The News Review:

- Contractor, Army Office Fell Short, Audit Finds
- General News of Sunday, 24 April 2005
- [DDN] Announcing GenARDIS 2005 winners
- Place your cross for Africa’s Aids orphans

Contractor, Army Office Fell Short, Audit Finds
Washington Post – Apr 23, 2005
The company’s chief executive, Tim Spicer, is a former lieutenant colonel in the Scots Guards who used to lead the private military firm Sandline International. Sandline was tapped in 1997 to end a rebellion on an island in Papua New Guinea, but the government there was soon toppled. The year after, Sandline became embroiled in war in Sierra Leone. A parliamentary inquiry in 1999 found that the firm had been involved in shipping arms into Sierra Leone, despite a United Nations embargo. The company said it was acting with the British government’s blessing, but government ministers were cleared of wrongdoing. Spicer left Sandline in 2000, and the company ended operations in 2004. Aegis — which bills itself as a defense assistance, risk management and security company — was created in September 2002.

General News of Sunday, 24 April 2005
ghanaweb.com – Apr 24, 2005
He would be en-route to Sierra Leone where he would address the Business Community and the Ghanaian Community at separate events. The Asantehene has been invited by President Ahmed Teejan Kabba of Sierra Leone as special guest of honour at the country’s Independence Day celebrations that falls on April 27. President Kabba invited Otumfuo Osei Tutu when he attended the Adaekese festival in Kumasi last year. According to a programme released for his visit, Otumfuo will be flown to Bo, capital of the Southern province, to address the National Council of Paramount Chiefs. The Asantehene’s, who is accompanied by a 25-member delegation, will also visit an ancestral site where the British Governor of the Gold Coast in Sierra Leone confined King Prempeh after his arrest.

[DDN] Announcing GenARDIS 2005 winners
Digital Divide Network – Apr 23, 2005
Projet de sensibilisation, de formation et de mise en place d’un système d’information agricole basé sur les TIC au profit de dix groupements féminins de la commune de Dassa-Zoumé au Bénin *****Congratulations to all these winners! You will be contacted shortly for follow-up and next steps towards implementation*****Honourable Mentions go to:· Williams Ezinwa Nwagwu, Nigeria. Information and Communication Technology skill acquisition among female schoolteachers in Umuahia, Abia State, Nigeria· Helen Lwemamu, Uganda. Rural Agricultural Community Connectivity Project· Joseph Kandeh, Sierra Leone. ICT mediated livelihood training of women in vegetable production in the western rural areas of Sierra Leone· Joyce Endeley, Cameroon. Gender and the cellular paradox: Innovation and Transforming Societies in Rural Africa· Della Ablavi Koutcho Diagne, Senegal. Réseau des jeunes filles rurales pour l’emploi ménager à Dakar *****Invitations will be extended to recipients of honourable mentions to attend the GenARDIS workshop in late 2005. *****On behalf of CTA, Gesa WesselerOn behalf of IDRC, Ramata Molo ThiouneOn behalf of IICD, Judith VeldhuizenOn behalf of Hivos, Marjan Besuijen.

Place your cross for Africa’s Aids orphans
Guardian Unlimited – Apr 24, 2005
Dorothy’s baby brother hasn’t been tested, but he’s very ill in hospital, and not being given drugs. When Kalki smiles she reminds me of my daughter Scarlett when she was that age. In Sierra Leone, one in four children dies before the age of five. In the UK it’s one in 143. If you want to give the party you support a bit of a kicking, then vote for Sne and Mbali, two orphans who appeared at the end of the New Year episode of the Vicar of Dibley. Through private charity, they have found somewhere to live and are at school. Without private charity, God knows what would have become of them…
I don’t think their fate should be in the hands of people like you and me. Politicians should have made funds available for them – before their mother and father died, aged 35 and 38. By the way – the average life expectancy in Sierra Leone is 34. Here in the UK it is 78 – it hasn’t been 34 since 500 AD. Today has been called World Poverty Day not because the world is looking at poverty today, but because Britain has been asked to look at its relationship with world poverty. It’s hard to argue with the fact that it’s the most important issue in the world: 50,000 people are dying each day as a result of extreme poverty. If 50,000 people died on one day of anything in the UK that would be the only thing the election would be about.