p dir=”ltr”>In a nationwide address, President Trump says the U.S. is poised for an economic boom and that high prices are falling rapidly. Four Republicans joined Democrats to force a vote on a three year extension of the enhanced healthcare subsidies. And, President Trump has ordered a ban on all sanctioned oil tankers going to and from Venezuela.
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p dir=”ltr”>Today’s episode of Up First was edited by Rebekah Metzler, Kelsey Snell, Andrew Sussman, Lisa Thomson and Alice Woelfle.
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p dir=”ltr”>It was produced by Ziad Buchh, Nia Dumas and Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from Stacey Abbott. Our technical director is Carleigh Strange.And our deputy Executive Producer is Kelley Dickens.
Claudia Ignacio Álvarez in San Lorenzo de Azqueltan, Jalisco, Mexico. Credit : Eber Huitzil
MICHOACÁN, Mexico , Dec 18 2025 (IPS) – My niece Roxana Valentín Cárdenas was 21 years old when she was killed. She was a Purépecha Indigenous woman from San Andrés Tziróndaro, a community on the shores of Lake Pátzcuaro in the Mexican state of Michoacán.
Roxana was killed during a peaceful march organised by another Indigenous community commemorating the recovery of their lands. Forty-six years earlier, three people had been murdered during that same land struggle. This time, the commemoration was once again met with gunfire.
Roxana was not armed and was not participating in the march. She encountered the demonstration and was struck by gunfire. Her death was deeply personal, but it took place within a broader context of long-standing violence linked to land and territory.
That violence has intensified in Michoacán recently, where the assassination of a mayor in November this year underscored how deeply insecurity has penetrated public life and how little protection exists for civilians, community leaders and local authorities alike.
Across Mexico, Indigenous people are being killed for defending land, water and forests. What governments and corporations often describe as “development” is experienced by our communities as dispossession enforced by violence – through land grabbing, water theft and the silencing of those who resist.
A way of life under threat I come from San Andrés Tziróndaro, a farming, fishing and musical community. For generations, we have cared for the lake and the surrounding forests as collective responsibilities essential to life. That way of life is now under threat.
In Michoacán, extractive pressure takes different forms. In some Indigenous territories, it is mining. In our region, it is agro-industrial production, particularly avocados and berries grown for export. Communal land intended for subsistence is leased for commercial agriculture. Water is extracted from Lake Pátzcuaro through irregularly installed pipes to irrigate agricultural fields, depriving local farmers of access.
Agrochemicals contaminate soil and water, forests are deliberately burned to enable land-use change, and ecosystems are transformed into monocultures that consume vast amounts of water. This is not development. It is extraction.
Violence as a method of enforcement When Indigenous communities resist these processes, violence follows.
Two cases illustrate this reality and remain unresolved.
José Gabriel Pelayo, a human rights defender and member of our organisation, has been forcibly disappeared for more than a year. Despite an urgent action issued by the United Nations Committee on Enforced Disappearances, progress has been blocked. Authorities have delayed access to the investigation file, and meaningful search efforts have yet to begin. His family continues to wait for answers.
Eustacio Alcalá Díaz, a defender from the Nahua community of San Juan Huitzontla, was murdered after opposing mining operations imposed on his territory without consultation. After his killing, the community was paralysed by fear, and it was no longer possible to continue human rights work safely.
Together, these cases show how violence and impunity are used to suppress community resistance.
Militarisation is not protection It is against this backdrop of escalating violence and impunity that the Mexican state has once again turned to militarisation. Thousands of soldiers are being deployed to Michoacán, and authorities point to arrests and security operations as indicators of stability.
In practice, militarisation often coincides with areas of high extractive interest. Security forces are deployed in regions targeted for mining, agro-industrial expansion or large infrastructure projects, creating conditions that allow these activities to proceed while community resistance is contained.
Indigenous people experience this not as protection, but as surveillance, intimidation and criminalisation. While companies may claim neutrality, they benefit from these security arrangements and rarely challenge the violence or displacement that accompanies them, raising serious questions about corporate complicity.
A global governance failure Indigenous territories are opened to extractive industries operating across borders, while accountability remains fragmented. Corporations divide their operations across jurisdictions, making responsibility for environmental harm and human rights abuses difficult to establish.
Voluntary corporate commitments have not prevented violence or environmental degradation. National regulations remain uneven and weakly enforced, particularly in regions affected by corruption and organised crime. This is not only a national failure. It is a failure of global governance.
International responsibility, now In this context, I have recently spent ten days in the United Kingdom with the support of Peace Brigades International (PBI), meeting with parliamentarians, officials from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, and civil society organisations.
These discussions are part of a broader international effort to ensure that governments whose companies, financial systems or diplomatic relationships are linked to extractive activities take responsibility for preventing harm and protecting those at risk.
While the UK is only one actor, its policies on corporate accountability and support for human rights defenders have consequences far beyond its borders.
Why binding international rules are necessary For years, Indigenous peoples and civil society organisations have called for a binding United Nations treaty on business and human rights. The urgency of this demand is reflected in the lives lost defending land and water and in the defenders who remain disappeared.
A binding treaty could require mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence across global supply chains, guarantee access to justice beyond national borders, and recognise the protection of human rights defenders as a legal obligation. It could make Free, Prior and Informed Consent enforceable rather than optional.
Such a treaty would not prevent development. It would ensure that development does not depend on violence, dispossession and impunity.
Defending life for everyone Indigenous peoples are not obstacles to progress. We are defending ecosystems that sustain life far beyond our territories. Indigenous women are often at the forefront of this defence, even as we face extraordinary risks.
When defenders disappear, when others are murdered, and when young women like my niece lose their lives, it is not only our communities that suffer. The world loses those protecting land, water and biodiversity during a deep ecological crisis.
Defending life and land should not come at the cost of human lives.
Claudia Ignacio Álvarez is an Indigenous Purépecha feminist, lesbian, and environmental human rights defender from San Andrés Tziróndaro, Michoacán. Through the Red Solidaria de Derechos Humanos, she supports Indigenous and rural communities defending their territories from extractive industries and organised crime. Her work has been supported by Peace Brigades International (PBI) since 2023.
The hunt is officially on … FBI agents are hot on the trail of the Brown University shooting suspect … digging into one key lead — the snow itself — as they race for answers. Check out these news clips … FBI Director Kash Patel’s team was…
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A new global synthesis report and refugee voices from East Africa and the Middle East warn that reductions in humanitarian footprints risks breaking the refugee protection system.
Sahrawi refugees walk near the Awserd Refugee Camp in the Tindouf Province of Algeria. Credit: UN Photo/Evan Schneider
SRINAGAR, India, Dec 16 2025 (IPS) – The global refugee system is entering a period of deep strain. The delivery of protection and assistance is undergoing a transformation due to funding cuts, institutional reforms, and shifting donor priorities.
Against this backdrop, a new Global Synthesis Report titled From the Ground Up highlights the many issues faced by refugees in the Middle East and Africa.
Regional Perspectives on Advancing the Global Compact on Refugees has highlighted a rare, refugee-centered assessment of what is working, what is failing, and what must change. The report draws on regional roundtables held in East Africa and the Middle East and North Africa, followed by a global consultation in Geneva, to feed into the 2025 Global Refugee Forum progress review
According to the report, refugee-led and community-based organizations are increasingly taking on responsibilities, but they are not receiving power, funding, or legal recognition. As international agencies scale back under what is being called the Humanitarian Reset and UN80 reforms, refugees are expected to fill widening gaps without the authority or resources required to do so safely and sustainably.
The East Africa roundtables, held in Kampala with participation from refugee organizations in Uganda, Kenya, and Ethiopia, highlight a region often praised for progressive refugee policies. Countries here host millions displaced by conflict, hunger, and climate stress from South Sudan, Sudan, Somalia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Laws and regional frameworks promise freedom of movement, inclusion in national systems, and meaningful participation. The lived reality, however, remains uneven.
Education emerged as a central concern. Refugee children are enrolling in schools at higher rates, especially where they have been integrated into government-aided systems. Yet access remains unequal. Refugee students struggle to have prior qualifications recognized.
Many are treated as international students at universities and charged higher fees. Refugee teachers, often qualified and experienced, receive lower pay than nationals or are excluded from formal recognition. Language barriers and lack of psychosocial support further undermine learning outcomes. Refugee-led groups are already stepping in with mentorship, counseling, and bursary support, but they do so with fragile funding and limited reach.
Documentation and freedom of movement form another critical fault line. Uganda is widely cited for its rapid issuance of refugee IDs and settlement-based approach. Kenya and Ethiopia have made progress through new refugee laws and policy reforms. Still, gaps between policy and practice persist. Refugees in urban areas remain undocumented in large numbers. Identity documents often have short validity, forcing repeated renewals.
Travel documents are difficult to obtain, especially in Ethiopia, limiting cross-border movement, livelihoods, and participation in regional or global policy forums. Without documentation, refugees face arrest, harassment, and exclusion from services. For refugee organizations, lack of legal registration means operating in constant uncertainty.
Access to justice, described in the report as one of the least discussed yet most pivotal issues, cuts across all others. Refugees cannot claim rights or seek redress without functioning justice pathways. Language barriers in courts, xenophobic profiling, and lack of legal aid remain common.
Refugee-led organizations already provide mediation, paralegal support, and court accompaniment, often acting as the first point of contact between communities and authorities. Yet their work is rarely formalized or funded at scale.
These findings came alive during a webinar held at the launch of the report, where refugee leaders from different regions spoke directly about their experiences. One participant from East Africa reflected on repeated engagement in international forums. This event was his third such process, following meetings in Uganda and Gambia. He noted that participation was no longer symbolic. Governments and institutions were beginning to listen more closely.
He pointed to concrete differences across countries. In Kenya, refugees do not require exit visas. In Ethiopia, they do. Sharing such comparisons, he argued, helps governments rethink restrictive practices and adapt lessons from neighbors.
From the Middle East and North Africa, the discussion shifted to documentation and access to justice. A Jordan-based lawyer explained that civil documentation is not mere paperwork. It is the foundation of rights and accountability. Without birth registration, children cannot access education.
Without legally recognized marriages, women and children remain unprotected. Many Syrian refugees arrived in Jordan without documents, having lost them during flight or lacking legal awareness. Over time, Jordan introduced measures such as fee waivers, legal aid, and even Sharia courts inside camps like Zaatari to facilitate birth and marriage registration. Civil society groups have provided thousands of consultations and legal representations, bridging gaps between refugees and state systems.
The webinar also highlighted language as a structural barrier. In Jordan, Arabic serves as a common language for Syrians, easing communication. In East Africa, linguistic diversity complicates access to justice and services. Uganda hosts South Sudanese, Sudanese, and Congolese refugees, each with distinct languages, while official processes operate in English and Kiswahili. Governments have made efforts to provide interpretation, but gaps remain, particularly in courts and police interactions.
In Ethiopia, where Amharic dominates official institutions, refugee organizations often rely on founders or leaders who speak the language fluently, limiting broader participation.
As the conversation turned to the future of the humanitarian system, the tone grew more urgent. Participants acknowledged that funding cuts have already halted programs and exposed vulnerabilities. One speaker stressed that legal aid and documentation cannot be seen as optional sectors.
Without sustained support, entire protection systems risk collapse. Empowerment, he argued, goes beyond providing lawyers. It means building refugees’ confidence and capacity to navigate legal systems themselves.
Another participant addressed donors and UN agencies directly. Localization, he said, will fail if refugee organizations are treated only as implementers of predesigned projects. Power must shift alongside responsibility.
Refugee organizations should help design programs, raise resources, and make decisions based on community priorities. Otherwise, localization becomes another layer of outsourcing rather than a genuine transfer of agency.
The speaker’s final intervention starkly highlighted the stakes involved. With funding shrinking and uncertainty growing, refugees may soon have no option but to rely on themselves. Investing in refugee-led organizations, the speaker said, is not a luxury. This represents the final line of hope for refugees on the ground.
The MENA roundtables echo many of these concerns but in a more restrictive political context. Civic space is tighter. Legal recognition for refugee organizations is often impossible or risky. In Jordan, refugees cannot legally register organizations. In Egypt, civil society laws limit advocacy.
In Türkiye, registration is technically possible but bureaucratically daunting. Despite this, refugee-led initiatives have multiplied, filling gaps in education, protection, and livelihoods as international actors retreat.
The report warns of a dangerous paradox. Localization is advancing by necessity, not design. International agencies withdraw. Local actors step in. Yet funding, decision-making, and protection remain centralized. Refugee organizations absorb risk without safeguards. Participation is often tokenistic. Refugees are present in meetings but absent from real influence.
p dir=”ltr”>A son of filmmaker Rob Reiner and producer Michele Singer Reiner has been arrested on suspicion of murder and is being held without bail. Authorities in Rhode Island are asking for the public’s help in identifying the gunman behind the shooting at Brown University. And, Australian authorities say the two suspected gunmen behind the mass shooting at a Hanukkah celebration on Bondi Beach were inspired by Islamic State.
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p dir=”ltr”>Today’s episode of Up First was edited by Matteen Mokalla, Andrea DeLeon, Rebecca Rosman, Lisa Thomson and Alice Woefle.
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p dir=”ltr”>We get engineering support from Stacey Abbott. Our technical director is Carleigh Strange. And our Supervising Senior Producer is Vince Pearson.
Europe’s push to shift asylum procedures to third countries risks outsourcing not only refugees, but also its moral and political responsibility.
VIENNA, Austria, Dec 16 2025 (IPS) – The debate on reforming the European asylum system has gained significant momentum following the agreement reached by EU interior ministers last week. Alongside questions of solidarity and distribution, the possibility of establishing ‘return hubs’ outside the EU was at the heart of the meeting.
Outsourcing asylum procedures – or at least those concerning rejected asylum seekers – has long been a desire of many heads of state and government, and the European Commission now aims to make this possible by creating the necessary legal foundations, for example by scrapping the so-called connection criterion. In future, rejected asylum seekers would therefore no longer need to demonstrate a personal link to the third country to which they are transferred.
Previously, such links included earlier stays or family members living there. Yet the EU remains a long way from concrete implementation.
One reason is the high cost of such outsourcing projects. According to the UK’s National Audit Office, the British Rwanda deal cost the equivalent of more than €800 million, with limited effect: only four asylum seekers were relocated over two years.
Under Prime Minister Keir Starmer, the plan was shelved for good due to excessive costs and minimal benefit. And despite the heated migration debate in the United Kingdom, a revival appears unlikely. Denmark faced a similar situation with its own Rwanda plans, which the country put on hold in 2023 due to unfeasibility. And then there is the much-cited Italy–Albania agreement, whose original idea – conducting asylum procedures under Italian law on Albanian soil – was never implemented.
Practical implementation remains doubtful
What third countries gain from allowing such outsourcing on their territory is obvious: money, and even more importantly, political capital. Speaking on a panel at the ‘Time to Decide Europe’ conference organised by the Vienna-based ERSTE Foundation, Albania’s Prime Minister and Socialist Edi Rama stated openly that his small country of just under three million people must join any alliance willing to take it in.
This includes – and above all – the EU. For Albania, which is an EU candidate country, it therefore makes sense to appear accommodating to a not insignificant member state with which it is also historically closely connected, and to help solve its unpopular ‘migration question’, at least to the extent that refugees arriving in Italy do receive protection, but, in practice, ‘not in my backyard’.
So far, however, this principle has not been put into action due to objections raised by Italian courts. That is also why – and to put the costly asylum camps built in the Albanian towns of Shëngjin and Gjadër (construction and operations are believed to have already cost hundreds of millions of euros) to some use – the European Commission created the option of return hubs, which were formally adopted last week at the meeting of EU ministers.
Italy can therefore repurpose the facilities originally intended for asylum procedures as deportation centres for asylum seekers who were already on Italian territory and whose applications have been legally rejected. Here too, the number of cases remains limited, and it is unclear on what legal basis those transferred there could be held for extended periods to prevent them from re-entering the EU via Montenegro and Bosnia. De facto detention, however, would present yet another legal complication, even if the connection criterion and other EU-law barriers are removed.
Anyone striving for ‘fair burden-sharing’ would have to redistribute towards Europe, not away from it.
There is, therefore, still a long way to go before any concrete return hubs become reality. Not only because, in the usual trilogue process, the European Parliament must also give its approval — and some MEPs, including Birgit Sippel of the Socialists and Democrats group, have already announced their opposition.
But even if a parliamentary majority can be secured, the practical implementation remains doubtful: where are the trustworthy and willing third countries; how can infrastructure be built there; how can respect for human rights standards be monitored and enforced from Europe (which proves difficult even within an EU member state such as Hungary); and how should looming legal disputes be handled?
Among the countries mentioned so far are several that themselves regularly appear among the places of origin of refugees arriving in Europe. Alongside Rwanda, the East African state of Uganda is frequently cited; it already hosts the largest number of refugees from other parts of Africa, especially from Sudan, South Sudan, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Like Rwanda, it lies directly next to regional conflict zones; the protection rate for Ugandan nationals in European host countries stands at around 60 per cent.
The country is considered authoritarian — and precisely for that reason, it has an interest in striking an outsourcing deal with EU member states, such as the one it has already concluded with the Netherlands. Such an agreement implicitly acknowledges and legitimises the Ugandan government.
The notorious EU–Turkey Statement of 2016 demonstrated how refugees accommodated in third countries can repeatedly be used as leverage in foreign policy disputes, for example when Prime Minister Erdoğan had them bussed to the Greek border to put pressure on the EU. EU strategists may euphemistically call this ‘migration diplomacy’, but for the layperson, it is simply blackmail.
The example of Uganda illustrates not only how Europe, through deals with third countries, outsources not just refugees but also bargaining power and control; it also reflects the fundamental imbalance in a one-sided debate on externalisation.
Already today, 71 per cent of all refugees find protection in developing and emerging countries, with 66 per cent hosted in neighbouring countries in the Global South or the Middle East and North Africa. Anyone striving for ‘fair burden-sharing’ would therefore have to redistribute towards Europe, not away from it.
Europe’s answer cannot, under any circumstances, be to emulate the Trump administration by resorting to ever-tougher asylum policies.
This leads to the fundamental questions that EU policymakers appear increasingly unwilling to ask, let alone answer: How does Europe want to position itself in future with regard to global refugee protection? How will people in need of protection from persecution – whose numbers are rising in an ever more unstable world – gain access to that protection?
How can the liberal post-war order be preserved, including and especially the Geneva Conventions, which were created in response to the lessons of the two World Wars and the Shoah? How should Europe position itself vis-à-vis an increasingly illiberal, in parts authoritarian United States, which now tends to view Europe more as an adversary than a partner?
A confident response to the new US national security strategy – which claims that migration threatens Europe with ‘civilisational erasure’ – must lie in emphasising Europe’s civilisational achievements since 1945. These include, above all, the prohibition of torture enshrined in Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights: it applies absolutely, and therefore also to asylum seekers who are obliged to leave and who may not be deported to countries where they risk inhuman treatment. This is precisely where the line between civilisation and barbarism lies.
Furthermore, a united Europe that wants to stand its ground against attacks from former allies must recognise societal diversity as one of its strengths, and acknowledge the indispensable contribution that migrants – from guest workers and refugees to highly skilled expats – have made to Europe’s reconstruction and prosperity.
Europe’s answer cannot, under any circumstances, be to emulate the Trump administration by resorting to ever-tougher asylum policies that effectively validate the American assessment.
For that would indeed amount to an obliteration — an obliteration of the founding idea of a united, open and liberal Europe which, let us not forget, received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2012 and stands for a rules-based order that has ensured decades of peace as well as economic prosperity. In short: for the very life that we are fortunate enough to enjoy day after day, in diversity, security and freedom.
Dr Judith Kohlenberger heads the FORM research institute at WU Vienna and is affiliated with the Austrian Institute for International Affairs, the Jacques Delors Centre Berlin and the Einstein Centre Digital Future. Her book Das Fluchtparadox (The Flight Paradox) was named Austrian Science Book of the Year in 2023 and nominated for the German Non-Fiction Prize. Her most recent publication is Migrationspanik (Migration Panic) (2025).
Source: International Politics and Society (IPS), Brussels, Belgium
