This report is based on information submitted to KHRG in September 2012 by a community member from Yangon Region trained by KHRG to monitor human rights conditions. It describes events occurring in Pyay City, Bago Division, on August 3rd 2012 when City Development Committee staff and policemen carried out a nighttime city-sweep to remove homeless families. The authorities used a public rubbish truck to forcibly detain the families and then to transport them to Okshittpin Forest, which is halfway between Pyay City and the border with Rakhine State.

Since late 2011, I have made contacted
with Karen refugee communities in two geographic locations –one on the Thai-Burma border and one in Melbourne, Australia, which has provided me
opportunities to observe and participate in a number of activities
organized by those
displaced
residents. During
my
three-year engagement,
I have
come across
many Karen
refugees
who
have
enthusiastically taken part in the production as well as circulation and consumption of Karen pop
music, especially in the form

Contents:
List of annexes page viii...
Notes on contributors and editors ix...
Foreword xv...
Preface xvii...
Acknowledgments xx...
Expert roundtables and topics under the ‘second track’ of the
Global Consultations xxi...
Table of cases xxii
Table of treaties and other international instruments xlv
List of abbreviations lv...
Part 1 Introduction:
1.1 Refugee protection in international law: an overall
perspective 3...
volker turk and frances nicholson

Three Western oil companies -- Total, Premier and Unocal -- bent on exploiting natural gas , entered partnerships with the brutal Burmese military regime. Since the early 1990's, a terrible drama has been unfolding in Burma. Three western oil companies -- Total, Premier, and Unocal -- entered into partnerships with the brutal Burmese miltary regime to build the Yadana and Yetagun natural gas pipelines.

This article explores some of the realities of supporting income generation for displaced people in conflict settings, drawing on experiences in Kachin, northern Myanmar, suggesting development and humanitarian actors need to better acknowledge limitations and rethink our approaches.

The last two years have seen a profound deterioration in the human rights situation throughout the central Shan State in Myanmar. Hundreds of Shan civilians caught in the midst of counter-insurgency activities have been killed or tortured by the Burmese army. These abuses, occurring in a country which is closed to independent monitors, are largely unknown to the outside world. Denial of access for human rights monitors and journalists means that the full scale of the tragedy can not be accurately calculated. Therefore the information presented below represents only a part of the story.

Reports from various NGOs, think-tanks and UN agencies

This report contains the full transcript of an interview conducted by a KHRG researcher in May 2011 with a villager from Ler Doh Township, Nyaunglebin District. The researcher interviewed Saw S---, a 17 year-old student who compared his experiences living in a Tatmadaw-controlled relocation site, and in his own village in a mixed-administration area under effective Tatmadaw control.

This report focuses . . . human rights violations against members of ethnic minority groups. These abuses, including extrajudicial executions; ill-treatment in the context of forced portering and labour; and intimidation during forcible relocations occur both in the context of counter-insurgency operations, and in areas where cease-fires hold. The State Law and Order Restoration Council SLORC, Myanmar's military government) continues to commit human rights violations in ethnic minority areas with complete impunity.

The Thai government's latest resolution to control the growing migrant worker population lacks
resolve.

The Thai government is promising a "total solution" to the country's migrant worker population. But if
history is any guide, the new resolution looks just like the latest rendition of previously flawed policies. For
years Burmese migrants have fueled border industries with cheap labor, but with a recession looming the
Thai government is once again trying to tackle a problem that has caused previous administrations to
stumble.

YANGON, 25 March 2012 (IRIN) - A UN convoy of urgently needed humanitarian assistance has reached conflict-affected areas of Myanmar’s northern Kachin State.

"This is a major step forward and follows sustained advocacy on the part of the UN with both the government and Kachin Independence Organization [KIO],” UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator Ashok Nigam told IRIN in Yangon.

The convoy (four trucks and two UN vehicles) arrived in the KIO-controlled township of Sadang from the government-controlled town of Myitkyina on 24 March.