When David Cameron backed the suspension of EU sanctions on Burma in April 2012, he emphasised in no uncertain terms that they would return if President Thein Sein’s administration reneged on democratic reform ...

“The fighting has intensified right now… We heard the sound of armaments and explosions three times last night… When we visited the refugee camps, the refugees’ faces reflect suffering, anxie ...

Originally published on The Activist Over recent weeks, events around the Letpadaung copper mine near Monywa have sent shockwaves through Burma’s fragile reform process. For months local people including Buddh ...

Buckingham Palace has played host to some pretty unscrupulous characters over the years including Vladimir Putin, Hu Jintao and even Robert Mugabe. This week the odorous list is extended to include Indonesian Preside ...

Two hundred and thirty-one people and organisations were nominated for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, widely heralded as one of the most prestigious honours in global politics. Yet the five-person committee re ...

Investment can be a hugely positive force for stability and development, but Burma’s government is nowhere near conclusively proving its intention nor its capacity to establish a transparent rights-based frame ...

The sectarian crisis gripping Burma’s Arakan State is brutal, tragic and poses a serious threat to the entire country’s future. Yet alongside the horror, a sense of confusions reigns regarding exactly ...

The 4 June 1989 massacre- commonly referred to as the ‘Tiananmen Square Massacre’ though the bloodshed took place in the streets of Beijing rather than. the square itself- has long haunted the ruling Chi ...

It has been a bad week for two of Africa’s most notorious militias – and a good one for justice. On Saturday, US-backed Ugandan troops detained senior Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) commander Caesa ...

The Tamil people’s long wait for justice over the abhorrent War Crimes committed by Mahinda Rajapaksa’s brutal government, drags on with little hope that the tyrant will ever face the same kind of inter ...

The conviction of Charles Taylor last week prompted mixed scenes of celebration and outrage across Liberia – the country he ruled with an iron first, and Sierra Leone – the country he brutalised by faci ...

Immediately before Cameron's brave democratic politicking in Burma, he was in Indonesia playing an altogether different game. His shocking call for the renewal of arms sales to Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s despo ...

Historic barely begins to describe the events taking place in Burma. Less than two years on from a sham general election designed to entrench the rule of the military and its proxies, unprecedentedly free polling in ...

“We have proof of war crimes- we demand justice” – that was the message from thousands of Tamil protesters gathered outside the 19th Session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva this week. The ...

Since South Sudan’s turbulent birth in July last year, the state has been faced with a constant succession of crises, threatening its very stability. On-going disputes over its border with the North have seen ...

After seventeen years of brutal rule Kim Jong-Il is finally gone. The surreal outpouring of mourning, mirroring that following the death of his father back in 1994, was predictable in light of the incessant propagand ...

At almost nine years old the Kimberley Process stood as one of the most radical and potentially transformative human rights ventures in recent history; providing a binding international tracking and certification fra ...

They came from across their nation: tens of thousands of West Papuans gathering for the Third Papuan People’s Congress this week; an historic exercise in democracy, defiance and unequivocal bravery. After fif ...

The tragic news broke this morning that an eighth Tibetan had self-immolated in protest against the repressive policies of the occupying Chinese authorities. Such acts, previously unprecedented in Tibet, underscore n ...

When uprisings first began to spread throughout the Arab world, there was speculation that the Kurds across the Middle East could follow suite. That could still happen, but with their largest party in Turkey margina ...