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 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 [...]

by William Baue, SocialFunds.com
Liberia was founded in Africa as the “land of the free” (as the country’s name means in Latin) in 1820 by a group of freed slaves seeking refuge from America’s “peculiar institution.” However, a recent development suggests Liberia itself is home to conditions of slavery. Last month, the International Labor Rights Fund [...]

by Elisabeth Schreinemacher, IPS News
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 15 (IPS) - When Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf was elected Africa’s first female head of state and Liberia’s 23rd president in October, she pledged to fight corruption, create jobs and restore electricity and water supplies.
In her acceptance speech, Johnson-Sirleaf announced that her transitional team had begun working toward a new [...]