The vast majority of pirate vessels illegally fishing off Sierra Leone are accredited to export their catches to Europe, an environmentalist group says. A report by the Environmental Justice Foundation says West Africa has the highest levels of illegal fishing in the world. Its says pirate fishermen fish inside exclusion zones, attack local fisherman and refuse to pay fines.

Sierra Leone’s international partners and citizens are paying close attention to possible threats to peace ahead of presidential, parliamentary and local elections scheduled for 17 November, which it is hoped will consolidate stability a decade after the end of a civil war and lead to improved living standards. Campaigns are intensifying, especially between historical rivals the ruling All People’s Congress (APC) party and the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP), now in opposition. These are the country’s third elections since the war was declared over.

The Independent Media Commission (IMC), the statutory media regulatory body on September 26, 2012 suspended for a month, three privately-owned newspapers for allegedly producing offensive publications. The newspapers namely Independent Observer, the Senator and Awareness Times will thus, not appear on newsstands from September 26 – October 26, 2012.

State hospitals and health clinics across Sierra Leone are facing severe shortages of drugs that should be supplied under the free healthcare programme because practitioners are diverting them for private sale, investigations by the Sierra Leone Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) show. User fees for children under five and pregnant women were scrapped in 2010, allowing them to consult health practitioners and receive medication free of charge. One in 21 women in Sierra Leone dies from pregnancy or other causes, while over 17 per cent of children die before their fifth birthday, according to the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

Sierra Leone's Ministry of Health on Friday declared a cholera outbreak in the country following the death of five people from the disease. Deputy minister of Health and Sanitation Mahmoud Tarawalie, made the confirmation on Friday while stressing that the authorities were putting measures in place to stem the disease. This follows reports of two deaths because of cases of severe diarrhoea in the provinces. But one of death cases was recorded in one of the slums of the capital, Freetown.

Since 2009, Whitestone (SL) Limited has managed to obtain 13 leasehold titles covering a staggering 1.34 million acres of land in the Bombali and Koinadugu Districts of Northern Sierra Leone for large-scale agricultural development. Whitestone is owned and managed by two British entrepreneurs, Charles Anderson and Cenk Yildiran. Ostensibly lacking the funds to develop the land themselves, Whitestone is planning to parcel the land and sub-lease these to interested agricultural inventors.

Guinea President Alpha Conde has ignited anger among a section of Sierra Leone’s opposition for a statement seen as interference in the latter’s politics. President Conde Saturday openly declared support for his Sierra Leonean counterpart in the forthcoming elections. The Guinean leader made the pronouncement as the two leaders inaugurated a new highway linking Conakry and Freetown, the respective capitals of the two states.

Sierra Leone's Anti-Corruption Commission has summoned Ghana's investigative journalist, Anas Aremeyaw Anas, to testify in a landmark corruption case involving a top government official. In a joint story with Sorious Samura aired on Al- Jazeera, the award winning Ghanaian journalist shocked the nation after he exposed a criminal ring defying an existing moratorium on timber export in the country. The indicted men allegedly claimed to be representing a top government official and accepted bribe to facilitate the registration of their illegal timber export business.

Sierra Leone’s President Ernest Bai Koroma is threatening tough measures against the media in what is a departure from his traditionally tolerant bearing. 'The honeymoon for reckless journalism is over,' he said in a statement, warning journalists and civil society activists to stay away from politics. That has touched on the nerves of media figures.

A new

Two days of rioting over pay by workers from African Minerals' Sierra Leone mine left one woman dead and at least six injured in April, witnesses and medical staff said. African Minerals made its first trial shipment of ore from Tonkolili mine in November last year. Shipments from the mine are due to help Sierra Leone to what the IMF estimates at 35.9 per cent growth this year, one of the highest rates in the world.

In 2011, Socfin Agricultural Company Sierra Leone Ltd. (Socfin SL) secured 6,500 hectares (ha) of prime farmland for rubber and oil palm plantations in Malen chiefdom in Pujehun district in the south of Sierra Leone. The firm is now seeking an additional 5,000 ha in expansion plans in the Malen region or neighboring chiefdoms. The initial investment, estimated at $100 million, with promises of job creation, compensation for lost farms, and construction of infrastructures, has enjoyed high-level government support.

A two-day National Conference on Land Owners and Land Users affected by large scale investments in agriculture organized by the Sierra Leone Network on the Right to Food (SiLNoRF) and Green Scenery, held on the 2nd and 3rd April, 2012 at the St. Edwards Pre- School Hall, Kingtom, Freetown ended up with a recommendation by participants for the formation of a Civil Society coalition that would serve as a watchdog on land issues in the country. In response to this recommendation, the 'Action for Large scale Land Acquisition Transparency’' known as (ALLAT) was formed.

Between 1-4 April, hundreds of Sierra Leonean small land owners and community members from all over the country will come together in Freetown to organize against land grabs. Join the Oakland Institute in our pledge to raise $10,000 to fund travel, food, and lodging for 100 participants.

Jerry Cole, a senior television cameraman of the state-owned Sierra Leone Broadcasting Corporation (SLBC), was on 12 March attacked by some supporters of the main opposition Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) in Freetown, the capital. Cole and his colleague reporter, Unisa Deen Kargbo, had gone to record an interview with the SLPP officials at the party’s headquarters on the ongoing voter registration exercise for the 17 November general election.

Three illegal fishing vessels - the Five Star, Marcia 777 and the Kum Myeong 2 - have fled Sierra Leone, escaping fines for doing illegal fishing and transhipment in the country's Inshore Exclusion Zone, IEZ. The disclosure was made by the Project Coordinator of Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF), Andy Hickman at a press briefing held at the conference room of the Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources.

Foreign land investment is on the rise in Sierra Leone and, as with many of its neighbours, the government wants more companies to come in to boost the economy and spur much-needed agricultural development in rural areas. Sierra Leone ranked 180 out of 187 countries on the UN human development index in 2011. But as more and more companies flock to the country to lease large tracts of land, murmurs of protest and unrest are cropping up among local populations who are unhappy with the way the deals are done; and civil society groups are growing increasingly concerned that foreign land deals are not producing the win-win scenarios they had hoped for.

A total of 27 people have died as a result of a cholera outbreak, the Health Ministry in Sierra Leone has declared. Over 1,000 cases have been recorded in three districts in the northern region of the country - Port Loko, Kambia and Pujenhun. Health ministry officials confirmed that those who have contracted the disease did so from drinking contaminated water.

'We are now also faced with a new scramble for Africa – the mad rush by European countries and multi-national companies to loot African resources and re-occupy our land.'

This initiative addresses local legacies of the conflict in Sierra Leone which the Special Court for Sierra Leone and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, whatever their wider achievements, have been unable to tackle.