Author: Amnewsworld

Farhad Bandesh to speak at Melbourne rally and also outside Mantra hotel, where more than 60 people remain in detention. A Kurdish refugee who was suddenly freed from immigration detention after seven-and-a-half years has said he feels “reborn again”, and thanked supporters and human rights activists. Farhad Bandesh, an artist and musician who fled persecution in Iran, arrived in Australia in 2013 but was held on Manus Island for six years, and then in detention in Australia since July 2019. On Friday, the day of his 39th birthday, he was suddenly released from immigration detention, and met at the gates by friends, including refugee…

An Ubon Ratchathani man has been arrested for allegedly transporting 12 illegal migrants from Laos in a pickup truck late on Friday. The undocumented migrants comprised five males and seven females. At 10pm on Friday, officers of Navy’s Mekong Patrol Operation Command arrested Pranee (last name withheld), a local of Ubon Ratchathani’s Sri Muang Mai district, near a border checkpoint in Na Pho Klang subdistrict, in Khong Chiam district, which shares a border with Laos. One of the migrants reportedly said that they had travelled from several cities in Laos’ Champasak province, and had paid an agency in Thailand Bt4,000…

Jose Mourinho has warned his Tottenham players they face a searching test of their Premier League title credentials over the grueling Christmas period. Spurs, top of the table on goal difference, are about to embark on a run of seven fixtures in 21 days, which could have a huge say in whether they will remain as contenders. They start at Crystal Palace on Sunday before games against Liverpool, Leicester, Wolves, Fulham and Leeds, with a League Cup quarter-final at Stoke sandwiched in between. Mourinho has been used to juggling his squad as they have been in Europa League action and…

Jurgen Klopp expressed feelings of changing his mind over the need for VAR in football and believes the change to using technology to determine the finest of margins has made the game less enjoyable. The Reds were involved in three lengthy stoppages during a 1-1 draw away to Midtjylland in the Champions League on Wednesday for VAR to check a penalty awarded to the Danish champions and rule out a goal for either side. “We stop celebrating goals, we wait constantly, we have less than millimetre offside decisions. A lot of things are not like they were before, that’s the…

Morocco basked in US recognition of its sovereignty over the Western Sahara Friday after outgoing President Donald Trump changed policy on the decades-old dispute in return for Rabat agreeing to normalize relations with Israel. For the Polisario Front, which has campaigned for independence for the former Spanish colony since the 1970s, Trump’s announcement marked a major setback and drew a promise to fight on until Moroccan forces withdraw. But crucially, there was no immediate reaction from neighboring Algeria, Morocco’s regional rival and the Polisario’s key foreign backer, whose support would be essential for any return to major fighting. Foreign Minister…

Australians around the country have banded together to send gifts and cards to a Tamil asylum seeker family, whose youngest daughter has never spent Christmas outside of immigration detention. A flood of cards and gifts have been sent to remote Christmas Island, as Australians band together to brighten Christmas Day for an asylum-seeker family who are spending their third holiday period in detention. Priya Murugappan, her husband Nades, and their two Australian-born daughters – Kopika, five, and Tharunicaa, three – are the only family detained on the Island, located about 150 kilometres off Indonesia’s coast. They live in a separate…

A new analysis finds denials for H-1B petitions have remained at high levels compared to previous years. However, the denial rate for new H-1B petitions dropped in the third quarter of FY 2020 due to the way U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) decides on petitions selected for the annual H-1B lottery. “The denial rate for new H-1B petitions for initial employment rose from 6% in FY 2015 to 21% through the third quarter of FY 2020,” according to a new analysis from the National Foundation for American Policy. “This is in line with the 21% denial rate for H-1B petitions for…

Good information, but likely to change under a Biden administration. The president’s “Report to Congress on Proposed Refugee Admissions for Fiscal Year 2021”, released this October, provides us with a snapshot of the Trump administration’s refugee and asylum policy in FY 2020 and its projections for FY 2021 (those will likely be short-lived with the new Biden administration). I highlight a number of important points below, followed by more detail and longer excerpts on key matters. All quotes are from the report’s text; emphases are mine. In FY 2020, the United States admitted over 11,000 refugees for resettlement (under a…

White settler returnees to Portugal in 1975, and the history of decolonization, can help us understand the complicated category of refugee. he year is 1975, and the footage comes from the Portuguese Red Cross. The ambivalence is there from the start. Who, or maybe what, are these people? The clip title calls them “returnees from Angola.” At Lisbon airport, they descend the gangway of a US-operated civil airplane called “Freedom.” Clothes, sunglasses, hairstyles, and sideburns: no doubt, these are the 1970s. The plane carries the inscription “holiday liner,” but these people are not on vacation. A man clings tight to his transistor…

Coast guard units rescue migrants abandoned by Greek authorities in Turkish territorial waters The Turkish Coast Guard rescued at least 112 asylum seekers who were pushed into Turkish territorial waters off the Aegean coast by Greek coastal authorities, security sources said Wednesday. The Turkish Coast Guard said in a statement that a team was dispatched to an area off Cesme in western Izmir province after learning of a group of asylum seekers stranded on a dinghy. A total of 26 asylum seekers were taken to the shore, according to the statement. Separately, another Turkish Coast Guard team was dispatched off the coast of Ayvacik in northwestern Canakkale province and rescued at…