KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 1 (Reuters) - The United Nations refugee agency said on Tuesday it was not involved in Malaysia's planned ‌repatriation of Myanmar refugees, and warned that it remains unsafe ‌for them to return to the war-torn country.
Malaysia's Home Ministry said last week it had finalised the first phase of a voluntary repatriation programme that will see 1,476 refugees returned to Myanmar on September 29.
Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim had earlier said Myanmar had agreed to repatriate 5,000 Rohingya, amid rising ‌tensions over the refugees ⁠within local communities in Malaysia.
The UNHCR said an ongoing armed conflict and violence across Myanmar meant there could ⁠not be a safe, dignified and sustainable voluntary return of refugees.
"Under customary international law – a binding obligation on all states – no one should be sent to a country where their rights or freedoms may be at ‌risk. Any refugee return must be voluntary, based on an informed decision, and take place in conditions of safety and dignity," it said in an emailed statement to Reuters.

#myanmar #refugees #refugee #country

Ke Huy Quan spent years wondering whether the movie career he began as a child would ever come back. Now he is putting the years audiences did not see into a memoir.
The Oscar winner's Never Say Die arrives September 15, tracing his life from Vietnam and refugee camps to child stardom, the long stretch away from acting and his return in Everything Everywhere All at Once.
Speaking with PEOPLE at D23 in Anaheim, Quan said he hopes the book reaches people who think the chance to chase a dream has already passed them by.
Quan, 55, was 12 when he landed Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. The Goonies followed a year later, but the early momentum faded as he got older and leading acting opportunities became harder to find.
Quan said one reason he wrote the memoir was that he knows people can start to believe a long-delayed dream is permanently out of reach.

#dream #oscar

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Palestinian residents of war-battered Gaza fled homes and businesses as Israeli strikes and tank fire killed at least four people Monday, including two children, hospital officials said, a week after a U.S. delegation asked Israel to draw down attacks.
After evacuation warnings by Israel's military, a strike hit a building in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza. One family was unable to flee and a 4-year-old child was killed, according to Awda Hospital, where he was taken. His mother and sister were wounded. There was no Israeli military comment.
Israeli strikes hit three other buildings across the territory after residents said they received evacuation warnings. Some people sprinted away, with mothers carrying children, while others moved amid the rubble in wheelchairs or with canes.
Smoke rose over the already devastated landscape.
Israel's military said it carried out strikes in the Shati refugee camp in Gaza City and in Deir al-Balah after issuing warnings, targeting what it described as two Hamas weapons storage facilities inside mosques. The military did not provide evidence but said the facilities contained dozens of "Kalashnikov rifles, magazines and additional military equipment."

#strikes #warnings #balah #hospital

The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) is reportedly unhappy with Cricket Ireland for hosting Afghanistan in a five-match ODI series, even though England continue to play Afghanistan in ICC tournaments.

The five-match ODI series between Ireland and Afghanistan began on Wednesday in Bready. According to a report in The Guardian, Ireland's decision to host Afghanistan could affect its future cricket ties with England.

Ireland's move has put its relationship with the ECB under strain. England have refused to play bilateral cricket against Afghanistan because of the Taliban regime's restrictions on women's rights.

The ECB's stance is based on concerns over what its chair, Richard Thompson, has described as the Taliban's "gender apartheid".

However, England continue to face Afghanistan in ICC events, where tournament points and **** les are at stake.

The ECB's policy is supported by the UK government, but Cricket Ireland has taken a different approach. Ireland has built close ties with the Afghanistan Cricket Board and is hosting five ODIs this month.

Under a reciprocal arrangement, Ireland will tour the United Arab Emirates in March next year to play Afghanistan in one Test, three ODIs and three T20Is.

England previously played one-off Tests against Ireland at Lord's before the home Ashes series in 2019 and 2023. Next year, however, England have chosen to play Bangladesh in a warm-up Test instead.

England's men's team also faced Afghanistan in the Champions Trophy in Lahore last year.

While the ECB does not schedule bilateral matches against Afghanistan, it has supported Afghan women cricketers in other ways. This summer, it organised a tour of England for the Afghan Refugee Women's team and invited them to attend the T20 World Cup final at Lord's.

Most members of the Afghanistan women's team fled the country after the Taliban returned to power in 2021 and banned women's sport. Many of the players later settled in Australia.

Afghanistan remain the only ICC Full Member without a women's cricket programme, but the ICC has not suspended them.

Australia, South Africa and New Zealand have also refused to play bilateral cricket against Afghanistan. Ireland, however, has joined the West Indies, Zimbabwe and the four Asian ICC Full Members in continuing bilateral cricket with Afghanistan.

The ECB's relationship with Cricket Ireland has already been under pressure. England declined an invitation to take part in the proposed Euro Nations Cup next year, which would also feature Scotland, the Netherlands and Italy, citing a packed international schedule.

England's men's team played a three-match T20I series in Ireland last September, but the ECB sent a second-string squad. No further men's matches between the two teams are currently scheduled.

England's women's team, however, will host Ireland in a three-match ODI series next month.

#afghanistan #next

Jul. 30—When 90+ Project Director of Programming and Coach Aaron Lewis asked the players at Thrive International's youth summer soccer camp how many of them weren't born in the United States, dozens of hands shot up.
Sitting in the grass at Franklin Park, those same players watched as four out of the five Spokane Velocity players who were visiting camp Thursday raised their hands, too.
"You're my GOAT," 9-year-old Mel Akon later told Velocity left-backer Moses Mensah while the kids collected autographs on soccer ****** , cleats and posters. "One day I'm gonna look like you and be like you."
"I want to see that," Mensah, originally from Ghana, answered without hesitation.
The annual youth soccer camp is run through a partnership with refugee resettlement organization Thrive International and sports-based youth development organization 90+ Project. This year, close to 200 kids, including kindergartners to 12th graders, from more than a dozen nationalities, arrived at Franklin Park to play soccer.

#Soccer #players #Youth

ALAMEDA, Calif. (AP) — Awer Mabil’s face quickly turned to pure joy. He beamed and fought his emotions, a reaction Australia's veteran forward hardly could have seen coming.
It had nothing to do with a soccer result, either. But rather a reflection that took him back to his tumultuous youth as a refugee and how some good fortune landed him in Australia for a new start in life.
Mabil looked into the audience during his media conference after training Tuesday and discovered a familiar face in David Basheer, the longtime commentator on Australia's SBS network who had just offered a question days ahead of the Socceroos’ World Cup matchup against the United States on Friday in Seattle.
“I grew up watching you,” Mabil said, so taken aback that he asked Basheer to repeat himself.
A touching moment, in this pressure-packed, every-four-years spectacle, and yet one more example of Mabil’s refreshing sincerity as one of the Aussies’ key faces at this World Cup, no matter how many minutes he plays.

MADRID, June 15 (Reuters) - Spain's government has received around 900,000 applications from undocumented migrants seeking legal status under a programme that initially expected ‌half a million requests, the Migration Ministry said on Monday.
The measure, ‌aimed in part at integrating undocumented migrants into the formal labour market, is seeing strong demand in a country that has remained open to immigration even as other European nations close their borders.
Non-profit refugee aid organisation CEAR expects applications to exceed one million by the time the programme ends in two weeks.
Spain's economic growth has far outpaced ‌most European peers in the ⁠past two years, partly driven by migrants who have boosted key sectors such as hospitality and elderly care by plugging ⁠labour shortages and increasing social security contributions.
Spain has granted 360,000 temporary work permits since April, representing about 40% of all requests received, the ministry added. People are allowed to begin working as soon as their applications are admitted for processing.

The international aid group Doctors Without Borders found a pattern of abuse and ***** ual exploitation by some local and foreign staff working in Chad along the Sudanese border, in some cases targeting underage girls or trading food or jobs for ***** with refugees, according to a confidential internal memo obtained by The ***** ociated Press.
The Doctors Without Borders report — completed in July and first reported Saturday by The ***** ociated Press — found 59 allegations of abuse and said 18 staff members were dismissed and barred from future employment. In some cases, the group told AP, the allegations couldn't be verified or the perpetrators identified. The report also said some of the repeated exploitation suggested potentially organized "sexual trafficking."
The organization said it launched the monthslong investigation in response to AP reporting that women had accused staff of ***** ually exploiting them in displacement sites in Chad, where hundreds of thousands fled from Sudan's devastating civil war, now in its fourth year. The report credited AP as playing "a fundamental role as an external whistleblower."
The findings by Doctors Without Borders — one of the largest employers and biggest aid organizations in the refugee camps in eastern Chad — indicate the abuse was more widespread than previously reported.
Sexual exploitation has repeatedly surfaced during humanitarian crises despite years of efforts by aid organizations to prevent abuse.

At least 11 Palestinians have been killed, including women and children, and dozens wounded in Israeli air strikes across Gaza City, according to medical sources and eyewitnesses.
Simultaneous strikes were launched by at least three Israeli helicopters against four residential buildings in the Sheikh Radwan and Tel al-Hawa areas, and the Shati refugee camp early on Thursday, causing powerful explosions, the BBC was told.
Videos posted on social media, said to show the aftermath of the attacks, showed distressing images of people trying to leave a building engulfed in fire in Shati camp.
The Israeli military said the strikes killed four senior members of Hamas's General Security Apparatus.
It identified them as Hassan Labad, the deputy head of the apparatus, along with three subordinates, Asim Shubair, Abdullah Abu Kaloub, and Mohammed Abu Marq.

White House to review status of all refugees admitted under Biden with no appeals

The Trump administration is ordering the review of all refugees admitted to the U.S. during the Biden administration, according to a memo reviewed by NBC News. It is the latest in a series of actions taken by the administration to dismantle the U.S. immigration system.
The decision would potentially affect more than 200,000 refugees who began the process of legally immigrating to the U.S. over the last four years. In order to receive refugee status, applicants first must go through an extensive vetting proces

The Langtons from South Africa were given a fast track to refugee status in America. The Mehraz family from Myanmar, who saw their neighbors rounded up and shot to death, is struggling after cuts to refugee resettlement agencies.

The Langtons from South Africa were given a fast track to refugee status in America. The Mehraz family from Myanmar, who saw their neighbors rounded up and shot to death, is struggling after cuts to refugee resettlement agencies.

The Langtons from South Africa were given a fast track to refugee status in America. The Mehraz family from Myanmar, who saw their neighbors rounded up and shot to death, is struggling after cuts to refugee resettlement agencies.

WE WELCOME YOU TO AMERICAAfrikaner refugees fleeing persecution from their native South Africa. We stand with these refugees, many of them farmers and former business owners, as they build a better future for themselves and their children here in the United States.

TRUMP

WE WELCOME YOU TO AMERICAAfrikaner refugees fleeing persecution from their native South Africa. We stand with these refugees, many of them farmers and former business owners, as they build a better future for themselves and their children here in the United States.

TRUMP

More good news! They should be gone from the refugee resettlement business FOREVER. Same with Catholic charities—and all NGOS. Done forever.

Breaking news: A group of nearly 50 White South Africans landed as refugees Monday, coming to the U.S. under a humanitarian designation meant for people fleeing war or persecution that the Trump administration has suspended for all other groups worldwide.