Dili - Last week on eBay a search for East Timor would have come up with a black, wooden, hand-carved statue of a male, not quite a metre high. At 150 US dollars it was by far the most expensive object from East Timor, and one might have wondered why.

Perhaps it was only a replica of a centuries-old sacred clan totem believed to represent ancestors. Or, maybe it was the real thing.

Dili - It's no secret that charity clothes cast off from rich countries end up on the backs of some of the poorest people on earth. Supposedly, that's the whole point. But sometimes the best intentions go awry.

The used clothing is often sold for low prices, undercutting local clothing industries. In Asia, used clothes are keeping dozens of vendors impoverished in one of the region's poorest countries while making a single company rich.