Is Trevor McDonald less 'black' than 50 Cent? You rarely get street gangs reciting, 'Coming up after the break, Gordon Brown'

Three years ago, a Filipina housemaid called Nena Ruiz found herself a virtual slave in the household of a Hollywood movie executive, working 18-hour days for next to no pay and receiving markedly worse treatment than the family's two dogs.

Oaths of blood in a land of gun law

Sir: I am intrigued to see that the Scottish definition of "abolition of tuition fees" consists of deferring them for an indeterminate number of years ("Scottish students likely to have fees deferred", 22 December). Perhaps now the Scottish Parliament might like to reiterate its support for the abolition of slavery and hanging, and we look forward to its proposed abolition of fox-hunting.

Sir: Apart from slavery, and people having to sell their own kidneys in order to survive, capitalism cannot sink any lower than exploiting women and children in sweatshops to indulge the over rich who have nothing better to do than spend their time and money chasing fashion.

A DIPLOMATIC row erupted between France and India yesterday when the Indian embassy in Paris denied responsibility for the sexual mutilation of a teenage girl, allegedly held in slavery by one of its senior diplomats.

THE CITY of Liverpool will be confronted by its uncomfortable past today when it remembers the slaves whose plight once made it great.

AS A BAND of conspirators, they were ultra-respectable, just a couple of hundred college lecturers, school-teachers and small businessmen brought together by a common grievance and a common hope. But their gathering this weekend in the hill country of North Carolina has the potential to change the face of America.

`The Darker Face Of The Earth' The Cottesloe London

A WEALTHY couple have been jailed for reducing a young illegal immigrant woman to slavery, the first judgment of its kind in France.

A WEALTHY couple have been jailed for reducing a young illegal immigrant woman to slavery, the first judgment of its kind in France.

DISPOSABLE PEOPLE: NEW SLAVERY

Hilary Mantel admires the surprising story that emerges from the shadows of slavery