In [PDF]:

- The Bangkok Principles on the Status and Treatment of Refugees
- African NGO resolution on the rights of refugees, asylum seekers, migrants and displaced persons
- Asia Pacific model pledge towards upholding refugee rights worldwide
- MIGREUROP explores readmission instruments
- The situation of refugees in Israel
- Question & answer: the Cessation Clause examined
- The Cessation Clause: a primer
- ECtHR allows extradition to Rwanda of alleged Hutu genocidaire with refugee status in Denmark; UNHCR does not intervene
- ‘Is this Caribbean idyll the worst place in the world to be a woman?’
- WikiLeaks diplomatic cables: a tool for refugee legal aid workers?
- In limbo in Latvia
- Asia Pacific Regional Immigration Detention Working Group workshop
- Country of origin & legal news headlines
- Requests, announcements, publications & opportunities

Fahamu Refugee Legal Aid

To gain greater insight on the daily challenges faced by urban refugees, Asylum Access conducted a survey of 122 urban refugees in Dar es Salaam. The results are published in a report, 'No Place Called Home', which unveils a stark reality for this population. For example, only 3 per cent of those surveyed have a permit to live outside refugee camps. The remaining participants live in constant fear of deportation back to countries where they face persecution.

At least five activists affiliated with the youth group Girifna were arrested Tuesday (29 November) afternoon in Omdurman, a city in Khartoum State. A member of the group, identified only by initials ME for fear of victimisation, said that among the arrested were leaders and founders of the group.

Nearly half a million asylum seekers in South Africa may lose their right to earn a living or study while their refugee status is being determined after indications that the government plans to amend legislation governing those rights. An announcement on 23 November that Cabinet is 'reviewing' the minimum rights of immigrants, including the right to work and study, was followed by a media briefing two days later at which Mkuseli Apleni, Director General of the Department of Home Affairs, suggested that the asylum seeker system was being abused.

Swaziland spends 4.7 per cent of its gross domestic product (GDP) on paying, equipping and barracking the 3,000 soldiers in its army, and now parliament has passed a US$8 million supplementary budget for the force, provoking a rare public reaction in questioning the role or even the need for an army in view of the deepening economic crisis.

The Central African Republic and DR Congo have accused the UPDF hunting down LRA rebels in the two countries of allegedly involving in illegal extraction of timber, gold, diamond and other gems. This is contained in a report by the Brussels based International Crisis Group. The Ugandan military reacted angrily to the accusations, describing the report as a 'hogwash' writing tinged with accounts by 'racist armchair' researchers.

The Security Council has agreed to extend by another year the arms embargo and other sanctions it has imposed against armed rebel groups in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) for nearly a decade. In a resolution adopted unanimously, the 15-member Council extended the sanctions through 30 November 2012 and asked Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to renew the mandate of the group of experts monitoring these measures and to appoint a sixth expert – on natural resources – to the team.

Muammar Qaddafi's daughter has urged Libyans to overthrow their new rulers, possibly violating the terms of her exile in Algeria. In an audio message broadcast on Syria's al-Rai television station, Aisha Qaddafi called for a revolt against the men who overthrew her father, the government she said 'arrived with the planes of NATO'.

Laurent Gbagbo, the former president of the Ivory Coast has left the country for The Hague, where the International Criminal Court is investigating alleged crimes committed during post-election violence, an official has said. Gbagbo will become the first former head of state to be surrendered to the ICC.

The arrival of seven and a half tons of tear gas to Egypt’s Suez port created conflict after the responsible officials at the port refused to sign and accept it for fear it would be used to crackdown on Egyptian protesters. Local news sites published documents regarding the shipment showing that the cargo that arrived in 479 barrels from the United States was scheduled to be delivered to the ministry of interior.

A refugee from Eritrea has obtained an urgent North Gauteng High Court order to force Home Affairs to supply him with application forms and to immediately process his application for travel documents so that he can attend a peace conference in Djibouti next month. Tsehaye Yoel Alem applied for a court order with the help of Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) after being told Home Affairs no longer issued refugee travel documents as the United Nations High Commissioner for refugees no longer provided such documents. He said there was no certainty as to what Home Affairs was doing to reinstate the issuing of refugee travel documents and it in effect meant it was almost impossible for refugees like himself to travel outside SA.

Just days after Asmara called for reprimand against Kenya for associating her with Somali rebel group Al-Shabaab, Kenya has filed a case before the UN Security Council's sanctions committee calling for investigations into Eritrea's alleged support to the insurgents. Kenya's UN Permanent Representative Macharia Kamau filed the case days after the Eritrean Foreign minister Osman Saleh wrote to the Council, calling for independent investigations into Kenya's accusations that it was arming the Al-Shabaab in Somalia.

The Kenyan police and military should stop using illegal mass-round-ups and beatings as a substitute for proper police investigative work, Human Rights Watch said. Attacks by suspected al-Shabaab sympathizers on the military and civilians inside Kenya do not justify violating the rights of civilians.

Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe looks back at the atrocious massacre of the Igbo people of Nigeria in the 1960s and is convinced that the British government was fully culpable. Britain today, he urges, needs to accept this fact and make the long-overdue restitution.

Churches, homes and the police headquarters in the small northeast Nigerian town of Geidam were set ablaze in a wave of night time gun and bomb attacks by a radical Islamist sect, the police said on Sunday. 'Four policemen were killed, 20 wounded, eight churches and 20 market stalls as well as Geidam council secretariat are completely destroyed,' a police spokesperson said.

Two years after the Nigerian government granted amnesty to militants fighting mainly for development and job opportunities in the oil-rich Niger River Delta, violence has diminished, and oil revenues - which dropped at the height of the conflict - have increased. But analysts argue that the amnesty programme is flawed and will not lead to long-term peace. In the delta, former fighters are picking up their guns again, and resentment brews among those not included.

Thousands of civilians who fled conflict in the Sudanese state of South Kordofan across the border into the new country of South Sudan continue to face insecurity and a reduced humanitarian presence following a bombing raid, according to the refugees and aid workers. Some 23,000 ethnic Nuba are staying at a site in Yida, just a few kilometers from the border, which came under aerial bombardment on 10 November. The Sudanese armed forces were widely blamed, but denied responsibility.

Zimbabwean Registrar-General Tobaiwa Mudede has told Parliament’s committee on home affairs that deportations of Zimbabweans from South Africa and Botswana were stretching his department’s capacities, forcing it to operate seven days a week. Mudede said his staff now worked long hours to process documents for deported citizens. He said his office was overloaded, even though last year staffers went to South Africa to document Zimbabweans without passports who sought permits to reside there.

Refugees in Italy - both asylum seekers, as well as those who already have obtained a protection status - live largely in absolute misery and homelessness. Most of them are ejected from the Italian basic accommodation system for asylum seekers after a maximum of six months and end up without any assistance to speak of.

Conflict had been brewing in the village of Fanaye in northern Senegal for months before clashes broke out in late October. The launch of a project by an Italian-Senegalese company to grow crops for biofuels on 20,000 acres of local land had been met with scepticism and anger by some villagers; protesters called it 'a form of slavery'. When work began on the project in September, a young man attacked a plantation worker with a sword. A local council meeting descended into violence, buildings were burned and two people died as villagers fought each other with sticks and machetes.