EU leaders reach tentative agreement on migration

The Refugee Brief, 29 June

By Kristy Siegfried @klsiegfried   | 29 June, 2018 WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW EU leaders reach tentative agreement on migration. Following tense, all-night talks in Brussels, EU leaders reached broad agreement to strengthen the EU’s external borders, create new closed centres on European soil for processing asylum-seekers and explore the concept of “regional disembarkation platforms” in third countries. The new closed centres inside the EU are to be set up “only on a voluntary basis” and with “full EU support”. It’s unclear where they would be located or how they would differ from the current “hotspot” system being applied in Italy and Greece. The leaders failed to reach an agreement on reform of the Dublin Regulation or the specifics of how to share responsibility for refugees and migrants rescued on the Mediterranean, pledging only to continue work on finding “a speedy solution”. The final statement published on Friday morning also promises more support for the Sahel region, the Libyan Coastguard, Turkey and African countries via the EU Trust Fund for Africa. UNHCR and IOM release proposal for cooperation on migrants and refugees rescued at sea. Ahead of last night’s discussions by EU leaders, the two agencies released details of “a regional cooperative arrangement” for disembarking and processing refugees and migrants rescued at sea. The proposal notes that disembarkation should be done promptly to ensure lives are saved and be based on geographical distribution and the capacity of state-run reception centres. Those eligible for asylum could be transferred to other EU member states, particularly if they have family members in other countries. WHAT’S ON OUR RADAR Temporary true in Syria’s Daraa expires as thousands flee. Al Jazeera reports that the government and the rebel group, Free Syrian Army agreed to a 12-hour true that began at midnight and lasted until noon on Friday, but not before air strikes killed at least 32 people, including 11 children on Thursday. A total of 96 civilians have been killed since the offensive on Daraa began on 19 June, according to Al Jazeera. UN Syrian aid envoy Jan Egeland said on Thursday that aid shipments to Daraa and the southern region of Quneitra has been disrupted by the fighting since 26 June. Egeland has called on Jordan to open its border to fleeing civilians. Hundreds of Syrians return home from Lebanon. Some 300 Syrian refugees left the Lebanese border town of Arsal on Thursday to head back home to an uncertain future in Syria’s Qalamoun region. The group had requested permission from both the Lebanese and Syrian authorities and were part of a total of 3,194 Syrians registered to return. The rest are expected to return in batches over the coming weeks. UNHCR told Reuters that it was not involved in organizing Thursday’s returns and that its team in Syria had so far not been able to access the villages where the refugees were headed. World Bank to provide up to US$480 million in aid to Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. The World Bank’s board on Thursday approved an initial $50 million grant for a project to support the health sector in Bangladesh. Reuters reports that it is the first in a series of grants from the Bank’s International Development Association arm that could total $480 million. The grant will help Rohingya refugees access maternal, neonatal, child and adolescent health and nutrition services and family planning support. World Bank president Jim Yong Kim is due to visit refugees and government officials in Bangladesh on Sunday with UN Secretary-General António Guterres. The visit will include discussions with the government on medium-term planning for the refugee situation and will reiterate the UN’s support for solutions to the situation of the Rohingya people. The “miracle clinic” run by refugees for refugees. Vice News profiles Mae Tao Clinic on the Thai-Myanmar border, which has helped tens of thousands of refugee and migrant women give birth safely over nearly three decades. The clinic’s founder, Dr Cynthia Maung, fled to Thailand from Myanmar in 1988 and witnessed first-hand the immense need for doctors in the refugee camps. Over time, her small informal clinic has grown into a comprehensive healthcare network. Because it’s run by refugees, for refugees, patients know they won’t be turned away or discriminated against. GET INSPIRED Some 350 schools across Lebanon squeeze two days of lessons into one so that 150,000 Syrian refugee children don’t miss out on an education. This film was shot at Bar Elias School in the Bekaa Valley, where 770 Syrian pupils attend the afternoon shift of classes. The curriculum, teaching materials and most of the teachers are the same as those for their Lebanese counterparts who attend morning lessons. DID YOU KNOW? According to EUROSTAT figures, approximately 30 per cent of people arriving on European shores are in need of international protection.

Follow UNHCR DONATE Produced by the Communications and Public Information Service.  Managing Editors: Melissa Fleming, Christopher Reardon and Sybella Wilkes Contributing Editor: Kate Bond Subscribe to The Refugee Brief or view recent issues HQP100 P.O. Box 2500 CH-1211 Geneva 2 Tel +41 22 739 85 02   |   Fax: +41 22 739 73 14 Views expressed in reports highlighted in this newsletter do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR. Unsubscribe   |   Update Profile   |   Privacy Policy   |   View this email in your browser

Migration top of the agenda at EU summit

The Refugee Brief, 28 June

By Kristy Siegfried @klsiegfried   | 28 June, 2018 WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW Migration top of the agenda at EU summit. As EU leaders gathered in Brussels today for a two-day meeting, the president of the European Council, Donald Tusk, made clear in his invitation letter  to states and EU institutions that migration would be "the main point on the agenda". Tusk said he wanted leaders to endorse the setting up of "regional disembarkation platforms" outside of Europe where asylum-seekers would be screened and processed. The plan has been criticized by rights groups as "passing the buck ” to north African countries, none of which have so far agreed to participate in any scheme. In an interview with Al Jazeera, UNHCR chief Filippo Grandi said: "Africa has enough problems to deal with, and there's a high risk asylum-seekers could be stuck in transit countries." He added that the EU has the capacity to manage the flow in a fair way “without putting the burden on a poorer region that already hosts many refugees”. UNHCR, IOM call for regional collaboration on search-and-rescue at sea. As the NGO rescue ship the Lifeline finally disembarked its 234 passengers in Malta on Wednesday night, after a week-long standoff, UNHCR and the International Organization for Migration appealed to EU countries to agree on a more collaborative and predictable approach to rescuing and disembarking refugees and migrants from vessels in the Mediterranean. “Denying rescue or shifting responsibility for asylum elsewhere is completely unacceptable. We need countries to come together and chart a new way forward,” said UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi in a joint statement with IOM. Malta’s prime minister, Joseph Muscat, said the Lifeline would be impounded, pending an investigation of its actions in allegedly disobeying the orders of Italian authorities that coordinated last week’s rescue operation. WHAT’S ON OUR RADAR South Sudan rivals sign ceasefire agreement. In a bid to end their country’s protracted civil war, South Sudan President Salva Kiir and his former vice president, Riek Machar, agreed to a “permanent” ceasefire on Wednesday, to take effect within 72 hours. The agreement, signed in Khartoum, provides for the formation of a transitional unity government within four months that will government the country for the next 36 months. With several previous ceasefire agreements having failed in the past, the New York Times examines whether this one is more likely to last. Humanitarian workers told the Times they would remain sceptical until they saw “real changes on the ground”. UN chief António Guterres welcomed the agreement “at a time when the security situation in parts of South Sudan continues to deteriorate”. Aid agencies warn of “humanitarian catastrophe” in southern Syria. Addressing the Security Council on Wednesday, UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura warned that a full-scale battle to the end in southwest Syria “could be like eastern Aleppo and eastern Ghouta combined”. The international NGO CARE meanwhile warned that civilians were paying a heavy price and that conditions for tens of thousands of newly displaced people in Daraa province were dire. Most of the displaced are in areas near the Jordanian border, in overcrowded shelters that lack the most basic necessities such as food and clean water, according to CARE. Greece ready to take back asylum-seekers from Germany. In an interview with the Financial Times on Wednesday, Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras said he was open to an agreement with Berlin to take back asylum-seekers who registered in Greece and then travelled to Germany. German Chancellor Angela Merkel is under pressure from her Bavarian conservative coalition partners to secure bilateral agreements with other member states to curtail “secondary movements” of asylum-seekers towards Germany by the end of the month. Tsipras told the FT that any deal would need to be linked to addressing the situation of some 2,500 refugees in Greece enduring long waits to be reunited with family members in Germany. The paradox of Europe’s migration crisis. Patrick Kingsley of the New York Times considers how the politics of migration continue to shake Europe three years after migrant and refugee arrivals peaked in 2015. While the frontlines of the so-called crisis, like Italy’s ports and Greece’s beaches, are now relatively quiet, Kingsley writes that some leaders have “successfully created the impression that Europe is a continent under siege from migrants”. Matteo Villa, a migration specialist at the Italian Institute for International Political Studies, calls it “an invented crisis” used to score “cheap political points”. Europe’s real challenge, writes Kingsley, is how best to process, house and integrate those asylum-seekers already on European soil. GET INSPIRED After coming across a video on YouTube of US Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps, a dream was born for 24-year-old Eid, a Syrian refugee who arrived in the UK in 2016. At the time he could not swim more than three metres, but he decided he wanted to become an Olympic swimmer himself. After six months of intense training, his coaches and supporters have been amazed by his progress and believe he could realize his dream of going to the Olympics in 2020, with a bit of a help. Check out his GoFundMe page to learn more. DID YOU KNOW? More than 150,000 people arrived in Italy by sea in 2015. So far this year, the number is less than 17,000.

Follow UNHCR DONATE Produced by the Communications and Public Information Service.  Managing Editors: Melissa Fleming, Christopher Reardon and Sybella Wilkes Contributing Editor: Kate Bond Subscribe to The Refugee Brief or view recent issues HQP100 P.O. Box 2500 CH-1211 Geneva 2 Tel +41 22 739 85 02   |   Fax: +41 22 739 73 14 Views expressed in reports highlighted in this newsletter do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR. Unsubscribe   |   Update Profile   |   Privacy Policy   |   View this email in your browser

Dogs grabbed with metal pincers and bludgeoned

Only days remain in the "Save Our Skins" Matching-Gift Challenge.

Aaaaaaa, dogs are spending their last moments of life surrounded by the wails of other terrified canines and the stench of blood and death—until they're bludgeoned and skinned.

For only a few more days, you can do twice as much to help spare dogs this horrifying cruelty and pain. Make your gift of just $5 or more to the "Save Our Skins" Matching-Gift Challenge before the June 30 deadline and every dollar will be DOUBLED, up to the $250,000 goal.

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	Will you help animals like Meyli escape misery and a terrifying death?   Dear Aaaaaaa, Meyli is terrified. The floor around her is slick with the blood of dozens of dogs killed before her, and their bodies hang on hooks or soak in vats of water. The slaughterhouse reeks of death—and she and the other dogs in the holding pen are frantic to escape. Soon, a worker will grab her with metal pincers and bash her over the head with a wooden club. She may not die instantly—and still struggle to breathe even after her throat is slit, writhing on the filthy floor before her skin is peeled off. Meyli is no different from the loyal, loving dogs who share many of our homes—but rather than receiving affection, she'll be violently killed so that her skin can be turned into a belt or pair of gloves. Will you give even just $5 to PETA's "Save Our Skins" Matching-Gift Challenge today and help prevent animals like her from enduring torment and pain? What dogs like Meyli experience seems like a scene from a horror movie, but it's happening in Chinese slaughterhouses right now. An employee of one told a PETA Asia investigator that just that single operation killed and skinned as many as 200 dogs a day. The investigator witnessed dog skin being turned into men's work gloves and other items that are exported from China and sold all around the world to unsuspecting consumers. And it's not just leather—dogs and cats sold at Chinese animal markets are also killed for their fur and sometimes skinned alive! On Chinese fur factory farms, foxes, minks, and rabbits are confined to filthy, cramped cages until they are yanked out, bludgeoned, and skinned. Investigators documented that the hearts of some of those animals were still beating even after their fur was cut off their bodies. No animal should suffer for a pair of shoes, a wallet, or a bit of fur trim. Your donation of $5 or more to this special matching-gift challenge will be doubled—pushing us closer to our $250,000 goal. With help from our determined supporters, PETA's campaigns have reached so many consumers that now it's rare to see a full-length fur coat—and more designers than ever are shunning fur, leather, and other animal-derived materials. Even Donatella Versace—whose use of fur we vigorously campaigned to stop—has joined Michael Kors, Gucci, and others in going fur-free. PETA Asia's exposé of the Chinese dog-leather industry inspired members of Congress to seek a ban on the importation of dog leather. And major brands like H&M, Zara, Topshop, and Gap Inc. are dropping angora and mohair in quick succession following PETA exposés of these grisly industries, so it's clear that momentum is on our side—thanks to support from kind people like you. Please donate to our "Save Our Skins" challenge today. Every penny of your contribution will strengthen PETA's groundbreaking work to reduce and ultimately stop cruelty to animals by the clothing industry. Thank you for your compassion. Kind regards, Ingrid E. Newkirk President
This e-mail was sent to sajanram.shrestha@blogger.com. Please let us know if you'd prefer that we use a different e-mail address. Want to get more active for animals? Sign up to receive additional updates about PETA's work through our subscription page. You can also choose to receive fewer e-mails or unsubscribe if you're absolutely certain that you want to become less involved in our work for animals.        This e-mail was sent by PETA, 501 Front St., Norfolk, VA 23510 USA. Dogs in header: © PETA/Manfred Karremann