The UN refugee agency on Friday welcomed Brazil's recent decision to grant permanent residency to nearly 2,000 former Angolan and Liberian refugees. Brazil's Ministry of Justice issued a decree on October 26 confirming the new status for this group. The measure was adopted by the Brazilian migration authorities following a global UNHCR recommendation in January this year, asking states to apply the cessation clauses on the two refugee situations and recommending countries of asylum to pursue local integration or an alternative status for former refugees.

Journalist George Borteh, the Acting Vice President of the Judicial Reporters Association of Liberia (JURAL) and a reporter for The New Republic newspaper, was thrown in prison on 12 October, 2012, after taking a photo of Police Director Chris Massaquoi at the Temple of Justice in Monrovia. Borteh was detained for more than three hours. Massaquoi was offended by the action of the journalist. He questioned Borteh as to why he took his photo and the journalist replied by saying: 'You are a public figure on public grounds and I am taking [a] picture for record['s] sake.'

Nathan Pajibo, like thousands of his fellow Liberians, has been living in Buduburam refugee camp near the Ghanaian capital Accra for over two decades after fleeing the civil war in 1990. In June 2012 he lost his refugee status alongside 11,000 Liberians across the region and the camp will soon be handed over to the district assembly, but lingering fear prevents Pajibo from returning. One of at least 6,000 Liberians still living at Buduburam, he is waiting for the Ghana Refugee Board to process his application. Some 4,000 ex-refugees have applied for local integration, around 1,000 will return to Liberia, and about 1,000 are applying for exemption to remain as refugees, according to the Ghana Refugee Board (GRB).