Pilot triage clinics are being funded to help tackle the Ebola epidemic in Sierra Leone, UK officials have said.  The idea of the clinics is to test whether people with a fever have Ebola or a less serious bout of malaria.

Britain is to set up a medical centre to treat victims of the Ebola epidemic in Sierra Leone, the international development secretary said on Monday. The 62-bed centre near the capital Freetown is planned to be open in eight weeks' time and will be built and operated by military engineers and medical staff. The worst-ever outbreak of the disease has killed 491 people in Sierra Leone, which is one of three countries at the centre of an epidemic that has claimed over 2,000 lives so far.

China's international reputation for humanitarian aid is among the worst of the globe's superpowers. As Quartz reports, the new shipment of millions of dollars in medical supplies and workers could be the beginnings of an attempt to reshape that reputation. Only 0.4% of China's foreign aid goes directly to humanitarian causes, rather that infrastructure projects or business efforts that could serve to improve nations' trade with China as much as it could help the nations themselves. In Africa, particularly, China's actions have appeared self-rewarding rather than altruistic.

President Koroma’s decision to adopt the Smart Power strategy didn’t emerge as a coincidence but through crucial evaluation of the international system in terms of threats, vulnerabilities, risks, interests and opportunities.

Sierra Leone’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs & International Cooperation Hon. Mrs. Ebun Jusu has said Energy, Infrastructure & Reforms are the key priority areas of the President Ernest Bai Koroma led government. The Hon Minister made this statement on Wednesday October 4,2012, when she paid a one day official visit to the U.S Department of States, Washington DC.

Sierra Leone and the People's Republic of China have embarked on efforts aimed at further strengthening not just people-to-people and government-to-government diplomacy, but to also strengthen the political diplomacy between the two countries.

“Sierra Leoneans have a lot of stories to tell,” says Ahmed Mansaray, the film school’s founding director. But today “most of the stories are being told [through] the binoculars of the white man”...For many in the West, Sierra Leone remains the land of blood diamonds and drugged-up child soldiers...