by Shashank Bengali ( published by the McLatchy Newspapers)
HARBEL, Liberia — The wake-up call comes each morning before 4:30. In the dark, 6,000 weary men follow the faint beams of flashlights to their assigned spaces on a massive farm of rubber trees.
As night melts into day under the harsh West African sun, each worker will [...]

By Bill Law
CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE EXTENDED RADIO REPORT (This report begins 1:16 into recording; Firestone section begins at 13:42)
For years Liberia has traded its natural resources in return for services such as health and education from foreign corporations but have Liberians paid too high a price?
“These buildings were destroyed on the premise [...]

by Roxanne Lawson and Tim Newman for Foreign Policy In Focus
Liberia is rich in natural resources and Africa’s largest producer of natural rubber. It is also one of the world’s poorest countries. Liberia’s impoverishment is directly related to the wealth generated from its natural resources; wealth that because of a history of inequality and exploitation [...]

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by Caspar Leighton, BBC News, Monrovia
Rubber manufacturer Firestone has been accused of buying rubber from plantations illegally occupied by ex-combatants from Liberia’s civil war.
It is one of three companies that the Liberian government and the United Nations have accused of profiting from the illegal rubber-tapping.
Their report says human rights are being violated at plantations across [...]