News

By Mustapha Sesay

Amidst controversy over its rating, Radisson Blu mammy Yoko Hotel has named a General Manager.

Johan Klana, a Swedish national, has replaced Nuno NEVES who has been recalled by the Radisson Blu management. Klana, at a special farewell press conference organized for his predecessor, told reporters that he had spent over 30 years in hotel business. He said seven of those years have been with the global hotel chain, Radisson Blu.

By Kemo Cham

The Independent Media Commission (IMC) of Sierra Leone has been nursing a huge loss after a Freetown High Court ruled against it in a case filed by the popular talk show host David Tam-Baryoh.

The court ruled last week that IMC’s decision to ban Baryoh’s popular weekly radio programme, ‘Monologue’, was ‘unjust’ and ‘hash’.

By Kemo Cham

The newly elected executive of the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists is determined to avoid the pitfalls of its predecessor.

Members of the executive last week convened a one-day orientation session designed to ensure individual executive members were acquainted with their roles and responsibilities. The move was also meant to foster cohesion among executive members so that they work together without ill-feeling fanned by lack of collaboration.

By Kemo Cham

The US embassy in Freetown last week unveiled a shortlist of 18 journalists as part of a new media fellowship programme announced last month.

The shortlisted journalists were each given the equivalent of US$400 during a brief orientation ceremony at the embassy’s complex at Hill Station on Thursday. The journalists were drawn from both print and the electronic media.

By Kemo Cham

Despite the imminent change in ownership of the telco Airtel, all its current agreements will be honored by the new owners, Managing Director of Airtel Sierra Leone, Oladapo Olusope, has said.

He was speaking at the presentation of cheques to journalists who won awards as part of the Sierra Leone Association of Journalist (SLAJ) Media Awards competition.

By Umaru Fofana

The mother of the man detained by police for attempting to board an Air France plane at Lungi on 4 June allegedly with a matchbox, a cigarette lighter and petrol, says he is “mentally retarded”.

Yabo Warah Kanu says Ibrahim Kanu “has had a mental illness since childhood and the condition manifests itself from time to time”.

The 57-year-old woman told Politico that when her son started showing signs of the illness at the start of June, she sent him to her sister in Masiaka.

By Septimus Senessie in Kono

The landmark Congo Bridge in the eastern town of Koidu is at the centre of a dispute that has sharply divided the people of the diamond-rich Kono district.

A section of the community, with the apparent backing of government, are defending mining operations under and around the bridge which is thought to be sitting on a huge reserve of diamond deposits.