Four senior workers of the Sierra Leone Port Authority have successfully completed a port management course at the Antwerp Port Training Centre in Belgium. The four Sarrah K. Sesay (Divisional Manager Media Marketing), Eustace Carrol-Garrick  (Operations Manager), Joseph Davies (Personnel Manager) and Ishmael Kanu (Director of Planning and Development) were full of praise for the Authority’s new boss Captain Benjamin Davies for the opportunity them to pursue the programme and his determination to capacitate the youthful manpower at the Port.

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Sierra Leone’s new High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, His Excellency Edward Mohamed Turay, has said he will establish what he referred to as a ‘surgery’ to address concerns and problems of Sierra Leoneans in the United Kingdom. Turay made this statement at a well attended gathering where he addressed Sierra Leoneans for the first time since his appointment at the Lambeth Academy, Elms Road, Clapham, South West London.

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Reports monitored from the eastern province indicated that some stalwarts of the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) have endorsed the developmental programmes and the “Agenda for Change” of President Ernest Bai Koroma and his All People’s Congress (APC). These endorsements were done during President Koroma’s historic visit to that part of the country. In Kenema former Finance Minister in the last government of the SLPP, Joseph Bandabla (JB) Dauda who was also a Minister in the government of ex-President Joseph Saidu Momoh, hosted President Ernest Bai Koroma at the Kenema District Council office where he declared that the present government was doing quite well and bringing noticeable changes to the country.

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The National Organization of Sierra Leoneans in North America ( NOSLINA) , the umbrella organization of Sierra Leonean associations in the United States ,has displayed its public spiritedness once again by donating to the Bill Clinton/George W. Bush Haiti Disaster Fund. NOSLINA  is an organization that does not only recognize the efforts being expended by Sierra Leoneans and organizations towards making their communities and the world a  better place but it also makes commendable donations to public causes both in the U.S. and Sierra Leone. The present donation was provided to aid victims of the recent calamitious earthquake in Haiti.

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The National Organization of Sierra Leoneans in North America ( NOSLINA ) invites you to its 12th Anniversary Dinner/Dance and National Awards Gala and Sierra Leone’s 49th Independence Day Celebrations on Saturday, May 8, 2010 at 8:00 P.M. – 3:00 A.M. at the Best Western Capital Beltway Hotel , 5910 Princess Gardens Parkway, Lanham, Maryland 20706. Don’t miss out on the LARGEST Sierra Leone event of the year!!! Highlights include: Tantalizing Cuisine, Spectacular Music, Socializing with Sierra Leoneans from across the United States; Awards Presentations, and a NOSLINA Souvenir Program Booklet . MC: Sia Fuambai Ahmadu – Executive Director of Miss Sierra Leone DC (MSLDC ).

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History was made in Sierra Leone on Friday as the All People's Congress ( APC ) Government  laid the basis for opening up Kailahun District to civilization, progress and development. Kailahun , hitherto, was one of the most neglected and backward districts in Sierra Leone is to be linked to the rest of Sierra Leone  by a U.S. $110  million highway project that was launched over the weekend by President Ernest Bai Koroma. A delighted nation awaits expectantly for President Koroma to do the same to the Makeni-Kamakwie  and Makeni -Kabala  Roads to bring civilization and development to another backward and neglected part of Sierra Leone.

Not to overstate the obvious, President Koroma told cheering South/Easterners at the weekend that his priorities when he came to power were not only agriculture and the Bumbuna Hydroelectricity Project but infrastructural developments, especially road construction in areas of Sierra Leone that had been deprived for long , like Kailahun and Koinadugu. President Koroma is determined to open up even the most remote parts of Sierra Leone to commerce with an eye to bringing development and improving the lives of the people.

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From a bird’s eye-view of the global development spectrum in today’s Sierra Leone, education still appears to be an unharnessed resource in the country. Apparently, the current political leadership continues to address the economic hardship and poverty bequeathed on Sierra Leoneans by the 10-year civil war. Barely two years after the All People’s Party (APC) (under the leadership of President Ernest Bai Koroma) was triumphantly ushered into power, social and economic trends in the country have improved, If anything, the morale of the average Sierra Leonean in the country is upbeat, a condition hinged on the numerous employment prospects that are now open to Sierra Leoneans at home and abroad. Now, families in Sierra Leone enjoy quasi unlimited electricity and water supply. Above all, the country continues to enjoy the luxury of a long-awaited period of peace and calm.

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Commonwealth Secretary-General, Kamalesh Sharma, will visit Sierra Leone from 7 to 9 February 2010 to hold talks with President Ernest Bai Koroma and other senior figures. The visit to the country, the first by Mr Sharma since becoming Secretary-General, will be an opportunity to brief President Koroma on implementation of priorities set by Commonwealth Heads of Government at their recent meeting in Trinidad and Tobago in November 2009, and discuss ways to strengthen the Commonwealth's overall relationship with Sierra Leone including development assistance and democracy-strengthening programmes.

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There will be intense excitement as the Commonwealth Secretary General, Kamalesh Sharma visit Sierra Leone from the 7 and 9 February 2010. Much will be made about the significance of Sharma’s first official visit to Sierra Leone as Secretary General of the Commonwealth, especially the fact that the Sierra Leone is a valued member of the Commonwealth family and considering the huge commonwealth investment in the country for the past years. Let us be quite clear about this, that President Koroma and his government will be bombarding the Secretary General, with well-worded statements about government achievements, with its most popular slogan ’ Agenda for Change.’

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Sierra Leone is for Sierra Leoneans and President Ernest Bai Koroma is the bona fide elected President of Sierra Leone. He transcends tribal hegemony or regional bias. He is of a different political breed whose aim and objective is to make Sierra Leone a Nation where everybody is somebody, one's tribal or regional background notwithstanding. He understands that,  for Sierra Leone to become a nation, a status it had been yearning for damn too long, the tribal and regional divide, the subsumed misconception that had been made a vanguard for low self-esteemed politicians to maintain power at the expense of our people throughout Sierra Leone needs to be eliminated.

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The locality known as Kroo Town, which is bounded by Joaque Bridge and King Tom's Bridge on the East and West, and Kroo Bay and Congo Town Falls on the North and South, forms an interesting township in the city of Freetown. It is the most populated portion of the city, and inhabited for the most part by the Kroos. There is a Kroo Reservation exclusively granted to them comprising of All That piece of land on the north of Kroo Town Road and extending from Joaque Bridge to a point terminating in Cline Street(West) and marked by the fixture of an old field gun on each extremity.

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Sierra Leone is a country of villages and it was much more so at the early stage of the establishment of the Colony soon after the abolition of the Slave Trade by the British Government, when those rescued at  sea were continuously  landed in the new Colony and placed in villages which were founded one after the other for the accommodation of the new arrivals.

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When I read the Article published by the S.L. Standard Times,  … Fishermen Union Shame Marine Minister, it doesn’t diminish my respect for the news media, but I asked that they do a better job of educating us the readers. We need to know our fine contributing writers. It also gives us solace to know that these editors (CEO’s) are fully aware of the laws which governed the internet i.e. ‘Defamation of character’ is a qualified court offence. These laws are recognized world wide.Whatever happens to investigative journalism?  As I watch the spate of attacks on our honorable female ministers I am left with no choice but to pen down these few observations. This bias reporting is diminishing the profession in some sectors in a period which stand out as the period of exorbitant improvement in the journalism industry. 

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6 February 2010 – While there has been progress in reducing the incidence of female genital mutilation or cutting in several countries, there are still three million girls who continue to be at risk each year, United Nations officials warned today, calling for redoubled efforts to end this harmful practice. The progress made in recent years in reducing FGM/C is largely because communities and families are taking action and calling for change, Thoraya Obaid and Ann M. Veneman, the Executive Directors of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) and the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), said in a joint statement to mark the International Day Against Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting.

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Monitor reporter Angelo Izama, right, went through the courts to gain access to government documents and was denied. (Monitor)In Uganda, a ruling this week in a landmark case of two journalists seeking to compel their government’s disclosure of multinationals oil deals highlighted the challenges to public transparency just before media leaders, press freedom advocates, officials, and former U.S. President Jimmy Carter gather in Ghana next week at the African Regional Conference on the Right of Access to Information.

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Top officials of the Ministry of Health and Sanitation, as well as the Minister of State, representing the office of the Vice President were called to a meeting by the Anti-Corruption Commission on 2nd February 2010 to discuss the way forward in the Health Sector.  It could be recalled that the ACC since last year (2009) did a Systems Review on the Ministry of Health and made a number of recommendations in its report.  According to the ACC, not much has been done by way of implementing the recommendations in the systems review report.

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The Eastern Province , which has been deprived of development for so long,  will start seeing light today when President Ernest Koroma launches the working phase of the Kenema-Kailahun Road project . The launching program which started in Kenema yesterday will be re-enacted in Kailahun when President Koroma and party enter the stronghold of the opposition Sierra Leone People's Party ( SLPP) today to usher in different phases of the All People's Congress ( APC ) Government's  development package for the Eastern Province.

 Yesterday and today's programs in the East manifest the determination of the Ernest Koroma government to bring development to all parts of Sierra Leone , including the stronghold of the SLPP . The events will also demonstrate the strong efforts being made by the APC Government to deliver on its promises to the people of Sierra Leone. During the stormy electioneering campaign for the 2007 Presidential Elections , President Koroma promised the people of the Eastern Province that if he won the elections, he would reconstruct the Kenema-Kailahun Road and bring other development projects to the district 

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Prosecutors at the human rights trial of former Liberian warlord Charles Taylor alleged Thursday that Christian televangelist Pat Robertson had lobbied the White House on Taylor's behalf in return for a gold mining contract. The controversial pastor and former Republican presidential contender met with then-President George W. Bush on Taylor's behalf, prosecutors charged during cross-examination of Taylor in a Dutch courtroom, allegedly in return for a contract to mine gold in southeast Liberia -- a contract they say that Taylor had no legal right to grant.

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His Excellency the President Dr. Ernest Bai Koroma took time off his extremely busy schedule while attending the just concluded 14th Ordinary Session Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the African Union to address Sierra Leoneans living in Ethiopia. The event, which was held at the residence of Sierra Leone's envoy to the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia and Permanent Representative (PR) to the African Union and United Nations Economic Commission, His Excellency Andrew Bangali attracted Sierra Leoneans from all walks of life in Ethiopia.

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Connaught and Bo Government hospitals have received donated medical equipments from Australia. The medical equipments which included two Laparoscopic or Arthroscopic sets were donated by a Sierra Leonean: Dr. Bernard Tamba-Lebbie, living and working in Australia as a consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon. The donated items were entrusted in the care of Mr. Teddy Foday-Musa, for onward delivery to the two government hospitals. On the 26th January, the medical superintendent in Bo, Dr. A.P Koroma, received the equipments on behalf of Bo government hospital, while on the 28th January; Dr T.B. Kamara received the other set of equipments on behalf of Connaught hospital. SEE PICTORIAL INSIDE

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