Liberia's transitional government has signed offshore exploration agreements with three little-known oil companies, just three months before elections to return the war-scarred West African country to democracy. Musa Dean, the head of the state-run National Oil Company of Liberia (NOCAL), announced the three deals last Thursday as the international community considered hard-hitting proposals to limit the government’s economic powers in order to crack down on rampant corruption.

The Liberia Repatriation, Resettlement and Reintegration Commission (LRRRC), the national agency that is responsible for internally displaced persons and Liberian refugees returning home, has announced the closure of four camps that have been hosting some 38,951 internally displaced people, a decision taken in consultation and collaboration with its implementing partners, the UNHCR, WFP and other humanitarian aid agencies. According to Mr. Dwuye, the camps were declared closed after most of the displaced people in the four camps received their resettlement and reintegration benefits.

International agencies are pressing Liberia's interim government to crack down on corruption because it is undermining the peace process in the troubled West African nation, the United Nations said on Monday. A plan to improve economic governance in Liberia was drawn up last month in Copenhagen by officials of the United Nations, European Commission, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, the West African economic bloc ECOWAS and the United States, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said.

Liberia needs to set up an independent anti-corruption commission because poor financial management and endemic graft are still plaguing the country's transitional government, according to a report by international donors. The Economic Governance Action Plan, a copy of which was seen by IRIN on Wednesday, said the power-sharing government, made up of representatives from the former warring factions and civilian groups, was doing little to tackle corruption.

More than one million Liberians have registered to vote in presidential elections in October which are designed to seal the West African nation's return to peace. But officials have said that the number of displaced people who had signed up for a ballot paper was disappointingly low. Some of those still living in the Wilson Corner Camp on the outskirts of Monrovia told IRIN that the 1997 elections, held during a brief lull in Liberia's long-running civil war, had left them with a nasty taste in their mouths.

More disciplinary action is expected in Liberia to weed undisciplined and corrupt officers out of the national police force, said acting commissioner Joseph Kerkula last Thursday following the sacking this month of 400 officers. "Any officer who fails to do things in cognisance of our guidelines will be dismissed," Kerkula said. "All the officers know about these guidelines so it is their primary duty to respect them."

The Liberian NGO Save My Future Foundation (SAMFU) has conducted an inquiry into the Firestone Rubber Plantation Company's 69 years of operation, and the result is the report "Firestone: The Mark Of Slavery" (to see the full report: http://www.samfu.org/firestone.html). Firestone's plantation - established in 1926- is amongst the world's largest rubber plantations. The area it now covers --a coastal low-land, interspersed with marshes, creeks and streams-- was originally owned and inhabited by the Mamba Bassa tribes who were evicted from there by the Firestone Plantations Company and the Government of Liberia during the signing of concession agreement without benefits to these local inhabitants.

Misinformed villagers in central Liberia, long accustomed to gifts from power-hungry politicians, have been demanding payment from government officials in return for putting their names on the voters' list for general elections due in October, a local official told IRIN. Some rural folk were so confused by the electoral process that they thought political campaigning had begun already and were demanding cash payments to register for their voter's card, Daniel Weetol, the Superintendent of Bong County, told IRIN.

Allegations of sexual misconduct by UN peacekeepers serving in Liberia have been substantiated in four incidents and investigations launched, the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) told IRIN on Tuesday. "There were numerous allegations, of which four clusters of allegations were substantiated - meaning that there was enough information to suggest that possible wrong-doings took place," said Paul Risley of UNMIL, a force of 15,000 peacekeepers. The UN Mission in Cote d'Ivoire, which has more than 6,000 troops, said similar inquiries were also under way there.

A lack of security is threatening the voter registration process in former rebel areas in northern Liberia. Election workers say they have been powerless to stop hundreds of Guineans registering for October's polls after receiving a number of threats.

The leader of Liberia’s one-time main rebel group, Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) Sekou Conneh, told IRIN on Wednesday that under pressure from former fighters, he will stand as president in landmark October polls. “My former fighters in LURD and other supporters from across Liberia have put me under pressure to stand as a presidential candidate. They said they would support me to the fullest, because they want me to be president so as to better cater to them in the future,” Conneh said.

A United Nations panel in Liberia has uncovered details of a mining deal it says was signed in "extremely opaque" circumstances and which it says creates "a de facto monopoly over much of Liberia's diamond-producing regions" for 10 years, according to a panel member. A UN ban on trade in diamonds from Liberia has been enforced since 2001 and was last renewed in December for a further six months pending a review. The US has cautioned the UN Security Council against a premature lifting of sanctions.

On April 14, 1979, Liberians took to the streets in protest against a proposed increment in the price of rice. Twenty six years later, on April 14, 2005, the Supreme Court of Liberia issued a judgment removing the stay order on the investigation of alleged corruption within the National Transitional Government of Liberia. This is indeed a historic day, and a reminder that our country, the Republic of Liberia, the oldest independent Republic in Africa is on course in deepening democratic tendencies, supporting the rule of law and Courts decision in essence gives a ECOWAS Panel of Investigators the right to proceed and investigate the probable misapplication of natural resources, specifically public funds.

Jonathan Stack and James Brabazon will receive the International Documentary Association's (IDA's) Courage Under Fire Award for their film 'Liberia: An Uncivil War', which was produced for the Discovery Times Channel. The documentary follows a rebel army made up of indigenous Liberians intent on overthrowing the government of then-President Charles Taylor. IDA Executive Director Sandra Ruch says the Courage Under Fire Award is a special tribute, only given once before, to documentarians who distinguish themselves in the face of extraordinary danger.

IFES' role in the pre-election process will be to provide institutional support and advice to the National Elections Commission (NEC) of Liberia and other key institutions on preparations for the 2005 elections. Activities under this program are likely to include: purchase of election commodities, training of election administration staff, advising on the development of laws and procedures pertaining to elections, and education of voters and election stakeholders on the electoral process.

They came to Liberia at a time when hundreds of thousands of people were fleeing. Some were here even before the civil war started in 1989, and stayed throughout the 14-year conflict. Today, amid the mass return to Liberia, these refugees are ready to stand and be counted. In addition to Sierra Leoneans, Monrovia also hosts a mix of nationalities – Algerians, Congolese, Ghanaians, Ivorians, Nigerians, Rwandans, Somalis, Sudanese, Togolese and Ugandans. The UN refugee agency is currently registering refugees around the Liberian capital.

Tens of thousands of Ivorians fled for Liberia when civil war erupted at home in September 2002. Many subsequently returned to Côte d'Ivoire, where a ceasefire agreement signed in May 2003 held until violence broke out again in November last year. Many of the Ivorians remaining in this part of Liberia work in the fields of local farmers, produce charcoal or do odd jobs for a living. They live peacefully among the local population, who benefit from the health post in Pleebo camp and who share natural resources like water and firewood with the refugees.

Officers of the Sixth Judicial Circuit Court in the capital, Monrovia, are demanding 500 Liberian dollars (approx. US$10) from "Forum" newspaper's management as a pre-condition for reopening its office. According to a Media Foundation for West Africa-Monrovia source, the officers were to reopen the newspaper's office on 11 March 2005, after the management handed over US$200 to the state in payment of a fine for "disregarding a court order." The officers, however, said that they would not reopen the office unless the newspaper's management "gave" them 500 Liberian dollars. The paper's managing editor, Augustine Fallah, told MFWA that the demand constituted a "bribe" and was part of a deliberate attempt to silence the newspaper.

Members of Liberia's transitional parliament voted on Monday to indefinitely suspend their parliamentary speaker, George Dweh, for corruption along with his deputy and two other members of the house. A report by a special parliamentary committee, published last week, concluded that the four men had spent US$92,000 of government money without authorisation.

Reporters sans frontières (RSF) has condemned "disproportionate" measures taken by a Monrovia court, on 4 March 2005, against the "Forum" newspaper. The court ordered the offices of the privately-owned weekly closed and issued an arrest warrant for the paper's managing editor and other editorial staff for "contempt of court" after they allegedly ignored several earlier summonses. The paper's offices are to remain closed until it pays the US$200 fine ordered by the court.