Word: sierras
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...spotlight of publicity turned briefly on Sierra Leone earlier this month, when the Organization of African Unity met in the tiny (pop. 4 million) West African state and installed its President, Siaka Stevens, as the O.A.U.'s chairman for the coming year. But when the big bash was over, Sierra Leone was left with more problems than ever: an authoritarian government, a languishing economy, all-pervasive corruption and $200 million in bills from the summit conference. As TIME Nairobi Bureau Chief Jack E. White discovered during a visit to Sierra Leone, the country's plight is disturbingly similar...
...Sierra Leone under Stevens is like Liberia under Tolbert: a time bomb waiting to explode." That grim forecast comes from a Western diplomat who has had long experience in both countries. Indeed, even a casual visitor is likely to spot similarities between the two West African republics. Both countries became havens for former slaves in the 19th century. In Sierra Leone, the "creole" descendants of these settlers still dominate the country's business and educational elite-as did scions of the freed slaves in Liberia until the recent coup. Sierra Leone gained its independence from Britain in 1961; seven...
...March serious rioting broke out in Sierra Leone's capital, Freetown, when the government announced a hike in gasoline prices from $2.50 to $3 per gal. The rioting was reminiscent of the savage protests that erupted in Morovia last year after Tolbert increased the price of rice. Stevens, a burly former union leader whose folksy style has earned him the nickname "the Pa," concedes that "we could get into trouble," when his government announces another boost in fuel prices, possibly this week...
...Beers Corp. Stevens insists that "the South Africans once had a monopoly on the diamond trade in this country, but we are trying little by little to break it." That plan has focused recently on efforts by a Stevens business associate, American Entrepreneur Maurice Templesman, to help Sierra Leone get financing from the World Bank for an ambitious deep diamond-mining venture. A sometime escort of Jackie Onassis, Templesman has hired New York Lawyer Theodore Sorensen, once the chief speechwriter for John F. Kennedy, to represent his interests. In Freetown, it is widely suspected that Stevens takes...
...pattern emerges through the book's jumbled chronology. China Men go out in the world either to earn the right to come home to their women or to establish a new place suitable for them. One of Kingston's grandfathers fetches up in the 1860s in the Sierra Nevada, seeking work with the Central Pacific Railroad. He is hired on the spot, Kingston notes acidly, because "chinamen had a natural talent for explosions." Years of backbreaking, dangerous work follow, the continent is finally linked by rail, and then the grandfather and his fellow Chinese find they...