The News Review:

- Sierra Leone and its diamonds
- Sierra Leone officers to support UNAMID
- Sierra Leone: EU Food Facility to Boost Smallholder Farmers …
- New book on post-war Sierra Leone published in Canada
- West Africa Examination Council in Sierra Leone Disappoints ver …

Sierra Leone and its diamonds
Economist
In the 1990s the drugged-up rebels of the Revolutionary United Front controlled Kono’s mines by means of rape murder and mutilation. When that bloody civil war ended in 2002 mining companies replaced the rebels but brought their own problems. The largest firm South Africa-based Koidu Holdings was pitted against locals over blasting schedules and environmental issues. Small-time local miners little more than licensed freelancers prospecting by hand were disappointed to find that most of the mines near the surface had been exhausted.

Sierra Leone officers to support UNAMID
Middle East Times
The deployment came as a welcome announcement as the United Nations-African Union peacekeeping mission in Darfur known as UNAMID has been working to boost the numbers of troops and law enforcement personnel operating in the region to counter ongoing rebel threats. fficials say 40 police officers from Sierra Leone arrived in Darfur to support UNAMID Wednesday and that an additional 22 arrived Thursday the United Nations reported. The newly deployed officers from Sierra Leone will be assigned to help protect civilians in the region from clashes between Sudanese government forces and rebel Janjaweed militiamen. According to a news release the six years of violence in Darfur has resulted in an “estimated 300000 people (who) have been killed and another 2.

Sierra Leone: EU Food Facility to Boost Smallholder Farmers …
AllAfrica.com
4 million donation from the European Union to the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP). GA_googleFillSlot( “AllAfrica_Story_InsetA” );“This generous donation from the European Union will enable WFP to assist farmers in Bonthe Pujehun Bo Moyamba Port Loko Tonkolili Kenema Kono and Kailahun districts to rehabilitate their swamps for intensive rice cultivation and coffee and cocoa plantations for cash crop cultivation” said WFP Representative Christa Räder. “I am confident that this will help boost the production and income of smallholder farmers who have not been able to benefit from the rising food prices as their production has been limited and they have in fact been dependant on food purchases during large periods of the year” she added. The European Union donation will be used to provide food assistance to 155000 people belonging to 31000 smallholder farm families in return for their work to rehabilitate 5300 hectares of inland valley swamps 6000 hectares of smallholder plantations and 500 kilometres of feeder roads that will help them take their produce to markets.
Related from Wateresources: Likelihood of no water alarms CVP farmers

New book on post-war Sierra Leone published in Canada
Patriotic Vanguard
The book is put together by prolific writer Lansana Gberie acclaimed author of “A Dirty War in West Africa: The RUF and the Destruction of Sierra Leone” (Indiana University Press 2005). The book collects reflections and analyses by policy makers diplomats academics and development experts with direct experience of Sierra Leone – both during the war and in the immediate post-war period. Like the conference out of which the book issued this volume is divided into two sections. The first section focuses on what can be loosely described as the political economy of post-war Sierra Leone with chapters by Ian Smillie (a critical analysis of external assistance to Sierra Leone); Peter Penfold a former UK High Commissioner to Sierra Leone (a critique of the Special Court for Sierra Leone); Zoe Dugal (an overview of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission); zonnia jielo (Governance in Sierra Leone Post-TRC); and Lansana Gberie (an evaluation of the role of diamonds in post-war Sierra Leone).

West Africa Examination Council in Sierra Leone Disappoints ver …
Standard Times Press
The head of the institution Mr. Sapateh is described by most Parents and Guardians as the Maradona of the West Africa Examination Council who keeps dribbling Students Parents and Guardians from one academic year to another without pity and sympathy. The future of students going through the West Africa Examination Council to secure results that can take them to Colleges and University is evidently becoming bleak and unpredictable under the administration of Mr. Sapateh who is reportedly concerned with the collection of examination fees and other financial obligations charged on them for public exams.