June 19, 2019 12:32 pm
Published by j4rsa
Nearly six years into the revival of its offshore detention policy, Australia’s government is facing a story of corporate and administrative intrigue that highlights the utter unsustainability of our current approach to people seeking our protection. The details of Australia’s contract with a little-known security provider called Paladin, as first reported in the Australian Financial Review, were… ...
June 19, 2019 12:30 pm
Published by j4rsa
Expect to hear more noise from the crossbench when Parliament resumes, as pressure ramps up on the Federal Government to resettle refugees currently on Manus Island and Nauru. Just over 530 people have already been sent to the United States under the resettlement deal, but Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton said the US would not be… ...
June 19, 2019 12:22 pm
Published by j4rsa
The federal government will set a new course for the nation's refugee program by putting a higher priority on migrants from South America amid a humanitarian crisis in Venezuela. Immigration officials have been told to open the door to more refugees from South America in a formal directive that is likely to change the make-up… ...
June 19, 2019 12:19 pm
Published by j4rsa
One of the asylum seekers the Norwegian cargo ship Tampa rescued in 2001 has won a prestigious Fulbright scholarship to undertake postgraduate studies in the US. Abbas Nazari was seven years old when his family boarded a fishing boat from Indonesia to Australia. He was one of more than 430 people, predominantly of the ethnic… ...
June 12, 2019 10:27 am
Published by j4rsa
Australia should immediately release a legally blind and mentally ill Tamil refugee who has languished in immigration detention for nearly a decade, a key United Nations body has said. In a scathing assessment of the detention regime, the UN working group found Australia had contravened international law by detaining the man for more than nine years. It… ...
June 12, 2019 10:24 am
Published by j4rsa
A refugee and torture survivor who has been incarcerated in “hellish” conditions by the Australian authorities since 2013 has appealed to be allowed to join his sister in the UK. In the first case of its kind, Thiraviyarajah Subramaniyam, 37, a Tamil from Sri Lanka, appealed in the UK immigration tribunal on Tuesday against a Home… ...
May 24, 2019 9:29 am
Published by j4rsa
Majority of people brought from Manus Island and Nauru through the government’s own referral system, which previously ignored cases for up to five years. More than 40 people have been transferred to Australia for urgent medical treatment from Manus Island and Nauru since the passing of the medevac laws. The majority were brought to the mainland… ...
May 24, 2019 9:26 am
Published by j4rsa
Three Australian orphans of an Islamic State foreign fighter from Melbourne are being held in a Syrian refugee camp, sparking a delicate diplomatic struggle over their future. The two girls and a boy, aged between six and 12, are the children of foreign fighter Yasin Rizvic and his wife Fauzia Khamal Bacha, who joined Islamic… ...
May 22, 2019 3:31 pm
Published by j4rsa
The Morrison government faces a Senate veto of its effort to repeal the law requiring medical transfers of refugees from offshore detention, throwing into doubt plans to close the Christmas Island detention facility. The government reopened the mothballed centre on Christmas Island in February, warning that the law passed by Labor and independents against the… ...
May 22, 2019 3:26 pm
Published by j4rsa
CANBERRA — In spite of exit polls suggesting a Labor victory, the Coalition will be returning to Australia's Parliament under the leadership of Prime Minister Scott Morrison. For Australian aid and foreign policy, the results mean the government has been given a mandate to continue on the path set by Morrison since taking on the… ...