Abuses in China, Russia, Brazil Show Games Need Human Rights Standards - The Olympic Movement urgently needs to focus on human rights reform, Human Rights Watch said today as the 2010 Winter Olympics opened in Vancouver.

One ugly legacy of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games is the continued imprisonment in China of those who protested forced evictions or called for human rights improvements there.

The next Winter Games are scheduled to take place in the Russian town of Sochi, where preparations for the Olympics have already generated concerns about the potential for rights violations linked to these preparations, Human Rights Watch said.

Hundreds of thousands of children are employed as farmworkers in the United States, often working 10 or more hours a day. 

They are often exposed to dangerous pesticides, experience high rates of injury, and suffer fatalities at five times the rate of other working youth.

Their long hours contribute to alarming drop-out rates.

Independent Investigation Remains Essential - Israel has failed to demonstrate that it will conduct thorough and impartial investigations into alleged laws-of-war violations by its forces during last year's Gaza conflict, Human Rights Watch said today. An independent investigation is needed if perpetrators of abuse, including senior military and political officials who set policies that violated the laws of war, are to be held accountable, Human Rights Watch said. 

On February 4, 2010, Human Rights Watch met with military lawyers from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to discuss the investigations. While the military is conducting ongoing investigations, officials did not provide information showing that these will be thorough and impartial or that they will address the broader policy and command decisions that led to unlawful civilian deaths, Human Rights Watch said.

At Least 150 Killed by Mobs in Kuru Karama - Nigeria's vice president should order an immediate criminal investigation into credible reports of a massacre of at least 150 Muslim residents of a town in central Nigeria, Human Rights Watch said today.

The killings, allegedly by groups of men armed with knives, machetes, and guns, were in the town of Kuru Karama, 30 kilometers south of the city of Jos in Plateau State in central Nigeria.

"Something extremely serious has happened in the town," said Corinne Dufka, senior West Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch. "The authorities need to act now both to bring those behind these heinous crimes to justice and to protect both the survivors and those at risk of renewed violence."

The news that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab allegedly trained to blow up a US airliner at al Qaeda camps in Yemen has drawn sudden attention to a country that is not well known in Washington. The prospect of deeper US involvement in an Arab nation already warring with domestic rebel groups should raise a number of red flags.

The Yemeni government has a lot on its hands. For more than five years, it has been battling Huthi rebels in the mountainous north of the country, with successive ceasefires punctuated by new rounds of fighting. The United Nations estimates that more than 175,000 people have been displaced by the conflict, with reports of extreme scarcity of water and malnutrition.

Independent Investigation and Full Prosecution Crucial - The massacre of at least 47 people in Maguindanao in the southern Philippines tragically shows the failure of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's administration to hold accountable perpetrators of extrajudicial killings, Human Rights Watch said today.

Given allegations of involvement by members of the security forces and local militias, Human Rights Watch urged the government to initiate a fully independent investigation led by the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI).