Blink Four

News and articles from last week's West Africa:

Thoughts on Post-War Liberia.

Does this sound familiar? Getting heard in Sierra Leone.

Wikileaks highlights concerns over West African cocaine routes.

A brief look in to the part of Liberia known as The United States of Firestone.

News of the latest drive to get a mosquito net in to every Sierra Leonean home.

As the UN reports up to 4,000 refugees having left, most of which have moved in to Liberia, all eyes remain warily on the Ivory Coast.

And finally...

A Social Network Christmas.

Tribute

Whenever I first went to America in 2006 my brother showed me the original Invisible Children film and we got involved in their Global Night Commute. Since then I have followed the work of the organisation with interest, impressed by their ability to inspire others to support their work. This summer one of my interns had been quite involved in some of their campaigns and had initially hoped to journey to Uganda with Children of the Nations but found herself in a Sierra Leone that stole her heart instead. It was to her then that I naturally turned whenever I heard the news that someone from Invisible Children was among the 74 people killed by the World Cup bombs in Uganda. We were shocked by it, talked a little about it and then I all but forgot about it. Until today when I came across this video about Nate Henn.

Whenever I first went to Sierra Leone I had a couple of dreams in which the violence of its past returned and caught up to me and the children of my newly found family. These were devastating visions which I woke up from with a pounding heart. But they were just dreams. I cannot imagine the mixture of sadness, inspiration, pain, pride, love, loss and sorrow felt by the family and friends of Nate Henn as they reflect on the way he lived and the way he died.

Nate Henn // 1985 - 2010 from INVISIBLE CHILDREN on Vimeo.

Blink Three

And so we're back to the Blink - things from this week's internet worth sharing.

Really interesting article about the fraught issue of mining in Sierra Leone - After Diamonds.

An article about Sierra Leone’s Bush Wives.

Wikileaks reaches Freetown. Information about the 2008 drug bust which resulted in my team and I being summoned to the police station has been revealed in one of the infamous leaked cables.

Since about twenty dangerous prisoners escaped from Pademba Road prison in Freetown a few days ago the Director of the Sierra Leone Prisons Department has been sacked...and most of the offenders have been caught and find themselves right back where they started. Pademba Road prison is said to have been made to house 324 prisoners but had 1,292 locked up on the day of this jail break.

This gives hope to the idea that in the not too distant future I could maybe...just maybe...be able to Skype you from Banta!

As refugees start to cross into Liberia from a tense Ivory Coast there have been concerns that a certain group of people may think about travelling in the other direction - Liberian Warlords.

The symptoms mentioned in this piece about bacterial meningitis in Africa make me wonder how often it is misdiagnosed as malaria. This report details a vaccination drive hoping to tame this ravaging illness.

Video telling the story of a Christian woman on death row in Pakistan. Her name is Aasiya Bibi.

And finally...

Anyone else tired of being a Christian?

I believe...

Since Seattle is about to loosen its iron-like grip on the American wing of the family, Christmas can now come in out of the cold and be wholeheartedly embraced. In that vein then let me suggest a little Bono. Highlighted by Stockman, I missed this first time around...

May all your Christmases be light.

Blink Two

Another week in internetry summed up in a single Blink.

Sierra Leone's Ministry of Agriculture has been an important partner for Children of the Nations of late (have a look at our website to see why) and now the UN has awarded the country for it's efforts in the area of food security.

These guys are locally known as ‘champion ants’. Note to self – blow don’t bash.

A documentary made by the Norwegian Refugee Council with the help of a Liberian student - "Another War: Violence Against Women in Liberia"

Some thoughts on the problems posed by Liberia’s infrastructure.

Really concerning news coming out of Ivory Coast.

World Aids Day was this week. Here is an article looking at some of the progress that is being made in different parts of the world - The State We're In.

The controversial information keeps spilling out from wikileaks and is being dissected all over the world. Here are this week's revelations.

Some thoughts on the whole thing from the editor of The Guardian.

I was interested by this response to some of the wikileaks from Saad Mohseni, the chairman of Moby Group, the largest media company in Afghanistan - "Afghan corruption is not just an Afghan domestic issue, it is also a U.S. domestic issue because it’s your money. Your tolerance of corruption in our country will raise questions back home in the United States public, the media and even Congress." The same comment could have been made by Nigerian officials this week as they point fingers at everyone’s favourite duck hunter, Dick Cheney.

Donald Miller makes sense on the trouble of the extreme.

Stocki on Arcade Fire, church and community.

And finally...

Christmas is coming so have a look here and here for some world changing ideas.