A female pygmy hippopotamus calf was born at the Metro Richmond Zoo in early December, marking the third calf of the endangered species to be born at the zoo in the last five years, officials said.

The mother hippo Iris gave birth to the yet-to-be-named calf on Dec. 9 and the zoo is currently holding a contest to name the new calf. //

The new baby had a neonatal exam and weighed in at 15 pounds, a mere fraction of the 600 pounds officials say fully grown pygmy hippos can boast. //

When the hippo was declared endangered in 2015, there were only about 2,500 mature ones left, and even then officials were pulling that from a 1993 population estimate, according to the Zoological Society of London.

The Susu club is a universal feature of the Liberian workplace. Hardly any agency, trading firm, or NGO is without a Susu Club. The Susu club comes in two variety, the non-profit and the commercial. The non-profit is the more benign of the two. It is normally organized rather informally. The employees of a company, or even a section of a company agree to form a Susu club and will pay a certain amount of their salary to the club cashier every month. In an non-profit Susu, the percentage of the salary pledged tends to be higher than in a commercial Susu. The drivers of one NGO operating in Liberia pay 70 USD, about one third of their salary, into their Susu account every month. But every month one of them is the lucky one. He will receive the combined input of the other Susu members. In this particular Susu club the payout is 700 USD. The next month it is another persons term to collect the 700 USD. So, the Susu club is in effect, a revolving loan given by the paying members to the receiving member. The advantage for the member is that, once or twice a year, depending on the structure of the Susu club he gets paid 700USD instead of his regular salary of 250 USD.

The tallest structure of Africa is still located close to Monrovia. One of the three remaining antennas of the defunct Omega Navigation system is located in Paynesville, in the greater Monrovia area. Omega was a US – Navigation system operating in the Very Low Frequency (VLF) band, between 10 and 14 kHz. It was used both for navigation as well as for submarine communication. Omega was operated from 1970 until 1997 when GPS proved more accurate.
Due to the extreme wavelength, Omega needed very long antennas. The transmitter in Paynesville used a umbrella antenna suspended on a 417m high mast.

Until the new Elysian Airline, whose fate is far from certain, started to operate, the only way to fly anywhere in Liberia was by using the United Nations choppers. True, the Mi-8 were old and badly in need of paint, but nevertheless they offered the only way around. Most of the Mi-8 used in service of the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) are operated by UT Air, a firm whose safety record is not the best. When UT Air runs short of men and machines, choppers from the Ukrainian aviation unit are also used. The way to tell the difference is by looking at the hips of the crew. If they wear big ugly holsters with automatics in it, they are from the Ukrainian Aviation.
Ugly, lout and ungainly as the choppers might be, they were still the only game in town. But access to the flights was restricted.

Neither the great plans that William R. Tolbert had for the transformation of Liberia, nor his plans for Bensonville, which he renamed Benton, came to fruit. The mansions of the presidential clan have been reduced to rubble, and Benton is again called Bensonville.

The only building which has survived intact up to this day is the Mt.Zion Praise Church, where Tolbert frequently took the pulpit. //

Yak Dorzon on January 8, 2009 at 7:44 pm
Tolbert renamed it Bentol, not Benton, Mr Foreigner. There was a logic to his megalomania – the “Ben” was for Bensonville and the “tol” was for Tolbert. Not satisfied, he went further and made Bentol the capital of Montserrado county.

Last month, in a basement office in Monrovia, I watched a teacher with 15 years of experience fail a sixth-grade math test. She wasn’t an outlier—she represented the norm in a nation that ranks 155th out of 156 countries according to the 2023 World Bank Human Capital Index. After a decade of traversing Africa’s education landscape, from Ethiopia’s ambitious reforms to Rwanda’s digital revolution, I can confidently state that Liberia isn’t just failing at education. We’re actively manufacturing ignorance. //

The most dangerous thing in Liberia isn’t poverty—it’s the slow death of our potential. //

The truth is more damning: we’re not failing because we’re poor. We’re poor because we’ve institutionalized failure.

Liberia gained its independence on this day in 1847. Rightfully claiming its title as Africa’s oldest democratic republic, Liberia gained its independence well over a hundred years before the rest of Africa.

The never-before-colonized nation was founded in 1822 by former slaves and free-born blacks who resettled from the United States. The independence declaration of Liberia was done by its first black governor Joseph Jenkins Roberts, who later on became the country’s first elected president.

To commemorate their independence day, Face2Face Africa takes you through a list of the presidents of Africa’s oldest democratic republic.

In accordance with the 2015 Electricity Law of Liberia (ELL), LERC is empowered under Section 3.3 to issue Regulations designed to implement the law. Therefore, the Commission prescribed these Regulations:

Electricity Licensing Handbook.pdf - 1166kb

The Electricity Sector of Liberia has been characterized by monopoly of generation, transmission, and distribution services, and there has also been a fusion of roles, where policy, regulation and operation were combined.

Regulatory functions of the energy sector were relegated to the Ministry of Lands, Mines and Energy (MLME), Ministry of Commerce and Industry (MoCI), Liberia Electricity Corporation (LEC), Rural and Renewable Energy Agency (RREA), Liberia Petroleum Refining Company (LPRC), National Oil Company of Liberia (NOCAL), and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). State-owned operators including the LEC and micro-utilities have been self-regulating. The result has been high electricity cost and inadequate services, which are major constraints to Liberia’s economic growth and poverty reduction.

To address the situation, the National Energy Policy (NEP) of Liberia was approved in 2009. It provides among others, liberalization of the sector and separation of policy, regulation, and operation.

The National Energy Policy led to the enactment of the 2015 Electricity Law of Liberia (ELL) on October 26, 2015. The ELL provides the legal basis for the establishment of the Liberia Electricity Regulatory Commission (LERC) as the National Regulator. LERC is an independent agency with respect to its budget, management, staffing and the exercise of its duties and authorities as prescribed in Section 13.3 of the Law.

LERC’s function, as regulator, is to issue licenses, approve tariffs, ensure liberalization of the sector, improve service delivery, protect consumers and create a vibrant electricity sector.

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Some hippos are a little smaller — and lighter — than others, including the endangered West African Pygmy Hippopotamus, which is found mostly in Liberia. The status of that animal makes it all the more interesting that the Attica Zoological Park in Athens, Greece, has recently had a pygmy hippo born in captivity.

Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Power

Over the past three weeks ELWA has been hosting a group of people from the US that have been helping to make upgrades to the power system. The team consists of former missionaries, former missionary kids from ELWA, electricians, contractors and even a Liberian who used to work at ELWA but now lives in Philadelphia. In total 9 people traveled out from the US to work with ELWA's 5 electricians and an extra 8-10 ELWA services staff that helped out.

The project consisted of replacing all the transformers on campus so the voltage could be dropped from 7,200 volts to 2,400 on the primary transmission lines. The change was recommended a couple years ago after an electrical engineer analyzed ELWA's system and recommended the voltage be dropped to reduce the high voltage leaking to ground and jumping around insulators. We also installed some new transmission lines and changed our output voltage that the generators produce.

GENERAL

In the execution of its mandate to provide adequate and reliable electric power to the nation at economically reasonable tariff, the Liberia Electricity Corporation (LEC) operates and maintains two (2) distinct electrical power system, namely: the Monrovia Power system and the rural Electrification system. The Monrovia power system before the war supplied electricity to Monrovia and its outlying areas, extending to Kakata City , Tubmanburg City, and Buchanan City . Rural electrification before the war operated eleven (11) isolated diesel out stations with three under construction at the onset of the civil war, served the people who resided out side the Monrovia power system.

THE EVOLUTION OF LEC

In the early 1940s, the Monrovia Power system consisting of a single unit, serving the public. The unit was located at the corner of Carey & Lynch streets and was operated by Henry F. Luke, after whom the Luke Power plant at Bushrod Island is named. Monthly collection then never exceeded 16% of the monthly billing.

In the year 1949, the Government of Liberia (GOL) procured three 40-kW superior diesel generators through the United States Government Land Lease Program, and installed them at the Krutown power plant where the LEC central office is located today.

The Liberian company led by Commander William R. Trimble under contract with the GOL, replaced the Liberia Company and operated the Krutown power plant until 1960.

In June 1960, the Monrovia Power Authority (PUA) was created by law to consolidate and control the activities associated with power generation, transmission and distribution with the view to reducing system technical and commercial losses. The Stanley Engineering Company was hired by the GOL to manage the MPA. However, in 1964 Sanderson and Porter replaced Stanley engineering company. The GOL at the time preferred Stanley engineering company to carrying out the task of surveying, designing and supervising the Mount Coffee Hydroelectric project. //

With all of the LEC facilities damaged as a results of war, it became appropriate to effect the long awaited power system change, over which the years left Liberia as the only Country in Africa that operated power system base on North America standard of 60htz , 220/110v customer voltage.

In 1998, with funding with from the Danish Development Agency (DANIDA), a Danish Consulting firm NESA Team, carried out a power system conversion study. Today, Liberia has effectively converted its system from the North America standard to 50HTz 400/230V customer voltage.

MONROVIA – President Joseph Boakai, on the eve of Liberia’s Armed Forces Day celebration, has issued a directive for a scaled-back observance. The President’s call for reduced activities comes amidst ongoing protests from the wives and widows of Armed Forces personnel. They have urged President Boakai to reconsider his nomination of the former Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. (Retired) Prince C. Johnson III as Minister of Defense.

For the past two days, the women have carried out protests, blocking the main route leading to the country’s only international airport and other major routes. //

Meanwhile, the President met with the aggrieved women on Sunday and he listened to their grievances.

Schieffelin, Margibi County- The wives and widows of current and deceased soldiers of the Armed Forces of Liberia have given President Joseph Nyumah Boakai a 24 hour-ultimatum to dismiss Defense Minister Major General (retired) Prince Johnson over his alleged maltreatment of the officers and personnel of the Armed Forces.

Liberia is Africa's oldest republic, but it became known in the 1990s for its long-running, ruinous civil wars and its role in a rebellion in neighbouring Sierra Leone.

Although founded by freed American and Caribbean slaves, Liberia is mostly inhabited by indigenous Africans, with the slaves' descendants comprising 5% of the population.

Around 250,000 people were killed in Liberia's civil wars, and many thousands more fled the fighting as the economy collapsed.

Big programmes are under way to address the shortage of electricity and running water.

Biggest Earthquakes Near Monrovia, Montserrado, Liberia