#Safety of Rwanda Act

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Ellen Ioanes at Vox:

The UK is again preparing to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda after Parliament created a workaround to enact a policy the high court declared unlawful.

Authorities have begun detaining migrants to deport to Rwanda under the revamped plan. But the policy faces major logistical issues, humanitarian concerns, and the likelihood that a future Labour government will scrap it. Former Home Secretary Priti Patel initially proposed the controversial law in 2022 as a way to reduce irregular migration, particularly via small boats across the English Channel, which is on the rise in the UK. Her successor, Suella Braverman, also advocated for the plan until she was fired in 2023; Prime Minister Rishi Sunak then vowed to “stop the boats” and promised that the policy would become law. Sunak succeeded on the latter front. Following legal challenges that saw the UK Supreme Court and the European Court of Human Rights declare the proposal unlawful, a bill declaring Rwanda safe for migrants and that limits the courts’ ability to adjudicate the country’s safety was approved as law by King Charles in late April, despite heavy opposition from the House of Lords. The government published a video on May 1 showing law enforcement authorities detaining people to send to the East African country as soon as July.

The law has been resoundingly criticized by human rights advocates, immigration lawyers, and Labour politicians who say it violates international law and is, to quote shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, “an expensive gimmick.” The law is part of a broader effort by Sunak and his Conservative Party to burnish their image as their government struggles to maintain support in the lead-up to a national election. Irregular migration has increased in recent years, but it’s not the driver of the problems that the UK is facing, including ongoing cost-of-living and housing crises. However, it is among voters’ top concerns, making the extreme anti-immigration law an appealing policy for a dysfunctional party struggling to maintain power.

[...]

The UK’s Rwanda deportation policy, briefly explained

The Rwanda plan has been a policy priority for two years now, and it’s outlived two prime ministers and two home secretaries. The ostensible goal? To deter irregular migrations via the English Channel and other routes, ostensibly for the migrants’ own safety, and to disrupt human trafficking operations.

Though the government has declared Rwanda a safe country through its recent legislation, it is the threat of being sent there instead of potentially receiving asylum in the UK that is meant to deter people from entering the country. Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame claimed that his country was simply trying to help out with “a very complicated problem all over the world” when Rwanda and the UK struck their initial agreement in 2022. But Rwanda will be well compensated by the British government for its purported generosity (more on that later). And critics say it also benefits Rwanda reputationally despite Kagame’s autocratic tendencies (which include threatening or jailing political rivals, repression of the media, and changing the constitution to extend his rule), not to mention the UK government’s own concerns that Rwanda is not a safe place for LGBTQ refugees.

But immigration has become a key policy pillar for the conservative government post-Brexit. Former Prime Ministers Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, along with Sunak, all touted their tough stance on immigration, hoping to appeal to socially conservative party members who see immigration as a key issue. Sunak and Truss backed the Rwanda plan, which was first proposed by controversial former Home Secretary Priti Patel. The policy was deeply controversial from the start. It applies to the roughly 52,000 asylum seekers the government deems to have entered the UK illegally after January 2022. Under international law, everyone has the right to seek asylum, and countries are obligated to protect people in their territory seeking asylum under the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. The UK was one of the original signatories to that convention.

But under the new rule, regardless of whether their claims are valid, asylum seekers can now be detained, and forced to fly to Rwanda, where their asylum claims will ostensibly be processed and they will be resettled. The plan “is effectively removing the UK from the asylum convention, because it removes the right to asylum which is explicitly guaranteed,” Peter William Walsh, senior researcher at the Oxford Migration Observatory, told Vox in an interview. It also could change the UK’s legal structure: the UK has threatened to withdraw from the court’s jurisdiction should it rule against the Rwanda plan.

[...]

Costs are already adding up; though no one has been sent to Rwanda and just a handful detained, the UK has already paid Rwanda 220 million pounds (about $270 million) to create infrastructure for asylum seeker processing. That number could skyrocket to more than half a billion pounds total (about $627 million) to send just 300 people to the East African country, according to a UK government watchdog.

Because of objections from advocacy groups, the UK Supreme Court, and the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), no migrant in the UK has ever been transferred to Rwanda under the plan. (One migrant has been sent to Rwanda voluntarily under a separate policy that pays eligible migrants 3,000 pounds if they volunteer to be sent to the country.) As seven people awaited deportation to Rwanda in June of 2022, the ECHR intervened and issued injunctions stopping the migrants’ removal and pausing the controversial policy. Though the UK left the European Union in 2020, it is still part of the Council of Europe, which the ECHR has jurisdiction over, making the court’s decision legally binding. And in November 2023, the UK’s highest court ruled the scheme unlawful.

Sunak, however, doubled down on the Rwanda policy, introducing emergency legislation to have Parliament declare Rwanda a safe country, as well as working on a new treaty with Rwanda to address the court’s concerns that asylum-seekers might be sent back to their home countries. That legislation, the Safety of Rwanda Act, passed Parliament in late April and unilaterally declared Rwanda to be a safe place to resettle migrants, paving the way for King Charles’s approval and the Home Office’s moves to detain some migrants who arrived by irregular routes.

The United Kingdom’s highly controversial Rwanda deportation plan proposed in a bid to curb unauthorized immigration to the nation has already ignited controversy.

The UK cannot wait for the Tories to be gone.

[robotpussy]

"Rwanda: Officers raid homes of first people to be deported"

this is so inhumane...

in case people don't know, the "Safety of Rwanda Act" is to "prevent and deter 'unlawful' migration, and in particular migration by unsafe and illegal routes, by enabling the removal of persons to the Republic of Rwanda under provision made by or under the Immigration Acts, a person could face removal if they are eligible for inadmissibility action under the guidance, and

have claimed asylum on or after 1 January 2022 (note, this is a change in wording, the position previously was that the “journey” was made on or after that date), and

they do not have families with children under the age of 18

their journey could be described as having been dangerous, and

sources for explanation

1 2

and to comment on the second point, children who sought out asylum in the UK are also at risk of being deported as they are being classified as adults

[probablyasocialecologist]

As Israel shut off the electricity, turned off the water, demanded two million people, half of them children, evacuate in 24 hours amidst endless bombing campaigns with the explicit intention of putting civilian safety second to the destruction of Hamas, papers surfaced claiming that Palestinians, with an IQ of only 75, were incapable of governing themselves. Incapable, really, of being human. The role of race science is to identify those humans that do not have to be classified as people. It is as simple as that. And dehumanization, stripping a group of their capacity to be human, their humanity, is the literal foundation of genocide. On Tutsi — “Exterminate the cockroaches” Rwanda, 1994. On Native Americans: “Wipe these untamed and untamable creatures from the earth” — United States, 1891 On Armenians: “the Government will view the feeding of such children or any effort to prolong their lives as an act completely opposite to its purpose, since it regards the survival of these children as detrimental.” — Turkey, 1916. On Tigray “They should be erased and disappear from historical records” — Ethiopia, 2021. Twenty years prior to effecting the Holocaust, Hitler said of Germany that the “final aim, however, must be the uncompromising removal of the Jews altogether.” And today, in 2023, Israel repeats the same tired story, declaring that they “are fighting human animals” as they rain down thousands of bombs upon an area the size of Rhode Island, destroying hospitals and bakeries and churches in an offensive that declares with every day that passes “the only good Palestinian is a dead Palestinian”.

[intriguingpeoplebyangelafloyd]

TAYLOR SWIFT & ARIANA GRANDE

TAYLOR SWIFT CONCERTS UNDER THREAT

9 August 2024

            Taylor Swift has cancelled three concerts in Vienna, Austria after an Islamic terrorist attack plot was uncovered by authorities. In Vienna, two suspects were arrested on Wednesday, 7 July 2024. One of the perpetrators homes was searched and various chemicals were discovered. The authorities discovered that the terrorists were planning to target Swift’s concerts at the Vienna stadium. Swift will be increasing security at all her concerts from now on and hopefully from now on all will be safe.

            It was only July 2024 when three young Taylor Swift fans were at a dance party, and were murdered in northwest England. The perpetrator was a male teenager 17, who intended to kill as many children as possible. His family came to England from Rwanda in 2002 and even though he had murdered and harmed innocent people the authorities are protecting his identity, still to this day his photo hasn’t been released.

            On 22 May 2017, 22 innocent people were killed in an Islamic terrorist attack at an Ariana Grande concert in England. The two perpetrators intended to target children and had injured over a thousand people. At the inquest it was found that more should have been done by British police to stop the attack and that the authorities acted ‘too slowly’. Grande had to cancel concerts concerned for her fan’s safety. Many of the deceased were aged under 20; one was aged 8.

            It’s very sad that terrorists are now targeting teenagers and children, in places where they go just to have fun and they should be safe.

#taylorswift #arianagrande #manchesterarenabombing #viennaaustria

[hjohn3]

The Tory Migration Catastrophe

How Conservative Immigration Policy Will Destroy Its Thatcherite Model

Source: The Financial Times

By Honest John

LIKE A desperate gambler deciding to bet his shirt on one last turn of the roulette wheel, Rishi Sunak has staked his entire political reputation on the latest iteration of the Tories’ Rwanda bill. This is a piece of legislation which has been declared illegal by the British Supreme Court; which has so far cost the British taxpayer £240m with a further £50m due to be paid to Rwanda next year; which is considered as impractical as it is morally questionable and which has seen precisely zero asylum seekers so far sent to Rwanda to have their claims processed. This sad wheeze is going to be dragged before the House of Commons once more, while Sunak desperately claims black is white and that Rwanda can miraculously become a safe country for asylum seekers by the passing of a law in Westminster. The Prime Minister’s determination to turn Tuesday’s vote on the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill into effectively a vote of confidence in his leadership is simultaneously reckless and absurd. Sunak’s desperation to quieten the increasing insurrectionary noises from his party’s right wing in the wake of the dismissal of Suella Braverman, has led him to to invest all his hopes in a piece of legislation for which there is no evidence will succeed in deterring the “small boats” (its stated claim), which will place the U.K. once again in breach of international law and will succeed only in enriching the government of Rwanda, incredulously receiving millions of pounds of British taxpayers’ money for its civic infrastructure, gifted by a country whose own infrastructure is falling apart. It is actually hard to find anyone outside the fevered confines of Sunak’s inner circle who supports the plan or thinks it will work. Apart perhaps from the government of Rwanda itself that is.

It is easy to laugh at the infantile antics of a government that, in any real sense, has ceased to function and to treat this latest act in the Tory psychodrama as the piece of absurdist political theatre it undoubtedly is, but the Rwanda bill is simply the congealing icing on the top of a poisonous cake that the Conservatives have been serving up for years, masquerading as migration “policy”. This is legislation that is as contradictory as it is cruel; as performative as it is populist. For the Conservatives, migration is their key emergency break glass area of public policy. When everything else that they and the succession of hopeless lightweights they have foisted on the country as Prime Ministers, has turned to dung at their touch, they still believe that the prejudice and hatred of “the British People” toward foreigners and immigrants has no bottom level: for Tories you simply cannot go too low on immigration. The Rwanda scheme - when it was first cooked up in the days of Boris Johnson and Priti Patel - had nothing in reality to do with deterring asylum seekers from trying to cross the Channel to Britain; it was all about trying to appeal to a mythical “Red Wall” voter for whom no amount of cruelty, illegality and contempt was too much when it came to migrants. As their polling figures slumped and by election and council election results confirmed their worst electoral fears, the Conservatives still believed that victimising the victims could yet turn it around for them - no matter the dark forces their racist and bile-filled rhetoric might unleash: if they could just once again gaslight the electorate into believing that all the catastrophes of the last fourteen years of Tory rule are, in fact, the fault of incoming foreigners, all may yet be well.

This dismal flirting with the fascist playbook may have resulted in the headline-catching idiocy of Sunak’s latest Rwanda wheeze, but beneath that blather James Cleverley has announced planned measures that are far more significant, far more damaging, and far more frightening than any amount of ludicrous assertions about the Rwanda scheme. Tired of being taunted by Labour and others about the huge rise in legal migration (its net increase topped 600,000 in 2022) despite all the Tory promises to bring the numbers down over the last fourteen years, the Conservatives’ response is to quite literally attack, and potentially destroy, its own Thatcherite economic model.

For over forty years, Tory politicians have extolled Britain’s “flexible” workforce; its deregulated system; its low wage/low unemployment economy and its marketised society. Indeed, for years we were told by politicians on the right and the left that in a globalised world, mobile and non-unionised workforces, cheap production costs, outsourced supply lines and minimal regulation was essential to the easy access, low price, and plentiful supply digital capitalism that has taken hold in Britain. Key to the success of this model has been migrant labour, first from the EU and now from a swathe of sub-Saharan African, Middle Eastern and South Asian countries whose residents have been offered visas to replace the low wage flexible European workers that post-Brexit Britain apparently no longer wants. The legal migrants that the Conservatives are now in such a lather about are an essential component of the Thatcherite economic model they have all been promoting to us for decades. If, as Cleverley maintains, the government wishes to reduce net migration figures by 300,000 in 2024, then that is 300,000 workers not available to drive lorries, deliver Amazon parcels, pick our crops, clean our offices, valet our cars, serve in our restaurants and, crucially staff our hospitals and care homes. By creating a shortage of deregulated low wage labour, the Tories will simultaneously damage large parts of the service economy and drive up wages, and with it inflation. In their desperate belief that hatred of foreigners will somehow save them from oblivion at the next General Election, the Conservatives are prepared to throw overboard an approach to employment and wages that has sustained them for nearly two generations and was one of the driving ideological impulses on the right that drove Brexit. The revolution has truly begun to eat itself.

Apart from the casual abandonment of what has been the essence of right-wing Toryism for years, Cleverley has also managed to introduce the class-based nastiness of the Sklled Worker minimum salary threshold of £38,700 pa that legal migrants and their dependents must meet. This is a measure that will drive families apart, possibly force British citizens, married to foreigners but earning below the threshold, to emigrate to be with their loved ones and cause untold damage to the university sector (one of the few growth areas of the British economy) and the NHS and care sector, already on its knees after years of austerity and disproportionately reliant on migrant labour. It is as if the Tories are not content with the calamities that austerity, Brexit and Trussonomics have already wrought on British society: with this latest episode of ill-thought through prejudicial nonsense, they seem to want to finish it off altogether. I have predicted for some time the implosion of modern Toryism - its Thatcherite ideology a busted flush and its Brexit nationalist makeover lacking in depth or practical solutions; but what I hadn’t bargained for was that the Tories would try to take the whole country down with them.

Never has a government looked more threadbare, pointless, desperate and unlovable. All they have left to offer is hatred, racism and self-defeating vindictiveness. If Sunak’s absurd posturing over his doomed Rwanda bill results in his resignation before Christmas and a January General Election, the “British People” that this band of charlatans and incompetents keep claiming to speak for, but who in reality they do not understand, will breathe a sigh of relief, because we the people will at last be given the opportunity to cast this catastrophic version of Toryism into an electoral oblivion it so richly deserves and from which it will, hopefully, never emerge.

Migration may yet be modern Conservatism’s epitaph.

10th December 2023

[thoughtlessarse]

A Fianna Fáil TD has called for gardai to be deployed to check points on the border to deal with a reported increase in migrants entering from Northern Ireland. The comments from James O’Connor came as tensions between London and Dublin have increased in recent days. This followed Justice Minister Helen McEntee claiming there had been an upsurge in asylum seekers crossing the border from the UK into the Republic of Ireland after the passing of the Safety of Rwanda Act at Westminster. The government has made it clear that it does not intend to deploy gardai to the border to monitor the issue. Asked during the week on whether gardaí will be carrying out checks along the border, Taoisesach Simon Harris said: “Of course there won’t be.” However, speaking to RTÉ Radio One’s This Week programme, O’Connor urged a re-think. “I would be quite forthright that we do need to see a further rapid expansion of border policing around migration,” the Cork East TD said. “This is something that I feel is not being done sufficiently and I do feel that we need to take the bull by the horns here and address it because we have to look after people that come here, but we do need to acknowledge that there is a tipping point where we can’t do that any more.”

continue reading

And so begins the rightwards journey of Irish politics to counter the rise of the far-right. Well, that's worked so well in some other EU states, they now either have fascist governments or will have shortly.

Immigration controls at the borders will be an exercise in racial profiling, relegating Black and Brown Irish and British citizens to second class citizens.

[39minormovements]

excerpts from "economic migration: the root problem is not smugglers but global inequality" by seb rumsby in the conversation (4 feb 2022)

"[W]hile smugglers do contribute to undocumented migration, the root cause is actually global inequality. This inequality is reproduced and perpetuated by many multinational companies within a wider economic system that serves to directly benefit the most wealthy and, indirectly, industrialised countries, at the expense of others."

"A report from 2017 found workers at a Samsung factory in Vietnam reported extreme fatigue, fainting, dizziness and even miscarriages due to poor working conditions... Meanwhile, Samsung has made huge profits in Vietnam. This happens all across the world: multinational corporations take advantage of cheap labour in poorer countries through global supply chains."

"Multinational corporations represent a continuation of historical exploitation and wealth flow from developing countries to Europe under colonialism, which funded the west’s dramatic rise to prosperity in the first place. In an unequal world, it makes sense for those in poorer countries with limited options to follow the money to a more developed country, find a low-skilled job, work hard and then send some money back home. This may lead Vietnamese migrants to Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Germany – or all the way to the UK. Such movement, however, is often forbidden, forcing people to risk potentially deadly border crossings under the radar."

"In fact, considering the mass exploitation of Vietnamese labour by foreign corporations (which has exacerbated global inequality), it could be argued that economic migration is a matter of justice and that it’s only fair and reasonable that migrants should seek a portion of the extracted labour value that should have stayed in Vietnam. So if we really want to reduce migration, we must treat it as an inevitable by-product of inequality and address the root causes – instead of simply blaming smugglers or washing our hands of the migrants’ plight."

image: protest against the "safety of rwanda (asylum and immigration) act" passed in apr 2024 via right to remain

[image description: a photograph of several protest signs of various colours placed on the floor on the street. the signs read: "no to rwanda," "refugees are welcome here," "these walls must fall," "no one is illegal," "this is our home," "together we are stronger, solidarity!"]

[stevishabitat]

DW (English): Congo: Is Rwanda behind the attacks on displaced people?

What happened last week in the IDP camps? According to witnesses to Friday's shellings, government forces positioned near the camps had been bombarding the rebels on hills further west since early morning, and, according to one activist, "the M23 retaliated by throwing bombs indiscriminately." Kambale Kiyoma, a displaced Congolese, described what happened when the IDP camp where he lives with his family came under attack. "We woke up in the morning to find that shells were being fired from here at M23 positions. After a while, the M23 retaliated," Kambale said, adding that several shells fell at camps in the area. Kambale said that he feels abandoned and wants the government to restore peace.

Safi Kasembe, another IDP, told the Agence France-Presse (AFP) news agency that the Congolese government has installed artillery weaponry in the camp — which puts their lives in danger. "I'm here because of the war. We fled our villages, and now we've taken refuge in this camp for displaced persons, but unfortunately, even here, we're hit by bombs from rebel positions." There are also artilleries installed in the camp, and it's these exchanges of fire that put us in danger and cause the death of some of us. The situation is unbearable, and we are suffering enormously." Bombing victims remembered Meanwhile, at a ceremony to commemorate the victims of the bombing, members of several citizens' movements denounced the upsurge in violence in eastern DRC and called for justice for the people killed in last week's IDP camp shellings. "The people who fled the war, the people who today find themselves in displaced person camps, where they should be finding refuge and safety," said Christophe Muyisa, a member of Filimbi, a Congolese political movement that seeks increased youth participation. "Unfortunately, the bombs pursue them right into their places of refuge."  "They don't need aid or assistance. They need peace and security to return to their homes. So, all the aid today, which is a mockery, a hypocrisy on the part of the international community, we ask the government not to give a damn," Muyisa added. Josue Wallay, an activist from Fight for Change, a civil society movement that advocates for social justice, said that eastern Congo had become uninhabitable. "The people who have fled their villages and have sought refuge are unfortunately dying of hunger and being inflicted with yet another atrocious death, bombed and killed," Wallay said. US demands accountability The United States has condemned the attack and called on Rwanda to punish forces behind it, not backing down from charges that Kigali is meddling in its neighbor's affairs. Asked if the United States stood by its claim, US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said, "We absolutely do." "The government of Rwanda must investigate this heinous act and hold all those responsible accountable. And we have made that clear to them." Rwanda denies involvement Rwandan government spokesperson Yolande Makolo retorted that the US accusation was "ridiculous," writing on social media platform X that Rwanda had a "professional army" that would "never attack" a camp for displaced people. Look to the lawless FDLR and Wazalendo supported by the FARDC for this kind of atrocity." The tweet refers to the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), a Hutu group founded by Hutu officials who fled Rwanda after orchestrating the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi, while Wazalendo is a Christian sect. In a separate statement on Sunday, Rwanda said that the attempt by the US Department of State to immediately and without any investigation place blame on Rwanda for the loss of lives in the refugee camps was unjustified. "Rwanda will not shoulder responsibility for the bombing of the IDP camps around Goma or the security and governance failures of the government of the DRC," the statement said.

[skendong]

Hey Rishi Sunak, Send Me To Rwanda

The Safety of Rwanda Act 2024. I scratch my head while reading.

Soon enacted by an ailing King, The muse hit me. I’m free versing.

I was born in England, My mother from Jamaica. After World War 2, She’s deemed a saviour. British streets paved With Wagadugu gold? As she arrived, they cried “Go back home!”

But she was strong, The wind rushed through. Whose hands and minerals Built Empires of the West? Mancunian accent, A grown man now – I’m the epitomy of English, Deterred but not a guest.

So, hey Rishi Sunak, You can send me to Rwanda, Home of my ancestors Kidnapped from Africa. I’ve been to Touba, And Jufureh, The Gambia, But wouldn’t mind chilling With a mountain gorilla, Or the golden monkeys Living in Virunga.

But when I looked it up It would cost five grand. The deportation scheme, Half a billion pounds. How many British Could that employ? Jobs for the people, Forget this ploy. Home Office workers Processing claims and

After horror stories Most migrants should remain – In this colourful nation Which I’m a part of. The Government is crooked, But some people I do love.

I’m scratching my head At this small tetchy brown man. First Asian Prime Minister Micro-managing this plan. He’s there by default Because disgraced Liz Truss, And because his parents Were given grace –

Just like my parents, It’s not about race, But he’s racing to the top, He has no face. Trying to leave a legacy, The troubling thing is: The world eyeing his policy We, the cost of living.

Through the grapevine, America might decree – Southern border migrants Sent to Haiti. Or Israel might designate Palestinian refugees, Bombed to smithereens But soon Lebanese.

Denmark plotted initially This Rwanda plan. They’re tied up by Europe, Apparently humane.

From the lord to the commons, From the commons to the lords, From the lords to the commons. Now the policy is here.

If I was ever the first Black Prime Minister My declaration would be –

On the cold cobbled stones Of Number 10, holding To the sky my assegai spear, Before the clicks and microphones Justice is laid bare:

“All who survived that perilous journey – You’re most welcome here.”

What?

“All who survived that perilous journey – You’re most welcome here.”

[womeninscienceday]

Fulfilling science’s promise for gender equality.

Science, technology, and innovation continue to radically and rapidly transform how people live, socialize, pay their bills, order food, study, and work. For women and girls across the world, these changes have brought new freedoms, new forms of access to information, and new opportunities for creativity, along with new risks to their safety, representation, and share of decent employment.

The promise of science is one of positive change for gender equality. Take the case of Natacha Sangwa, one of a number of young high school graduates in Rwanda who attended a UN Women-supported coding camp. Using robotics and next-generation technologies, she created a prototype to help her community respond to climate change. She told us: “One of the ideas I developed through this programme was to build a mechanized irrigation system to enhance productivity and yields in rural areas” and that she had resolved to do all she could to increase the representation of women and girls in technology.

Over the next 30 years, the majority of the world’s new workers may well be on the African continent, where 60 per cent of the population, like Natacha, is currently under 25. Skills in science, technology, engineering, and maths (STEM) will play an important role in the jobs of their future - and across the world. We need to invest in this opportunity - in young women in every country - ensuring that they have the right skills for these jobs and that they are not held back by negative stereotypes and discrimination. And we need to ensure that current and future workplaces are environments that attract, retain, and advance women scientists.

Both representation and retention of women are essential for the science and digital technology sectors to be more creative, innovative, and profitable, reflecting issues that matter to women. Currently, women remain significantly underrepresented, making up just 29.2 per cent of all STEM workers, compared to 49.3 per cent across non-STEM occupations. Hostile work environments remain pervasive and deter women’s career longevity. A 2022 study conducted in 117 countries found that one in two women scientists reported experiencing sexual harassment at work, with 65 per cent of respondents reporting that this negatively impacted their career.

Partnerships and engagement that change these workplace issues represent a huge opportunity to boost women’s participation in STEM, with the private sector currently estimated to represent approximately 70 per cent of global expenditure on science. The Women’s Empowerment Principles offer a framework for just such an engagement among private sector companies, in collaboration for progress with governments and academia. Currently, more than 9,200 CEOs across 160 countries have committed to implement policies and practices that attract, retain and promote women into leadership positions, including in science and broader STEM fields, fostering an inclusive corporate culture, eliminating stereotypes and discriminatory practices.

As we head towards the UN’s Summit of the Future in September this year, including a new Global Digital Compact, we must take every opportunity to act quickly and effectively to counteract bias and discrimination, and to equip and support the bright minds and imaginations of our young scientists, like Natacha and her peers.

[latestnews01]

Joel Embiid breaks Wilt Chamberlain's 76ers record with a 70-point game.

The Process Unleashed: Embiid Erupts with 70 Points, Shattering 76ers Record

The Philadelphia 76ers faithful erupted Monday night, not just from the thunderous dunks and silky post moves, but from witnessing history unfold before their eyes. Joel Embiid, the man affectionately nicknamed "The Process," unleashed an offensive torrent unlike any seen in recent memory, pouring in a career-high 70 points to not only lead the 76ers to a 133-123 victory over the San Antonio Spurs, but to etch his name forever in Philadelphia's basketball lore.

Embiid's performance was a masterclass in offensive dominance. He was unstoppable down low, bullying defenders with his signature blend of power and finesse. He drained fadeaway jumpers with effortless grace, and even surprised with a newfound confidence from beyond the arc, knocking down four three-pointers on the night. The energy in the Wells Fargo Center was electric, with every basket met with an eruption of cheers and chants of "MVP! MVP!"

This wasn't just any 70-point game; it was a historic feat. Embiid surpassed Wilt Chamberlain's 68-point franchise record, a mark that had stood for nearly 55 years. The "Big Dipper," a legend not only in Philadelphia but throughout the NBA, had cast a long shadow over 76ers basketball history. But on Monday night, Embiid stepped out of that shadow and into the spotlight, claiming his own place in the team's pantheon of greats.

Embiid's scoring spree wasn't a lone wolf effort. He received stellar support from his teammates, with James Harden contributing 25 points and Tobias Harris adding 17. But this night belonged to Embiid. He was the conductor of the Philadelphia symphony, orchestrating the offense with a blend of power and precision that left the Spurs defense bewildered and the fans ecstatic.

The significance of Embiid's achievement transcends mere statistics. It represents the culmination of years of hard work and dedication. Drafted as a raw, injury-prone prospect, Embiid has transformed himself into one of the most dominant forces in the NBA. He's the face of the franchise, the cornerstone of their hopes for a championship. And on Monday night, he proved that he's not just talented, he's historic.

Embiid's 70-point performance will be remembered for years to come. It was a night of raw athleticism, unbridled joy, and a city united in its celebration of a basketball icon. It was the night Joel Embiid became more than just a player; he became a legend.

Here are some additional points you may want to consider including in your content:

The reactions of Embiid and his teammates to the record-breaking performance.

The historical context of Wilt Chamberlain's record and what it means to have surpassed it.

The impact of Embiid's performance on the 76ers' playoff chances.

The overall significance of this game for the city of Philadelphia and its basketball fans.

For More Information Visit us:-

[deaths-accountant]

It's sickening how, in the course of (what? two years?), the Rwanda scheme has gone from being beyond the pale to the only debate in mainstream media being about how to do it effectively.

The scheme is to send asylum seekers arriving in the UK to Rwanda, in order to make conditions worse for them in order to disincentivize people from seeking asylum in the UK. This isn't just while their claims are processed; those who successfully claim asylum will be expected to remain permanently in Rwanda. The government has mandated that the Supreme Court is not allowed to consider the safety of Rwanda as a country in order for it not to be struck down. The UNHCR has said it is against international law.

It seems to show that just doing crazy shit and acting like it's normal is the most effective way of shifting the Overton window.

[tomsquitieri]

We Do It For You; Now You Can Look And Act

WASHINGTON -- The first massacre victim I met was really two, an elderly couple still holding hands three days after an ambush along a dusty Bosnian road left them and a dozen others dead.

The only way to find out who they, and the others who were slain — to give them their voice, to tell their story — were was by getting close, looking at any documents they may have had, trying to piece together the bloodied event that left innocents baking and rotting in the hot August sun, or those who never made it out of the bus they thought would bring them to safety.

Moving their hands from pockets, rolling them over, whispering questions in their ears hoping for answers to help me tell their stories and, ideally, make them the last to suffer like this.

In the dust was Veselinka Masic, her birth certificate in her left front pocket; Mlade Todorovic, atop a school diploma and working papers; Veselinka Todorovic slain nearby, her bankbook showing 77,000 dinars - then around $385; Ninela-Nia Galvanic, 16; Dragica Pljevaljcic, 84; Joka Ikohic, 65; Dalibaor Matovic, 11; Dragon Spasogevic, 24.

And a baby, tiny, helpless, whose name I was never able to get.

It was called a small war, Bosnia. The elderly couple and those murdered with them would be faces of hundreds I would see, smell, touch, ponder, come far too close and internalize far too much.

Here is some of what I learned, no matter if it was in Bosnia, Haiti, Burundi, Rwanda, Iraq, Corsica, Afghanistan, and dozens of other places where innocents were murdered, bullied, raped, and tortured:

First, those who commit the crimes always say they did not do it. Second, the war crimes we journalists learn about - or discover on our own — are just a smattering of the horrors that have occurred.

The war in Ukraine has from the start been like those I had covered, one reason I considered steps to get to Ukraine, to get to besieged cities, to follow the flow of weapons from the United States to the hands of Ukrainian troops to their use. I knew, like others who crouched and ran with me in past wars, what was going to happen in Ukraine — and it did — and what is still to happen as that war worsens.

Destroyed buildings, attacks on schools and hospitals and shelters, hundreds fleeing, lawless troops. We knew that once the Russians arrived and then would retreat, greater horrors would be unleashed.

One of the biggest single horrors of the Bosnia war was the July 1995 Srebrenica massacre, where more than 7,000 Bosnian Muslim boys and men were slain and dumped in several mass graves as the area was “ethnically cleansed” of all Muslims. A war term to soften the horror, “ethnically cleansed.”

We found some of those mass graves and relayed the information to authorities. We trekked across mine-strewn roads and wound up arrested, but we did not stop.

Be a “voice for the voiceless,” my first editor told me again and again. So I, and others, did.

Those victims of those wars needed us to give them a voice. Just as those who are deep in Ukraine reporting are doing for these latest victims.

The world always wants to look away. It does not want to hear about the grandmother who dropped to her knees to kiss my muddy boots as she begged me to take her grandchildren to safety. It does not want to hear about the trembling voices from the pre-teen girls who were raped. It does not want to hear the boasts of the bullyboys who chortled — when I asked how they knew who the “others” are — said “they smell differently” and it made it easy to pick them out to murder. It does not see the bodies bobbing in an eddy of a river, after floating downstream from a Rwanda massacre site or the Burundi bodies chopped by “pangas” — machetes — to finish them off after first being gunned down.

And it never even seems to know of the bandaged bodies of the wounded, the bloated stomachs of the starving infants, and the soft whimpers of those slowly dying.

The world does not want to be the ones going through the pockets of rotting corpses to find out who these people were, the precious lives they led, before they were ruthlessly ambushed, now strewn for animals and nature to dismember their remains on that dusty road.

We do it for you. As uncomfortable as it is, at least you can do is look and act.

[thxnews]

UK Unveils Tough Migration Legislation Today

  The Prime Minister Rishi Sunak made a speech on illegal migration on 7 December 2023. Today the government has introduced the toughest anti-illegal immigration law ever. I know it will upset some people and you will hear a lot of criticism about it. It’s right to explain why I have decided to do this. I’m the child of immigrants… I understand why some people take the risk of getting into unsafe dinghies to cross open waters… …it’s because the United Kingdom is an incredible country… it offers opportunity, hope and safety. But the difference is… my family came here… legally. Like most immigrants, they integrated into local communities… …worked hard to provide for their family …built lives and businesses, found friends and neighbours… … and most of all… they were really proud to become British. That feeling of pride… it cascades down the generations and grows… and that’s why you see so many children of immigrants sitting around the Cabinet table. But it’s not a given… illegal immigration undermines not just our border controls… it undermines the very fairness that is so central to our national character. We play by the rules. We put in our fair share. We wait our turn. Now if some people can just cut all that out… you’ve not just lost control of your borders… you’ve fatally undermined the very fairness upon which trust in our system is based. That’s why this legislation is necessary. To deliver an effective deterrent to those who wish to come here illegally… …to restore people’s trust that the system is fair… … and ultimately: to stop the boats. And so, our Bill today fundamentally addresses the Supreme Court’s concerns over the safety of Rwanda. I did not agree with their judgement, but I respect it. That is why I have spent the last three weeks working tirelessly to respond to their concerns… …and to guarantee Rwanda’s safety in a new legally binding international treaty. The Supreme Court were clear that they were making a judgement about Rwanda at a specific moment 18 months ago…and that the problems could be remedied. Today we are confirming that they have been… …and that unequivocally, Rwanda is a safe country. And today’s Bill also ends the merry-go-round of legal challenges that have blocked our policy for too long. We simply cannot have a situation where our ability to control our borders… …and stop people taking perilous journeys across the channel… …is held up in endless litigation in our courts. So this Bill gives Parliament the chance to put Rwanda’s safety beyond question in the eyes of this country’s law. Parliament is sovereign. It should be able to make decisions that cannot be undone in the courts. And it was never the intention of international human rights laws… …to stop a sovereign Parliament removing illegal migrants to a country that is considered safe in both parliamentary statute and international law. So the Bill does include what are known as “notwithstanding” clauses. These mean that our domestic courts will no longer be able to use any domestic or international law… …including the Human Rights Act… …to stop us removing illegal migrants. Let me just go through the ways individual illegal migrants try and stay. Claiming asylum – that’s now blocked. Abuse of our Modern Slavery rules – blocked. The idea that Rwanda isn’t safe – blocked. The risk of being sent on to some other country - blocked. And spurious Human Rights claims – you’d better believe we’ve blocked those too… …because we’re completely disapplying all the relevant sections of the Human Rights Act. And not only have we blocked all these ways illegal migrants will try and stay… …we’ve also blocked their ability to try and stay by bringing a Judicial Review on any of those grounds. That means that this Bill blocks every single reason that has ever been used to prevent flights to Rwanda from taking off. The only, extremely narrow exception will be if you can prove with credible and compelling evidence… ….that you specifically have a real and imminent risk of serious and irreversible harm. We have to recognise that as a matter of law - and if we didn’t, we’d undermine the treaty we’ve just signed with Rwanda. As the Rwandans themselves have made clear… …if we go any further the entire scheme will collapse. And there’s no point having a Bill with nowhere to send people to. But I am telling you now, we have set the bar so high… …that it will be vanishingly rare for anyone to meet it. And once you have been removed, you’ll be banned for life from travelling to the UK, settling here, or becoming a citizen. But, of course, even with this new law here at home… …we could still face challenges from the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. So let me repeat what I said two weeks ago – I will not allow a foreign court to block these flights. If the Strasbourg Court chooses to intervene against the express wishes of our sovereign Parliament… …I will do what is necessary to get flights off. And today’s new law already makes clear that the decision on whether to comply with interim measures issued by the European Court… …is a decision for British government Ministers – and British government Ministers alone. Because it is your government – not criminal gangs, or indeed foreign courts –who decides who comes here and who stays in our country. Now of course, our Rwanda policy is just one part of our wider strategy to stop the boats. And that strategy is working. I’ve been Prime Minister for just over a year now and for the first time, small boat arrivals here are down by a third…. …even as illegal crossings of the Mediterranean have soared by 80 per cent. Let me just repeat that: small boat arrivals here are down by a third. To help achieve that, we’ve signed returns and co-operation agreements with France, Bulgaria, Turkey, Italy, and Georgia. Illegal working raids are up by nearly 70 per cent. 50 hotels are being returned to their local communities and we are housing people in a new barge and in former military sites. The initial asylum backlog is down from 92,000 to less than 20,000. We’ve returned over 22,000 illegal migrants. And as our deal with Albania shows – deterrence works. Last year, a third of all those arriving in small boats were Albanian. This year we have returned 5,000 people and cut those arrivals by 90 per cent. And Albanian arrivals have far more recourse to the courts than anyone under this new legislation. That’s why I’m so confident that this Bill will work. Lord Sumption, the former Supreme Court Judge, believes this Bill will work. We will get flights off the ground. We will deter illegal migrants from coming here. And we will, finally, stop the boats.   Sources: THX News, Prime Minister's Office, 10 Downing Street & The Rt Hon Rishi Sunak MP. Read the full article

[mariacallous]

John, a Burundian living in Tanzania’s Nyarugusu refugee camp, is the embodiment of the instability that more than 100,000 other Burundian refugees are facing as the Tanzanian government renews threats to forcibly repatriate Burundian refugees if they do not return “voluntarily.”

John, who we’ve given a pseudonym for his safety, says, “I have seen a lot of things. I have fled the genocide in 1972 and the war in 1993.”

In addition to fleeing Burundi multiple times, John, like many other Burundians, has also been displaced from Tanzania, the state that provided him refuge. During his second displacement from Burundi in 2012, the Tanzanian government forced John and thousands of other Burundians refugees to repatriate. He recalls, “Early in the morning, we found [Tanzanian] soldiers surrounding the camp. They even used firearms. Some [refugees] were killed; some were strongly beaten.”

Today, after having been displaced from Burundi to Tanzania for a third time in 2015, John and his compatriots are facing another violent expulsion: “Right now in Tanzania, I am not stable. I think they will force us to leave again.” This instability is a result of the Tanzanian government’s repeated assaults on refugees’ human rights, obstructions to socioeconomic integration, and recurrent threats to force them back to Burundi.

When refugees were forcibly repatriated to Burundi in 2012, many were not welcomed back into their communities. Some found their homes and land occupied after having been gone for decades, a significant obstacle in a tiny country where the majority relies on small-scale agriculture to survive. Other returnees ended up in so-called peace villages, where living conditions were dire. Competition for land often turned violent. When another crisis came around in 2015, many of these returnees were among the first to flee to Tanzania again.

Insecurity for returnees has become twofold: The very act of fleeing marks them as potential opposition sympathizers to a repressive Burundian regime, and land availability remains at risk of causing further strain with a mass influx of returnees. Moreover, the Burundian economy has taken a drastic turn since 2015, with food prices skyrocketing due to global inflation and food shortages, which will also be exacerbated upon the arrival of thousands from Tanzania.

Sharing a border in the Great Lakes region of eastern Africa, Burundians have often crossed into neighboring Tanzania to seek refuge—which Tanzania has provided, sometimes willingly and other times reluctantly. The genocide that John refers to is the 1972 “selective genocide” of Burundi’s ethnic majority of Hutu elites, teachers, businesspeople, which was perpetrated by the country’s Tutsi-controlled military. This conflict launched cyclical wars, crises, and displacements, including a civil war in 1993.

During each crisis, hundreds of thousands of Burundians fled to neighboring countries, including Tanzania, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (then known as Zaire). Though Burundi’s war officially ended in 2005, instability and poverty remained, and what’s more, these multiple displacements led to myriad land disputes in the small agrarian country. Consequently, many refugees were reluctant to leave Tanzania. John experienced this firsthand after his forced return from Tanzania in 2012: “My neighbors wanted to kill me when I tried to reclaim my land.”

More recently, amid a violent political crisis in Burundi in 2015, more than 250,000 Burundians fled to Tanzania. Brutal repression by the security forces and allied youth militias of all opposition voices means that many of those Burundian refugees do not feel safe returning.

Upping the ante on years of threats, the director of the Refugee Services Department, Tanzania’s highest refugee official, warned Burundian refugees in July that if they did not return on their own, they would be forced back—a clear violation of international human rights standards and the principle of nonrefoulement, which prohibits states from sending refugees to places where their lives or liberty may be in jeopardy.

The cards remain stacked against Burundian refugees, who are caught between a rock and a hard place as both the Tanzanian and Burundian governments angle to coerce repatriation. Indeed, beyond Tanzania’s desire to kick refugees out, Burundian President Évariste Ndayishimiye has been advocating for the return of the refugees as a part of a broader campaign to oppose international intervention and prove that since the 2015 crisis, Burundi’s human rights record has improved.

However, rights organizations report that the government’s violent crackdown never stopped; it has just hidden it better, and the international community has chosen to ignore it.

While Tanzania had an open-door policy welcoming refugees for decades during parts of the 20th century, the 1990s were a turbulent time across the continent due to large-scale wars and displacements; structural adjustment policies that eroded state resources and capacities; and the advent of new democracies, which introduced electoral politics that often featured xenophobia toward perceived outsiders.

All of this resulted in the Tanzanian government ceding refugee governance to international organizations such as United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and enacting restrictive and militarized encampment policies, prohibiting refugees’ freedom of movement and rights to work outside designated camps.

Forced repatriation has been central to this encampment era. In 1996, the military expelled more than 400,000 Rwandan refugees. The ruling party even pledged in its 2005 election manifesto to make Tanzania refugee-free by 2010. And in 2009, the government announced its intention to close the camps and repeatedly urged Burundians to voluntarily return.

In the years that followed, the government restricted refugees’ access to local markets and international aid, and even threateningly stationed army tanks around the exterior of the camps. In 2012, Tanzania violently forced John back to Burundi—along with nearly 40,000 refugees living in Mtabila, the last remaining Burundian refugee camp. Multiple witnesses reported government officials burning down homes, beating people to get them on buses, sexually abusing refugees, and even forcing cesarean sections in the camp hospital to speed up the repatriation process.

The international humanitarian community on the ground was complicit in forced returns. Outside Tanzania, few human rights observers even paid attention. Using the Orwellian label of “orderly repatriation,” a group of international humanitarian agencies and nongovernmental organizations, led by the UNHCR and the International Organization for Migration, assisted in the logistics of returning the tens of thousands of Burundians.

In the lead-up to the 2012 expulsion, the UNHCR worked with the Tanzanian Ministry of Home Affairs to interview refugees living in Mtabila to see if they qualified for individual protection to remain in Tanzania. Only around 7 percent (based on data from multiple sources) of those interviewed were granted continued refugee status, and the rest were deemed no longer in need of protection and therefore subject to so-called legal expulsion.

Given the harsh tactics that the Tanzanian government was already using to try to force refugees to return, supposedly of their own accord, the international community decided to support the logistics of transporting the embattled Burundian refugees across the border. The nongovernmental organization staff members who we interviewed recalled justifying their involvement at the time, believing that if they had not been part of the process, the human rights violations within the camps would have been far worse.

Indeed, recent events feel like déjà vu, evoking the traumatic memories of Mtabila. Although Tanzania has enacted more progressive refugee policies over the years—including the decision in 2014 to grant Tanzanian citizenship to more than 160,000 Burundians residing in Tanzania since the 1970s—the defining strategy for the government has remained the same: contain refugees in camps, then force them to return by making the camps a hostile and violent environment.

Since their arrival in 2015, Tanzania’s refugee policy has consistently constricted Burundians, even in comparison to Congolese refugees with whom they share a camp in Nyarugusu. In 2017, despite continued flight from Burundi, the government revoked prima facie, or blanket asylum for Burundians, thus obstructing newly arriving refugees. In 2018, Tanzania withdrew from the United Nations’ Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework (CRRF)—a plan to loosen encampment restrictions that otherwise stop refugees from leaving the camps—abruptly ended the naturalization program for the 1972-era refugees, and publicly called on all Burundian refugees to return to Burundi.

Despite the UNHCR’s warnings that the situation was not safe for Burundian refugees to return, in 2019, a leaked bilateral agreement between Burundi and Tanzania showed that the countries had agreed to organize the repatriation and that “returns would continue with or without refugees’ consent.” Tanzanian Home Affairs Minister Kangi Lugola went as far to say that any organization opposing these plans would “face the wrath” of the president.

Similarly, a leaked memo from the Tanzanian Ministry of Home Affairs to U.N. organizations and international NGOs in 2023, seen by Foreign Policy, stated that in response to any organization found to be encouraging refugee integration and not actively promoting voluntary repatriation, “the Government will not hesitate to take actions,” which likely means a shutdown of an organization’s operations, as the Tanzanian government has done in the past.

The government has used other avenues to disincentivize refugees from staying. In 2017, the government suddenly shut down an effective World Food Program cash transfer aid program that was highly popular with the recipients. In 2019, the government  closed down the vital markets shared by refugees and nearby communities, preventing refugees from engaging in trade to supplement meager food rations.

Then came the predation—insecurity in camp became an increasing concern as refugees were subject to increased police harassment, both within and outside the camps, and deteriorating living conditions. In 2020, rights organizations reported that there was a spate of disappearances linked to Burundian and Tanzanian officials. In addition to the difficult economic situation, these kidnappings caused an acute state of fear and terror for camp residents.

Victims and human rights organizations claim that refugees have faced torture in police stations, ransoms and extortion calling for payments from friends and family, and forced deportations to Burundian security agents. Today, due to lack of international funding, food rations have been cut to meet only 50 percent of refugees’ food needs, causing extreme destitution across the camps.

While tens of thousands of Burundians have repatriated—allegedly voluntarily—human rights organizations report that refugees’ reasons for signing up to return included the fear of forced repatriation, increasing insecurity in camps, poor living conditions, and the market closures.

Many refugees that Foreign Policy spoke to admitted that they would “rather die” than return to Burundi, and that those who have returned have deeply regretted their decision due the lack of economic and social reintegration, but they are now trapped unable to return to Tanzania. As such, forced return is unlikely to be a durable solution.

The Tanzanian government should reverse its repatriation pressures on refugees, both in its rhetoric and in its actions. This will not only show respect for international law, but also prevent the addition of more instability to a still-rebuilding Burundi.

The international community should not repeat its past complicity in assisting less-than-voluntary repatriation operations and should instead condemn governmental pressures to return, even if it risks operations on the ground. Likewise, international donors need to do more to financially support the Tanzanian government in hosting refugees, which has  caused tension and been central to the government’s public rationale for harsh encampment for decades.

The recent echoes of Mtabila are a warning: The threat of forced repatriation is real, and the last time that it happened, it received little attention or condemnation from the international community. This must not happen again. Refugees’ acute concerns about their imminent danger must be taken seriously to prevent more violence.