AFRICA’S FIRST ELECTED FEMALE LEADER STEPS DOWN
MONROVIA: Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who shared the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize as a champion of women’s rights, is stepping down after making history as Africa’s first elected female president in Liberia. Taking the reins of a nation that had just emerged from a civil war leaving an estimated 250,000 dead, Sirleaf will be remembered for maintaining peace and attracting massive donor funding as she rebuilt her country from scratch over 12 years in power. “We were a nation exhausted from three decades of conflict. We were starting from zero, with the complete destruction of our national infrastructure, a collapsed economy, and a state incapable of providing services to its people,” she recalled of her 2006 inauguration in a final speech to the nation on Wednesday.
CANADA PHARMA TYCOON AND WIFE WERE MURDERED, PRIVATE DETECTIVES SAY
MONTREAL: Private investigators hired by the children of late Canadian pharmaceutical tycoon Barry Sherman concluded that he and his wife were murdered, the Toronto Star reported Saturday. The 75-year- old chairman of Apotex and his 70-year- old wife Honey were found dead in their Toronto home on December 15. Apotex is the largest maker of generic drugs in Canada, and the Shermans’ fortune was estimated at more than $3 billion. Toronto’s homicide unit, which took over the investigation into the “suspicious” deaths, earlier said that they had been strangled to death, but stopped short of calling them homicides. The Shermans’ bodies were found hanging from a railing around a basement pool, the theory being that the Apotex chairman killed his wife Honey, hung her body and then hanged himself by the pool’s edge, Canadian media reported in December, citing a police source. Sherman’s four children however said that a murder-suicide made no sense, and hired criminal lawyer Brian Greenspan to help, the reported.
HONDURAS ROADS BLOCKED IN PROTESTS AGAINST ELECTION RESULTS
TEGUCIGALPA: Activists blocked roads and clashed with police in Honduras on Saturday as part of nationwide protests against the contested re- election of President Juan Orlando Hernandez. Dozens of people have been killed and hundreds jailed since Hernandez was declared the winner of the November 26 run- off election—after a three week stretch of often-interrupted ballot counting that stoked tensions and sparked accusations of fraud in the Central American country. The left-wing Alliance in Opposition against the Dictatorship is heading a protest campaign insisting that the election was stolen from its candidate, former TV anchor Salvador Nasrallah. The opposition called for a “national strike” on Saturday to block the country’s main roads ahead of the start of the president’s new term in office on January 27.