| Security Council members fail to reach agreement on Syria. The UN Security Council met on Tuesday about the suspected chemical attacks in Douma, Syria. Three draft resolutions were presented in response to the alleged attacks, but none were approved. In an emergency meeting convened on Monday, the Special Envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, voiced concern for civilians in Eastern Ghouta. He said “The Council cannot allow a situation of uncontrollable escalation to develop in Syria, on any front.” Such an escalation, he stressed, would impact not just the security of the region, but also the world. | | |
| Some Central Americans travelling in caravan plan to seek asylum in the U.S. About 200 of the Central Americans travelling together in Mexico aim to ask for asylum from the U.S. government, the caravan’s organizers said. Among the travellers are roughly 25 transgender and gender-nonconforming individuals who, CNN said, face “ high rates of violence and persecution in their home country and along the migrant trail.” Meanwhile, the governors of Texas, Arizona and New Mexico have committed 1,600 National Guard members to patrol various parts of the border, AP reports. | | |
| Refugee success stories in Germany. Zia Hayafi was a police officer in Afghanistan. Now he’s a nurse in Germany, seeking asylum from the persecution he faced back home as an ethnic Hazara. Having welcomed more than 1 million refugees over the past two years, Germany is making efforts to provide them with more skills training to help fill labour shortages in crucial sectors. The refugees in this Guardian article are working in geriatric care and education; others are training as cooks. | | |
| Violence forces displaced Afghans to informal settlements. Hundreds of “patchwork settlements” have proliferated across Afghanistan over the last five years, IRIN reported. People displaced by worsening violence and those returning from neighbouring countries are populating districts like Behsud, on the outskirts of Jalalabad. Some dwell in tents, others in handmade structures or under the open sky. Almost one million people live in these settlements across Afghanistan, IRIN said. | | |
| Legislators urge region to address growing crisis in Venezuela. At this week’s Summit of the Americas in Lima, Peru, a group of U.S. and Argentine legislators are asking leaders in the region to open their countries to Venezuelans. In a letter addressed to the Peruvian President, Martín Vizcarra, four lawmakers asked the leaders to develop a plan to address the growing humanitarian crisis, the Miami Herald reported. | | |
| ICC weighs jurisdiction over Rohingya deportations. The International Criminal Court’s prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, has asked it to rule on whether it has jurisdiction over deportations of Rohingya people from Myanmar to Bangladesh. If it does, the prosecutor could investigate the deportation of many thousands of Rohingya as a possible crime against humanity, Reuters reports. The prosecutor argued that although Myanmar is not a member of the court, Bangladesh is a member, and some of the actions in question took place on its territory, which means the court could seek powers of jurisdiction. | | |
| Seven art and literature students in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia are designing cartoons inspired by the stories of people fleeing violence and persecution. Their goal is to raise awareness about the plight of refugees. “We understood where these people come from and how wrongly people see them.” The collection will be published in a book, called Black and White Lives, aimed at young audiences. | | |
| Rich countries spent 14 per cent less in 2017 on hosting and processing migrants and refugees. | | |
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