News

In celebration of Earth Day 2012 on April 23, U.S. Ambassador Michael S. Owen planted a Black Tumbla (Dialium guineense) tree on the grounds of the U.S. Embassy in Freetown.

According to a press release dated April 30, 2012, a hardwood tree native to West Africa, the Tumbla’s lumber is often used in canoe construction, and its small edible fruits are also a popular snack in Sierra Leone every spring. This tree will join the thousands of native fruit trees and hardwoods that the U.S. Embassy has planted over the past two years.

ACCRA, Ghana, April 30, 2012/ -- Airtel’s mobile commerce product (http://www.airtel.com), Airtel Money, has been adjudged the ‘Best Mobile Money Service’ in Ghana at the Mobile World Ghana Telecoms Awards. Airtel Money which has been praised by industry players for its innovative features and secured nature has been expanding over the past few months roping in more banks and business outlets in the process.

Daniel Sesay, a Sierra Leonean in Lowell city, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, USA, was relieved when former Liberian President Charles G. Taylor was convicted on Thursday April 26, 2012 of war crimes in in his home country.

Opposition leader and presidential candidate for the Sierra Leone Peoples Party has threatened to expose President Ernest Bai Koroma and members of his government’s “shady deals” in and outside the country if they continue to “harass” them “unfairly”.

He was responding to allegations that he siphoned hundreds of thousands of US dollars when he was deputy military leader of Sierra Leone, monies that were accrued from the sale of Sierra Leonean passports in Hong Kong.  He accused the government of peddling the allegations.

Official documents leaked to the press have raised a lot of questions over the main opposition challenger for November’s presidential election. They allege that Julius Maada Bio, when he was Deputy head of state in the National Provisional Ruling Council military junta, siphoned into his private bank accounts monies made from the sale of Sierra Leonean passports to Hong Kong citizens who wanted to leave the country ahead of its return to China. He has been speaking to Politico. 

Alas the flashpoint failed to flash. The politically volatile district of Kono did not spark during the recent political rally there by the opposition Sierra Leone People’s Party. This is a place where political skirmishes have been commonplace especially in the last nearly four years dating back to the local council elections in 2008 with the opposition mostly at the receiving end.

The head of the Anti-Corruption Commission, Joseph Kamara has told Politico that “significant evidence” has been gathered in the matter brought about in the wake of an Aljazeera television documentary on corruption in the country’s timber industry, dubbed locally as “Timbergate”.