Liberia: Africa's first lady

159 years after the first modern nation in Africa was established by freed American slaves, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf will be inaugurated as its first woman president (January 6). She will also be the continent's first female elected head of state. The challenges she will face are immense. Liberia has just emerged from 15 years of civil war, in which its people have been butchered and demoralised; there is no electricity in parts of the capital, Monrovia; water-supply systems have been almost universally destroyed, and schools looted or burned down; and hospitals and clinics exist in name only.