Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has announced millions in aid for a besieged Philippine city. [...] The assistance is in addition to the A$920,000 emergency food and other supplies assistance that the Australian Foreign Minister had announced last June 20, 2017.

Mollie Symons and Aspen Murray, a recent high school graduate from Hartland, N.B. began the campaign together. “We are both very involved in our school and home community environments,” said Symons, “and also very passionate about social justice causes, international development and supporting refugees, both in our home communities and abroad.”

Denmark’s foreign ministry says it is increasing its humanitarian aid to Iraq after the country’s security forces regained the city of Mosul. [...] “The liberation of Mosul shows that what the coalition is doing is working. Isis has lost its symbolic ‘capital’. The fight has been long and hard and has unfortunately brought with it great civilian losses and left ruins in Mosul as a result of Isis’ gruesome and barbaric actions,” Foreign Minister Anders Samuelsen said in the statement.

Multicultural performers and speakers are in high demand in Tasmania, so much so that a new website has been created to put them in touch with the community. The Migrant Resource Centre has created Inspire Tasmania to fill a gap in the market. [...] The centre's Catherine Doran said the Inspire program aimed to support, celebrate and showcase the best of Tasmania's multicultural talent.

German Foreign Minister pledged 3.5 million euros of extra refugee aid for the conflict-ridden state struggling to emerge from the throws of civil war. The money will be used to improve the catastrophic conditions seen in the refugee camps across the country, with systematic sexual abuse and violence reportedly widespread. In the first five months of this year, 60,000 refugees have come to Europe via Libya, a rise of 26 percent compared to the previous year. Approximately 1,700 people were killed as they attempted to cross the Mediterranean Sea from January to May 2017.

Australian officials have been working hard to secure one of two seats on the United Nations Human Rights Council for the 2018-2020 term, pushing at international forums for voting countries to back their bid. [...] Just six months ago, during his visit to Australia, Special Rapporteur for the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights François Crépeau said Australia’s human rights standing had been tarnished by its “regressive” migration policies falling behind international standards. Treatment of migrants by boat “served to erode their human rights.”

BEIRUT: Prime Minister Saad Hariri on Sunday called for job creation across the Middle East to boost regional stability and counter extremist ideology. “This goal can only be achieved through the stimulation of economic growth and full partnership between the public and private sectors,” Hariri said, speaking at the 17th Doha Forum in Qatar.“In the age of globalization, extremism has become globalized, and so have terrorism and dangers,” he continued. “There is no way to confront them except by a globalized response.”

At the stringing table, most of the women wear hijabs. Natives of Syria, Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan, they have been in the U.S. less than two years, arriving in Houston through Interfaith Ministries of Greater Houston's refugee services program. They speak Arabic, Farsi, Pashto or Dari. Which is to say, they sometimes speak with each other only slightly better than they can talk with me.