Refugees

Where Refugee Scholars, Artists and Activists Find Safety and Thrive

• November 25, 2018

Ahmad Sadiddin was an agronomist in a region that history books call the Fertile Crescent, an arc around the eastern Mediterranean where settled farming began in ancient times. Iraq and Syria were once part of that productive land before it was torn apart by the horrors of dictatorship, civil wars and the reductionism and …

Refugees

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GEOPOLITICS

Europe and Others Help Fund the UN Palestinian Agency, Filling US Void

Stéphanie Fillion

• September 27, 2018

The European Union, Germany, Norway, Ireland and Kuwait stepped in this week to donate a total of $118 million in financing to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (Unrwa), after the United States cut $304 million of its annual support to the agency for this year. …

Climate Change, Geopolitics, Middle East, Refugees, US Foreign Relations, US-UN Relations

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TAKE A LOOK

Two Health Alerts: Resurgent Polio and Antibiotic Resistance

Barbara Crossette

• August 23, 2018

Recent research reports published by The Lancet could make a lot of people rethink the assumption that once a disease has been declared eradicated, that’s it. Done. A recent resurge in cases of polio in several countries and concern in Europe that antibiotic resistance is being bought there by refugees and migrants are becoming …

Health and Population, Refugees, Take a Look

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GEOPOLITICS

Rohingya Refugees Look to Washington and Find a Vacuum

Tino Calabia

• July 30, 2018

This August marks a year since a military crackdown forced at least 700,000 Rohingya to flee Myanmar for Bangladesh, joining hundreds of thousands of Rohingya who had already taken refuge there, totaling 1.1 million people encamped in Cox’s Bazar, according to a Bangladesh count done this July. But you would never know from the …

Asia, Geopolitics, Refugees, US Foreign Relations

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UN to Rohingya: You Can’t Go Home Safely Any Time Soon

Barbara Crossette

• July 15, 2018

Among refugee advocates there has been a growing concern that recent agreements among regional governments and the United Nations on a framework for mitigating the Rohingya crisis could prompt at least some of the million-plus people who have fled the deadly military pogrom in Myanmar to consider risking a return to try to rebuild …

Asia, Gender Violence, Human Rights, Refugees

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GEOPOLITICS

Washington to UN Refugee Agency: If You Want Our Money, Put Our Name on It

Stéphanie Fillion

• July 10, 2018

The United States is the biggest donor to the UN Refugee Agency, and the Trump administration wants the world to know it. A new framework, or agreement, signed by the State Department and the refugee agency (UNHCR) requires it to acknowledge US contributions in most — and eventually all — of its public-information materials. …

Geopolitics, Humanitarian Aid, Refugees, US Foreign Relations, US-UN Relations

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TAKE A LOOK

As Refugees Await Their Futures, NGOs Offer New Ways to Help Them Prepare

Barbara Crossette

• June 22, 2018

As the school year ends in many countries and children turn with joy to vacation time ahead, millions of other school-age children will have nothing to look forward to but more long days in overcrowded refugee camps. The situation gets worse as they grow into adulthood. Recent studies show that, thanks to United Nations …

Migration, Refugees, Take a Look

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WORLDVIEWS

Brazil Can Lead the Way on Managing the World’s Refugee Crisis

Adriana Erthal Abdenur and Maiara Folly

• June 5, 2018

RIO DE JANEIRO — Only weeks from the start of the 2018 World Cup, soccer teams of refugees from Mali, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Syria, Angola, Burkina Faso and Gambia who had migrated to Brazil became the protagonists in a recent soccer competition: the Multicultural Cup, organized by Instituto Adus, a nongovernmental …

Migration, Refugees, US-UN Relations, WORLDVIEWS

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For Victims of Sexual Violence in War, Stigma Can Kill

Dulcie Leimbach

• April 16, 2018

In a year in which swaths of territory were liberated in Iraq and Syria from the grip of ISIS, enabling the release of women and girls and others from the extremists, the United Nations’ annual report on conflict-related sexual violence highlights the stigma that the victims encounter — from physical pain to profound depression …

Gender Violence, International Justice, Myanmar, Peace and Security, Refugees

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UN Agencies Moving Into Blockchain to Help People in Crisis Settings

Kacie Candela

• February 27, 2018

Blockchain technology emerged alongside Bitcoin, the cryptocurrency powering digital payments through a peer-to-peer system, currency trading and even, in some cases, black-market transactions. Now, some United Nations agencies are using blockchain to provide basic identification to refugees and others in developing countries as well as for specific actions like helping refugees obtain food …

Gender Violence, Human Rights, Poverty, Refugees, UN Agencies

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WORLDVIEWS

Why Turkey’s Model Work Permits for Refugees Don’t Actually Work

Tino Calabia

• February 5, 2018

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A major problem with Turkey for the millions of refugees there, it has a model work permit system for the newcomers, but it still bars them from the country’s labor market. Such problems can be overcome, experts contend, so that the refugees can work for decent wages in Turkey. Izza Leghtas, …

Human Rights, Poverty, Refugees, WORLDVIEWS

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GEOPOLITICS

David Miliband on Our Duty to the Strangers in Our Midst: Refugees

Barbara Crossette

• December 19, 2017

David Miliband, a former British foreign secretary, has been president and chief executive of the International Rescue Committee since 2013, overseeing both the agency’s humanitarian relief operations and its refugee resettlement and assistance programs in several American cities. The son of European refugees from Nazi Germany, he just published his first book, “Rescue: Refugees and …

Geopolitics, Poverty, Refugees

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NIKKI HALEY WATCH

Dear Ambassador Haley: Diplomacy Is a Team Sport

Irwin Arieff

• November 7, 2017

When working on sticky world problems, should the United States use the United Nations as a forum to try to drum up global support for its policies, reasoning that it gains strength by linking its interests to as many other countries as possible? Or should it stand alone in a blind embrace of President …

Africa, Nikki Haley Watch, Refugees, US Foreign Relations, US-UN Relations

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A Novel Idea: Putting Refugee Health Care Experts to Work

Barbara Crossette

• November 6, 2017

With a record 65.6 million people displaced from their homes around the world — 22.5 million of them classified as refugees who have fled across borders — alarms are sounding about the health risks in overcrowded refugee settlements. Sanitation is soon overwhelmed, hygienic conditions rapidly deteriorate and malnutrition rises, contributing to the spread of …

Africa, Health and Population, Refugees

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WORLDVIEWS

UN Day: Another Day, Another 34,000 Refugees

Michael Curtin

• October 23, 2017

Oct. 24 is not just another day on the calendar. It is United Nations Day, an excellent time to take note of one of the accomplishments the world body has achieved in its 72-year history. The global institution has made it possible for the economic and social development for people worldwide. There is, however, …