Pressured by fellow West African leaders, President Charles Taylor promised to resign Aug. 11 after the expected arrival of peacekeepers, as his forces stepped up their battle against rebels for Monrovia's port.
As fighting surged in the city outside, Taylor -- after meeting with West African envoys -- said Saturday at his lavish oceanside executive offices that he would hand over power after a joint session of Liberia's congress next week.
Taylor said he would step down the morning of Aug. 11 "and the new guy will have to be sworn in by midday." But he refused to say when he would leave Liberia, as he has promised to do previously, and as West African leaders and the US have demanded.
"The most important thing is, everything that we have said about resigning and leaving will happen," said Taylor, who has been offered asylum by Nigeria.
Taylor has said he will hand power to one of two longtime colleagues -- Nyundueh Monkomana, Liberia's speaker of the house, or Moses Blah, his vice president.
The president had accused Blah of complicity in what he called a US-backed coup attempt against him in June, but Blah eventually returned to what appeared to be his full public role. Monkomana is believed to be more acceptable to all sides, including rebels.
Taylor has been promising to surrender power since June 4, when a UN-Sierra Leone court announced a war-crimes indictment against him for his support of rebels there in a brutal civil war.
He also has made and broken other accords in 14 years of Liberian conflict, which Taylor, then a warlord, started as the leader of a small insurgency in 1989.
Saturday's meeting with regional envoys appeared to make at least some progress by committing Taylor to a specific date.
West African heads of state, in a summit late last week in Ghana, committed to sending peacekeepers today to Liberia, where rebels pressing a 3-year-old war to oust Taylor have the capital under two months of deadly sieges.
They had insisted that Taylor leave by Thursday, three days after the deployment -- an unusually forceful message to a peer, delivered under strong UN and US pressure.
"West African leaders seemed to understand that leaving the country within three days is not practical," Taylor's spokesman, Vaanii Passawe, said after the meeting.
One envoy praised Taylor's agreement as "unprecedented."
"He is to be congratulated for his sense of statesmanship and patriotism, recognizing the realities and the fact that his departure will facilitate the making of peace in Liberia," Nana Akufo-Addo, Ghana's foreign minister, said. "That's our main concern, not deadlines."
The UN Security Council on Friday approved deployment of the multinational force to Liberia, which is to last two months and be followed by UN peacekeepers.
It was still unclear whether US Marines on three warships that are expected to arrive off Liberia's coast soon will go ashore.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese