Taylor, whose army included child soldiers high on drugs, is wanted for war crimes by a UN-backed tribunal in Sierra Leone. He is regarded as the culprit for several west African conflicts.International election observers, diplomats and United Nations officials have praised an election broadly judged so far to have been free and fair. The presidential contest will be decided in a 8 November run-off.Ms Johnston-Sirleaf was the outstanding performer in a previous debate involving all the candidates and analysts had expected her less obviously qualified opponent to avoid a one-to-one debate.Mr Weah, 39, who played during his football career for AC Milan, AS Monaco, Paris St Germain and Chelsea, and Ms Johnson-Sirleaf have both campaigned on promises to rebuild war-ravaged Liberia's shattered infrastructure and restore basic services such as water and mains electricity.The presidential and parliamentary polls were the first in Liberia since the war ended in 2003, after the former president and warlord Charles Taylor went into exile in Nigeria. An iconic figure in his homeland, who has managed and captained the national football team, Mr Weah fought and effective and well-funded campaign that has drawn enormous crowds, many of them former child soldiers, attracted by his messianic style.The showdown on Thursday between the two presidential contenders will be staged in the capital, Monrovia.
On paper it is a mismatch, with Mr Weah, a high school dropout and political novice, having to take on a Harvard-trained former World Bank economist and veteran politician. The former AC Milan and Chelsea player led the field of 22 candidates in Liberia's first election in 14 years, taking 30 per cent of the vote to Ms Johnston-Sirleaf's 19.6 per cent. The former world footballer of the year George Weah is facing one of the toughest matches of his life this week, when he faces his rival for the Liberian presidency, Ellen Johnston-Sirleaf, in a live radio debate. At least 110 of the injured are still in hospital, many with severe burns. As 22 suspects were rounded up in raids on small, anonymous hotels in Delhi, police and intelligence sources said the investigation into who was behind the bombings was pointing towards militants in Kashmir - just hours after a breakthrough in talks over the divided territory.. The markets of Delhi were deserted yesterday, after at least 61 people were killed in three co-ordinated bomb attacks on Saturday. On what would usually be the busiest shopping weekend of the year, ahead of the Hindu festival of Diwali, the tinsel decorations and fairy lights hung over empty streets Few were out shopping, for fear of further attacks. Delhi buses are notoriously overcrowded, and witnesses say there were more than 100 passengers on board when one of them spotted the bomb..
While two of the bombs were hidden in busy shopping areas, the third had been planted on a packed bus. There could have been scores more deaths in the Delhi bombings were it not for the presence of mind shown by a bus driver and conductor. At the opening ceremony, Guy Ritchie, her film director husband, was reported to have danced in ecstasy embracing a Torah scroll.The singer made a midnight pilgrimage to the Jerusalem tomb of Rabbi Yehuda Ashlag, author of Sulam, a commentary on the Zohar, the Kabbalistic "Book of Splendour". Madonna meditated inside the mausoleum for more than an hour, circling the grave, praying, chanting and lighting candles..
