LATEST LIBERIAN NEWS: FOURSOME IN TROUBLE (CLICK HERE 4 MORE

Number of posts : 577 Points : 2338 Registration date : 2008-07-29

Liberia Among Lowest Nations in key Social Indicators By: Jimmey C. Fahngon (Monrovia-Liberia-August 21, 2008)- As the Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf-led government strives to reconstruct Liberia, the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon says the country remains among the lowest in the world in key social indicators despite what he called commendable overall economic progress the war-torn nation has made over the past few years. This, he said, poses a potential risk to a delicate peace building process. The UN chief estimates that more than 60 percent of the population are trapped below the national poverty line especially in the rural areas. Full Story


North Star Health Collective Organizes Wellness Center for RNC Convention Protesters in Minnesota North Star Health Collective will open a free, all-volunteer run wellness and first aid center across the street from Regions Hospital. "By opening a wellness center, we are creating the kind of world we want to live in. We reject the idea that health care should be distributed based on ability to pay," explains Kimberly Christoffel a social work graduate student at the University of Minnesota who coordinates the wellness and mental health center. "North Star Health Collective bridges the gap between the streets and the medical system. Full Story


ULAA Sets Up Special Immigration Task Force...Appeals to Liberians on TPS/DED By: Staff Reporter As the deadline for the present designation of the Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) approaches, the President of the Union of Liberian Associations in the Americans (ULAA) has, with the advice and consent of the National Leadership Council, constituted a Special National Immigration Task Force. The Task Force is empowered to manage ULAA’s immigration advocacy campaign, a process that includes community mobilization, fundraising, and intensive lobbying efforts, The Liberian Journal has learned. Full Story


UN Personnel in Liberia Accused of Sexual Exploitation By: Jimmey C. Fahngon (Monrovia-Liberia August 20, 2008)-The United Nations Mission in Liberia has released its latest Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (SEA) report with five cases of SEA being reported against staff of the Mission, covering January to June of 2008. The Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary General (SRSG) in Liberia, Ms. Ellen M. Loj, who read the report Wednesday at the Mission’s regular press briefing in Monrovia, said allegations involving UNMIL personnel are four cases less than the nine cases of SEA that were reported from July to December of 2007. She, however, failed to disclose the identities of UNMIL personnel who were accused of SEA even though she was asked to do so. Full Story


Women And Children Were Badly Humiliated By NPFL Forces...Taylor Aide Admits By: Mambu James Kpargoi Monrovia, August 20, 2008: Former National Security Advisor to Ex-President Charles Taylor, Lewis Brown, has admitted that women and children were badly humiliated by fighters of the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) but said he regretted that he had no power to stop the brutality. “When people fight war these things happened especially in our situation where there were fighters with limited education including few days of training… only on how to shoot which could be the possible result of women and children casualties,” Mr. Brown, a member of the defunct rebel group told commissioners of Liberia’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) during his marathon testimony on Wednesday. Full Story


"NPFL Fighters Were Not On Salaries"...Lewis Brown at TRC By: Mambu James Kpargoi Monrovia, August 20, 2008: A member of the defunct National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) Lewis Brown says fighters of the rebel group could not be differentiated from the civilian population because almost all Liberians were, in many ways, NPFL fighters. “Many Liberians were NPFL fighters and that it is impossible for any organization to pay salaries to a country’s entire population,” Brown, one-time National Security Advisor to former President Charles Taylor, said. Mr. Brown was testifying Wednesday at the ongoing TRC Institutional and Thematic Inquiry Hearings at the Centennial Memorial Pavilion in Monrovia. Full Story