Analysis: Is international pressure failing in Sri Lanka?

BANGKOK, 21 March 2013 (IRIN) - The UN Human Rights Council approved on 21 March a second resolution requesting the Sri Lankan government to do more to address alleged wartime rights violations, but observers question whether such resolutions can create meaningful change. full report

Analysis: Furore over Australian detention of immigrant children

MELBOURNE, 5 March 2013 (IRIN) - Australia is failing in its international obligations to protect the rights of close to 2,000 children now in immigration detention, say rights groups and legal experts. full report

Sri Lanka’s quest for meaningful reconciliation

COLOMBO, 20 February 2013 (IRIN) - Fifteen months after a “reconciliation” commission submitted to the Sri Lankan government its recommendations following a probe into the country’s final years of the 1983-2009 civil conflict, little has happened according to local civil society and a recent UN report. full report

The use and abuse of humanitarian principle

DAKAR, 19 February 2013 (IRIN) - Following the 9/11 attacks and the launch of the Global War on Terror, many humanitarian policy wonks spoke of a new era of heightened aid instrumentalization - that is the use of humanitarian action or rhetoric as a tool to pursue political, security, development, economic, or other non-humanitarian goals, which would muddy humanitarian principles and constrain access to those in need. full report

Water mismanagement in northern Sri Lanka

KILINOCHCHI, 13 February 2013 (IRIN) - Water resources in northern Sri Lanka, which are coming under increasing pressure as returning farmers use wasteful water pumps to irrigate their crops, need to be better managed, say experts. full report

Indian trawlers hurt northern Sri Lanka livelihoods

JAFFNA, 7 February 2013 (IRIN) - Indian trawlers are taking their toll on northern Sri Lanka's fishing sector which is struggling to recover almost four years after a decades-long civil war. full report

Briefing: Sri Lanka’s Muslim IDPs 25 years on

COLOMBO, 21 January 2013 (IRIN) - Almost three years after the Sri Lankan government looked into resettling up to 100,000 Muslims displaced from the country’s north during the 1983-2009 civil war, thousands of Muslim families still find themselves in limbo, without the means to return to their former homes. full report

Activists rap Australia’s offshore processing of migrants

PERTH, 14 January 2013 (IRIN) - Human rights groups have strongly condemned conditions at Australia’s two offshore processing centres for asylum seekers on the Pacific islands of Nauru and Manus. full report

Floods, drought in Sri Lanka exacerbate vulnerability

MAMADUWA/COLOMBO, 11 January 2013 (IRIN) - Recent extreme weather in Sri Lanka is likely to intensify the vulnerability of the poorest living in the country’s hardest hit northern and eastern regions, experts warn. full report