Australia

Today I announce further Australian funding to the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) for vital vaccine development to fight infectious disease epidemics.

CEPI — a global alliance between governments, industry, academia, philanthropy and civil society — develops vaccines against known epidemic threats and new technologies that can be used to combat unknown pathogens that may pose a future threat.

The context

The number of countries experiencing armed conflict today is greater than at any time in the past 30 years. This comes at devastating human cost. In this decade alone, more than half a million civilians have been killed in Syria, the protracted conflict in Yemen has left more than 20 million people in need of humanitarian assistance, and violence in Myanmar in 2017 drove more than 600,000 people into Bangladesh in just three months. The UN Secretary General has said that atrocity crimes are being committed ‘at a scale and ferocity not seen in years’.

ALERTE | Les autorités sanitaires du Pacifique sont informées de l’augmentation du nombre de cas enregistrés d’infections invasives à méningocoque (IIM, imputables à la bactérie Neisseria meningitidis de sérogroupe W) dans la région de Northland (Nouvelle-Zélande), comme cela est précisé dans les messages PacNet publiés les 19 et 26 novembre 20181. Il est recommandé de renforcer la surveillance et d’intervenir face aux cas suspects.

Cathy Vaughan, Yara Jarallah, Adele Murdolo, Linda Murray, Regina Quiazon, Karen Block and Lana Zannettino

BMC International Health and Human Rights 2019 19:1

https://doi.org/10.1186/s12914-018-0184-0 | © The Author(s). 2019

Abstract

Background

Phil Mercer

SYDNEY — Two of Australia’s nine high-security immigration detention centers are being closed in what the government says is a vindication of its tough border protection policies.

Ministers say the facilities are no longer needed because they have stopped asylum-seekers, who often risk their lives on unseaworthy vessels, from trying to reach Australia by sea.

But the network of detention centers also has a troubled history, including escapes and hunger strikes.

September riots

Key Messages

By Tasha Wibawa

Key points:

• The US has agreed to resettle up to 1,200 refugees from Manus Island and Nauru

• Resettled refugees receive three months of government support

• Many still have friends and family left behind in camps

While a passport seems like a commodity most of us take for granted, Faisal Parvez never had one — or a citizenship.

He was born stateless as a persecuted Rohingya Muslim minority in Myanmar.

New report: World counts the cost of a year of climate breakdown

• Extreme weather driven by climate change killed thousands around the world in 2018
  
• Christian Aid report identifies 10 events that cost more than $1 billion each, with four events costing more than $7 billion each
  

Extreme weather, driven by climate change, hit every populated continent in 2018, killing, injuring and displacing millions and causing major economic damage costing billions of dollars, according to a report by Christian Aid.

Thousands of refugees who have been detained on Manus Island have been directed to claim compensation through Papua New Guinea's National Court.

Read more on Radio New Zealand International.

At 30 November 2018, there were 1327 people in immigration detention facilities, including 1327 in immigration detention on the mainland and in immigration detention on Christmas Island.

A further 599 people were living in the community after being approved for a residence determination and 16,007 were living in the community after grant of a Bridging Visa E.

By Michelle Mittelstadt

Hardline policies in the United States and Australia toward migrants and asylum seekers in 2018 hit turbulence when their effects on the most vulnerable—young children—provoked widespread public revulsion and prompted a retreat, at least temporarily. In Europe, conditions for children in the Moria refugee camp in Greece and the return by European governments of failed asylum seekers, including children, to an increasingly unstable Afghanistan also drew condemnation, though did not provoke policy reversal.

At 31 October 2018, there were 1366 people in immigration detention facilities, including 1366 in immigration detention on the mainland and no people in immigration detention on Christmas Island.

A further 485 people were living in the community after being approved for a residence determination and 16,216 were living in the community after grant of a Bridging Visa E.

At 30 September 2018, there were 1305 people in immigration detention facilities, including 1270 in immigration detention on the mainland and 35 in immigration detention on Christmas Island.

A further 444 people were living in the community after being approved for a residence determination and 16,481 were living in the community after grant of a Bridging Visa E.

Éléments nouveaux/faits marquants intervenus depuis la diffusion de la carte précédente sur PacNet, le 10 décembre 2018

Une épidémie de dengue a récemment été déclarée par la République de Palau après la confirmation en laboratoire de deux cas de dengue de sérotype 3 (DENV-3) chez des personnes n’ayant pas voyagé récemment à l’étranger. Il s’agit de la première fois que le virus DENV-3 est identifié à Palau.– Source: communication personnelle avec des représentants des autorités sanitaires le 11 décembre 2018.

Human rights lawyers launched this week two class actions against the Australian government, on the grounds of the intentional infliction of harm upon refugees and asylum seekers in offshore processing centres, amounting to crimes against humanity and subjection to torture.

Éléments nouveaux/faits marquants intervenus depuis la diffusion de la carte précédente sur PacNet, le 3 décembre 2018

Defending human rights on the frontlines in Southeast Asia and the Pacific

Resettlement Achievements
- Increased number of resettlement countries committed to receiving refugees from Uganda.
- Increased accessibility of resettlement due to expanded approach since 2012.
- Submission of 25,402 refugees from DRC since 2012.
- Reinforced infrastructure for large-scale resettlement processing.
- Achievement of annual submission targets since 2012.
- Increased resettlement of vulnerable refugees.
- High acceptance rate.
- Since 2012, 21,271 refugees have departed for resettlement from Uganda.