...This study will examine the food (rice) availability at the national level using the official and FAO data. Second, a case study in the rice deficit region (Dry Zone) will present the characteristics and food security status of the farm and non-farm rural households (landless) and the determinants of food security. The Dry Zone was chosen to study because the EC & FAO (2007) classified this region as the most vulnerable area of the country. Furthermore, the FAO projected that the Net Primary Production would be decreased significantly in the Dry Zone in the next two decades.

TABLE OF CONTENTS:-
1. Food Security from a Rights-based Perspective;
2. Local Observations from the States and Divisions
of Eastern Burma:-
2.1 Tenasserim Division
(Committee for Internally Displaced Karen Persons);
2.2 Mon State (Mon Relief and Development Committee);
2.3 Karen State (Karen Human Rights Group)
2.4 Eastern Pegu Division (Karen Office of Relief and Development);
2.5 Karenni State (Karenni Social Welfare Committee);
2.6 Shan State (Shan Human Rights Foundation)...

For more than 60 years, Karen rebels have been fighting a civil war against the government of Myanmar...In February 1949, members of the Karen ethnic minority launched an armed insurrection against Myanmar's central government.
In pictures: Sixty years of war.

Over 60 years later, the conflict continues, with more than a dozen ethnic rebel groups waging war against the army in their fight for self-rule.

Now, the war is entering a new and bloody stage.

Up to a million people have fled their homes in eastern Burma in a crisis the world has largely ignored.

Burma's refusal to release Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest, and the boycotting of the constitutional convention this month by the main opposition, has thrust Burma into the spotlight again.

But unseen and largely unremarked is the ongoing harrowing experience of hundreds of thousands of people in eastern Burma, hiding in the jungle or trapped in army-controlled relocation sites. Others are in refugee camps on the Thai-Burmese border.

Roads, Relocations, and the Campaign for Control in Toungoo District. Based on interviews and field reports from KHRG field researchers in this northern Karen district, looks at the phenomenon of 'Peace Villages' under SPDC control and 'Hiding Villages' in the hills; while the 'Hiding Villages' are being systematically destroyed and their villagers hunted and captured, the 'Peace Villages' face so many demands for forced labour and extortion that many ofthem are fleeing to the hills.

This Situation Update describes events and issues occurring in Bu Tho Township, Hpapun District during the period between November 2014 to January 2015, including illegal logging, punishment, education, and livelihoods...

In C--- village, Pa Heh village tract, primary school students who did not pass the examinations were punished by their teacher who made them sit down and stand up 500 to 1,000 times...

Karen National Union (KNU) soldiers arrested two people found on a bamboo raft carrying logs which had been cut down on November 3rd 2014...

... Large-scale agricultural investments – in plantations, processing plants or contract farming schemes, for example – have increased in recent years, particularly in developing countries. Investment in the agriculture sector can bring much needed support for rural development, but communities have also witnessed significant negative impacts. Some of the most serious involve local landholders being displaced from their lands and losing access to

The Thailand Burma Border Consortium (TBBC) has been collaborating with ethnic community-based organisations to document the characteristics of internal displacement in eastern Burma since 2002. This year's research updates estimates of the scale and distribution of internal displacement, and documents the impacts of militarization and state-sponsored development, based on quantitative surveys with key informants in 38 townships.

A new report by the Karenni Civil Society Network (KCSN) raises concerns about
international “peace support” programming amid
st increasing Burma Army militarization in
Karenni State after the2012 ceasefire with the
Karenni National Progressive Party (KNPP).
The report “Where is Genuine Peace?” exposes how a pilot resettlement project of the
Norway-led Myanmar Peace Support Initiative (MPSI) in Shardaw
Township is encouraging
IDPs to return to an area controlled by the Burma Army where their safety cannot be
guaranteed.

This report includes a situation update submitted to KHRG in April 2012 by a community member describing events occurring in Papun District, in the period between January and March 2012. It provides information on land confiscation by Border Guard Battalion #1013, which has appropriated villagers’ communal grazing land between D--- and M--- villages for the construction of barracks for housing soldiers' families.

This report contains the full transcript of an interview conducted during October 2011 in Nyaunglebin District by a community member trained by KHRG to monitor human rights conditions. The community member interviewed Naw P---, a 42-year-old flat field farmer, who described her experiences being forcibly relocated by Tatmadaw troops, most recently in 2004 from D--- to T--- relocation village.

With the annual monsoon rains now falling over Karen State, the SPDC’s military offensive
against civilian villagers in northern Karen State would normally be drawing to a close.
However, quite the opposite is happening. The resumption of SPDC Army attacks on
villages and the increased patrols in Toungoo District shows that the offensive is far from
over. Thousands more landmines have been reportedly deployed across Toungoo District to
isolate certain parts of the district and restrict villagers’ movements. An analysis of SPDC