Liberia: Sirleaf Testifies to Truth Commission

Monrovia — Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf testified before the country’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) Thursday, where she denied being part of any rebel group during the 14-year civil war.Sirleaf’s appearance came as a surprise to many as it was not previously announced by the commission. Local radio stations reported that the hearing took place under tight security at the commission’s headquarters. Hearings normally take place at the Centennial Memorial Pavilion in Monrovia.

Liberia: Prosecutor Presents Final Witness At UN-Backed Trial of Taylor

The prosecution has presented its 91st and final witness in the United Nations-backed trial of former Liberian President Charles Taylor on charges of war crimes committed in the civil war in Sierra Leone, completing a graphic litany of alleged atrocities ranging from thousands of murders to mutilation, rape and sexual slavery.The Chief Prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL), Stephen Rapp, who built his case with 31 insider witnesses testifying to Mr. Taylor’s links to the crimes, and more than 50 others, including amputees, rape victims and former child soldiers, cited the harrowing case of witness 91 – a father who had his hands chopped off to save his four-year-old son.

Liberia: Rampaging Caterpillars Threaten Disaster Across Region, Warns UN

A United Nations official has warned today that a UN-led team of experts is in a race against time in its attempt to halt a vast plague of caterpillars, known as armyworms, which has already swarmed across northern Liberia and threatens to march into neighbouring West African countries, destroying all crops and water supplies in its path.The enormous infestation of tens of millions of armyworms, one of the most destructive of insect pests, has forced the Liberian President, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, to call a national emergency in a country where access to food is already precarious.

Liberia: Life a Struggle for Ex-Combatants

Voinjama — Hajah Kamara’s life of violence began when she was not yet a teenager. After rebels butchered her father and pregnant mother in their Voinjama home, they forced her to become a ‘wife’ and a fighter in their warring faction.”They raped me and tattooed me,” says 22-year-old Kamara, pointing to the dark markings on her arm. “I felt bad fighting, but when I thought of my father and mother not living, I needed to revenge them.”During Liberia’s brutal civil war in the 1990s, Kamara switched between rival factions several times. Initially with Sierra Leonean fighters battling Charles Taylor along the border region, she escaped, but later fell in with the notoriously violent “Anti-Terrorism Unit” run by Taylor’s son ‘Chuckie’ – convicted of war crimes by a Miami court in October 2008. Kamara eventually ended up with the opposing Guinean-backed LURD militia, in the final struggle for the Liberian capital Monrovia in 2003.

Liberia: President Adopts New Tactics in Fight Against Corruption

No country can ever claim to have eradicated corruption totally. However, governments can put in place measures to bring the phenomenon under control, and in her recent policy statement on the issue President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia seems to have placed herself on the path to finding long-term solutions to a scourge that has permeated Liberian society and government from its founding days.Elected three years ago with the fight against corruption as one of her most important campaign planks, Johnson Sirleaf has complained often about endemic corruption in all branches of government – sounding, at times, on the brink of desperation. But her new policy statement is a clear departure from her past utterances, when she and others in the government have seemed at a loss for what to do.

Liberia: Amid Challenges, Children Are Eager to Learn

From the sky, the huts dotted along unpaved roads leading to the port city of Harper resemble those in rural areas in Liberia. But while life in Harper resembles village life in many ways, several features set the city apart.Most roads here are paved in concrete, and many of the city’s public buildings are constructed from fine architectural designs. Gentle breezes from the Atlantic cool the city.Residents tout Harper and (surrounding) Maryland County’s beauty, but they say you can’t live on appearance alone. They want better schools, more access to health care and roads to connect them to the rest of Liberia.Harper lies in Liberia’s southeastern corner, bordering the Atlantic to the south and Côte d’Ivoire to the east. Maryland is Liberia’s seventh most populated county.

Shortlist for Africa’s best player out

The Confederation of Africa Football has unveiled the shortlists for the Glo-CAF Awards 2008. CAF Director of Communications, Sulemana Habuba also announced innovations in the event with the aim of making it prestigious. The Media and Technical Committees nominated the shortlists for the two awards.The innovation Habuba said had led to the creation of the Glo-CAF Best Player on the Continent and the Glo-CAF Best Player across the World, according to cafonline.

Museveni: Africa can solve food crisis

Africa has sufficient agricultural potential to become a food basket for the whole world, President Museveni of Uganda said. He said the continent could solve the current food crisis if the relevant production interventions are undertaken during the launch of the P4P at the United Nations.Purchase 4 Progress (P4P) is an initiative of the World Food Programme (WFP) which aims at transforming the way WFP purchases food in developing countries by giving priority to small scale farmers to sell their surplus produce to WFP at competitive prices while giving the food to those who have little or no food at all.According to a press release from the state house in Uganda, the programme which will initially target 21 countries, Uganda inclusive, aims at helping farmers to earn reasonable income and predictable market for their produce. It will initially target 350,000 households over a period of 5 years.The WFP is supported by the Bill Melinda Gates Foundation and the Howard G. Buffet Foundation.President Museveni launched the programme jointly with Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete, Rwandese President Paul Kagame and the WFP Executive Director Mrs. Josette Sheeran.President Museveni said that 67% of the farmers in Sub-Sahara Africa have been practicing subsistence agriculture and not fully utilizing the region’s agricultural potential. He said that with the current food shortage in the world, it was time for African farmers to engage in commercialized agriculture and produce food beyond their subsistence needs. He, however, noted that interventions in terms of irrigation, the use of fertilizers and other forms of modern agricultural practices need to be emphasized to enable the region produce optimally.Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete welcomed the programme saying that it would help unlock the potential of farmers in rural Africa since they will be assured of the market for their produce. President Paul Kagame of Rwanda lauded WFP for its support to his country. He said that the organization has responded to the feeding needs of over 54,000 people in Rwanda. He also hailed their support through the School Feeding Programme and welcomed the Purchase 4 Progress Programme saying it was an appropriate intervention.Ms. Josette Sheeran, the Executive Director of WFP, said that in addition to purchasing their produce, WFP would facilitate farmers with modern farm inputs, equip them with modern agricultural skills to boost the quality and quantity of their output.Mr. Bill Gates and Mr. Howard Buffet said they were committed to helping farmers in the developing world to better their incomes because they constitute a large part of the poorest of the poor in the world. They said that they committed their organizations to supporting Purchase 4 Progress Programme because its objectives are in line with the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals.

Corruption: Africa’s movers and shakers

Corruption has significantly improved in Nigeria and Mauritius over the last year, according to the Transparency International`s 2008 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI). The southern African country ranked 41 out of 180 countries with a score of 5.5 out of 10. Nigeria (2.7) jumped from 180 to 121.The CPI measures the perceived levels of public-sector corruption in a given country and is a composite index, drawing on different expert and business surveys. The 2008 CPI scores 180 countries (the same number as the 2007 CPI) on a scale from zero (highly corrupt) to 10 (highly clean).According to the report released on Tuesday in Berlin, Botswana leads the league table of top 10 least corrupt African countries at the 36th position with a score of 5.8. Mauritius closely followed then Cape Verde at 47th spot with a mark of 5.1. Africa’s fourth went to South Africa at the 54th slot with a score of 4.9, Seychelles gained 55th and bagged 4.8 and then Namibia landed at the 61st position after scoring 4.5.Others are Tunisia (62) with a score of 4.4, Ghana ranked 67 and scored 3.9, Swaziland (72) and attained 3.6 followed by Burkina Faso at 80th position after it obtained a mark of 3.5.However, Somalia (180), Sudan (173), Chad (173), Guinea (173) topped the top 10 corrupt countries on the continent scoring 1.6 each but Somalia which managed only 1.0. Equatorial Guinea (171) and the Democratic Republic of Congo (171) followed them with a score of 1.7 each. On top of them was ailing Zimbabwe, which is lying at the 166th position and scored 1.8. The remaining medals for the other three corrupt countries went to Gambia (158), Angola (158) and Guinea-Bissau (158) after all three scored 1.9 each.On the global scene, Denmark, New Zealand and Sweden share the highest score at 9.3, followed immediately by Singapore at 9.2. Bringing up the rear is Somalia at 1.0, slightly trailing Iraq and Myanmar at 1.3 and Haiti at 1.4, according to TI website. The global anti-corruption watchdog said while score changes in the Index are not rapid, statistically significant changes are evident in certain countries from the high to the low end of the CPI. Looking at source surveys included in both the 2007 and 2008 Index, significant declines can be seen in the scores of Bulgaria, Burundi, Maldives, Norway and the United Kingdom. Similarly, statistically significant improvements over the last year can be identified in Albania, Cyprus, Georgia, Mauritius, Nigeria, Oman, Qatar, South Korea, Tonga and Turkey.

6 West Africans killed in Italy

Italian mafias have gunned down six West African migrants in the southern Italian city of Naples on Friday. The dead include three from Ghana, a Liberian and a Togolese national. The incident was linked to a drug trafficking melee with the mafia, Casalesi Clan, local police sources have alleged.The sixth victim is yet to be identified. A police officer in Castelvolturno, near where the shooting took place was quoted by a South African News Agency as saying, “There has never been so many dead in a shooting, it is a record for the region.” Media reports allege that the deceased refused to make payment to CC after a successful drug trafficking trade. The CC, who controls the drug trafficking and prostitution trade between Naples and Caseta are regarded as the most powerful mafia group in that region.Police are also investigating the shooting of a 53-year-old man 20 minutes earlier and whether there is a link between the two incidents. This development sparked demonstration by African migrants in Italy saying the six were not part of any drug trafficking group.