Story by JAMES GICHIGI Now picture a substance so powerful that just two or three grains, invisible to the naked eye if mixed into powder, can cause a fatal overdose. That’s the danger posed by a new drug, nitazenes. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), nitazenes, originally synthesised in the 1950s but never approved for medical use, have rapidly entered illicit markets since 2019. Laboratory tests in...Read More

By Sallieu S. Kanu The Mayor of Freetown, Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr, on January 8, 2025, delivered the keynote address in Paynesville, Liberia, to mark the official launch of the city’s Climate Action Plan. This pivotal event, led jointly with Paynesville Mayor Robert Bestman II, highlighted a growing movement of South-South collaboration to combat urban climate challenges across Africa. The launch comes on the heels of February’s inaugural African Urban Heat Summit,...Read More

The European Commission and the Africa Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) have launched plans to ramp up testing for Mpox as African states struggle to increases vaccination and testing rates. The Partnership to Accelerate Mpox Testing and Sequencing in Africa (PAMTA) initiative “will support comprehensive diagnostics capabilities and resilience against future health threats,” said the commission’s Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority (HERA) in a statement on...Read More

Freetown, Sierra Leone — Thursday, 31st July 2025: The Human Rights Commission of Sierra Leone (HRCSL) welcomed a high-level delegation from the ECOWAS Court of Justice for a landmark engagement centered on strengthening collaboration for regional human rights advocacy and judicial cooperation. The delegation, led by ECOWAS Court President Hon. Justice Ricardo Claúdio Monteiro Gonçalves, was received at the Commission’s Tower Hill headquarters. The meeting marked a strategic step toward...Read More

The Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary, closed to the public, in Freetown, Sierra Leone By Gunel Huseynova The Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary, West Africa’s largest refuge for rescued primates, has remained closed to tourists for over two months as its founder protests the intensification of deforestation near the protected forest in Sierra Leone. Bala Amarasekaran, who established the sanctuary in 1995, says land seizures and illegal logging are encroaching dangerously close to the...Read More