News

By Mohamed Jaward Nyallay 

Officials in Guinea, West Africa, have confirmed that Ebola has killed a young girl at the Nzerekore hospital. She becomes the fourth victim to have been killed by Ebola since it resurfaced in the Mano River Union country in February, 2016. Others countries in the union are Sierra Leone, Liberia and Cote d’Ivoire.

Freetown (Politico Online): Residents of the three relocated communities at the Tonkolili iron ore mine in northern Sierra Leone have threatened to block the railway track from transporting ore for Shandong Steel.

It comes after the Chinese company discontinued payment of their monthly household subvention of a bag of rice and $25 to the Ferengbeya, Wondugu and Foraya villages, a bailout agreement introduced by African Minerals Company (AML) which had existed before the Chinese company bought over their concession areas.

Freetown (Politico Online): Fourah Bay College lecturers have started an indefinite stay-at-home strike over pay and conditions.
They say the central government has reneged on an agreement reached with them five years ago for a pay rise that was to have been effected within three years.
The Vice President of the college academic staff association, Ambrose Rogers told Politico that they were also "concerned about our safety and the safety of our families because thieves have been invading our quarters and wreaking havoc on us with ease".

By Mustapha Sesay

The Freetown City Council has disclosed plans to increase fees for burials in the municipality. Officials said the high cost of maintaining cemeteries demanded that alternative revenue must be sought.

Residents will now be required to pay Le100,000, up from Le25,000 per grave before burying their dead representing a 300% increase.

Foday Fofana, a former BBC correspondent in Guinea and Sierra Leone died on Monday in Freetown after a short illness.

The 57-year-old was laid to rest late on Tuesday evening an occasion graced by senior members of the media fraternity including the SLAJ President, Kelvin Lewis who said he was taught a thing or two by the veteran journalist.

Also present were veteran  journalist Chris to Johnson himself a former BBC reporter and Isaac Massaquoi who describes his late colleague as "a giant of a journalist".

By Kemo Cham

The West African Ebola epidemic is no longer an international public health emergency, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has declared on Tuesday.

The UN health agency said the viral disease outbreak which wrecked Sierra Leone and its neighbors Liberia and Guinea no longer constituted a public health emergency of international concern as the first leg of the original transmission had come to an end.

By Mustapha Kamara Jnr

In a bid to complement the effort of the government of Sierra Leone, Mercury International, through its charitable foundation, has provided scholarships for over one thousand pupils and students from different schools and tertiary institutions across the country.

This was recently disclosed by Samir Hassanyeh, CEO of Mercury International. He told a press conference that the grants that were been given to students and pupils who had applied in 2014 were a continuation of a process that the company started the since 2007.