By Robtel Neajai Pailey Late last week, I was informed that I would not be able to travel to Dubai for an important meeting scheduled months ago. Like other countries across the globe, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) halted travel for those with Guinean, Liberian, and Sierra Leonean passports during the height of the Ebola […]
Liberia
Posted inMedia, News/Politics
Liberia’s children can help weed out corruption
By Robtel Neajai Pailey I remember the first time I stared corruption in the face. It was 2010, and I was chairwoman of a Liberian government committee responsible for reforming the awarding of international scholarships. We discovered that a group of 18-year-old boys had forged their national exam records to become eligible for a scholarship […]
Posted inBusiness
Preparing a generation to manage Liberia’s oil sector
By Urias Goll Liberia’s quest to explore for hydrocarbon (petroleum) offshore its territorial waters dates back to the late sixties. Some believe the government’s decision for exploration activities was made in 1940s. Creating a long-term approach for capacity development has been on the fringe of decision-making. As usual, the government and decision-makers wanted to prove […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Aid agencies should use local journalists to get message across
By Prue Clarke Mae Azango is one courageous reporter. But she is also a potent weapon in the fight for human rights. Azango’s reporting on female genital cutting (FGC) in her native Liberia earlier this year, brought death threats and sent her and her nine-year-old daughter into hiding. Three weeks later, the Liberian government, having never dared risk votes by […]
Posted inNews/Politics
One man, two wars, one guilty verdict
by Robtel Neajai Pailey Much has changed since I covered the first day of Charles Taylor’s trial for Pambazuka News on June 4 2007. That day, he failed to show up to court, calling the case against him a “farce.” Last week, he was in full view, stoic, resolute and somber. As I sat in […]
Posted inGeneral
The making of Leymah Gbowee, Nobel Laureate
by Robtel Neajai Pailey In 2009 I screened the film Pray the Devil Back to Hell in Monrovia, Liberia, with a group of Liberian women — young and old — and found myself buoyed by an unconventional story portraying unconventional women in very unconventional circumstances. Two years I am now revisiting the film after it […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Nobel could not have come at a better time for Liberia
By Robtel Neajai Pailey Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and peace activist Leymah Gbowee, also from Liberia, became the second and third African women to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on October 7. Gbowee and Johnson Sirleaf have forever transformed the image of Liberia, from a pariah nation of warlords and gun-slinging, drug-induced prepubescent […]