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/ 14 October 2007
Sierra Leone’s recently elected leader on Saturday released a complete list of his 20-strong government ministers, consisting mainly of technocrats and his party’s stalwarts. Three women — heading the foreign affairs, energy and social welfare portfolios — are on the list that is still subject to parliamentary approval.
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/ 10 October 2007
Boboh village used to do a roaring trade in the Pa Gbana cocktail, a mix of fermented local grasses, coconut and lime favoured by tourists to wash down freshly-cooked lobster. Nowadays there is little demand for the drink, named after the village’s oldest resident: the only foreigners on Boboh’s pristine beaches, south of Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown, are development workers taking time out.
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/ 25 September 2007
Sierra Leone arrested eight Guineans, including military personnel and fisheries inspectors, whom it accused of carrying out a pirate attack on two locally licensed fishing vessels, officials said on Monday. But Guinean authorities rejected the piracy charge, saying the men were on a legitimate fisheries protection patrol.
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/ 17 September 2007
Sierra Leone opposition leader Ernest Bai Koroma won the West African country’s presidential election after a tense run-off vote marred by some cases of fraud, the National Electoral Commission said on Monday. Koroma, a 53-year-old candidate of the opposition All People’s Congress, was declared the winner with 54,6% of valid votes.
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/ 14 September 2007
Sierra Leone opposition leader Ernest Bai Koroma, who looks set to win the West African country’s presidential election, says he will wage an implacable war on corruption and work to revive the war-scarred economy. With just over three-quarters of the votes counted from last week’s run-off poll, Koroma, of the All People’s Congress, has a commanding lead with 60%.
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/ 11 September 2007
Opposition leader Ernest Bai Koroma said he had won Sierra Leone’s presidential election but the ruling party accused him of trying to ”steal” the poll as more results were due on Tuesday from the tense weekend vote. Partial official results from just over a fifth of polling stations showed Koroma, of the All People’s Congress party, leading with 64%.
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/ 8 September 2007
Voting began calmly in Sierra Leone on Saturday despite a turbulent campaign for a presidential runoff vote meant to consolidate peace after a civil war. Rival groups of former combatants have clashed with guns and machetes in the former British colony since the first round on August 11 in which opposition candidate Ernest Bai Koroma of the All People’s Congress led with 44%.
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/ 5 September 2007
Sierra Leone media authorities are trying to tone down party political broadcasts alleging executions and machete attacks to try to defuse tensions ahead of a presidential run-off vote on Saturday. The poll, the culmination of the first elections since United Nations peacekeepers left, pits opposition leader Ernest Bai Koroma against Vice-President Solomon Berewa.
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/ 3 September 2007
Sierra Leone’s rival presidential contenders will lead supporters in a joint peace march to cement a pact against violence following clashes ahead of a run-off vote, their parties said on Monday. Opposition frontrunner Ernest Bai Koroma and his ruling party rival, Vice-President Solomon Berewa, agreed the deal in talks on Sunday.
The opposition frontrunner in Sierra Leone’s presidential election cut short a campaigning tour on Friday after his convoy was attacked by stone-throwing pro-government supporters, witnesses said. Ernest Bai Koroma accused the ruling Sierra Leone People’s Party of outgoing President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah of trying to derail the election, before a run-off vote on September 8.
Mustapha Sesay and Femi Rashid, former foes in Sierra Leone’s civil war, spar with good humoured jibes as they work together in a motorcycle taxi association that brings together ex-combatants. ”I shoot you like a chicken,” laughs ex-rebel child soldier Sesay. ”You don’t know how to fight,” retorts Rashid, once a traditional Kamajor hunter who battled the rebels.
Sierra Leone’s main opposition parties will campaign jointly against Vice-President Solomon Berewa in a presidential run-off after taking control of the West African country’s Parliament, a party chief said on Friday. The move puts All People’s Congress leader Ernest Bai Koroma in position to succeed outgoing President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah.
Sierra Leone’s main opposition All People’s Congress swept aside the ruling party in this month’s landmark elections, winning a majority of seats in the new Parliament, officials said on Thursday. The APC won 59 of the 112 seats on offer in the August 11 vote, leaving the ruling Sierra Leone People’s Party with just 43 seats, down from 83 in the previous assembly.
Sierra Leone’s ruling party presidential candidate Solomon Berewa said on Monday two main opposition candidates have formed an alliance to try to beat him in an anticipated second round. Main opposition candidate Ernest Bai Koroma of the All People’s Congress party is leading after the first round, with 44% of the vote.
Sierra Leone’s opposition All People’s Congress on Saturday kept its lead with more than 80% of the votes counted after last week’s elections, but fell short of absolute majority, an official tally showed. About 2,6-million people were eligible to choose a new president and a 112-seat Parliament.
As it pieces together its shattered mining sector after a 10-year civil war fuelled by so-called ”blood diamonds”, Sierra Leone is turning attention to processing its uncut gemstones. For years, the diamond-rich West African country has mined diamonds and exported them raw, but the focus is now on ”beneficiation”.
Sierra Leone’s elections, the second vote since the West African country emerged from one of the most brutal wars in modern history, has sparked a new battle for the airwaves. Days after accusing the main opposition All People’s Congress of broadcasting post-election hate messages, the ruling party this week conducted a test transmission for its own station.
For the past week Sierra Leoneans have been glued to their radio sets, waiting patiently for final results as officials of the National Electoral Commission (NEC) continue to tally ballots from the historic presidential and parliamentary elections that ended last Saturday.
Sierra Leone on Monday anxiously awaited preliminary results from watershed elections that international observers declared free and fair, despite allegations of vote-rigging from some parties. Preliminary results from Saturday’s presidential and legislative ballots were expected later in the day.
Ballot-counting was under way on Sunday across Sierra Leone after the West African country voted in presidential and parliamentary elections seen as a test of whether it has fully emerged from its decade-long civil war. Voting was peaceful, although some polling stations opened late and many people had to wait in long lines in the rain.
Sierra Leoneans queued in ramshackle cities and jungle villages on Saturday to vote in their first elections since United Nations peacekeepers left two years ago, a test of the nation’s recovery from a 1991 to 2002 civil war. Torrential rains cleared overnight in the capital, Freetown, and hundreds of people lined up around the block at several polling stations.
Sierra Leone holds presidential and parliamentary polls on Saturday, the first since United Nations peacekeepers left two years ago and a watershed in its recovery from an 11-year civil war fuelled by blood diamonds. The war spawned images of drug-crazed child soldiers who hacked off people’s limbs.
In Freetown’s rubbish-strewn slums, where sick children defecate in sewers by pot-holed streets, music blaring from shops and taxis tells Sierra Leone’s youth that politicians have failed their war-ravaged country. The West African nation’s 1991 to 2002 civil war was infamous for drugged child soldiers who raped and mutilated thousands of civilians, but now young Sierra Leoneans hold in their hands the future of their country, one of the poorest on earth.
The United Nations resident representative in Sierra Leone on Tuesday warned that the war-scarred West African country cannot afford to fail to organise credible elections, ahead of weekend polls. Sierra Leoneans will vote on Saturday for the first time in five years, and only the second elections since the country emerged from a decade of war.
At least 50 people are dead and 148 others are missing after a coastal ferry capsized overnight in rough seas off northern Sierra Leone, a port official said on Friday. ”According to the report we received, 50 people perished, two were rescued while 148 others remain unaccounted for,” the official, who asked not to be named, said.
Sierra Leone’s United Nations-backed Special Court convicted two former leaders of a pro-government militia on Thursday for war crimes, but acquitted them of some of the most serious charges of crimes against humanity. The two were leaders of the Civil Defence Forces, which fought for President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah in a 1991 to 2002 civil war.
A United Nations-backed Sierra Leone court on Thursday issued its first sentences since the end of the West African nation’s bloody conflict, ordering three rebel leaders convicted of war crimes to prison for between 45 and 50 years each. The three men had been indicted in 2003 and their joint trial began in Freetown in 2005.
Former Liberian president Charles Taylor, who is on trial for atrocities committed in Sierra Leone’s civil war, would, if convicted, serve his sentence in Britain under an agreement made by British authorities. Britain’s government signed the sentence-enforcement agreement this week with the United Nations-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone.
Sierra Leone’s special war-crimes court handed down its first verdicts on Wednesday, finding three leaders of a militia guilty of war crimes that include killing, raping and mutilating civilians. The verdicts stem from charges relating to Sierra Leone’s civil war.
Senior sources in Sierra Leone believe Britain is about to freeze a £15-million payment to the West African nation amid evidence of endemic corruption that has seen millions of pounds in aid line the pockets of dishonest officials while ordinary people struggle in conditions of catastrophic poverty .
Twenty-two people, most of them Togolese sports officials, were killed when a passenger helicopter exploded and crashed on Sunday at Sierra Leone’s main international airport. The helicopter was operated by Paramount Airlines, which shuttles passengers between Freetown and Lungi airport.
Britain ”fully supports” United States efforts to toughen United Nations Security Council sanctions against Sudan because of the situation in Darfur, a British official said on Wednesday. ”We hope that all members of the Security Council will work with the US to create a resolution which effectively addresses the challenges in Darfur,” the Downing Street official said.