The News Review:

- Sierra Leone: How to Report On the Economy
- Bmi heads for new routes, new owners
- Sierra Leone’s Kabbah decries Western interference in Kenyan

Sierra Leone: How to Report On the Economy
AllAfrica.com – Feb 25, 2008
His admission came after the first of a three-day workshop on budget and financial reporting, which opened on 20 February 2008 in Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown. GA_googleFillSlot(“AllAfrica_Story_Inset”); The workshop, which trained 20 journalists, was organised by the Commonwealth Secretariat’s Communications and Public Affairs Division in partnership with the Centre for Policy and Development, based in Sierra Leone. In recent years, Sierra Leone’s economic and financial news has received very little coverage in both the print and broadcast media. "There is a tendency to take a political angle in every story, even on things like business or economics, because that is usually what sells," said Ben Kargbo, freelance journalist and a presenter with Citizen FM radio station, who attended the workshop.

Bmi heads for new routes, new owners
Guardian Unlimited – Feb 25, 2008
The airline’s future success depends, in part, on more people visiting this west African city, one of the destinations featured in bmi’s biggest ever expansion. The £30m acquisition of the former British Airways franchise BMED has given the airline 17 new destinations including Freetown, Tehran and Beirut. Turner is doing the rounds of government ministers, travel agents and airport bosses in Sierra Leone as he seeks to drum up more business for a route that will go from three weekly flights to four in the summer. Some industry observers have questioned whether Iran, Lebanon and Sierra Leone are lucrative enough destinations – Georgia and Kazakhstan are also on the list – for Heathrow’s second largest carrier. Indeed, bumping along Freetown’s inconsistent road network, it is clear that the country needs a lot more infrastructure investment before it can compete with the likes of the Gambia and Ghana for tourist spending. Turner is confident that the routes are a good investment, with Freetown benefiting from the considerable Sierra Leone diaspora in the US and Europe who regularly visit a country recovering from a decade-long civil conflict. “They are classic niche routes.

Sierra Leone’s Kabbah decries Western interference in Kenyan
Earthtimes.org – Feb 25, 2008
Kabbah accused Kibaki’s Western backers of shifting support for Kenya’s opposition. “It was one particular Western government that pushed President Kibaki to that position because they wanted him to be their mouthpiece,” he said without naming any Western government. Kabbah served as president in Sierra Leone from 1996 to 1997 and again 1998 to 2007, initially during years of bloody civil war. Copyright, respective author or news agency.