This report provides general background and information pertaining to large-scale disasters in the least developed countries. The following themes are discussed:

- Impact on the economy
- Links between disasters and poverty
- Courses of action

This paper explores the nature of children's security within the context of modern threats from globalization and new forms of warfare. It analyzes the sources of insecurity faced by children and the survival strategies they and their families employ as a result. Through a number of case-studies, it questions the usefulness of assistance programs that focus on the physical needs of children in isolation of their social and communal environment. As children are in a constant state of development, protecting their security requires more than support against physical harm.

The killing of six aid workers last week highlights the risks in unstable countries.
By Mike Crawley Special to The Christian Science Monitor

The deaths of six employees of the International Committee of the Red Cross in The Democratic Republic of Congo last week have led many aid workers based in the region to contemplate their own vulnerability. And questions are being raised about what can be done to improve the safety of aid workers worldwide.

"No military in the world would allow their soldiers to work unarmed in the kind of situations aid workers

The Newsletter of the International Council of Voluntary Agencies (ICVA)
EDITORIAL: MIGRATION, INC.

Attempts by Albanian parties to share power will be undermined by long-standing rivalries and disputes.
By Veton Latifi in Skopje (BCR No. 242, 30-Apr-01)

Renewed violence at the weekend appears to have increased pressure on the Macedonian government to bring about an end to the crisis.

The authorities are currently sponsoring intensive inter-party talks to broaden the ruling coalition base, which, it is hoped, will help to address Albanian grievances.

It is crucial, therefore, that Albanian parties appear unified in presenting the community's case, and avert a

By Mike Parker

Mike Parker has worked in the Humanitarian Aid and Development sector for nearly ten years. He has worked in a number of roles ranging from working with grass roots education groups in southern Africa in the early nineties to larger scale government health and finance programmes. This article arises from Mike's experience in East Timor from May to November 2000.

In the last 500 years East-Timor has been invaded by the Portuguese, Japanese and Indonesians. The final period of colonisation involved a genocidal campaign of terror orchestrated by

Report 1, 2001 (April)
Preface

The Norwegian Helsinki Committee for Human Rights was founded in 1977. It is a member of the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHF) whose aim is to monitor state compliance with the standards of the Helsinki Act, subsequent Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE, previously CSCE) human rights related documents and central international human rights standards. The IHF has a consultative status with the UN.

The Norwegian Helsinki Committee has

* News Release Issued by the International Secretariat of Amnesty International *
IOR 41/012/2001 - 76/01

At the closing of it's annual session in Geneva, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (CHR) took positive steps to tackle "disappearances", called again for a moratorium on executions, appointed a new Special Rapporteur on Indigenous People and took strong action on Chechnya and Iran. However, it failed in its principal duty to protect victims of appalling human rights violations who happen to live in powerful countries like China, Indonesia and Saudi

Human rights groups blow the whistle on Tashkent's discrimination against ethnic Tajiks
By Bakhtior Ergashev in Tashkent (RCA No. 49, 27-Apr-01)

The Uzbek education ministry has ordered the destruction of Tajik-language books in several parts of the country, claims the Independent Organisation for Human Rights in Uzbekistan, IOHR. The ban is said to affect Samarkand and Bukhara, home to the republic's largest Tajik communities.

The move stems from an executive order issued by the republic's council of ministers in May 1998, prescribing