January 2021 – Sinoe Multilateral High School is the largest government school in Sinoe County. When we first visited in 2015 only one-third of the classrooms had desks. Trash was everywhere. Groups of boisterous students roamed the hallways and gathered in empty classrooms. Today every classroom was occupied with students seated in desks and teachers teaching. The grounds were clean and free of litter. 131 seniors took the WASSCE national exam in October and 100% passed! The principal gave credit to the SmartBox and our team’s efforts. It is gratifying to see what can happen over five years. Our program is making a difference!

2017 WAEC Results – IEL helped Sinoe County jump from #11 to #1 on the West African Examination Council exam. We started with eight Sinoe County schools in 2015 and within a year were engaged with the SmartBox in 11 of the 14 secondary schools in the county.  Hundreds of students learned how to use the computer and began improving in math and other subject areas.  The WAEC (now WASSCE) exam is given every year to 12th grade students. A passing mark is required to graduate from high school. In 2014 Sinoe County placed #11 out of the 15 counties with a passing rate of 23%. In 2017 Sinoe County placed #1 with an 88% passing rate!

• 2013 – 25,000 students took the University of Liberia entrance examination and none passed!
• 2016 – IEI tested over 600 high school students in 10 public & private schools and 85% scored below the 3rd grade level in mathematics.
• 2018 – 33,979 12th grade students from 600 schools took the WASSCE national examination and 65% did not pass any of the 9 subject areas.
• Only 17% of teachers in Liberia have a tertiary degree-level qualification.
  Percentage of children missing out on primary school:
  * Liberia – 62%
• South Sudan – 59%
• Eritrea – 59%
• Afghanistan – 46%
• Sudan – 45%

ECOL Video

The Government of Sweden has disclosed that it remains steadfast in supporting pro-choice activists and funding campaigns that advocate for the legalization of abortion in Liberia even though it “respects the views of religious leaders” who oppose abortion.

The Swedish position, which was made known by Ambassador Urban Sjöström, comes a few days after members of Liberia’s Religious Council strongly criticized the Swedish Embassy in Liberia for funding campaigns that push for the legalization of abortion in Liberia.

The Council’s remarks comes as the Senate is currently debating an amendment to the Public Health Law to make abortion legal after coming under intense pressure from the Amplifying Rights Network, a coalition of ten civil society organizations, which is supported by the Swedish government and has been pushing and holding campaigns for decriminalization of abortion. //

Abortion is illegal in Liberia as per the current law and, on the moral front, is considered a sin by the majority of Liberians who identify as Christians and Muslims. By law, it is prohibited in all forms, with a few exceptional cases such as when the life or health of the mother is at risk. The law affirms the views of many religious leaders and is reflective of the predominant ethnic and cultural values within the country.

However, abortion rights advocates, including the Amplifying Rights Network, argue that legalization is necessary for women’s reproductive rights and to reduce maternal mortality rates in the country. They believe that criminalizing abortion puts women’s lives at risk as the practice never gets stopped.

The Amplifying Rights Network’s claims are supported by a recent report by Clinton Health Access Initiative and partners, in which it was revealed that more than 38,000 illegal abortions were performed in 2021 alone. //

Yet, religious leaders and critics disagree and argue that legalizing abortion undermines the sanctity of life and contradicts religious and moral teachings. A key concern for many religious leaders is the focus solely on the perceived benefits without fully considering the social and moral implications.

In their view, the emphasis should be on improving healthcare services to combat maternal mortality rates, not abortion. They argue that Liberia is a country of morals; therefore legalizing abortion will drive the country into a dark era. //

Meanwhile, Sweden is the second largest bilateral donor to Liberia and supports Liberia in democracy, human rights, gender equality and the rule of law; peaceful and inclusive societies; inclusive economic growth and environment, climate change, and the use of natural resources.

In the past three weeks I visited Bomi, Gbarpolu, and four counties in the Southeast, and I have now been to every county in Liberia. This fulfills my promise to the U.S. Congress to be an Ambassador to all Liberia, not just Monrovia. I am happy to report that each capital city has its own unique bundle of trade and cultural ties, and that Liberians throughout the country share a warm, welcoming spirit!

Unfortunately, on the trip I was startled and deeply troubled to encounter multiple county hospitals that received not one penny of what they were promised in the 2022 budget. Hospitals on which lives depend, where outbreaks are prevented and suffering is alleviated, did not receive any portion of the US$100,000 or more appropriated by the legislature for them to operate.

Dial Liberia - Cell phone card - low rates for calling from United States to Liberia - Cell

In our series of letters from African writers, retiring journalist Jonathan Paye-Layleh reflects on his 30-year career covering the tumultuous events in his home country, Liberia.
Short presentational grey line

I am glad I managed to stay alive to pen these words.

Over the last three decades, colleagues have died while doing their job and I have found my life threatened, especially when covering Liberia's conflicts.

But I survived.

Three decades ago, during the first of Liberia's two civil wars that overwhelmed the country for 14 years, I wanted to tell the story of the people trapped behind rebel lines.

I was in Gbarnga - the stronghold of then-rebel leader Charles Taylor, whose forces controlled most of Liberia except the capital, Monrovia.

Where better to tell those stories than on the BBC World Service's Focus on Africa radio programme?

Liberians had become addicted to the broadcast following Taylor's interviews with its editor at the time, Robin White. It was required listening wherever you were.

And it was almost an obligation for people in Gbarnga - where a local station had taken to relaying the programme. //

But there have been happier milestones which I have witnessed, not least the election of one of the continent's few female presidents - Ellen Johnson Sirleaf - who stepped down in 2018 after 12 years in office.

Even though in terms of infrastructure development, Liberia has not attained much, I am pleased that the peace we fought so hard to achieve holds.

Monrovia traffic jams are nothing to celebrate but at least this suggests a city that is alive, where the people want to get on. It's not the ghost town yearning for the presence of people like it was during the civil war. //

How come other countries have emerged from the ashes and made massive progress but my country has not?"
-- Jonathan Paye-Layleh, BBC Liberia reporter 1993-2023

Jonathan is leaving the BBC in order to stand as a candidate for the House of Representatives in the 10 October elections

Conex Energy Liberia has announced the shortage of jet fuel in the country.

Last year, the African distribution business acquired the Liberia and Sierra Leone businesses of French petroleum refining company Total Energies for an undisclosed sum.

Cherif Abdallah is the company’s Chief Executive Officer.

In a statement issued in Monrovia on Tuesday, December 26, the company disclosed that the arrival of jet fuel in Liberia will be delayed as a result of the shortage on the global market. //

“Based on the above, Conex Energy Liberia informs the public that there is a delay in the arrival of the next Jet Fuel vessel, causing low fuel stock at Roberts International Airport (“RIA”). The vessel should have arrived on December 14, 2022. We are now being informed that the vessel will not be in Liberia until January 13, 2023.”

The company disclosed that during this period, airlines will use alternative methods / locations for fueling.

A Liberian woman stood up at the annual church meeting in Tarkpoima, Gbarpolu County this past March. The Lofa River District of the Evangelical Church of Liberia is located in a predominately Islamic region, and I was there to preach. The woman testified that she had stood in the same meeting last year to ask for prayer for her Muslim husband's salvation. He often beat her for following Christ and refusing to attend mosque, and this time she stood to give an update.

LATEST NEWS
LERC’s BoC Reacts to Massive Load Shedding

The Board of Commissioners (BoC) of the Liberia Electricity Regulatory Commission (LERC) has described the Liberia Electricity Corporation’s (LEC) massive load shedding in its operational areas as unacceptable and calls on LEC Management to set into motion remedies to address the electricity generation nightmare.

This load shedding being carried out by LEC as observed is in violation of the minimum service levels in Schedule Two (2) of the Customer Service and Quality of Supply Regulations (CSQOSR), which ensures that duration of outages cannot exceed eight hours and therefore the commission directs LEC to take urgent steps to curtail these load shedding.

LERC recalls that during LEC tariff application review process, the Commission, on numerous occasions, expressed concerns about the seasonal variations impacting Mount Coffee power generation capacity especially during the Dry Season, to which LEC assured the LERC that effective January 2022, it would have sufficient fuel stock to generate 29.4 MW from the Bushrod Thermal Plant complemented by power imports via the Transco-CLSG arrangements during the Dry Season.

The LERC considers LEC’s action as a complete disregard of the Commission’s regulatory authority and reminds LEC of the necessary actions at the Regulator’s disposal consistent with the 2015 Electricity Law of Liberia and applicable regulations.

MONROVIA – Members of the regional parliament attending the ECOWAS Fifth Legislative Parliamentary Seminar and 2022 Extraordinary Session of the ECOWAS Parliament were forced to call off the session on Thursday due to the sudden breakdown of the generator supplying the Ministerial Complex electricity.

The sudden blackout, FrontPageAfrica gathered, left some of the dignitaries stranded in the elevator at the Ministerial Complex. They were rescued by technicians at the building.

“The generator broke down, but these things happen just like how humans fall and die. It started with the fuel – the machine ran out of fuel and they managed to get fuel, they tried putting it and it will come on and go off. They tried it several times it did not come on. Some of the dignitaries were stuck in the lift and the technicians had to come to their rescue,” a technician, preferring anonymity, working on the scene of blackout at Ministerial Complex Thursday.

The power was later restored but the Parliamentarians said they were not comfortable there any longer and would rather prefer using the Monrovia City Hall for the rest of their sessions until Monday when the heads of states are in.

“They were called back but they said they will rather use City Hall on Friday because they do not want to have a repeat. They asked the technicians to work on the machines to ensure that it does not happen when the heads of states are having their meeting next Monday,” a FrontPageAfrica reporter covering the session said.

EcoHealth Alliance CEO Peter Daszak just got another taxpayer-funded windfall. Instead of being deposed regarding his firm’s work at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, he is receiving a new pile of cash from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The new award gives EcoHealth Alliance $4,675,023 for a five-year project in Liberia, on the continent of Africa. USAID awarded the funding well after serious questions surfaced about EcoHealth Alliance’s coronavirus research. There are ample concerns about whether those activities violated the Obama administration’s ban on gain-of-function research even if they did not create the SARS-CoV-2 virus. //

So maybe EcoHealth Alliance is going to Liberia to educate residents on the dangers of eating bat soup. However, when you go to the website, it appears that all of EcoHealth’s missions revolve around identifying viruses in wildlife that could be “emerging threats.” This mission is the same one Daszak proposed to DARPA in the PREEMPT program. That proposed project aimed to identify new zoonotic pathogens that might jump from animals to infect humans. Ecohealth Alliance proposed sending teams into the woods to stick Q-tips into the mouths, ears, and rear ends of wild animals.

Then Daszak’s team would mess with the viruses in various ways in the lab. This process could include repeatedly passing them through mice with human characteristics to see if they could evolve to infect people. Incredibly, Daszak and his team suggested developing aerosolized vaccines containing versions of these viruses that appeared to have potential. Then they planned to spray it into the habitats where host animals may become infected with the virus of concern. Even our most advanced military technology development command thought the idea was reckless and could cause disease outbreaks. //

In layman’s terms, USAID has funded projects led by UC Davis to stick Q-tips and needles into animals, pull out pathogens and then assess whether or not they could cause human disease. The team has sampled more than 164,000 animals and people looking for disease spillover from animals. The project has detected 1,100 unique viruses, including 949 novel ones. EcoHealth Alliance is a Core Implementing Partner of the PREDICT program. //

According to EcoHealth Alliance’s website, USAID’s PREDICT program funds this work globally:

The PREDICT project seeks to identify new emerging infectious diseases that could become a threat to human health. PREDICT partners locate their research in geographic “hotspots” and focus on wildlife that are most likely to carry zoonotic diseases – animals such as bats, rodents, and nonhuman primates.

EcoHealth Alliance works at the leading edge of this field by building local capabilities and testing high-risk wildlife in Bangladesh, Côte d’Ivoire, Republic of Congo, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Liberia, Malaysia, and Thailand. After scientists collect swabs or small amounts of blood, they analyze the samples in the lab to look for evidence of disease.

The document exists among the papers of Justice Bushrod Washington. It was traced by scanning through hundreds of microfilmed documents. The images used in the story are photographs of the original.

The original purchase agreement for a tract of land that would become the Liberian capital of Monrovia was uncovered by historian C. Patrick Burrowes in August. (Chicago History Museum) //

It was billed as a land of promise — a place where free Black Americans could obtain more political rights and a better quality of life.

Liberia did not receive its name until 1824, but the territory that became its capital city was purchased on Dec. 15, 1821.

Almost exactly 200 years later, a Liberian historian has discovered that original purchase agreement — a document missing since 1835 that sheds light on the acquisition of the only U.S. colony in Africa.

C. Patrick Burrowes, who was born in Liberia and has taught at Penn State Harrisburg and Marshall University, uncovered the handwritten document in August. It details the sale of a tract of West African land that later became Monrovia, the Liberian capital. The selling price was about $300 worth of weapons, rum and other merchandise.

The document’s whereabouts had been unknown for so long, Burrowes said, that there was speculation it had never existed at all. For the historian, finding the purchase agreement has been the most significant discovery of his career, he said. And for historical understanding of Liberia’s origins, this document helps debunk several prevailing myths about the acquisition of territory that became its capital.

“The details of the land transfer have been shrouded in some controversy, so the recent discovery by Dr. Burrowes is timely, especially so close to the 200th anniversary of the event,” said Herbert Brewer, a Morgan State University historian who studies slavery and the African American diaspora.

In the longer term scrap metal might have a more material role in China’s steel industry – China wants to double production from its electric arc furnaces over the next four or five years – but its ambitions will have only modest impacts on its demand for iron ore and iron ore prices in the medium term.

Along with a crackdown on iron ore futures trading last week – the authorities vowed to punish market manipulation – the actions helped slightly lower the iron ore price, from more than $US230 a tonne to around $US210 a tonne. Iron ore started this year priced at less than $US160 a tonne, having traded down to around $US60 a tonne just over a year ago.

China’s reliance on Australian iron ore for almost two-thirds of its steel industry’s requirements and Vale’s continuing struggles to restore production after its tailing dam disasters and pandemic-related disruptions in Brazil means there is little it can do to curtail purchases of Australian iron ore without hurting its steel industry and economy.

Even if it can develop new sources of supply, with the giant Simandou resource in Guinea the most obvious, they would be higher-cost (development of the infrastructure for Simandou could cost the best part of $US20 billion), are nearly a decade away and would in any event probably represent only about 10 per cent of China’s existing demand.

Two Centuries of US Military Operations in Liberia: Challenges of Resistance and Compliance
By Dr. Niels Stephan Cato Hahn / Published March 31, 2020

Book cover with the title Two Centuries of US military Operations in Liberia: Challenges of Resistance and Compliance by Dr. Niels Stephan Cato HahnLiberia is the country in Africa where the United States has the most extended history of military engagement, and each intervention is layered on the experience of previous interventions. Over the years, the interventions have become more comprehensive and sophisticated, and Liberia can be considered an essential case for the general study of US military interventions in Africa. This book reviews the history of the United States-Liberia relations from the early 1820s to 2015, with particular attention paid to the role of the US armed forces. Contrary to most literature on the genesis and development of Liberia, this book demonstrates how US military power has been the primary influence shaping Liberia's history. This includes the role played by the US military in the founding of Liberia, the protection of the country during the European formal colonial era, multiple covert operations in securing US-friendly administrations in Liberia, and direct military interventions when necessary to secure American interests in the region [Niels Hahn/ 2020 / 381 pages / ISBN: 978158566304 / AU Press Code: B-164]

VAGUAYE, Grand Cape Mount – In 2018, James Mulbah expected a big harvest like previous years. He had planted rice on five lots of land, and that year he really wished for the rain. But when the rain finally came, it did not bring the 36-year-old any good. Just as the first raindrops hit the ground, a herd of elephants raided his farm.

“The elephants destroyed all the rice,” says Mulbah, who has five children. I have nothing on the farm again, so I just decided to leave the farming work and join the mining.”

Mulbah is one of several farmers in Vaguaye and other towns and villages in the Gola Konneh District of Grand Cape Mount have abandoned farming and taken to the mines as the result of continuous raids by the elephants. The giant mammals have wreaked havoc in the area since 2015, and have made people here more dependent on food and other supplies from outside.