The News Review:

- Guinea’s Military Leaders Lobby Sub-Regional Leaders for Support
- Guinea junta woos neighbours to avoid isolation
- 2008 and the Rule of Law in Africa
- IMF Executive Board Completes Third Review under PRGF Arrangement …
- Let Sierra Leone Association of Journalists New President Makes …
- Jonathan Bart

Guinea’s Military Leaders Lobby Sub-Regional Leaders for Support
Voice of America 
Second Vice President General Mamadou Bah Camaravisited Liberia Tuesday and met with President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf who chairsthe Mano River Union group of countries. An Executive Mansion press release fromMonrovia said General Bah Camera assured president Sirleaf that the newmilitary rulers are committed to restoring democratic civilian rule in Guineawithin two years. General Bah Camara arrived in Sierra Leone Tuesday night. The Guinean delegation?s visit to Freetowncomes ahead of the visit of Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi who is expected in theSierra Leone capital today Wednesday. Sierra Leone information minister Ibraham Kargbo told VA that although theLibyan leader?s visit was strictly bilateral the situation in Guinea might alsotop the agenda. ?TheLibyan leader is arriving in Sierra Leone on Wednesday and he is coming hereat his own request. He wants to visit Sierra Leone in normal bilateralrelations between Sierra Leone and Libya.

Guinea junta woos neighbours to avoid isolation
Reuters South Africa South Africa 
2 General Mamadouba Toto Camara visited Mali Guinea-Bissau and Sierra Leone this week to explain the military takeover in Guinea which followed the death last week of long-ruling President Lansana Conte. “We were very well received by the heads of state themselves and they all told us they supported us” delegation member Demba Fadiga told Reuters in Guinea’s capital Conakry. The president of northern neighbour Senegal Abdoulaye Wade has also given his initial blessing to the Guinean junta although he cancelled a planned visit to Conakry on Wednesday. The putsch in Guinea by the group of mostly young middle-ranking officers headed by little-known army supply corps Captain Moussa Dadis Camara has encountered early criticism from the international community. Western donors see it as another black eye for democracy in Africa following a coup just four months earlier in Mauritania which overthrew the democratically elected president.
Related from Fildak: Senegal’s president: leave Guinea junta alone

2008 and the Rule of Law in Africa
Voice of America 
C31 December 2008 In 2008 the rule of law played a prominent role in a number ofAfrican countries and is expected to do so in the New Year as well. David Craneformer chief prosecutor of the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone and aSyracuse University College of Law professor spoke to VA English to AfricaService reporter Joe De Capua about the rule of law and justice over the pastyear. ?Itmoves forward slowly and in incremental steps but stop and think what?s takenplace. The (Charles) Taylor trial has started and it?s gone very well. It?s moving forward justly and openly.

IMF Executive Board Completes Third Review under PRGF Arrangement …
Standard Times Press Sierra Leone 
The Board also approved an SDR 10. 4 million (about US$16. 1 million) augmentation to help strengthen Sierra Leone’s foreign reserve position to cope with the external shocks from world food and fuel price increases and the unfolding global financial crisis. The completion of the review enables the disbursement of SDR 7.

Let Sierra Leone Association of Journalists New President Makes …
Standard Times Press Sierra Leone 
Be Honest The elections of the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists (SLAJ) are over with a new executive in place to help push the profession of journalism on the map and make it an enviable institution for the benefit of its practitioners and the public. During the electioneering campaign some of the candidates made lots of promises to the gullible SLAJ voters they played on their feeble minds and cleverly got them to surrender their democratic and God Given rights to them. As a profession of supposed intellectuals it was the expectation of the general public that critical assessments of the candidates for various positions would have been done by the journalists before casting their votes but sentiments and sweet words carried some of them away. Some of the statements made by the candidates are still fresh in the minds of the journalists and the recording machines of the public. Now that the elections are over promises made during the campaign should be realized or come into fruition though not immediately but gradually.

Jonathan Bart
Boise Weekly  USA 
As Jonathan Bart approached his 60th birthday he decided he wanted to give back. But rather than volunteering or writing a check to a charity he and his wife Susan Earnst founded Village Hope. The start-up nonprofit is dedicated to making substantive and comprehensive change in the small African nation of Sierra Leone by building schools teaching new construction and agricultural methods granting micro loans and helping build a new economic model. Bart works as a wildlife biologist specializing in bird populations for the United States Geological Survey and has used his scientific approach to quickly build a network of academics government officials and volunteers to help achieve Village Hope’s goal. Bart sat down with BW as he prepared to leave for more than a month in Africa for the group’s first overseas work.