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Exclusive: In joint interview, Tony Blair refuses to comment on Liberian president's remarks supporting anti-gay lawsThe Nobel peace prize winner and president of Liberia, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, has defended a law that criminalises homosexual acts, saying: "We like ourselves just the way we are." In a joint interview with Tony Blair, who was left looking visibly uncomfortable by her remarks, Sirleaf told the Guardian: "We've got certain traditional values in our society that we would like to preserve." Liberian legislation classes "voluntary sodomy" as a misdemeanour punishable by up to one year in prison, but two new bills have been...

President Bush dances alongside President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf while visiting Liberia.

The President of Liberia, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, helped President Bush break it down before his return home to the U.S.

Liberian President Sirleaf Thanks U.S. Congress, Asks for Continuing Support allAfrica.com NEWS March 15, 2006 Speaking before a joint meeting of the United States Congress on Wednesday, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf asked for American support to help her country "become a brilliant beacon, an example to Africa and the world of what love of liberty can achieve." "The people of Liberia and the people of the United States are bound together by history and by values," Sirleaf said. "But our ties greatly exceed the historical connection," she said. She thanked President Bush for his strong stand against the former...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Liberia's new leader, the first woman elected president of an African country, urged American lawmakers Wednesday to help her make Liberia "America's success story in Africa." In her speech to a joint session of Congress, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf compared Liberia's devastation from two decades of warfare to that done by the December 2004 tsunami in Asia and last year's Hurricane Katrina in the United States. "Our country agonized with your citizens and the victims and families of these natural tragedies, and our country also agonized with itself over the effects of a senseless civil war," she said....

MONROVIA, Liberia - Africa's first elected female head of state Ellen Johnson Sirleaf was sworn in Monday as war-battered Liberia's new president, promising a "fundamental break" with the West African nation's violent past and pledging to rebuild. With U.S. Navy warships offshore for the first time since the civil war's end two years ago, and first lady Laura Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on hand in a show of support, the moment was met with thunderous applause from thousands of guests. "We know that your vote was a vote for change, a vote for peace, security ... and...