Liberia: UNICEF and the Ministry of Education to hold consultative workshop on accelerated learning

MONROVIA, 3 May 2005 – UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Fund, and the Ministry of Education will hold a two-day Consultative Workshop on the Accelerated Learning Programme (ALP) from 5 to 6 May, 2005. The workshop will take place at the Royal Hotel in Monrovia and will bring together an estimated 50 participants from the Ministry of Education, County Education Offices, ALP Focal Points, partners, and UNICEF. More...

Key background articles and document on Liberia

If you are interested in finding out more about Liberia and its interesting dynamics, please click here for more information... http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/liberindex.htm

Taylor Accused over Attempt to Kill Guinea Leader

By Dino Mahtani

Financial Times April 27, 2005

The chief prosecutor of a UN-backed war crimes court in Sierra Leone has accused Charles Taylor, exiled former Liberian president, of masterminding an assassination attempt on the president of neighbouring Guinea in January this year. David Crane, a former US Defense Department lawyer, said he had evidence that Mr Taylor backed the gunmen who fired on President Lansana Conté's convoy in Conakry, the Guinean capital. "His assassination attempt on Conté marks him as a true threat to international peace and security," Mr Crane said.

The Sierra Leone special court has already indicted Mr Taylor on 17 counts of crimes against humanity for his role in supporting Sierra Leone's rebels in a war that caused tens of thousands of deaths. Mr Taylor has yet to face trial. The warlord-turned-president was at the centre of more than a decade of conflict in Liberia that spilled into neighbouring west African countries. He agreed to step down as Liberia's president in 2003 when Nigeria offered him asylum to prevent further bloodshed as rebels surrounded Monrovia, the Liberian capital. More...

West Africa: The Next Afghanistan?

By Chris Hansen

NBC April 29, 2005

At a time when the United States has thousands of forces hunting Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq, international investigators say the United States is ignoring another terrorist outlaw — former Liberian President Charles Taylor, who's hiding in plain sight in West Africa. This is a place most Americans and their government haven't paid much attention to. It is war-torn, remote and desperately poor. But that might be about to change. War crimes investigators have uncovered evidence that al-Qmaida terrorists — before and after 9/11 — were using West Africa as a hideout and as a place to launder money. More...