The Ukrainian Commissioner for Human Rights carried out a visit to the Central Clinical Hospital of Kharkiv City where Yulia Tymoshenko is under treatment. “Issues of custody of women and children in places of detention will be priority in our activity in 2013”, the Commissioner said.

As a result of numerous complaints and ex officio proceedings, the Commissioner for Fundamental Rights of Hungary is planning a comprehensive inquiry into the Hungarian judicial enforcement system in the first semester of the year 2013.

The Ontario Ombudsman’s Office welcomed more than 80 participants to its sixth annual training course, "Sharpening Your Teeth". The course, the largest to date, included colleagues from ombudsman offices and other watchdog agencies from all over Canada.

January newsletter of the Ombudsman Association now available.

Deadline for registration to the international seminar and training workshop, held in Bangkok from 3 to 6 April 2013, is Thursday, 28 February 2013. The event will be hosted by the Office of the Ombudsman of Thailand in cooperation with the IOI and the Asian Ombudsman Association.

The newly admitted IOI member, the Ethiopian Institution of the Ombudsman (EIO), organized a workshop for federal and regional government offices’ public relations heads to discuss the implementation of the Access to Information Law. The workshop also focused on the reports regarding the implementation of the law that government bodies have to submit to the EIO.

On 22 January 2013, Ombudswoman Terezija Stoisits and Ombudsman Peter Kostelka met Catherine De Bruecker and Guido Schuermans of the Federal Ombudsman of Belgium. The discussion focused on the experience of the Austrian Ombudsman Board (AOB) regarding its new responsibilities as the Austrian National Preventive Mechanism.

In its efforts to further increase the regional impact of the IOI, the members of the IOI Board of Directors decided at their Wellington meeting in November 2012 to once again make regional subsidies available to IOI members.