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Americans can sponsor refugees directly under new program

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(Last Updated On: January 20, 2023)

Groups of Americans will be able to directly sponsor refugees for resettlement in the United States under a new program announced on Thursday, a major shift that could bolster admissions and reduce government costs, Reuters reported.

Under the US State Department program, which will be called the Welcome Corps, groups of at least five people will be expected to raise a minimum of $2,275 per sponsored refugee to support them with housing and other basic needs for the first three months they are in the country.

The sponsor groups, open to US citizens or permanent residents, will also be required to pass background checks and create a support plan, according to a related website, read the report.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken called the sponsorship program “the boldest innovation in refugee resettlement” since the start of the US program in 1980, saying religious groups, veterans, businesses and universities, among others, could participate.

The program will aim to find 10,000 U.S. sponsors for 5,000 refugees in fiscal year 2023, which ends on Sept. 30, as each group could support multiple arrivals, the State Department said. Reuters first reported the launch of the program on Wednesday.

The individual sponsorship program for refugees – similar to a model used in Canada – is part of a broader effort by US President Joe Biden, a Democrat, to provide opportunities for Americans to support foreigners seeking protection.

The administration sees the new model as a way to generate more support for refugees, after Republican former President Donald Trump portrayed them as a security threat and slashed admissions, which have yet to fully rebound, Reuters reported.

Biden has faced pressure from Republicans over his approach to border security, with a record number of migrants attempting to cross illegally from Mexico. But the Welcome Corps is unlikely to have any near-term effect on the border, as refugees enter through a long application process from abroad, often from conflict zones.

To address the rising numbers of arriving migrants, Biden has turned to other forms of sponsorship. Earlier this month, the administration rolled out a humanitarian entry program that allows up to 30,000 migrants per month from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela to enter via “parole” if they have US sponsors and travel by air.

The administration also used parole to admit Afghans and Ukrainians fleeing those nations and piloted sponsor programs to support them.

The Welcome Corps program will bring in refugees through the US Refugee Resettlement Program, which takes referrals from the United Nations and US embassies.

Biden set a cap of 125,000 refugee admissions this fiscal year, which began on Oct. 1, 2022, but only 6,750 arrived from October-December, according to program data, a pace that would have them falling far below the annual goal.

While the government has struggled to boost arrivals to pre-Trump levels, Julieta Valls Noyes, a top State Department official, said some 20,000 refugee interviews have been conducted abroad in the past three months and that she expects they could arrive later this year.

According to Reuters refugees currently entering the United States are assisted by nine US resettlement agencies that rely on government funding. Some of the agencies are working as part of a consortium of groups that will support the Welcome Corps.

During the first six months of the new initiative, the State Department will connect sponsors with refugees whose cases are already approved, the department said. At some point in mid-2023, U.S. sponsors will be able to refer refugee cases to the department for possible resettlement.

Robert Law, a former Trump immigration official now with the Trump-aligned America First Policy Institute, said Congress should ensure refugees are adequately vetted and that sponsors are actually covering costs. Sponsors can raise above and beyond the minimum amount if they are able.

“Privatization of refugee resettlement in theory takes U.S. taxpayers off the hook,” he said. “But proper guardrails are needed to ensure sponsors are thoroughly vetted and have sufficient means to financially support the refugee.”

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World Court orders Israel to halt Gaza famine; Hamas says ceasefire needed

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(Last Updated On: March 29, 2024)

The World Court on Thursday unanimously ordered Israel, accused by South Africa of genocide in Gaza, to take all necessary and effective action to ensure basic food supplies to the enclave’s Palestinian population and halt spreading famine, Reuters reported.

But Gaza’s Hamas rulers said a ceasefire was needed to halt the humanitarian crisis.

The order from the International Court of Justice came as Israeli forces and Palestinian fighters battled in close combat around Gaza’s Al Shifa Hospital, where the armed wings of Hamas and Islamic Jihad said they attacked Israeli soldiers and tanks with rockets and mortar fire.

Judges at the court said the people in the coastal enclave face worsening conditions.

“The court observes that Palestinians in Gaza are no longer facing only a risk of famine (…) but that famine is setting in,” the judges said in their order.

The new measures were requested by South Africa as part of its case that accuses Israel of state-led genocide in Gaza, read the report.

Senior Hamas official Basem Naim said the ruling did not go far enough and Israel must be ordered to end its military offensive to halt the suffering.

“We welcome any new demands to end this humanitarian tragedy in Gaza and especially in the northern Gaza Strip, but we hoped the court ordered a ceasefire as an absolute solution to all the miseries our people in Gaza are living through,” Naim told Reuters.

The U.N. Security Council voted on Tuesday to demand an immediate ceasefire and the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages. The United States abstained from, but did not veto, the vote.

There was no immediate comment from Israel’s Foreign Ministry on the World Court ruling. Israel has said it is making efforts to expand access for humanitarian groups to Gaza overland, through air drops and by ship.

Israeli leaders have said Hamas can end the war by surrendering, freeing all hostages it holds in Gaza and handing over for trial those involved in the Oct. 7 attack, Reuters reported.

The Israeli army said it continued to operate around the Al Shifa Hospital complex in Gaza City after storming it more than a week ago. Its forces had killed around 200 gunmen since the start of the operation “while preventing harm to civilians, patients, medical teams, and medical equipment”, it said.

In a televised statement, chief Israeli military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said troops operating at the hospital killed Raed Thabet, a Hamas quartermaster whom he described as one of the group’s 10 most senior members.

Gaza’s health ministry said wounded people and patients were being held inside an administration building in Al Shifa that was not equipped to provide them with healthcare. Five patients had died since the Israeli raid began due to shortages of food, water and medical care, the Hamas-run ministry said.

Ismail Al-Thawabta, the director of the Gaza Hamas-run government media office, said the Israeli army was carrying out “field killings and executions against hundreds of civilians”, when asked about the army statement.

“Everyone inside the Shifa complex are civilians, and there are no military personnel inside the compound,” he told Reuters.

Al Shifa, the Gaza Strip’s biggest hospital before the war, had been one of the few healthcare facilities even partially operational in north Gaza before the latest fighting. It had also been housing displaced civilians.

Unverified footage on social media showed its surgery unit blackened by flames and nearby apartments on fire or destroyed.

The armed wings of the Hamas and Islamic Jihad militant groups said in a statement they “bombed, with a barrage of mortar shells, gatherings of Israeli soldiers in the vicinity of the Al-Shifa Complex” in a joint operation.

Israel says it is targeting Hamas militants who use civilian buildings, including apartment blocks and hospitals, for cover. Hamas denies doing so.

At least 32,552 Palestinians have been killed and 74,980 wounded in Israel’s military offensive in the Gaza Strip since Oct. 7, the territory’s health ministry said on Thursday, Reuters reported.

Thousands more dead are believed to be buried under rubble and more than 80% of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is displaced, many at risk of famine.

The war erupted after Hamas militants broke through the border and rampaged through communities in southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and abducting 253 hostages according to Israeli tallies.

In Rafah, where more than a million people have been sheltering, health officials said an Israeli airstrike on a house killed at least 12 people.

Israel says it plans a ground offensive into Rafah, in the far south of the enclave, where it believes most Hamas fighters are now sheltering. Its closest ally and main arms supplier the United States opposes such an assault, arguing it would cause too much harm to civilians who have sought refuge there.

Israeli forces also continued to blockade Al-Amal and Nasser hospitals in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, while several other areas came under Israeli fire, residents said.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said seven people working for the organisation arrested in a raid on Al-Amal hospital on Feb. 9 had been released after 47 days in Israeli prisons.

Among them was the director of ambulance and emergency services in the Gaza Strip, Mohammed Abu Musabeh. Eight members of the association were still being detained, it said in a statement.

Israel said soldiers from its Commando Brigade had arrested dozens of Palestinian militants in the Al-Amal area and discovered explosives and dozens of Kalashnikov-type weapons.

The World Health Organization said Al-Amal Hospital had ceased to function due to fighting, leaving just 10 of 36 hospitals in the Gaza Strip partially operational, read the report.

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Russia says evidence links attackers to ‘Ukrainian nationalists’

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(Last Updated On: March 28, 2024)

Russian investigators said on Thursday they had uncovered evidence that the gunmen who killed more than 140 people in an attack on a concert hall near Moscow last week were linked to “Ukrainian nationalists”.

Russia has said from the outset that it is pursuing a Ukrainian link to the attack, even though Kyiv has denied it and the militant group Islamic State (Daesh) has claimed responsibility.

In a statement, the state Investigative Committee said for the first time that it had uncovered evidence of a Ukrainian link, Reuters reported.

“As a result of working with detained terrorists, studying the technical devices seized from them, and analyzing information about financial transactions, evidence was obtained of their connection with Ukrainian nationalists,” the statement said.

However, the White House has described Russia’s allegation that Ukraine was involved in the attack as “nonsense”.

National security spokesman John Kirby said it was clear that ISIS was “solely responsible.”

He added the US passed a written warning of an extremist attack to Russian security services, one of many provided in advance to Moscow.

Russia says however it is suspicious that Washington was able to name the alleged perpetrator of the attack so soon after it took place.

The head of Russia’s FSB security service said earlier this week, again without providing evidence, that he believed Ukraine, along with the U.S. and Britain, were involved.

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Spain air drops 26 tonnes of humanitarian aid to Gaza

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(Last Updated On: March 28, 2024)

Spanish military planes air dropped 26 tonnes of humanitarian aid to Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip on Wednesday and Madrid called on Israel to open land border crossings to prevent a famine, the Foreign Ministry said.

The operation, carried out in coordination with Jordan and co-financed by the European Union, dropped more than 11,000 food rations to alleviate the “catastrophic levels of food insecurity” faced by up to 1.1 million people in Gaza, the ministry said in a statement.

“Spain insists on the opening of the land crossings as an indispensable measure to avoid a famine situation,” it added.

Other Western countries, including the United States, France and Germany, have also resorted to air drops to deliver aid to ease the humanitarian crisis in Gaza after nearly six months of war between Israeli forces and Hamas militants, Reuters reported.

Aid agencies say deliveries into Gaza, much of which has been laid to waste by Israeli bombardments, have been held up by bureaucratic obstacles and insecurity since the start of the war on Oct. 7, 2023.

Last week, a U.N.-backed report said a famine was imminent and likely to occur by May in northern Gaza and could spread across the enclave by July.

The Spanish foreign ministry also reaffirmed its commitment to supporting UNRWA, the United Nations humanitarian agency for Palestinians, and to its continued existence.

In January, major donors to UNRWA, including the U.S. and Germany, suspended funding following allegations that around 12 of its tens of thousands of Palestinian employees were suspected of involvement in the attacks on Israel by Hamas which triggered the war.

Israel says it puts no limit on the amount of humanitarian aid entering Gaza and blames problems in it reaching civilians there on U.N. agencies, which it says are inefficient, read the report.

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