Focus the sun's light and heat onto your cooking pot, and you no longer need to gather wood for a fire. That is Marie-Rose Neloum's idea to make life a little more bearable for refugees in Chad.

The U.N. refugee agency, UNHCR, says it is concerned about China's deportation of a young Pakistani refugee. The UNHCR says the deportation appears to be linked to alleged security concerns regarding the upcoming summer Olympics in Beijing.

The Commonwealth Bank has been accused of exploiting refugees in its allocation of loans.

The centre-right coalition government has rejected a proposal by Social Democratic leader Mona Sahlin to force municipalities to accept refugees.

The Swedish municipality of Södertälje has taken drastic action in order to combat high numbers of unemployment amongst local refugees.

A simulated refugee camp has been set up in Melbourne to show Australians the sort of hardship suffered by millions of people around the world. "Refugee Realities" is the work of the charity Oxfam. The camp is set in an artificial desert, with fake landmines and security checkpoints. From Sydney, Phil Mercer reports.

United Nations Special Reporter on the right to health, Paul Hunt, has criticized Sweden for what he called a discrimination of refugees without documents.

An increasing number of asylum seekers decide to stay in Sweden despite their cases being rejected.

As Chad’s government tries to restore order in N’djamena following a rebel retreat to surrounding areas, life goes on in the refugee camps in eastern Chad. The camps, located 900 kilometers east of N’djamena near the border with Sudan’s Darfur, lost staff that was temporarily evacuated during last week’s rebel assault on the capital.

The government of Chad has imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew in the capital and six interior regions, in an effort to restore calm after a rebel offensive.

The U.N. refugee agency reports about 20,000 civilians have fled fighting in N'Djamena, the capital of Chad, and crossed the river into the Cameroon border town of Kousseri. Lisa Schlein reports for VOA from UNHCR headquarters in Geneva.

Mauritanian refugees stuck in Senegal for nearly two decades after fleeing ethnic clashes in their home country have begun returning to Mauritania under a U.N. sponsored program. But many do not want to return. VOA's Nico Colombant has more from Dakar, with reporting by Ebrima Sillah on the border between the two countries.