Windhoek, Namibia  - Namibia's second legal auction of stockpiled ivory tusks to Chinese and Japanese bidders began behind closed doors in the capital Windhoek on Tuesday morning.

The event, held under the auspices of the UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), was closed to all media and observers due to what ministry officials termed the "sensitive nature" of the first of four ivory auctions to take place in southern Africa in the coming weeks.

Local papers had expressed dismay at not being allowed to cover the event, which has raised the hackles of animal rights activists, who claim any sale of ivory stimulates black market trade in the so- called white gold.

Windhoek, Johannesburg - Ivory tusks will be sold for the first time in nearly 10 years in southern Africa on Tuesday as four one-off auctions of ivory stockpiles to Chinese and Japanese buyers kick off in Namibia.

South Africa, Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe, all of which have booming elephant populations, have been given permission by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) to sell off stockpiles of ivory from their national parks.

Windhoek  , Namibia - Namibia's government is calling for the repatriation of dozens of skulls that have been stored in German universities since the colonial era.

The Namibian government in a statement on Tuesday said it designated the National Monuments Council to deal with the matter in which it wants Germany "to pay for the repatriation of the remains and all related costs."

Windhoek  - A German aristocrat is scheduled to appear in court in the south-west African state of Namibia Thursday on suspicion of killing scores of endangered mountain zebra.

Christian Prinz zu Hohenlohe-Langenburg, 28, is alleged to have killed the animals at a private game reserve owned by his father 70 kilometres south-west of the capital Windhoek.

Oranjemund, Namibia - The archeologists are into raptures about the close to 500-year-old shipwreck currently being removed from the seabed off Namibia's southern coast.

"This is a world heritage that needs to be carefully preserved," says Bruno Werz, the archeologist leading the excavation. His colleague, Francisco Alves agrees, saying the find provides a window into bygone times of seafarers and discoverers.

Their work is concentrated around the wreck of a Portuguese merchant ship discovered along a restricted area seven metres below sea level on the treacherous Atlantic coast about 160 kilometres south of Luederitz.

Oranjemund, Namibia - Bruno Werz, the archeologist leading the excavation of a 500-year-old Portuguese merchant ship found off Namibia's Skeleton Coast, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa of the significance of the discovery.

"The find is of incredible importance, because it is most probably the oldest shipwreck ever discovered south of the Sahara," Werz said.

"We have provisionally obtained a time indication on the basis of coins that were found," he said, putting the date the ship sank somewhere between 1526 and the mid 
1500s.