News Roundup

Back from vacation, reading the newspapers:

• Ducor Hotel, the big building on the top of the hill overlooking Monrovia has been ordered cleared of squatters. For years, the formerly grand hotel has been serving as an IDP camp for about 1000 people. Not sure the timetable for their removal. "Lybian investors" are said to be about to start renovating the building. (Khaddafi? He owns the building that UNMIL's using, I hear.)
• President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf visited Bella Yella prison in Gbarpolu county over the weekend, a notorious hell-hole that was filled with Charles Taylor's political opponents. She says it will not be renovated. Instead she broke ground for a new school to be built on the site. "This is the one jail that missed me," she told the press.
• An alleged "notorious thief" was "castrated to death" by an angry mob in Saye Town yesterday.
• The government reported a 60% increase in the number of registered businesses in 2006.