An offensive by Burmese troops against Kokang rebels in August did not result from its resistance to border guard transformation but from drugs and weapons production, state media said today.

Much of the news surrounding the incident, which forced some 37,000 refugees into China, had focused on the Kokang group’s reluctance to transform into a border guard militia, and thus closely ally itself with the ruling junta, prior to the 2010 elections.

(c) Democratic Voice of Burma (DBV)

WHAT is rido? “Rido refers to a state of recurring hostilities between families and kinship groups characterized by a series of retaliatory acts of violence carried out to avenge a perceived affront or injustice.” This is from the 2007 book “Rido: Clan Feuding and Conflict Management in Mindanao,” edited by William Magno Torres III, published by The Asia Foundation.

Evidence from surveys of representative samples. This week’s horrific massacre of 57 persons in Maguindanao makes it quite clear that the SWS report, “Violence in ARMM mostly due to family or clan-conflict,” based on statistical surveys completed in early December 2004 in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao and separately in the Philippines as a whole, remains valid five years later.

text quoted from Mahar Mangahas, Philippine Daily Inquirer

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Today, UNICEF published ‘The State of the World’s Children’, a special report marking 20 years of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child stands as a universal standard for building a better world – a world in which the best interests of children are a primary concern of all. The challenge for the next 20 years is to build on the progress already achieved, working together to reach those children who are still being denied their rights to survival, development, protection and participation.

From the Report:

The Convention on the Rights of the Child was long fought for and hard won. It is a precious document that charts our course to a world in which children’s rights are fulfilled and in which all aspects of human well-being immeasurably improve as a result. As the end of the first decade of the 21st century draws to a close, we must seize the opportunity to put the Convention’s principles and provisions into practice. The great challenge for the next 20 years will be to unite governmental accountability with social and individual responsibility. To make the vision of the Convention a reality for every child, it must become a guiding document for every human being.

(c) UNICEF, 2009

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Many looked forward to the end of Fidel’s reign in Cuba. Raul Castro has been in power since 2006, and Human Rights Watch’s new report examines the impact of a change in leader.

Dissidents gaoled under Fidel Castro remain in prison, and scores more have been incarcerated. Despite signing both the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in 2006, the Cuban Government has not ratified them yet, and continues to allow the death sentence for people who “undermine the independence of the state”.