so brutal a third of the population fled. In 1979 he was deposed and executed by his nephew, the current President Teodoro Obiang Nguema.He claims the country is a democracy but elections are said to be rigged - in 1996 he won the first ever presidential election with 99 per cent of the vote and achieved the same in 2002 after all the opposition candidates withdrew.