On the rare chance that anyone is passing through Voinjama in northern Liberia, I cannot recommend highly enough the Lofa Lodge, Bar & Restaurant, run by the charming and attentive Scham, who will order in peppered chicken, serve chilled Star beer with Bob Dylan in the background, and attach a small torch to his head to shed light on a chess game and advise on moves.  Given where he is, where Africa is crumpled, ruthless and unsure of how to react to its own failures, Scham does a fantastic job in providing power, water, sancuary and a sense of tranquility.Â

At Alex’s waterfront restaurant in Freetown, a man stood waistdeep in sea-water, eating fire and runnging the flames around his torso, while far out at sea lightening streaked across the night-sky signalling the coming rains. Alex’s is one o fthe finest restaurants in Sierra Leone, where you can get a lobster the size of your head for just over US$10. There’s no wine list, just Star beer, or Heinekin, and it seems the Sierra Leoneans don’t go in much for vegetables — a few strands appear by the side of my plate.   The lobster was plain, grilled and to die for.

From Sierra Leone’s main airport there are three choices to get into town. One is by an old Soviet helicopter. The second is a drive that takes around fourteen hours. The third is a 45 minute trip on a delapidated old car ferry, jammed with dusty four-by-fours, with a saloon bar upstairs where you are entertained by a comedian and a tap dancing dwarf.  Its colourful and wild, but who on Earth ever thought of building an airport that almost inaccessible to the main city?

I’m off to West Africa now to look at how the intervention by Britain and the United States into Sierra Leone and Liberia almost a decade ago has succeeded or failed — or more likely is on that long path that could take decades before the prosperity overrides the threat of war. We plan to re-trace the journey of Graham Greene who in 1935 with his cousin Barbara travelled through Sierra Leone to Liberia encountering 20-foot high stilted Devil dancers, ritual village dancing, military commanders accused of war crimes, drunken Paramount chiefs, boasting politicis and malarial missionaries.  Let’s see what we find.

The latest Amazon review on The Third World War:- 

  Prophetic, May 27, 2009

ByÂ	Gabbar Singh “Gabbar Singh” (Ram Garh) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Third World War: A Terrifying Novel of Global Conflict (Paperback)

I think a lot of incidents that has been written in this novel , have actually occurred after the novel was published like an attack on India on 26-Nov-2008, north korean nuclear tests , pakistan as a failed state, chinese bigotry

Questions are being asked in Washington if the world is a more dangerous place now than it was during the Cold War. Pakistan has gone from America’s key ally in the War on Terror to being on the cusp of a full blown civil war and North Korea has carrie dout yet another nuclear test accompanies with a warning that it would no longer respect the 1953 Armistice agreement that until now has kept peace on the Korean Peninsular.  There is far more danger in dealing with rogue and failing states than there is with nuclear-armed mature states. War in Pakistan has become a reality. So far North Korea’s hostility has been confined to missile diplomacy — but that could flip at any time.

American intelligence agencies are urgently working out the breadth of the strategic alliance between North Korea and the Islamic world. They assume that Iranian scientists — as before — were present at the recent North Korean nuclear and missile tests, and they have evidence that North Korean nuclear experts were working with Syria on a nuclear programme. But given Iran and Syria’s links to Hamas and Hizbollah, they need to know if a line has been drawn and by whom when it comes to the sharing of knowledge and nuclear materials.

The Third World War     & Amazon Kindle

International tensions have remained high after North Korea said it was expelling UN nuclear inspectors and resuming work on its nuclear programme. The US has condemned Pyongyang’s “provocative threats”, saying they were “a step in the wrong direction”. The row follows North Korea’s launch of a long-range rocket on 5 April, which critics say was a missile test. Meanwhile, Britain has urged Pakistan to do more to help in preventing terror strikes in the UK. 

THE THIRD WORLD WAR begins with a North Korean missile test and a devastating strike by Pakistani terrorists.  Find out what happens next.

 and on Amazon Kindle

An electronic spy network, based mainly in China, has infiltrated computers from government offices around the world, Canadian researchers say. They said the network had infiltrated 1,295 computers in 103 countries. They included computers belonging to foreign ministries and embassies and those linked with the Dalai Lama - Tibet’s spiritual leader. There is no conclusive evidence China’s government was behind it, researchers say. Beijing also denied involvement.

That is fact. To find out what might happen read SECURITY BREACH and meet Kat Polinski, the feisty cyber cracker who takes on the Chinese and Russians. 

North Korea has placed what is thought to be a long-range missile on a launch pad. The US is concerned Pyongyang will test its Taepodong-2 long-range missile that could reach Alaska or Hawaii. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that if North Korea launched a missile, there would be “consequences”.

THE THIRD WORLD WAR begins with two events. A massive strike by Islamic  terrorists based in Pakistan and the launch of a North Korean missile that goes wrong. 

In the White House is a new president who begins office by trying to make peace with America’s enemies.  

If any of that rings a bell…..