Gyude Bryant was sworn in as the head of a new transitional government in Liberia on Tuesday and began his two-year term by abolishing monopolies on imports of rice and petroleum products, which former president Charles Taylor had awarded to his cronies.

Concerned by the deteriorating humanitarian situation, a coalition of seven major international aid agencies and nearly 20 Liberian civil society groups have signed the petition which encourages the United States government to deploy a small number of US forces in key strategic areas across Liberia. Agencies fear that unless peace is quickly restored to rural areas of Liberia, the country faces continuing widespread hunger in the months to come.

The number of displaced Liberian women who have contracted reproductive tract infections and those dying from pregnancy related complications that could be treated is alarming, the United Nations population fund (UNFPA) said.

Liberia's Interim President Moses Blah and the chairman of the main rebel group, Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) Sekou Damate Conneh, have traded accusations over last Wednesday's shootout in the capital, Monrovia in which nine people died.

A UN inter-agency mission dispatched to central Liberia on Tuesday reported that fighting has died down in the region and that displaced Liberians were drifting back to their homes.

Fighting has erupted in the Liberian capital, Monrovia, during a visit to the city by rebel leader Sekou Conneh. Gunmen shot at Mr Conneh's motorcade, triggering an exchange of fire between rebels and government troops, according to the Associated Press news agency.
Related Link:
U.S. forces leave Liberia
http://www.africanconflict.org/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=7…

More than 4,500 new Liberian refugees have arrived in the last week in southern Guinea's forest region, stretching the UN refugee agency's capacity in this part of the country.

Fresh fighting and armed groups harassing villagers for food have sent thousands of civilians fleeing their homes in central Liberia in a new mass movement that has alarmed the UN refugee agency.

The four-year civil war between the Liberian government and the main rebel group, Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) is finally over, the rebel group announced on Wednesday. "The LURD has decided to end all hostilities. We are not prepared to fight anymore," LURD chairman Sekou Conneh told reporters shortly after returning from exile in Guinea on Tuesday night.

Charles Taylor, for six years the warlord president of Liberia, stole or diverted nearly $100 million of his country's wealth, leaving it the poorest nation on earth, a close review of government records and interviews with senior government officials and UN investigators shows. New York Times, quoting senior members of his government, said Taylor stole millions to buy houses, cars and sexual partners.

The United Nations Security Council unanimously approved the creation of a 15,000-strong peacekeeping force for Liberia to take over from a much smaller West African force which is currently struggling to impose peace and security after 14 years of civil war.

The cholera epidemic in Liberia has killed 110 people in the capital Monrovia over the past four months and is now gaining ground in the country's second city Buchanan, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).

Liberian government forces and rebel fighters are committing grave human rights abuses while peacekeeping forces remain inadequate, Human Rights Watch says in a new briefing paper. A U.N. peacekeeping force of 15,000 has been proposed for deployment in October, but it could take months for the force to reach full capacity. Despite assurances by U.S. forces and the West African peacekeeping force known as ECOMIL that the situation in Liberia has stabilized, marauding armed bands continue to commit murder, rape, forced recruitment and looting.

Another 177 internally displaced people (IDPs) were transported out of Monrovia on Friday by the UN refugee agency, as efforts to relieve the pressure on the chronically overcrowded Liberian capital, as well as to launch exploratory missions and spread aid elsewhere in the country, start to gather momentum.

The Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) rebel movement has threatened to pull out of a broad-based transitional government that is due to take power next month, claiming there are plans to deny it key government posts.

West African peacekeepers from Guinea Bissau Wednesday said they were now in full control of the Liberian city of Kakata after days of sporadic battles between government forces and the main rebel group, the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Development (LURD). “We had to get the rebels out of Kakata in order to ensure security for the civilians who have been caught in days of crossfire,” a spokesperson for the peacekeepers said Wednesday.

Charles G. Taylor, who was forced out as president of Liberia on August 11 and flew to exile in Nigeria, took with him $3 million donated for disarming and demobilizing thousands of armed combatants, a senior United Nations official says. The sum is roughly equal to six months of current government revenues in Liberia, by any measure one of the poorest nations on earth.

Thousands of people displaced by recent fighting in Liberia, who are sheltering in school buildings around the capital, Monrovia, are reluctant to leave the buildings and return to their original camps, saying they fear that it is not yet safe enough for them outside the city centre.

Malaria accounts for between 30 and 45 percent of all illnesses reported at health centres for displaced people in the Liberian capital, Monrovia, a health worker leading the fight against the disease said last Thursday. "The majority of the cases are children below five years of age and pregnant mothers. There are also many cases of premature births due to malaria," Caroline Lynch of the American John Hopkins University malaria programme, the MENTOR Initiative, told IRIN.

A further outbreak of fighting in central Liberia sent more than 50,000 displaced civilians living in camps near the town of Totota fleeing towards Monrovia, 109 km to the south, on Wednesday.