On the refugee crisis:
Throughout the crisis, a debate has been on whether it is a “migrant” or a “refugee” crisis. It has been important for the public to understand that most people coming to Europe have been from refugee-producing countries and that “refugees” have a particular set of rights under international law. Furthermore, people have a right to seek asylum, and have their claims to refugee status adjudicated.
However, the stark dichotomy between “refugee” and “economic migrant” masks a growing trend: that many people coming fall between those two extremes.
The Guardian: Human migration will be a defining issue of this century. How best to cope?, September 20, 2015
And the effect of climate change on migratory movements, and the story of an Iranian asylum seeker incarcerated on Manus island.
The Guardian, on why ISIS fights:
“We know about the prophecy, of course we do,” another Dabiq local told me, sitting on the concrete floor of his home in late 2013. “But we are hoping that it is just legend. God willing they will leave us alone.” The man’s faith was misplaced. Within three months, Isis had set up a command post among rows of concrete homes, and was sending hundreds of its fighters and their families to relocate there.
The Guardian: Why ISIS fights, September 17, 2015Ta-Nehisi Coates on the effect of mass incarceration on the black family:
The lesson of Minnesota is that the chasm in incarceration rates is deeply tied to the socioeconomic chasm between black and white America. The two are self-reinforcing—impoverished black people are more likely to end up in prison, and that experience breeds impoverishment. An array of laws, differing across the country but all emanating from our tendency toward punitive criminal justice—limiting or banning food stamps for drug felons; prohibiting ex-offenders from obtaining public housing—ensure this. So does the rampant discrimination against ex-offenders and black men in general. This, too, is self-reinforcing. The American population most discriminated against is also its most incarcerated—and the incarceration of so many African Americans, the mark of criminality, justifies everything they endure after.
The Atlantic: The Black Family in the Age of Mass Incarceration, September 2015After Malcolm Turnbull's take-over, here's Australia's very different new cabinet, and the speech filled with keywords such as innovation, productivity, and the future (and some key changes that hint at future priorities, such as creating a Ministry for Cities and the Built Environment, including the responsibility for child services into the education department).
A critique of Republican hopeful Carly Fiorina's track record as CEO of Hewlett-Packard.
This might be a model of the university of the future - competency based learning.
The US is taking steps to battle antibiotic resistance, one of the biggest medical challenges of the future.
Alexis Tsipras we re-elected and now presumably governs with more of a mandate than before.
Pop Culture:
A look back at Adam Goodes' AFL career:
