Starving crowds gathered in Liberia's war-divided capital, stuffing leaves into their mouths to quell their hunger as aid agencies pressed for opening of humanitarian routes. Fighting surged in cities outside Monrovia.
Aid groups and US diplomats used a four-day break in fighting in the capital to cross front lines for the first time Friday.
The uneasy truce in the capital held no sway in Buchanan, Liberia's second-largest city, where residents reported fighting that prompted 8,000 civilians to take refuge in a Roman Catholic convent. In the north, rebels claimed to have retaken the town of Gbarnga, former stronghold of President Charles Taylor.
PHOTO: AP
Rebels are driving home a 3-year-old war to oust Taylor, a former warlord blamed for 14 years of near-constant war in Liberia.
Under US and West African pressure, Taylor has pledged to resign tomorrow and leave Liberia. He named Vice President Moses Blah to complete his term.
Although many ordinary people here express doubt that Taylor will ever willingly leave power -- or Liberia, diplomats spoke Friday of Taylor possibly departing as soon as tomorrow, escorted into exile in Nigeria by fellow West African heads of state.
Taylor's spokesman, Vaani Passawe, confirmed South African President Thabo Mbeki and Ghanaian President John Kufuor were among those expected to attend Taylor's resignation ceremony tomorrow. Liberian authorities refused comment on how soon after Taylor would leave.
A slowly building West African peace force and Taylor's pledge to step down has largely silenced mortars and rocket barrages in the capital, although chattering steel fusillades of AK-47 fire still burst the calm. Rebels raced around in pickup trucks on their side of the city, clutching assault rifles, rocket launchers and two prized anti-aircraft guns.
Despite the truce that has settled on Monrovia, authorities have been unable to breach the barriers between the capital's rebel-held port and the government-held central city. Rebel fighters and government troops hold opposite sides of bridges linking the two sides, blocking access to the port and its warehouses and shops stocked with food.
On the government side, women in the market offered only unripe peppers. Crowds showed what they were eating -- snails, leaves and flower bulbs -- considered inedible but nonetheless boiled for three hours until soft enough to gnaw.
"We're eating food that humans should not be eating," said 27-year-old Athanasius Carr, standing with dozens of others on a hill overlooking the New Bridge front line.
"People are dying!" cried a 15-year-old girl who gave her name only as Kema, staring down at the forbidden bridge.
Taylor's forces have blocked civilians from reaching the rebel side, where markets were piled high Friday with crisply fried chicken, bags of rice and piles of other grains.
"I didn't think it would be like this," said John Yealu, a 42-year-old civil engineer who reached rebel territory in Monrovia after swimming two front line rivers. Yealu said his three children were waiting for him at home.
Still wet from the trip and holding a change of clothes in a plastic bag, Yealu marveled at the bustling street lined with food stalls, saying: "People free all around. Food all around."
DEMOGRAPHICS: Robotics is the most promising answer to looming labor woes, the long-term care system and national contingency response, an official said Taiwan is to launch a five-year plan to boost the robotics industry in a bid to address labor shortages stemming from a declining and aging population, the Executive Yuan said yesterday. The government approved the initiative, dubbed the Smart Robotics Industry Promotion Plan, via executive order, senior officials told a post-Cabinet meeting news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s population decline would strain the economy and the nation’s ability to care for vulnerable and elderly people, said Peter Hong (洪樂文), who heads the National Science and Technology Council’s (NSTC) Department of Engineering and Technologies. Projections show that the proportion of Taiwanese 65 or older would
Nvidia Corp yesterday unveiled its new high-speed interconnect technology, NVLink Fusion, with Taiwanese application-specific IC (ASIC) designers Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯) and MediaTek Inc (聯發科) among the first to adopt the technology to help build semi-custom artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure for hyperscalers. Nvidia has opened its technology to outside users, as hyperscalers and cloud service providers are building their own cost-effective AI chips, or accelerators, used in AI servers by leveraging ASIC firms’ designing capabilities to reduce their dependence on Nvidia. Previously, NVLink technology was only available for Nvidia’s own AI platform. “NVLink Fusion opens Nvidia’s AI platform and rich ecosystem for
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said it is building nine new advanced wafer manufacturing and packaging factories this year, accelerating its expansion amid strong demand for high-performance computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence (AI) applications. The chipmaker built on average five factories per year from 2021 to last year and three from 2017 to 2020, TSMC vice president of advanced technology and mask engineering T.S. Chang (張宗生) said at the company’s annual technology symposium in Hsinchu City. “We are quickening our pace even faster in 2025. We plan to build nine new factories, including eight wafer fabrication plants and one advanced
‘WORLD’S LOSS’: Taiwan’s exclusion robs the world of the benefits it could get from one of the foremost practitioners of disease prevention and public health, Minister Chiu said Taiwan should be allowed to join the World Health Assembly (WHA) as an irreplaceable contributor to global health and disease prevention efforts, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday. He made the comment at a news conference in Taipei, hours before a Taiwanese delegation was to depart for Geneva, Switzerland, seeking to meet with foreign representatives for a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the WHA, the WHO’s annual decisionmaking meeting, which would be held from Monday next week to May 27. As of yesterday, Taiwan had yet to receive an invitation. Taiwan has much to offer to the international community’s
RSS