TOP American church leaders are asking the United States Congress to limit to $11.1 million the 2008 military assistance to the Philippines and to attach human rights-related preconditions to the entire aid package.

A US bicameral budget committee will meet this week to finalize the 2008 US appropriations bill and reconcile the two houses’ versions.

By James Butty

Workers of the Firestone Rubber Plantation in Liberia say they will continue their strike action until the management of the company recognizes their elected union representatives. The union elected its leaders last July, but the company has refused to meet with them, citing an ongoing legal case at the Liberian Supreme Court as its reason. This, despite the fact the Liberian Ministries of Labor and Agriculture have certified the union election as free, fair, and democratic.

Sales of the Divine brand fair-trade chocolate are set to increase 15 per cent over the holiday season, suggesting that consumers extend the season of goodwill to cocoa farmers around the world, as well as their own families.

While the Ebenezer Scrooge figures in this world bemoan the "rampant consumerism" that has become part of Christmas in the Western world, let's not forget that intelligent shopping choices help support some of the poorest labourers in the world.

LOS ANGELES, (Xinhua) -- California is the top destination in the U.S. for human traffickers who force women and girls into hard labor and sex trade, local TV channel ABC 7 reported Wednesday.

A new report released by the state's anti-human trafficking task force shed light on how bad the problem is in California, and the team wants police and prosecutors to have more power to fight these crimes.

Though exact numbers don't exist, thousands are somehow brought in across the borders and coerced into the sex trade or hard labor, officials and activists said...