President of Liberia making visit to Columbia

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — The first woman to be elected president of an African nation is visiting Columbia.

City officials say President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is in town Monday to speak at the investiture of Bishop David R. Daniels, Jr.

Daniels, a native of Liberia, is being invested as President of the Council of Bishops of the Global African Methodist Episcopal Church. Mayor Steve Benjamin says Daniels chose Columbia as the site of his investiture because of his previous work with Allen University and the Lutheran Theological Seminary.

Sirleaf was elected in 2005 following a conflict that cost 250,000 lives.

Liberia was ravaged by civil wars for years until 2003. The country is still struggling to maintain a fragile peace with the help of U.N. peacekeepers.