Breaking News, Latest Philippines Headlines, World, Entertainment, Politics, Weather & Video News
Refugee footballer Hakeem al-Araibi made a triumphant return to Australia Tuesday, ending a two month ordeal that saw him jailed in Thailand and threatened with forced return to his native Bahrain. A throng of well wishers decked in #SAVEHAKEEM T-shirts cheered and sang the football anthem “You’ll Never Walk Alone” as they greeted the 25-year-old defender at Melbourne Airport, after an overnight flight to freedom aboard Thai Airways flight 465. “I want to thank Australia” […]
BANGKOK, Thailand (AFP) — A refugee footballer fighting an extradition request pleaded for his freedom Monday, saying “please don’t send me to Bahrain” as he arrived in shackles at a Bangkok court, which extended his detention by another two months. Hakeem al-Araibi, a Bahraini refugee and Australian resident, fears torture and even death if he is returned to his homeland. Araibi, who has been held in Thai custody since November following Bahrain’s extradition request, arrived […]
UNITED NATION, United States (AFP) — UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday criticized as “too slow” Myanmar’s efforts to allow the return of Rohingya Muslim refugees, describing the lack of progress as a source of “enormous frustration.” More than 720,000 Rohingya are living in camps in Bangladesh after they were driven out of Myanmar’s northern Rakhine state during a military campaign in 2017 that the United Nations has described as ethnic cleansing. Myanmar has agreed […]
JERUSALEM (AFP) — Israel welcomed Saturday a US decision to end funding for the UN Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA), accusing the organisation which supports some five million Palestinians of perpetuating the Middle East conflict. Israel and the United States have accused the nearly 70-year-old agency of maintaining the idea that many Palestinians are refugees with a right to return to the homes from which they fled or were expelled during the 1948 war that accompanied […]
by Hossam Ezzedine Agence France Presse RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories (AFP) — Palestinians reacted angrily Saturday to a US decision to end all funding for the UN agency that assists millions of refugees, seeing it as a new policy shift aimed at undermining their cause. Washington, which until last year was by far the biggest contributor to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), announced on Friday that it would no longer […]
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AFP) — Amnesty International joined 80 other NGOs on Thursday in urging Pacific leaders demand the closure of an Australian-funded immigration detention camp on Nauru when they meet in the tiny island nation next week. The 18-nation Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) will hold its annual summit in Nauru from September 3-6, with delegates meeting just a few kilometres from the camp dubbed “Australia’s Guantanamo”. It houses asylum-seekers who have tried to reach […]
SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — Dozens of foreigners were believed to be on the run Monday in an Australian mangrove rainforest after their suspected illegal fishing boat ran aground in crocodile-infested waters. The Australian Border Force said a “number of potential unlawful non-citizens” were located, but did not reveal their country of origin or whether they were fishermen or asylum-seekers. Locals they saw people fleeing into the forest after their vessel ran aground near Daintree River […]
by Aidan Jones / with Hla-Hla Htay in Maungdaw Agence France-Presse COX’S BAZAR, Bangladesh (AFP) — With a repatriation plan in tatters and funding evaporating for a million refugees with ever-growing needs, Rohingya Muslims who fled Myanmar to Bangladesh face a grim future one year after the latest eruption of a decades-old conflict. Raids by Rohingya militants on August 25 last year across Myanmar’s Rakhine state spurred an army crackdown which the United Nations has […]
KUTUPALONG, Bangladesh (AFP) — UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said he heard “unimaginable” accounts of atrocities during a visit Monday to vast camps in Bangladesh that are home to a million Rohingya refugees who fled violence in Myanmar. Guterres described the situation for the persecuted Muslim minority as “a humanitarian and human rights nightmare,” as he prepared to tour makeshift shelters crammed with people who escaped a huge Myanmar army operation last year that the UN […]
KUTUPALONG, Bangladesh (AFP) — A UN Security Council team visited Rohingya refugees trapped in the no man’s land along the border between Bangladesh and Myanmar Sunday, as it weighs its response to one of the world’s worst refugee crises. Myanmar has faced intense international pressure since the start of a military campaign in August that has driven some 700,000 Rohingya Muslims over the border into Bangladesh, where refugees have provided harrowing testimony of murder and rape […]
by Athens Zaw Zaw with Sam Jahan in Dhaka © Agence France-Presse YANGON, Myanmar (AFP) — Myanmar’s government said it has repatriated the first family of Rohingya refugees, among the 700,000 who fled a brutal crackdown, but the move was slammed by rights groups as a publicity stunt which ignored warnings over the security of returnees. The stateless Muslim minority has been massing in squalid refugee camps across the border in Bangladesh since the Myanmar army […]
NAYPYIDAW, Myanmar (AFP) — Britain’s foreign minister Boris Johnson met with Aung San Suu Kyi in Myanmar’s capital on Sunday to press for action on the Rohingya crisis, as the country faces mounting pressure to punish troops accused of atrocities against the Muslim minority. Johnson spoke with the embattled Myanmar leader, whose reputation among the international community has plunged over her handling of the crisis, in Naypyidaw while on a four-day tour in Asia. The meeting followed […]
