WP and NYT takes on an important court case:
Federal appeals court weakens lawsuit against NSA’s bulk phone data collection
Setback for Suit Against NSA on Phone Data
Two things to note: First, the case was decided on a question of standing, not on merit. Second, changes are coming in November that will make the whole question academic.
How does the following article impact the debate on what is public/private?
Health Care first:
Emanuel – Why Republicans’ health-care plans are bad deals for Americans
Unions: NPR (Morning Edition and Here & Now) on the NLRB decision on franchises, plus implications.
NLRB Ruling Could Pave The Way For Fast-Food Unions
Ruling Gives Unions Leverage In Negotiations With Franchises
A Ruling With a Bonus for Fast-Food Workers – NLRB decision
Labor Board Ruling on Joint Employers Leaves Some Companies Scratching Their Heads
Do more work forces need to be unionized?
Keep this article in mind when you discuss the topic domestically or internationally:
Migrant or Refugee – There Is a Difference, With Legal Implications
NX: In CX plan terms, your plan need to have several planks – Mandate (what you’re going to do), Mechanism (how you’re going to do it), Funding (how you’re going to pay for it), and Enforcement (how you’re going to make sure it happens). Chris Christie offers us a mandate, which definitely leads to a mechanism question: Barcode everyone? RFID tags? (Attached how?) Ankle bracelets? (Superglue them on?)
Never mind the wall – Christie says foreign visitors should be tracked like FedEx packages
Chris Christie Proposes Tracking Immigrants the Way FedEx Tracks Packages
Historical background:
Rampell – America has always been hostile to immigrants
FX: Latest on the EU’s migrant mess, starting with an ongoing accounting of the crisis; newest posts appear first, oldest last, and it’s updated regularly.
Traveling in Europe’s River of Migrants
A new normal for EU borders:
Map: The walls Europe is building to keep people out
The stories that grabbed the headlines this past week, and a glimpse behind the curtains.
Migrant deaths on land and at sea strengthen calls for change in Europe
A glimpse of what it’s like for refugees transported in a small van
Smugglers who drove migrants to their deaths were part of a vast web
Zombie Factories Stalk the Sputtering Chinese Economy
OK, so technically it’s factories. You do have to wonder, though, if the people at these places, combined with these people
How farmers from rural China bet on the stock market and lost
don’t add up to the economic Walking Dead. And, in true Zombie Apocalypse fashion, what happens when you turn to the government for accurate information?
Plunging Chinese Stock Market Was Barely Covered In China
Does the government blame their program, the one that created the zombies? Of course not! You blame one of the scientists!
China pins market plunge on financial journalist, airs ‘confession’
Trying to restructure the economy to avoid the apocalypse:
China’s Tricky Economic Transition: From Steel Mills To E-Commerce
And more on Tianjin:
This article gets a post of its own.
The Lessons of Anwar al-Awlaki
It’s a complex article that discusses far more than the mystery (to many of us) of radicalization. We’re talking Al Qaeda here, not ISIS, and a case where we took out an American citizen on foreign soil with a drone strike – after he called for and assisted in efforts to kill other Americans. For those of you doing CX as well as Extemp, surveillance and its effects are also discussed, though I’m not sure that this has anything that could be used in a round.
Thailand: From NPR.
In Thailand, Young People Push The Boundaries On Public Dissent
Burma:
Burma’s half-hearted commitment to democracy
Myanmar Democracy Icon Finds Herself Assailed as Authoritarian
North Korea: WP and NYT reports, plus middle school annoyance games played by people with nukes.
North Korean leader says his nukes, not negotiation, avoided war
Kim Jong-un Says North’s ‘Military Muscle’ Made Korean Deal Possible
To Jar North, South Korea Used a Pop-Music Barrage
Malaysia: Two looks at discrimination. The second article provides more of the backstory to what’s going on there than anything else I’ve read so far. Plus, how it’s playing out with the public.
Tash Aw – Malaysia’s Welcome Wears Thin
Chin – The Costs of Malay Supremacy
Antigovernment Protesters Gather in Malaysia, Defying Police Orders
Cuba: From NPR.
White House Explores Ways To Do Business With Cuba
Guatemala:
Guatemalan prosecutors urge president to resign amid scandal
Venezuela: Scapegoating?
Colombians Flee Venezuela’s Crackdown on Immigrants
In a Venezuelan Border Town, a State of Emergency Is Barely Perceptible
Brazil: Know what favelas are.
Rio’s Favelas Feel The Peace – And The Pressure – Of Pacification
A busy weekend, so now a posting flood…
Lebanon: More on #YouStink protests.
Thousands of demonstrators continue protests in Lebanese capital
Lebanese Protesters Aim for Rare Unity Against Gridlocked Government
Turkey: From NPR., a new form of risk-taking.
Kurdish Activists Camp Out Between Turkey’s Army And Kurdish Fighters
Iran: Much of what can be said about the pending deal has already been said (and posted), but there are still a few things worth sharing.
Zarate et al – Using financial sticks to control Iran
Mousavian – A rejection of the nuclear deal could lead to radicalism in Iran
Syria: Two things about war: first, war is, essentially, young men dying badly (can’t find the source of that quote), and second, war always involves civilian death – women, children, the elderly – and complaints about collateral damage are rather naive since it’s unavoidable. (Anyone with neocon leanings needs to remember these things.) So, pictures first, which helps to set up the reasons for the problem described in the second article.
As tragedies shock Europe, a bigger refugee crisis looms in the Middle East
Keep these numbers in mind: In the early 1990s we did an immigration topic for CX, and at the time there were something like 25 million displaced people worldwide. About half were displaced internally (still in their original country), and the other half had managed to cross a border to another country.
The latest figure I’ve heard for displaced people currently is 60 million worldwide. The article above says 11 million are from Syria alone. Is there any hope of the situation, either in Syria or globally, improving?
It’s fairly common knowledge that certain countries are in the Nuclear Club – they have military-grade deliverable nuclear weapons. The U.S. and Russia have the most. Other countries known to have them include (from memory) China, North Korea, Great Britain, France, Israel, and, as of a few years ago (at least as I measure time) India and Pakistan.
The pop quiz question is: How many nukes do you think Pakistan and India have now?
The answer can be found in the following article:
Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal could become the world’s third-biggest – report
This may raise more questions than it answers, not the least of which is whether or not possible Iranian nukes are as big a problem as some say, and whether the most serious and dangerous (in nuclear terms) religious conflict is the intra-Islam Shia-Sunni split, or a Mulsim-Hindu face-off.
Roger Cohen gives one of the most succinct overviews of the region that I’ve ever read. A must-have article for team files, though you may need several copies for the each of the files of the different countries he discusses. (And read it before you file it!)
Dinosaur Debate 