The News Review:

- Amistad sets sail to mark the end of slavery
- Without a Home: Refugees in Crisis.(Broadcast transcript)
- Blood Diamond – DVD review
- Toby Helm asks if Tony Blair is in denial about leaving Number 10

Amistad sets sail to mark the end of slavery
The Independent – Independent – Jun 23, 2007
But a replica vessel piloted by the 71-year-old from Chicago set sail from the east coast of the United States this week on an altogether less controversial mission: to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade. The modern-day L’Amistad’s 18-month, 14,000 mile journey retraces the slave route from Europe to west Africa to America. Arguably the highlight of the trip will be when it docks in Sierra Leone, the homeland of many of the original captives. “I’m confident I’ll avoid my predecessor’s fate. The only thing I’m concerned about is how to cope with the rapturous welcome we’re going to get,” said Capt Pinkney, who will be guiding the boat into harbour in Freetown later this year. The story of L’Amistad, which means The Friendship in Spanish, was popularised in the 1997 film, directed by Stephen Spielberg. Four children and 49 men were kidnapped from the west coast of Africa, forced into shackles and sold into the transatlantic slave trade in 1839…
They say we are like dogs without any home. But if you will send us home, you will see whether we be dogs or not. We want to see no more snow. We no say this place no good but we afraid of cold. We want to go very soon, and go to no place but Sierra Leone. “Finally in January 1842, almost three years after they were seized, the 35 who had survived made it home. As the replica ship left New Haven this week, descendants of the Mende slaves were on the quayside to wave it off.

Without a Home: Refugees in Crisis.(Broadcast transcript)
Free with registration – International Wire – AccessMyLibrary.com – Jun 23, 2007
For Jolie, it is a mission that began six years ago. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) COOPER: When was it that you knew this is it — this is going to be a primary focus for me? ANGELIE JOLIE, ACADEMY AWARD WINNING ACTRESS: The first time I went to a refugee camp. COOPER: Which camp was that? JOLIE: Well, my first trip I went to Sierra Leone and then I went to Tanzania. So it was two different — but it was all under one very long extended few weeks — and kind of came back with the realization of having met these different groups of people. COOPER: Was there a moment in that camp in Sierra Leone where you said this is — this is it. This is for me? JOLIE: In Sierra Leone it was a realization that there were really — real horrors in the world and real, and a kind of cruelty and violence that I — that I really did not know existed. And I did not know people could suffer like that…
COOPER: Which camp was that? JOLIE: Well, my first trip I went to Sierra Leone and then I went to Tanzania. So it was two different — but it was all under one very long extended few weeks — and kind of came back with the realization of having met these different groups of people. COOPER: Was there a moment in that camp in Sierra Leone where you said this is — this is it. This is for me? JOLIE: In Sierra Leone it was a realization that there were really — real horrors in the world and real, and a kind of cruelty and violence that I — that I really did not know existed. And I did not know people could suffer like that. And Sierra Leone was where so many people had systematically had their arms and legs cut off and even 3-year-old kids with no arms and legs because they were hatched it off or friends that had to cut off other friends’ hands and legs and they were traumatized. And it was — really to this day the most brutal situation I have ever seen.

Blood Diamond – DVD review
Pocket-lint.co.uk – Jun 23, 2007
Put to work in the diamond mines, Solomon discovers a very rare pink gem, which he keeps hidden from his captors until a chance intervention by Government forces allows him to escape one day. He then sets about finding his son, Dia (Kuypers), who has also been kidnapped and is being trained as a child soldier by the rebels. To do this he strikes a bargain with Danny Archer (DiCaprio), an unscrupulous mercenary with illegal connections in the diamond trade: help find Dia and the priceless stone is his. Ploughing a similar furrow to 2005s The Constant Gardener, Blood Diamond is an intelligent political thriller tackling Western corporate greed in Africa.

Toby Helm asks if Tony Blair is in denial about leaving Number 10
Telegraph.co.uk – Jun 23, 2007
After 10 extraordinary years as Prime Minister and global statesman, Tony Blair has, it seems, said his goodbyes to almost everyone – from tribal elders in a village in Sierra Leone, to Colonel Gadaffi in his Libyan tent, and the tea ladies of Number Ten. No picture opportunity has been left untaken, no stunt unperformed, as Labour’s most successful politician has prepared to take his leave. Today, “Blair legacy tours” will even drop in on Pope Benedict XVI for a chat at the Vatican. On Tuesday, the day before he is driven up the Mall to hand in his notice to the Queen at Buckingham Palace, Blair will entertain ex-movie star turned governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, to discuss climate change. The aim of it all, as a leaked Downing Street memo revealed last year, has been to “leave the crowds wanting more” as Tony steps off the stage – to create a picture of a man of constant action rather than a political leader heading, exhausted, for retirement.