The Guardian: We've never had so many refugees – nor been so unwelcoming to them

The United Nations reported this week that in 2015, 65.3 million people were refugees or forcibly displaced in their own countries by war and persecution. This is the largest number ever recorded – and a testament to massive failures of both the international community and the United States in dealing with this crisis. [...]

Compounding this is the fact that most rich countries are failing to do their share to alleviate suffering. Most of those who have crossed borders are being accommodated in neighboring countries lacking substantial economic resources – such as the Somalis in Kenya and the Syrians and Iraqis in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey. A few well-to-do countries, including Sweden, Germany and Canada, have acted generously. Others, among them Britain, Australia and the US, which distinguished themselves at other times by welcoming refugees, have now all but closed their doors.

My own country, the US, is the worst offender on both counts. It led the invasion of Iraq in 2003 without a legitimate casus belli. It set in motion the events that produced immense forcible displacement in the region. Also, it had the capacity to establish a protected zone in Syria, like the one it established for the Iraqi Kurds to protect them against Saddam Hussein following the Gulf war. It declined to do so, a failure that was publicly criticized by state department dissenters a few days ago.

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Time: Pro-Choice Catholics Are Praying SCOTUS Will Protect Abortion Rights

But these laws have made it much harder for poor women, women of color and residents of rural areas to get access to abortions. Women who need these services often face more hurdles when seeking a timely appointment with one of the few clinics left open in their state. With clinic closures come longer driving distances, which require reliable transportation and money for gas or fares. In states with waiting periods, patients must make multiple trips to the clinic, often over several days, before they are able to get the care they seek. These burdens are onerous enough before factoring in the need to take time off work and find dependable childcare. With the clock ticking from the moment a woman discovers she is pregnant until the day she can no longer obtain a first trimester abortion, each delay can be stressful. [...]

I am far from the only one. Only 10% of U.S. Catholics agree with the Vatican’s position that abortion should be illegal in every case, and Catholic women have abortions at the same rate as other women: according to a 2010 Guttmacher survey, 28% of women who had an abortion self-identified as Catholic, compared to the 27% of all women of reproductive age who have had an abortion. Catholic bishops who collude with anti-abortion groups to promote these restrictive laws are betraying their own flock and leaving poor women—Catholic and non-Catholic alike—floundering in a stormy and inhospitable sea.

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The Atlantic: The Growing Risk of a War in Space

When China shot down one of its own weather satellites in January 2007, the event was, among other things, a clear demonstration to the United States that China could wage war beyond the Earth’s atmosphere. In the decade since, both China and the United States have continued to pursue space-based armaments and defensive systems. A November 2015 “Report to Congress,” for example, filed by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission (PDF), specifically singles out China’s “Counterspace Program” as a subject of needed study. China’s astral arsenal, the report explains, most likely includes “direct-ascent” missiles, directed-energy weapons, and also what are known as “co-orbital antisatellite systems.” [...]

One of the most ominous implications of co-orbital antisatellite warfare is the difficulty of determining what is—or is not—a weapon. Indeed, as military journalist David Axe has written, “It’s hard to say exactly how many weapons are in orbit … With the proverbial flip of a switch, an inspection satellite, ostensibly configured for orbital repair work, could become a robotic assassin capable of taking out other satellites with lasers, explosives or mechanical claws. Until the moment it attacks, however, the assassin spacecraft might appear to be harmless.” This raises the prospect of long-duration sleeper weapons already in orbit, their actual military purpose yet to be revealed. They are weapons-in-waiting. [...]

Existing international treaties and conventions do not provide much guidance. Aside from prohibiting the use of nuclear weapons and other “weapons of mass destruction” in space, there is very little to hold back future development of offworld armaments. Even the tungsten rod program, because it does not entail actual explosives, falls outside this already scant regulation.

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Jakub Marian: Military expenditures per capita and as % of GDP in Europe

The following two maps show how much European countries spent on their military in 2015, per capita and as a percentage of GDP. The maps are based on a database by SIPRI (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute). Note that I used my own population data, so there may be tiny differences between their per capita figures and mine.

The following map shows the amount of money every person (including children) in a given country spent on the military (in the form of taxes) converted to USD at the market exchange rate, without taking purchasing power into account.

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The Guardian: Should you trust the pollsters or the bookies on the EU referendum?

According to the opinion polls, Thursday night’s referendum will be tight: surveys generally showed the Leave camp ahead until late last week, when the Remain camp clawed back some ground.

But bookmakers, who have already taken in record volumes of bets on this vote, see things very differently. Across the leading purveyors of political betting, average odds currently hover at around 1/4 implying an 80% probability that remain will win. So who should you trust? [...]

In a report last week, a London School of Economics professor of political science says that between 20% and 30% of voters do not make up their minds until the final week of an election campaign. Long-term polling data in fact shows a steady decline in voters’ certainty, or a steady increase in their openness to persuasion. Since 1983, Ipsos Mori has been asking respondents who declare their voting intention whether that intention is certain or if they might change their mind.

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