Tomorrow's election in Burma will have very little to do with democracy. Human Rights Watch says: "Only two parties will field candidates for almost every open seat: the military-backed party and the pro-military former Burmese socialist party. Political parties not aligned with the military report that they’re being prevented from campaigning. … Opposition to military […]
Last month at the UN General Assembly, rock legend Bono lamented that for ten years he has begged the G8 for US$25 billion to relieve hunger and disease in Africa, with limited success. Suddenly, the United States has $700 billion to spend on Wall Street. Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz estimates that the US bailout package […]
The United Nations wants to hear about people suited to the top human rights positions known as ‘Special Procedures mandate-holders’. Also called Special Rapporteurs, Special Representatives or Independent Experts, or appointed to Working Groups, these leading experts investigate human rights violations and their causes. There are presently 13 country mandates concerned with the human rights […]
A crucial feature of the UN human rights armoury is under threat: the Special Procedures. Some members of the newly constituted Human Rights Council are anxious to end this form of scrutiny, to the alarm of human rights NGOs. The credibility of the UN itself is at stake, says Amnesty International. The United Nations, like […]
Extra-judicial killings are a major source of human rights violation in Asia, according to the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC), and, of eleven countries reviewed in the Commission’s 2006 Report on human rights in the region, Sri Lanka is the worst. On this second anniversary of the Indian Ocean tsunami, reconstruction in the north-east of […]
The Back Pack Health Worker Team (BPHWT), a Thai NGO established by Burmese expats in 1998, provides primary health care and health education to rural and conflict-ridden areas of Burma. They have 70 teams of 2-5 health workers trying to meet the health needs of some 140,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the east of […]
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