British Expatriate Network

New Liberian president vows to end graft

By Alphonso Toweh and Katharine Houreld Mon Jan 16, 350 PM ET

MONROVIA (Reuters) - Liberia's Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf took office as Africa's first elected woman president on Monday, pledging to break with the country's history of corruption and violence that spread war to neighboring states.


The colorful, open-air inauguration was attended by U.S. first lady
Laura Bush and Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice, signaling U.S. backing for Africa's oldest republic, founded in 1847 by freed slaves from America.


Topical news on this MLK day .


http//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060116/wl_nm/liberia_inauguration_dc

Also to Chile's first woman Presisdent.

SANTIAGO, Chile (Reuters) - Chile president-elect Michelle Bachelet, a Socialist who will be the country's first female leader, vowed on Monday to shrink the gap between rich and poor that persists in the South American nation despite lower poverty and a thriving economy.

Bachelet, from Chile's ruling centre-left coalition, won 53 percent of ballots cast in Sunday's election while opposition candidate Sebastian Pincer took 47 percent, the government Electoral Service said.

The 54-year-old medical doctor, who was imprisoned and tortured briefly during the beginning of the 1973-1990 August Pinched dictatorship before living in exile abroad, will be the fourth consecutive president from the centre-left alliance that has run Chile since 1990.

Is the Chilean president the first female President in Latin America?
I can't think of any others..

She is the first elected. Eva Peron took over the Precidency of Argentine after her husband died.

Hope they don;t turn into a Mrs T lol. Ben Eltons career as a standup comic could kick off again lol

I read an article that there are more women MPs in Afghanistan than in Britain.(in the Economist I think).

Ben Eltons gone all Wood Allen and doesn't do stand-up anymore. :cry: