Full Coverage: South East Asia

30.04.2008 Refugees account for over half of those that will need food aid this year due to increased food prices, writes an international refugee agency, noting that violent reactions to the crisis may also force more people to flee their homes.

29.04.2008 Chevron’s ongoing role in financing and profiting from the military regime in Myanmar (Burma) is documented in a report released today that alleges continued human rights violations by pipeline security forces, including murder, rape, torture and forced labour.
From EarthRights International

24.04.2008 Asian governments' attempts to manage skyrocketing food prices by restricting rice exports is actually aggravating food shortages in the region, says Peter Timmer in this interview.

24.04.2008 The Burmese military's reign of terror -- which has displaced 2 million citizens -- has particularly targeted indigenous people, forcing them to flee their homes to escape compulsory labor, rape, and starvation. [Warning, this photoessay contains graphic images that some may find disturbing.]

24.04.2008 BANGKOK, Apr 23 (IPS) - A rising star within the ranks of Burma's military regime is reported to have unveiled a plan to ensure the junta gets its way at the May referendum for a new constitution, according to information revealed to IPS.

23.04.2008 Small farmers from around the world celebrated last week the International Day of Peasant's Struggle and honored the communities and organizations in over 25 countries that are challenging escalating food costs.

23.04.2008 The Cambodian government should conduct an immediate investigation into the allegations of bribery in the fire service and take action against firemen accused of demanding money before they put out a blaze.

22.04.2008 Activists across Europe - many dressed as orang-utans to draw attention to Unilever's "monkey business" - have been demonstrating to protect Indonesian rainforests from the expansion of the palm oil industry.

22.04.2008 One of the three writers from Thailand whom the giant retailer Tesco is trying to suppress with serial libel writs has arrived in London at the invitation of the free speech body Index on Censorship.

18.04.2008 The UN needs to address women's reproductive rights as it conducts the first "peer reviews" of member countries' human rights records, says a coalition of 11 rights groups from around the world.
From: Center for Reproductive Rights

17.04.2008

16.04.2008 A woman who was subjected to abuse as a child, sold into prostitution and whose 14-year-old daughter was kidnapped, drugged, raped and sold to a brothel has won an international award for her fights to liberate girls from sex slavery.
From The World's Children's Prize for the Rights of the Child

14.04.2008 Poverty in Burma is as atrociously overwhelming as the military's repression of rights, and many are saying the country is again close to reaching its boiling point.

12.04.2008

09.04.2008 When Andrew Lam was just a boy, his family fled the Vietnam War to settle in the United States. Now a successful journalist, Andrew ventures back to his old house in Vietnam, reflecting on his own history and that of his homeland.

08.04.2008 Shortly after her husband's assassination, Coretta Scott King gave a dramatic speech in his place, elucidating the "10 Commandments on Vietnam" he had written out just before his death. They ring powerfully familiar today.

02.04.2008 Amnesty International has released details of prison sentences handed out by the Myanmar junta to 40 protestors. Three have been sentenced for giving water to monks on streets. The action is politically motivated and negates people’s peaceful exercise of their human rights, says the international rights body.

01.04.2008 Foreseeing a continued political stalemate in Burma, Joel Charny urges the international community to address regular peoples' humanitarian needs instead of tightening broad-based sanctions that "often hurt average Burmese more than the ruling regime."