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On Friday, an article ‘Sierra Leone putting digital ID at the centre of its digital transformation agenda’, published by Biometric Update, reported on an interview with Sierra Leone’s National Civil Registration Authority (“NCRA”) Deputy Director Moses T.F. Vibbie. The interview was conducted on the sidelines of a MOSIP Connect event last month in Addis Ababa. Vibbie explained that the strong political will of the country’s President, Julius Maada Bio, and the dedication of the NCRA’s Director General, Mohamed Mubashir Massaquoi, are the other driving forces behind the initiative. Massaquoi is also an ambassador for ID4Africa whose foundation partners are the...

Sierra Leone has declared a national emergency over a psychoactive drug made from human bones. The country has witnessed a sharp spike in abuse of the drug, kush, forcing police officers to guard cemeteries in the capital of Freetown, to stop young men from digging up skeletons to get high. Kush is a drug made from a variety of substances, including toxic chemicals, herbs, cannabis, disinfenctant but one of its main ingredients is ground-up human bone, as they contain traces of sulphur, which allegedly can enhance the drugs effect. In a nationwide broadcast yesterday, Sierra Leone's President Bio said: 'Our...

To be honest, I’d never much thought about the Ebola lockdowns in Sierra Leone and Liberia in 2014 and 2015. Within public health, the Sierra Leone and Liberia lockdowns were an early illustration of the fact that lockdowns were ineffective, but governments of developing nations sometimes do strange things; the idea that these lockdowns might have greater geopolitical significance never occurred to me. This changed dramatically when I began studying social media activity about lockdowns before 2020. Prior to 2014, and from 2016 to 2019, there’s virtually no social media activity about lockdowns. However, this pattern changes abruptly during one...

Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi called for allowing Christians and Jews to perform pilgrimage to Mecca, Islam's holiest place. Speaking following prayers with the presidents of Mali, Sierra Leone, Niger, Mauritania and Senegal on the occasion of the Prophet Mohammed's birthday in Timbuktu, Mali, late on Monday, Qadhafi said "Mecca should be a meeting point to all people except heretics and impure". He said that Christians and Jews are not heretics or impure and "believe in God" and should be allowed to go to pilgrimage in Mecca. Qadhafi challenged Muslim religious leaders to allow US President George W. Bush to enter...

Ninety-one people were killed and over 100 wounded in the capital of Sierra Leone on Friday when a fuel tanker exploded following a collision, the central morgue and local authorities said. The government has not yet confirmed the death toll, but the manager of the central state morgue in Freetown said it had received 91 bodies following the explosion. A further 100 casualties have been admitted for treatment at hospitals and clinics across the capital, deputy health minister Amara Jambai told Reuters. Victims included people who had flocked to collect fuel leaking from the ruptured vehicle, Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr, mayor of...

CONAKRY (Reuters) - The World Health Organization has asked six African countries to be alert for possible Ebola infections, as Guinea on Tuesday reported new cases and Democratic Republic of Congo said its new infections were a resurgence of a previous outbreak. Guinea declared an outbreak of the virus on Sunday in the first return of the disease there since the 2013-2016 outbreak, while Congo has confirmed four new cases this month. Health authorities have rushed to respond to the cases in Guinea, anxious to prevent a repeat of the last outbreak in West Africa, which killed more than 11,300...

West Africa is a well known transit center for smuggled diamonds, especially for Lebanese traders, with many sales funding criminal and terrorist groups. European and American intelligence sources have long known that Hezbollah has raised significant amounts of money in West Africa through the largely Shiite Muslim Lebanese communities in Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso and Togo. There are an estimated 120,000 Lebanese in West Africa, mostly involved in import-export businesses.

Leone’s famous rapper LAJ , who was serving 8 years prison term for Identity theft, credit card fraud, carrying fake immigration documents, car theft in the United States was released two days ago for good behaviour, the USA plans to deport him to Sierra Leone. According to inside sources LAJ complained from his halfway house that he would be deported to Sierra Leone at anytime in the future, though he said he never want to go back to Sierra Leone because of the fact the he has no professional job training and his life will be difficult given the fact...

Federal authorities said in the affidavit that in late March, Jalloh made his first contact with a source who was working with a now-deceased overseas co-conspirator who was a member of the Islamic State. The overseas co-conspirator encouraged the source to have an in-person meeting with Jalloh, the documents state, and when they did meet on April 9, the FBI was watching. At that meeting, Jalloh praised Mohammad Youssef Abdulazeez, who killed five U.S. service members in Chattanooga, Tenn., last year, the documents said. And Jalloh, at one point, suggested that someone known for organizing contests for cartoons of the...

President Donald Trump threatened Friday to cut off aid and slap sanctions on countries that refuse to accept nationals the U.S. tries to deport. Trump said during a briefing with Department of Homeland Security officials at the Customs and Border Protection National Targeting Center in Virginia that he knows how to change the trend. “If they don’t take ’em back, we’ll put sanctions on the countries, we’ll put tariffs on the countries,” Trump said. He added: “They’ll take ’em back so fast your head would spin.” He’s also threatened to cut off aid to the countries, which include China and...

Cables Portray Expanded Reach of Drug Agency By GINGER THOMPSON and SCOTT SHANE WASHINGTON — The Drug Enforcement Administration has been transformed into a global intelligence organization with a reach that extends far beyond narcotics, and an eavesdropping operation so expansive it has to fend off foreign politicians who want to use it against their political enemies, according to secret diplomatic cables. In far greater detail than previously seen, the cables, from the cache obtained by WikiLeaks and made available to some news organizations, offer glimpses of drug agents balancing diplomacy and law enforcement in places where it can be...

Guinea Ebola Riots Wound Dozens Conakry - Clashes between protesters and security forces in a Guinean city at the epicentre of the west African Ebola outbreak have left at least 55 wounded, the local government said on Saturday. A curfew was imposed in N'Zerekore, Guinea's second-largest city, after two days of protests on Thursday and Friday by market stall holders against a team of health workers sent, without notice, to spray their market with disinfectant. Regional governor Lancei Conde said at least 27 law enforcement officers forces were among the wounded. "In N'zerekore and elsewhere, there are two camps -...

The Red Cross has uncovered several cases of fraud by officials during efforts to combat the Ebola outbreak that struck West Africa in 2014-2016, estimating losses of $6 million (€5.2 million). In a statement, the Geneva-based International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said it was “outraged”, and said it would “ensure any staff involved are held to account.” The Ebola virus killed more than 11,300 people and infected an estimated 29,000, mainly in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. The IFRC said the operations set up to contain the outbreak “were among the most complex in recent...

The U.S. State Department on Wednesday will stop issuing certain kinds of visas to some citizens of Cambodia, Eritrea, Guinea and Sierra Leone because the nations are not taking back their citizens the United States wants to deport. The new policies, laid out in State Department cables sent on Tuesday and reviewed by Reuters, are the latest example of U.S. President Donald Trump’s effort to crack down on immigrants who are in the United States illegally. The cables, sent by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to consular officials around the world, said the four countries were “denying or unreasonably delaying”...

An African church minister who supplements his meagre stipend by scrabbling for minerals in the artisanal mines of eastern Sierra Leone has discovered one of the largest diamonds ever found. The 709-carat stone was extracted this week by Emmanuel Momoh, a pastor in one of the myriad churches that ministers to the mining communities of Kono district, the diamond centre that became the crucible of Sierra Leone’s blood-soaked civil war. It is believed to be the 13th largest uncut diamond ever to be pulled from the ground, industry analysts said. The stone is to be auctioned, the Sierra Leonean government...

can’t say anything about the roots of this story and I don’t plan to dig further… I need to think about my own skin too. Understand that as you will.” —Mikhail Voitenko, editor of the Russian maritime Bulletin Sovfrakht., speaking about the “hijacking” of the Arctic Sea While it might seem like an unusual morphing of the movies Inside Man and The Hunt for Red October, the account of the cargo ship Arctic Sea is far stranger than either fictional account. Based on information developed through our extensive investigation, we can authoritatively state, without hyperbole, that the mysteries surrounding the...

A former member of the Army National Guard living in Sterling, Va., is accused of trying to plan a domestic terrorist attack on behalf of the Islamic State. Mohamad Bailor Jalloh was arrested Sunday and charged with attempting to provide material support to the terrorist organization, according to papers filed in federal court in the Eastern District of Virginia. Jalloh, a native of Sierra Leone, is a U.S. citizen. He quit the National Guard after listening to the lectures of deceased radical Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, according to court documents, and became involved in planning a terrorist attack on U.S....

Green cards, or Lawful Permanent Residency, puts immigrants on the path to citizenship and allows for lifetime residency, federal benefits, and work authorization. Included in the totals are refugees, who are required to apply for a green card after one year of residency in the U.S. Unlike other types of immigrants, refugees are immediately eligible for welfare benefits including Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), food stamps, and Medicaid Green Card Totals, FY09-FY14: Pakistan (102K), Iraq (102K), Bangladesh (90K), Iran (85K), Egypt (56K), Somalia (37K), Uzbekistan (30K), Turkey (26K), Morocco (25K), Jordan (25K), Albania (24K), Afghanistan (21K), Lebanon (20K), Yemen...

Britain's last working aircraft carrier and the final surviving warship from the Falklands War is heading for the scrapyard. At least three proposals to preserve HMS Illustrious for alternative uses have failed due to her size and the cost of maintenance. The ship, decommissioned in 2014, is now likely to follow its sister carriers and be sent to Turkey for scrap. HMS Ark Royal was scrapped for £2.9 million in 2013 and HMS Invincible fetched around £2 million in 2011. It is thought the ship, which was rushed in to service for the Falklands War and went on to sail...

"We can confirm that Pauline Cafferkey is being transferred to the Royal Free Hospital due to a late complication from her previous infection by the Ebola virus," the hospital said in a statement. "She will now be treated by the hospital's infectious diseases team under nationally agreed guidelines." After being transferred from Sierra Leone to Britain, Cafferkey initially recovered from the Ebola hemorrhagic fever and was sent home in January last year. But in October she fell ill again and doctors found the virus was persisting in tissues in her brain. They later said she had developed meningitis caused by...