The News Review:

- Sierra Leone’s boat accident kills 50: Report
- Feature Article of Friday, 29 August 2003
- Peacekeepers, US Envoy Enter Liberia’s Second City
- Note to England’s Home Office: Let Bobby play
- Tracing the dynamics of the illicit arms trade

Sierra Leone’s boat accident kills 50: Report
People's Daily Online – Aug 29, 2003
execCommand(“saveAs”)>. "According to the report we received, 50 people perished, two were rescued while 148 others remain unaccounted for," the official was quoted as saying. The boat met "hostile weather near a coastal village called Bailor at 10:00 pm (2200 GMT) resulting in the catastrophe," the report quoted Alex Koroma, a station manager for Radio Kolenten, as saying. The boat was heading from the country’s capital Freetown to Rokumi village, carrying 200 passengers and 300 huge bags of rice when it ran into a storm, said the report.

Feature Article of Friday, 29 August 2003
ghanaweb.com – Aug 29, 2003
The cradle for freed Black-American slaves and also the oldest Republic in Africa had become a big slaughterhouse for the three and half million inhabitants. Combatants in the long-drawn bloody civil conflict succeeded in killing an estimated 250,000 people and drove as many as 500,000 others into exile. The exiled Leader of that country, Charles Taylor was accused of conniving with political dissidents to destabilized countries in the Mano River Basin, leading to political turmoil in neighbouring Sierra Leone, Guinea and La Cote d’Ivoire. The war in Liberia is perhaps a payback time for the former warlord, Mr Taylor, as it is on record that the rebel groups that initiated the sustained armed conflict to topple his regime enjoyed overt and covert support from the these countries. The consequential humanitarian crisis and carnage was beyond description. ” It is simply too bad. Can you imagine human intestines being used as road barriers? These were some of the horrific things combatants have done to innocent lives in Liberia,” a Liberian Journalist, recollected, almost in tears.

Peacekeepers, US Envoy Enter Liberia’s Second City
FOXNews – Aug 29, 2003
foxnws%2Fredirs_all. Taylor, himself a former rebel, plunged Liberia into 14 years of civil war and rebellions starting in 1989. He also is indicted for U. war crimes for backing a brutal civil war in neighboring Sierra Leone.

Note to England’s Home Office: Let Bobby play
USA Today – Aug 29, 2003
It’s a pity this team couldn’t advance past the quarterfinals, but by all accounts, there’s little shame in losing to Brazil. The samba won’t be stopping with this generation, to say the least. Odds and ends
File under the “Be thankful for where you live” category: Several players from the Sierra Leone Under-17 team, which lost 2-1 to the U. in Finland, apparently have.

Tracing the dynamics of the illicit arms trade
Jane's – Aug 29, 2003
Highlighting the extent of this trade is the example of CIA covert support to Afghanistan between 1979 and 1989, which resulted in the transfer of an estimated US$2bn in aid to the mujahideen. Although transfers of this size disappeared with the end of the Cold War, the grey market has continued to operate through the 1990s and into the 21st century. For example, members of NATO supplied the Kosovo Liberation Army during the Balkan conflict; Kurds in Turkey have received support from Greece, Syria and Russia; and private military companies – with the knowledge of Western states – have supplied weapons to Sierra Leone and Liberia in spite of UN sanctions. In contrast to grey-market arms transfers that are solely co-ordinated by state actors, the involvement of organised crime in the illicit arms trade is almost entirely limited to the black market. Normally accessing state-controlled arms stockpiles through corruption, coercion or theft, organised criminal groups act as the key weapons providers to insurgent and terrorist groups worldwide. The nexus that exists between organised crime, the illicit drugs trade and arms smuggling is highlighted in the growing number of arms-for-drugs deals that have been uncovered since the late 1990s. Such trends are common between criminal groups, and between organised crime and terrorist groups within the Russian Federation (for example, from Russia to Chechnya) and the former Soviet Union; between the Russian Federation and Central and South Asia; between Thailand and Southeast Asia, between the Russian Federation and South America (specifically Colombia); and within South America and the Caribbean.