Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Liberia's president, has appealed to foreign debtors to allow her country time to emerge from a 25-year economic decline before attempting to recover millions of dollars owed by the country.
Her appeal came as part of an attempt to fend off the advances of a so-called "vulture fund", a company that buys up bad debts of poor governments before going to court to try to get the money back.