Despite 58 years since the declaration was pronounced, classic examples of human rights violations in several parts of the world can unfortunately still be found.

News stories of gross human rights violations have become the order of the day for places like Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan, Congo, China and Russia.

Today, is destitution and poverty a form of human rights violation?

Governments with a high level of public poverty that spend disproportionate amounts of money to the supply of weapons have traditionally been deemed totalitarian and oppressive. Their leaders categorized as tyrants and torturers in countries where there is forced public suffering and privation.

The unfair treatment of thousands of people in Darfur, the result of the civil war and ethnic- and religion-based conflicts, encroachments on human rights in former Soviet Union countries, endless military interventions in Nepal and Burma, and problems that don't cease to occur in the Middle East and North Africa are all atop the list of human rights violations.

NGOs monitoring human rights violations have diversified their areas of expertise.

There are now many organizations specialized in widely diverse human rights issues; from violations of religious rights, to freedom of expression, child soldiers, woman's rights, racism and gay rights.

Perhaps the rise in the number of human rights organizations shows how far the notion of human rights has branched, but it could also show how sophisticated human rights violations have become.

The United States, the most influential country during the preparation, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is now one of the most criticized countries for human rights violations.

The United States is cited in the same breath with suppressive and totalitarian regimes and is included on a black list because of incidents in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Secret CIA torture prisons, torture of detainees at the detention facility Guantanamo Bay and in Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison haven't been forgotten.

Support for Israel and its human rights violations against Palestinians is making the United States a target of human rights groups.

The U.N. Commission on Human Rights, which had been monitoring human rights violations worldwide since 1946, was replaced with the 47-nation Human Rights Council in March 2006.

Ahead of World Human Rights Day, international organizations criticized Israel for violations of human rights.

Amnesty International cautioned that growing human rights violations in the Palestinian territories are a sign of possible devastating crisis.

Following a week-long tour of the region, head of Amnesty International Irene Khan sent a letter to EU leaders and condemned Israel's intentional and reckless attacks on the Gaza Strip, the most densely populated region in the world.

Khan called for deployment of international monitors to the region, the removal of Jewish settlements in the Palestinian territories and the 'security wall' and a just solution to problems of Palestinian refugees.

According to data released by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, 854 million people worldwide are suffering from malnourishment.

Annually, six million children die of starvation.

During the World Food Summit in 1996, leaders of 176 countries had pledged to halve the number of the malnourished worldwide by 2015. However, no progress has been made over the last decade.

The number of people suffering from hunger has increased by 18 million since 1996.