Lawmakers from the top five labor-sending Asian countries on Thursday urged host countries to enact laws protecting their citizens working abroad.

In a statement issued on Thursday, lawmakers from the Philippines, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Sri Lanka and Indonesia called for the passage of laws protecting migrant workers.

The lawmakers made the call to major destination countries for migrant workers such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain.

Reducing poverty, creating employment, and building schools and roads for the benefit of billions of people in developing countries requires large amounts of funds. But there are not that many new sources of funding that can be tapped for such noble purposes. The migrants of developing countries offer a rare pool of resources that can be tapped via diaspora bonds.

For the first time, city councillors, community representatives and residents have the opportunity to discuss the Temporary Foreign Worker Program and its impact on Vancouver.

 As part of a multimedia campaign to raise awareness, the Vancouver Public Library will host a documentary film screening followed by a public discussion on the Temporary Foreign Worker Program.

On Africa Day 25 May, a new 5-part series of radio documentaries chronicling the lives, challenges, dreams, and positive contributions of migrants living in South Africa, is hitting the airwaves. In "Breaking Borders," five migrants tell their stories of where they came from, what life is like for them in their new home, and what their goals are for the future.

The introduction of a scheme to regularise undocumented people in Ireland would give credibility to efforts to persuade the US to regularise tens of thousands of undocumented Irish citizens there, according to the Migrant Rights Centre Ireland.

The organisation made the call to coincide with US president Barack Obama’s visit to Ireland.

Mr Obama earlier this month called for immigration reform in the US.

In the period since the North American Free Trade Agreement has come into effect, the economies of the United States and Mexico have become more integrated than ever.  Through Plan Merida and partnerships on security, the military and the drug war, the political and economic policies pursued by the U.S. and Mexican governments are more coordinated than they’ve ever been.

In the midst of escalating violence in a refugee camp on the Tunisia-Libya border, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) today expressed alarm over the deteriorating living conditions encountered by refugees stranded in temporary camps and exposed to violence.

Hundreds of thousands of refugees have passed through Shousha camp since the start of the Libyan conflict, but some 4,000 people—mainly sub-Saharan Africans—cannot be repatriated due to the situation in their country of origin and thus face an highly uncertain future.

A new Israeli law that would bind migrant workers in nursing or care-giving professions to their employers is raising alarm amidst human rights groups and legal experts, who say that the law infringes upon the workers’ right to dignity and freedom.

‘Diaspora’ is the word on everyone’s lips, and on high-level agendas. What do those in the international development sector mean by ‘diaspora’, why has this idea garnered so much interest, and what are diaspora groups, governments and INGOs actually doing?

On 27 and 28 April 2011 National trade unions from several CIS countries met in Baku to discuss trade union cooperation on migration, development and the protection of migrant workers’ rights. Trade union representatives from the Russian Federation, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Ukraine joined with experts from the ITUC, ILO, OSCE and IOM and the Serbian NGO Astra as well as representatives of the Azeri government. The meeting was co-organised by the ITUC-PERC, ILO and AHIK.