The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) says it is “extremely concerned” about the safety of Hassan Bility, editor-in-chief of The Analyst newspaper, which is based in Liberia's capital, Monrovia. He has been held incommunicado in state custody for almost two months.

The International Crisis Group (ICG) has warned that Liberia is showing all the major warning signs of political, military, economic and social deterioration.“The question is whether the international community will muster the will to take effective action,” says the ICG in a new report.

Liberia's government said last Thursday it had recaptured the northern town of Voinjama, which rebels of the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) had been using as a field headquarters. The town, which is the capital of Lofa County, is 270 km north of the capital, Monrovia.

The Writers in Prison Committee of International PEN says it remains "deeply concerned" for the safety of journalist Hassan Bility in the light of the latest failure to have him brought before a court.

The UNDP Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery (BCPR) has designed an initiative to bolster protection of vulnerable groups. The project will improve camp management; strengthen systems for reporting, monitoring and following up on rights abuses; and promote awareness of human rights among displaced people and host communities where camps are located.

Relative calm has returned to western Liberia and some people who had crossed over to neighbouring Sierra Leone are gradually returning to their villages, humanitarian sources in the Liberian capital, Monrovia, said last Friday.

The leaders of Liberia and Burkina Faso have been named at the UN as the main players in the Sierra Leonean war. Leaders of the two countries were allegedly serving as conduits for the export of diamonds and supply of weapons and arms to Sierra Leone's rebels.

A descriptive and compelling account of the Liberian Civil War, one of Africa’s most brutal and devastating civil wars which spilled over into neighboring countries. Liberia: The Heart of Darkness explores how Liberia, founded by freed black American slaves as a land of liberty for people of the black race the world over, drifted from one of Africa’s most stable and prosperous countries to become a desolate land and a graveyard.

Politically motivated assassinations and violent attacks against pro-democracy individuals went unpunished and led to a culture of impunity under the rule of President Charles Taylor of Liberia, concluded a human rights meeting on the situation in Liberia, held in Accra on 22-23 July.

Some 93,000 people displaced by fighting in Liberia now depend on supplies provided by the World Food Programme (WFP), according to the UN agency, which said some 43,000 of the beneficiaries were living in camps near the capital, Monrovia.

Liberia's Court Martial Board has ordered the Liberian government to produce by 7 August the “living bodies” of three men who were arrested a month ago. Several human rights groups, including Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders, had accused the government of violating the men's constitutional rights by refusing to bring them to court.

A Liberian conservationist, Silas Siakor, says the forests in the country risk future disaster if nothing is done to curb "indiscriminate" tapping.

With the number of civilians in flight from Liberia's war surging at 200,000, refugees reaching safety in neighboring Guinea speak of worsening atrocities by President Charles Taylor's forces -- looting, raping, burning and killing trapped villagers.

Liberian government forces committed scores of war crimes and other serious abuses against civilians between April and June 2002 in the northwest of Liberia, according to Human Rights Watch, who have called for decisive action to end the bloodshed in the country.

Thousands of women under the banner of the Christian Women Initiatives are calling for a neutral force and the creation of a peaceful and conducive security environment for free and fair elections in 2003.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is to help Liberia's government provide emergency agricultural assistance to war-affected farmers through a project worth US $237,000.

The Liberian Red Cross will in the next two months conduct interviews with 6,000 Liberians in randomly selected towns, villages and camps for internally displaced people (IDPs) as part of efforts to develop its country assistance strategy.

The rebel Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) says it will consider discussing a ceasefire with the government of President Charles Taylor, but warns of an intensification of its military campaign if its offer is refused.

Freedom-of-expression organisations have raised concerns over the fate of Hassan Bility, a prominent Liberian newspaper editor. The journalist is missing and feared dead, say the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans frontières, RSF), while Human Rights Watch (HRW) is concerned that he may be at risk of torture and ill-treatment. Bility, the editor of the independent weekly "The Analyst," was arrested on 24 June, together with three other Liberians, on suspicion of operating a rebel terrorist cell in Monrovia, says HRW.

At least 150 women protesters have besieged Chevron-Texaco's main oil export facility in Nigeria's southern oil region to back demands for jobs for their children, company officials said on Wednesday.