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M. Rhodan, ‘The Number of Asylum Seekers Has Risen by 2,000% in 10 Years. Who Should Get to Stay?’, TIME, 14 November 2018

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J. Pollard, ‘Forgotten refugee crisis on the Thai-Myanmar border’, Asia Times, 17 November 2018

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S. Ardalan, ‘Trump Is Rewriting Asylum Law’, The Atlantic, 13 November 2018

Since its establishment five years ago, the Kaldor Centre and its world-leading research have directly influenced policy and public debate about protecting refugees and forced migrants. 

In this video, Director Jane McAdam and Executive Manager Frances Voon explain who we are and what we do, while UNHCR’s Regional Representative Thomas Albrecht, the Refugee Council of Australia’s Shukufa Tahiri, the Platform on Disaster Displacement’s Walter Kälin and The Guardian journalist Ben Doherty explain why the Kaldor Centre matters.

Ahead of her keynote speech at the Kaldor Centre’s annual conference this week, former Assistant Secretary of State Anne Richard has told The Guardian that the United States expected Australia would accept more refugees in exchange for the U.S. agreement to resettle refugees from Nauru and Manus Island. Meanwhile Australia has supported the Global Compact on Refugees despite criticism from Minister for Home Affairs Peter Dutton.

Documents from the Department of Home Affairs indicate that roughly 300 asylum seekers have been prevented from sailing to Australia in the past 14 months.

The Australian Senate has voted to prevent the federal government from subjecting more asylum seekers to a ‘fast-track’ processing system. Meanwhile a homeless shelter in Canberra has reported an increase in the number of refugees seeking accommodation.

Nauru President Baron Waqa has suggested that some refugees resettled in the United States want to return to Nauru. The President and Nauruan government officials have claimed to have brokered a resettlement deal for 80 refugees to New Zealand, and that New Zealand has refused to grant holiday visas to refugees from Nauru. The New Zealand government has denied both claims. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has reiterated an offer to resettle 150 refugees.

Meanwhile reports indicate more than twenty child refugees remain on Nauru. The construction firm Canstruct reportedly made $43m profit providing garrison and welfare services for the Nauru detention facility last year.

Ahead of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in Papua New Guinea, refugees on Manus Island appealed to leaders of participating nations to address their plight. More than 600 men remain on the island. One refugee has reportedly been refusing food and fluids and has now been evacuated to hospital in Port Moresby. Meanwhile former Salvation Army case worker Nicole Judge has spoken about her recent visit to Manus Island.

More than 40 people have been killed and dozens wounded in the Central African Republic town of Alindao, in an attack on a Catholic mission sheltering 20,000 refugees.

The Global Compact on Refugees has been overwhelmingly approved by member states in the Third Committee of the UN General Assembly, with only the US voting against the compact. This brings the compact a step closer to affirmation by the General Assembly.

After a month-long journey, the members of a caravan of Central American asylum seekers are beginning to arrive at the southern border of the United States to seek asylum. Immigration lawyers say that the process of applying for asylum could take months or even years. A federal hearing to determine whether asylum can legally be denied to asylum seekers who cross the border at places other than designated entry ports is underway.  

Latest data shows that Canada is on track to receive its highest number of refugee claims since record-keeping began nearly three decades ago. The data also shows that there has been a sixfold increase in the number of US citizens who applied for asylum in Canada in 2017, relative to 2016.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said that the government has been in talks with Islamabad about potentially granting asylum to Asia Bibi, a Pakistani Christian woman who was recently freed after her blasphemy condition was overturned.

The United Nations Trinidad and Tobago office has issued a response after Cuban refugees camped outside of their Port of Spain office for the past two weeks, seeking more humanitarian treatment. The group has now been in contact with UNHCR, which is working to help with their immediate needs and to provide practical information on how best to convey their circumstances to the appropriate authorities in Trinidad and Tobago.

The head of Bangladesh’s refugee commission said plans to begin the repatriation of 700,000 Rohingya Muslims to Myanmar last Thursday were scrapped after officials were unable to find anyone who wanted to return. UN officials and international aid agencies have praised Bangladesh’s commitment to not forcing the repatriation.

A boatload of more than 100 Rohingya Muslims who fled a camp in Myanmar were found off the country's south coast last Friday after spending 15 days at sea in a failed attempt to reach Malaysia. Myanmar immigration authorities have rescued, arrested and detained the cohort.

The UN General Assembly’s Human Rights Committee has also overwhelmingly approved a resolution strongly condemning the continuing ‘gross human rights violations and abuses’ against Rohingya Muslims. Meanwhile, at an ASEAN summit in Singapore, Myanmar State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi has been publicly criticised by Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad over her handling of the Rohingya crisis.

At least 16 people, most of them children, have been injured in a gas cylinder explosion at a Rohingya refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar. Meanwhile, nearly 330,000 Rohingya refugees in camps around Cox’s Bazar and members of the Bangladeshi host community will be vaccinated against cholera in a month-long campaign.

Thai authorities are continuing to detain Vietnamese Montagnard refugees rounded up en masse in August, and have divided families, holding adults in a detention centre and a number of children elsewhere. Most of the detainees have obtained recognised refugee status from UNHCR.

European Union auditors have said that Turkish officials refused to provide information that would help establish whether 1.1 billion euros ($1.2 billion) in EU refugee aid money is being properly spent. The auditors said the ministry cited data protection laws as the reason for not providing the information.

The Turkish coastguard is searching for ten asylum seekers lost at sea after their boat sank in the Aegean Sea off the coast of Dikili last Monday.

Greek and Turkish officials are planning to step up meetings on managing refugee flows to Greece, following a significant jump in arrivals through the land border with Turkey. Greek authorities say that about 74,000 asylum-seekers are now living in the country.

The Guardian has obtained footage of brutal beatings, allegedly perpetrated by Croatian police, against asylum seekers attempting to cross the Bosnian-Croatian border.

Former Macedonian prime minister Nikola Gruevski has formally applied for asylum in Hungary. Gruevski escaped from Macedonia after being sentenced to a jail term, and fled to Budapest.

An initiative launched by UNICEF and the German Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth, to support refugees in accommodation centres, has made considerable progress towards protecting the rights of vulnerable children. The initiative has developed guidelines for the protection of refugees in refugee accommodation centres, and implemented these in around 100 accommodation centres.

An informal refugee camp in Rome which opened in 2015 at the height of the refugee crisis was evacuated last Tuesday, sending several vulnerable people onto the streets during the onset of winter. The Rome municipality has offered places in reception centres to some of the refugees, but dozens of people still lack a place to go.

In the face of a legal challenge, the UK Home Office has abandoned a controversial ‘hostile environment’ scheme using NHS data to track down patients believed to be breaching immigration rules.

UNHCR has expressed concern for civilians in Yemen in the face of violent conflict, and has called on all parties to the conflict to exercise restraint, reiterating that only peaceful resolution can halt further suffering.

At a meeting last Friday between Russia and Syria for the return of refugees, a Russian Defence Ministry representative has said that the administration of the Al Rukban camp in Syria is unable to provide security for the refugees, and prostitution, theft, sexual slavery of minors and human trafficking thrive there.