Paris 2024 Summer Olympics – Summer Olympic Games in France

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Paris 2024 will see a new vision of Olympism in action, delivered in a unique spirit of international celebration.

We will offer one of the worlds most inspirational cities as a memorable stage for the athletes and a truly global platform to promote them, and their incredible stories.

And we will partner with the entire Olympic family to demonstrate that, more than ever after an extremely challenging period, sport has a unique power to help create a better world.

Our plan features 95 percent existing or temporary venues, and every single one has a clear, defined legacy aligned with the citys long-term development plans.

The sporting celebration will flow along the Seine, from the new Olympic Village, just 15 minutes from Paris city centre, to such city centre landmarks as the Eiffel Tower and the Grand Palais.

Paris has welcomed people from all over the world including the founding fathers of the Olympic Movement for hundreds of years, to collaborate and inspire each other; to shape ideas and forge the future.

In 2024, we will stage magnificent and meaningful Games that will set a new milestone in sporting history, in the city where Pierre de Coubertin first imagined the potential of a world united by sport.

Paris 2024 aims to host the most sustainable Games ever. Paris 2024 has developed a unique sustainability and legacy strategy fully aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals supported by WWF France, the Yunus Centre and UNICEF France. Its three pillars are sport at the heart of society, a more inclusive society and environmental excellence.

Crucially, Paris 2024 will endeavour to be the first Games fully aligned with the Paris Climate Agreement, leaving a positive legacy at local and international levels and a positive impact for sport.

It will have a ground-breaking emissions reduction strategy and aims to deliver a 55 percent smaller carbon footprint than the Olympic Games London 2012, widely seen as a reference for sustainable Games.

This commitment can be underpinned by the Paris 2024 clean transport policy, which includes:

The Paris 2024 Olympic Village will be a showcase of sustainable development with low carbon and eco-designed buildings, using 100 percent renewable energy and having a zero waste policy strategy.

With 95 percent of venues already built or temporary structures, the environmental impact of any Games-related construction will be minimal. With 85 percent of competition venues situated less than 30 minutes from the Olympic Village, athletes travel times will be minimal, in zero emission vehicles. The Olympic Stadium will be just five minutes away from the Olympic Village.

The Paris 2024 Candidature Committee has been certified ISO 20121 and carbon neutral, thanks to its compensation policy.

Marie-Amlie Le Fur is Co-Chair of the Paris 2024 Athletes Committee. She has won eight medals in the last two editions of the Paralympic Games.

The Paris 2024 Games plan is not only designed to ensure a great athlete experience but also to ensure a lasting legacy for the community. The Aquatics Centre will be used as a new elite training centre and a recreational swimming facility, deeply needed in an area of Paris where 50 percent of children do not know how to swim. Beyond competition venues, EUR 100 million will be invested in local sports facilities, many of which will be used as training venues during the Games, ensuring the benefits of hosting the Games are shared with the whole host territory. A special focus will be put on improving these facilities to make them fully accessible. Finally, a key and invaluable impact of hosting the 2024 Games in Paris will be the change of mentality with respect to people with an impairment, not only within the sports community, but across the whole of French society.

* Text, images and illustrations provided by Paris 2024

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Paris 2024 Summer Olympics - Summer Olympic Games in France

Former US pairs figure skater Bridget Namiotka dead at 32

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Bridget Namiotka, a former national and international medal-winning pairs figure skater who was the first person to publicly accuse the late two-time U.S. national pairs champion John Coughlin of sexual abuse, died July 25, her parents confirmed to USA TODAY Sports Friday. She was 32.

Bridget succumbed to her long struggles with addiction after several very difficult years of dealing with the trauma of sexual abuse, her parents Steve and Maureen Namiotka said in an interview. She was a beautiful child and a wonderful athlete, and we are heartbroken. It is our hope that Bridgets death will bring new attention to the terrible effects of sexual abuse and addiction in our society.

On May 19, 2019, Namiotka announced in a Facebook post that she was sexually abused for two years by Coughlin, her pairs partner, when she was a teenager.

Replying to a post in support of Coughlin, who died by suicide at the age of 33 on Jan. 18, 2019, Namiotka wrote, Im sorry but john (sic) hurt at least 10 people including me. He sexually abused me for 2 years.

Namiotka teamed with Coughlin from 2004 to 2007, when she was between the ages of 14 and 17 and he was 18 to 21. They won three medals on the Junior Grand Prix series and finished ninth in the senior (Olympic) level at the 2007 U.S. national championships.

Namiotka added more Facebook posts almost immediately after the first, including, "Grooming happens. It happened to me and he hurt a lot of girls. Think about the victims.

Coughlin, who won his two U.S. pairs championships with two other partners, hanged himself in his fathers Kansas City home one day after he received an interim suspension from the U.S. Center for SafeSport. USA TODAY Sports, citing a person with knowledge of the situation, reported in January 2019 that there were three reports of sexual misconduct against Coughlin. His death effectively ended the investigation into those reports, SafeSport announced in February 2019.

Less than three months after Namiotkas Facebook posts, on August 1, 2019, Olympic figure skater Ashley Wagner, the 2016 world silver medalist and most successful U.S. female skater of her era, told USA TODAY Sports that Coughlin sexually assaulted her in June 2008 after a party at a national team camp in Colorado when she had just turned 17 and Coughlin was 22.

Wagner, a three-time national champion who won a team bronze medal at the 2014 Winter Olympics, said Coughlin got into her bed as she slept at the home where the party had been held and began kissing and groping her. I was absolutely paralyzed in fear, she said.

Attorney John Manly, who has represented more than 200 victims in the Larry Nassar gymnastics sexual abuse case, said in a March 2019 interview with USA TODAY Sports that he was representing two other women who were minors when Coughlin allegedly sexually abused them.

My clients and I want to make this clear: John Coughlin used his position of trust and power and prominence in figure skating to sexually abuse multiple minors, Manly said.

In a Jan. 7, 2019 email to USA TODAY Sports, Coughlin called the allegations against him unfounded.

While I wish I could speak freely about the unfounded allegations levied against me, the SafeSport rules prevent me from doing so since the case remains pending, he wrote. I note only that the SafeSport notice of allegation itself stated that an allegation in no way constitutes a finding by SafeSport or that there is any merit to the allegation.

Coughlins assertion that he was being prevented from speaking freely about the allegations against him by SafeSport is not true, SafeSport spokesman Dan Hill said in March 2019.

The SafeSport Code and the interim measure process that was communicated to him directly, and which is on our website, makes it clear that he could provide information, evidence, speak for himself and even ask for a hearing that would have been accommodated in 72 hours by rule, Hill said.That hearing would have been in front of an independent arbitrator.Thats such a critical part of all of this.

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Former US pairs figure skater Bridget Namiotka dead at 32

Asteroid or Meteor: What’s the Difference? – NASA

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The Short Answer:

An asteroid is a small rocky object that orbits the Sun. A meteor is what happens when a small piece of an asteroid or comet, called a meteoroid, burns up upon entering Earths atmosphere. Read on to find out more and learn the difference between asteroids and comets, meteoroids and meteorites, and more!

An asteroid is a small rocky body that orbits the Sun.

A close-up view of Eros, an asteroid with an orbit that takes it somewhat close to Earth. The photo was taken by NASAs Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous - Shoemaker spacecraft in 2000. Image credit: NASA/JHUAPL

Asteroids are smaller than a planet, but they are larger than the pebble-size objects we call meteoroids. Most asteroids in our solar system are found in the main asteroid belt, a region between Mars and Jupiter. But they can also hang out in other locations around the solar system. For example, some asteroids orbit the Sun in a path that takes them near Earth.

Most asteroids in our solar system can be found in the asteroid belt, between Mars and Jupiter.

Sometimes one asteroid can smash into another. This can cause small pieces of the asteroid to break off. Those pieces are called meteoroids. Meteoroids can also come from comets.

If a meteoroid comes close enough to Earth and enters Earths atmosphere, it vaporizes and turns into a meteor: a streak of light in the sky.

Because of their appearance, these streaks of light are sometimes called "shooting stars." But meteors are not actually stars.

At certain times of the year, you might be lucky enough to see more meteors in the sky than usual. This is called a meteor shower. This photo was taken during the Perseid meteor shower, which happens each year in August. Image credit: NASA/JPL

Because meteors leave streaks of light in the sky, they are sometimes confused with comets. However, these two things are very different.

Comets orbit the Sun, like asteroids. But comets are made of ice and dustnot rock.

As a comets orbit takes it toward the Sun, the ice and dust begin to vaporize. That vaporized ice and dust become the comets tail. You can see a comet even when it is very far from Earth. However, when you see a meteor, its in our atmosphere.

Sometimes meteoroids dont vaporize completely in the atmosphere. In fact, sometimes they survive their trip through Earths atmosphere and land on the Earths surface. When they land on Earth, they are called meteorites.

A scientist investigates a meteorite that landed in Sudan's Nubian Desert in 2008. Image credit: NASA

NASAs Johnson Space Center has a collection of meteorites that have been collected from many different locations on Earth. The collection acts as a meteorite library for scientists. By studying different types of meteorites, scientists can learn more about asteroids, planets and other parts of our solar system.

Because asteroids formed in the early days of our solar system nearly 4.6 billion years ago, meteorites can give scientists information about what the solar system was like way back then!

Astromaterials 3D: A virtual library for exploration and research ofNASA's space rock collectionsAsteroid Resources from NASA JPL Education

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Asteroid or Meteor: What's the Difference? - NASA

Mind uploading – Wikipedia

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Hypothetical process of digitally emulating a brain

Mind uploading is a speculative process of whole brain emulation in which a brain scan is used to completely emulate the mental state of the individual in a digital computer. The computer would then run a simulation of the brain's information processing, such that it would respond in essentially the same way as the original brain and experience having a sentient conscious mind.[1][2][3]

Substantial mainstream research in related areas is being conducted in animal brain mapping and simulation, development of faster supercomputers, virtual reality, braincomputer interfaces, connectomics, and information extraction from dynamically functioning brains.[4] According to supporters, many of the tools and ideas needed to achieve mind uploading already exist or are currently under active development; however, they will admit that others are, as yet, very speculative, but say they are still in the realm of engineering possibility.

Mind uploading may potentially be accomplished by either of two methods: copy-and-upload or copy-and-delete by gradual replacement of neurons (which can be considered as a gradual destructive uploading), until the original organic brain no longer exists and a computer program emulating the brain takes control over the body. In the case of the former method, mind uploading would be achieved by scanning and mapping the salient features of a biological brain, and then by storing and copying, that information state into a computer system or another computational device. The biological brain may not survive the copying process or may be deliberately destroyed during it in some variants of uploading. The simulated mind could be within a virtual reality or simulated world, supported by an anatomic 3D body simulation model. Alternatively, the simulated mind could reside in a computer inside (or either connected to or remotely controlled) a (not necessarily humanoid) robot or a biological or cybernetic body.[5]

Among some futurists and within the part of transhumanist movement, mind uploading is treated as an important proposed life extension or immortality technology (known as "digital immortality"). Some believe mind uploading is humanity's current best option for preserving the identity of the species, as opposed to cryonics. Another aim of mind uploading is to provide a permanent backup to our "mind-file", to enable interstellar space travel, and a means for human culture to survive a global disaster by making a functional copy of a human society in a computing device. Whole-brain emulation is discussed by some futurists as a "logical endpoint"[5] of the topical computational neuroscience and neuroinformatics fields, both about brain simulation for medical research purposes. It is discussed in artificial intelligence research publications as an approach to strong AI (artificial general intelligence) and to at least weak superintelligence. Another approach is seed AI, which wouldn't be based on existing brains. Computer-based intelligence such as an upload could think much faster than a biological human even if it were no more intelligent. A large-scale society of uploads might, according to futurists, give rise to a technological singularity, meaning a sudden time constant decrease in the exponential development of technology.[6] Mind uploading is a central conceptual feature of numerous science fiction novels, films, and games.

Many neuroscientists believe that the human mind is largely an emergent property of the information processing of its neuronal network.[7]

Neuroscientists have stated that important functions performed by the mind, such as learning, memory, and consciousness, are due to purely physical and electrochemical processes in the brain and are governed by applicable laws. For example, Christof Koch and Giulio Tononi wrote in IEEE Spectrum:

Consciousness is part of the natural world. It depends, we believe, only on mathematics and logic and on the imperfectly known laws of physics, chemistry, and biology; it does not arise from some magical or otherworldly quality.[8]

Eminent computer scientists and neuroscientists have predicted that advanced computers will be capable of thought and even attain consciousness, including Koch and Tononi,[8] Douglas Hofstadter,[9] Jeff Hawkins,[9] Marvin Minsky,[10] Randal A. Koene, and Rodolfo Llins.[11]

Many theorists have presented models of the brain and have established a range of estimates of the amount of computing power needed for partial and complete simulations.[5][citation needed] Using these models, some have estimated that uploading may become possible within decades if trends such as Moore's law continue.[12]

In theory, if the information and processes of the mind can be disassociated from the biological body, they are no longer tied to the individual limits and lifespan of that body. Furthermore, information within a brain could be partly or wholly copied or transferred to one or more other substrates (including digital storage or another brain), thereby from a purely mechanistic perspective reducing or eliminating "mortality risk" of such information. This general proposal was discussed in 1971 by biogerontologist George M. Martin of the University of Washington.[13]

An "uploaded astronaut" could be used instead of a "live" astronaut in human spaceflight, avoiding the perils of zero gravity, the vacuum of space, and cosmic radiation to the human body. It would allow for the use of smaller spacecraft, such as the proposed StarChip, and it would enable virtually unlimited interstellar travel distances.[14]

The focus of mind uploading, in the case of copy-and-transfer, is on data acquisition, rather than data maintenance of the brain. A set of approaches known as loosely coupled off-loading (LCOL) may be used in the attempt to characterize and copy the mental contents of a brain.[15] The LCOL approach may take advantage of self-reports, life-logs and video recordings that can be analyzed by artificial intelligence. A bottom-up approach may focus on the specific resolution and morphology of neurons, the spike times of neurons, the times at which neurons produce action potential responses.

Advocates of mind uploading point to Moore's law to support the notion that the necessary computing power is expected to become available within a few decades. However, the actual computational requirements for running an uploaded human mind are very difficult to quantify, potentially rendering such an argument specious.

Regardless of the techniques used to capture or recreate the function of a human mind, the processing demands are likely to be immense, due to the large number of neurons in the human brain along with the considerable complexity of each neuron.

In 2004, Henry Markram, lead researcher of the Blue Brain Project, stated that "it is not [their] goal to build an intelligent neural network", based solely on the computational demands such a project would have.[17]

It will be very difficult because, in the brain, every molecule is a powerful computer and we would need to simulate the structure and function of trillions upon trillions of molecules as well as all the rules that govern how they interact. You would literally need computers that are trillions of times bigger and faster than anything existing today.[18]

Five years later, after successful simulation of part of a rat brain, Markram was much more bold and optimistic. In 2009, as director of the Blue Brain Project, he claimed that "A detailed, functional artificial human brain can be built within the next 10 years".[19] Less than two years into it, the project was recognized to be mismanaged and its claims overblown, and Markram was asked to step down.[20][21]

Required computational capacity strongly depend on the chosen level of simulation model scale:[5]

When modelling and simulating the brain of a specific individual, a brain map or connectivity database showing the connections between the neurons must be extracted from an anatomic model of the brain. For whole brain simulation, this network map should show the connectivity of the whole nervous system, including the spinal cord, sensory receptors, and muscle cells. Destructive scanning of a small sample of tissue from a mouse brain including synaptic details is possible as of 2010.[22]

However, if short-term memory and working memory include prolonged or repeated firing of neurons, as well as intra-neural dynamic processes, the electrical and chemical signal state of the synapses and neurons may be hard to extract. The uploaded mind may then perceive a memory loss of the events and mental processes immediately before the time of brain scanning.[5]

A full brain map has been estimated to occupy less than 2 x 1016 bytes (20,000 TB) and would store the addresses of the connected neurons, the synapse type and the synapse "weight" for each of the brains' 1015 synapses.[5][failed verification] However, the biological complexities of true brain function (e.g. the epigenetic states of neurons, protein components with multiple functional states, etc.) may preclude an accurate prediction of the volume of binary data required to faithfully represent a functioning human mind.

A possible method for mind uploading is serial sectioning, in which the brain tissue and perhaps other parts of the nervous system are frozen and then scanned and analyzed layer by layer, which for frozen samples at nano-scale requires a cryo-ultramicrotome, thus capturing the structure of the neurons and their interconnections.[23] The exposed surface of frozen nerve tissue would be scanned and recorded, and then the surface layer of tissue removed. While this would be a very slow and labor-intensive process, research is currently underway to automate the collection and microscopy of serial sections.[24] The scans would then be analyzed, and a model of the neural net recreated in the system that the mind was being uploaded into.

There are uncertainties with this approach using current microscopy techniques. If it is possible to replicate neuron function from its visible structure alone, then the resolution afforded by a scanning electron microscope would suffice for such a technique.[24] However, as the function of brain tissue is partially determined by molecular events (particularly at synapses, but also at other places on the neuron's cell membrane), this may not suffice for capturing and simulating neuron functions. It may be possible to extend the techniques of serial sectioning and to capture the internal molecular makeup of neurons, through the use of sophisticated immunohistochemistry staining methods that could then be read via confocal laser scanning microscopy. However, as the physiological genesis of 'mind' is not currently known, this method may not be able to access all of the necessary biochemical information to recreate a human brain with sufficient fidelity.

It may be possible to create functional 3D maps of the brain activity, using advanced neuroimaging technology, such as functional MRI (fMRI, for mapping change in blood flow), magnetoencephalography (MEG, for mapping of electrical currents), or combinations of multiple methods, to build a detailed three-dimensional model of the brain using non-invasive and non-destructive methods. Today, fMRI is often combined with MEG for creating functional maps of human cortex during more complex cognitive tasks, as the methods complement each other. Even though current imaging technology lacks the spatial resolution needed to gather the information needed for such a scan, important recent and future developments are predicted to substantially improve both spatial and temporal resolutions of existing technologies.[26]

There is ongoing work in the field of brain simulation, including partial and whole simulations of some animals. For example, the C. elegans roundworm, Drosophila fruit fly, and mouse have all been simulated to various degrees.[citation needed]

The Blue Brain Project by the Brain and Mind Institute of the cole Polytechnique Fdrale de Lausanne, Switzerland is an attempt to create a synthetic brain by reverse-engineering mammalian brain circuitry.

Underlying the concept of "mind uploading" (more accurately "mind transferring") is the broad philosophy that consciousness lies within the brain's information processing and is in essence an emergent feature that arises from large neural network high-level patterns of organization, and that the same patterns of organization can be realized in other processing devices. Mind uploading also relies on the idea that the human mind (the "self" and the long-term memory), just like non-human minds, is represented by the current neural network paths and the weights of the brain synapses rather than by a dualistic and mystic soul and spirit. The mind or "soul" can be defined as the information state of the brain, and is immaterial only in the same sense as the information content of a data file or the state of a computer software currently residing in the work-space memory of the computer. Data specifying the information state of the neural network can be captured and copied as a "computer file" from the brain and re-implemented into a different physical form.[27] This is not to deny that minds are richly adapted to their substrates.[28] An analogy to the idea of mind uploading is to copy the temporary information state (the variable values) of a computer program from the computer memory to another computer and continue its execution. The other computer may perhaps have different hardware architecture but emulates the hardware of the first computer.

These issues have a long history. In 1775, Thomas Reid wrote:[29] I would be glad to know... whether when my brain has lost its original structure, and when some hundred years after the same materials are fabricated so curiously as to become an intelligent being, whether, I say that being will be me; or, if, two or three such beings should be formed out of my brain; whether they will all be me, and consequently one and the same intelligent being.

A considerable portion of transhumanists and singularitarians place great hope into the belief that they may become immortal, by creating one or many non-biological functional copies of their brains, thereby leaving their "biological shell". However, the philosopher and transhumanist Susan Schneider claims that at best, uploading would create a copy of the original person's mind.[30] Schneider agrees that consciousness has a computational basis, but this does not mean we can upload and survive. According to her views, "uploading" would probably result in the death of the original person's brain, while only outside observers can maintain the illusion of the original person still being alive. For it is implausible to think that one's consciousness would leave one's brain and travel to a remote location; ordinary physical objects do not behave this way. Ordinary objects (rocks, tables, etc.) are not simultaneously here, and elsewhere. At best, a copy of the original mind is created.[30] Neural correlates of consciousness, a sub-branch of neuroscience, states that consciousness may be thought of as a state-dependent property of some undefined complex, adaptive, and highly interconnected biological system.[31]

Others have argued against such conclusions. For example, Buddhist transhumanist James Hughes has pointed out that this consideration only goes so far: if one believes the self is an illusion, worries about survival are not reasons to avoid uploading,[32] and Keith Wiley has presented an argument wherein all resulting minds of an uploading procedure are granted equal primacy in their claim to the original identity, such that survival of the self is determined retroactively from a strictly subjective position.[33][34] Some have also asserted that consciousness is a part of an extra-biological system that is yet to be discovered; therefore it cannot be fully understood under the present constraints of neurobiology. Without the transference of consciousness, true mind-upload or perpetual immortality cannot be practically achieved.[35]

Another potential consequence of mind uploading is that the decision to "upload" may then create a mindless symbol manipulator instead of a conscious mind (see philosophical zombie).[36][37] Are we to assume that an upload is conscious if it displays behaviors that are highly indicative of consciousness? Are we to assume that an upload is conscious if it verbally insists that it is conscious?[38] Could there be an absolute upper limit in processing speed above which consciousness cannot be sustained? The mystery of consciousness precludes a definitive answer to this question.[39] Numerous scientists, including Kurzweil, strongly believe that the answer as to whether a separate entity is conscious (with 100% confidence) is fundamentally unknowable, since consciousness is inherently subjective (see solipsism). Regardless, some scientists strongly believe consciousness is the consequence of computational processes which are substrate-neutral. On the contrary, numerous scientists believe consciousness may be the result of some form of quantum computation dependent on substrate (see quantum mind).[40][41][42]

In light of uncertainty on whether to regard uploads as conscious, Sandberg proposes a cautious approach:[43]

Principle of assuming the most (PAM): Assume that any emulated system could have the same mental properties as the original system and treat it correspondingly.

The process of developing emulation technology raises ethical issues related to animal welfare and artificial consciousness.[43] The neuroscience required to develop brain emulation would require animal experimentation, first on invertebrates and then on small mammals before moving on to humans. Sometimes the animals would just need to be euthanized in order to extract, slice, and scan their brains, but sometimes behavioral and in vivo measures would be required, which might cause pain to living animals.[43]

In addition, the resulting animal emulations themselves might suffer, depending on one's views about consciousness.[43] Bancroft argues for the plausibility of consciousness in brain simulations on the basis of the "fading qualia" thought experiment of David Chalmers. He then concludes:[44] If, as I argue above, a sufficiently detailed computational simulation of the brain is potentially operationally equivalent to an organic brain, it follows that we must consider extending protections against suffering to simulations. Chalmers himself has argued that such virtual realities would be genuine realities.[45] However, if mind uploading occurs and the uploads are not conscious, there may be a significant opportunity cost. In the book Superintelligence, Nick Bostrom expresses concern that we could build a "Disneyland without children."[46]

It might help reduce emulation suffering to develop virtual equivalents of anaesthesia, as well as to omit processing related to pain and/or consciousness. However, some experiments might require a fully functioning and suffering animal emulation. Animals might also suffer by accident due to flaws and lack of insight into what parts of their brains are suffering.[43] Questions also arise regarding the moral status of partial brain emulations, as well as creating neuromorphic emulations that draw inspiration from biological brains but are built somewhat differently.[44]

Brain emulations could be erased by computer viruses or malware, without need to destroy the underlying hardware. This may make assassination easier than for physical humans. The attacker might take the computing power for its own use.[47]

Many questions arise regarding the legal personhood of emulations.[48] Would they be given the rights of biological humans? If a person makes an emulated copy of themselves and then dies, does the emulation inherit their property and official positions? Could the emulation ask to "pull the plug" when its biological version was terminally ill or in a coma? Would it help to treat emulations as adolescents for a few years so that the biological creator would maintain temporary control? Would criminal emulations receive the death penalty, or would they be given forced data modification as a form of "rehabilitation"? Could an upload have marriage and child-care rights?[48]

If simulated minds would come true and if they were assigned rights of their own, it may be difficult to ensure the protection of "digital human rights". For example, social science researchers might be tempted to secretly expose simulated minds, or whole isolated societies of simulated minds, to controlled experiments in which many copies of the same minds are exposed (serially or simultaneously) to different test conditions.[citation needed]

Research led by cognitive scientist Michael Laakasuo has shown that attitudes towards mind uploading are predicted by an individual's belief in an afterlife; the existence of mind uploading technology may threaten religious and spiritual notions of immortality and divinity.[49]

Emulations might be preceded by a technological arms race driven by first-strike advantages. Their emergence and existence may lead to increased risk of war, including inequality, power struggles, strong loyalty and willingness to die among emulations, and new forms of racism, xenophobia, and religious prejudice.[47] If emulations run much faster than humans, there might not be enough time for human leaders to make wise decisions or negotiate. It is possible that humans would react violently against the growing power of emulations, especially if that depresses human wages. Emulations may not trust each other, and even well-intentioned defensive measures might be interpreted as offense.[47]

The book The Age of Em by Robin Hanson poses many hypotheses on the nature of a society of mind uploads, including that the most common minds would be copies of adults with personalities conducive to long hours of productive specialized work.[50]

Kenneth D. Miller, a professor of neuroscience at Columbia and a co-director of the Center for Theoretical Neuroscience, raised doubts about the practicality of mind uploading. His major argument is that reconstructing neurons and their connections is in itself a formidable task, but it is far from being sufficient. Operation of the brain depends on the dynamics of electrical and biochemical signal exchange between neurons; therefore, capturing them in a single "frozen" state may prove insufficient. In addition, the nature of these signals may require modeling down to the molecular level and beyond. Therefore, while not rejecting the idea in principle, Miller believes that the complexity of the "absolute" duplication of an individual mind is insurmountable for the nearest hundreds of years.[51]

There are very few feasible technologies that humans have refrained from developing. The neuroscience and computer-hardware technologies that may make brain emulation possible are widely desired for other reasons, and logically their development will continue into the future. We may also have brain emulations for a brief but significant period on the way to non-emulation based human-level AI.[50] Assuming that emulation technology will arrive, a question becomes whether we should accelerate or slow its advance.[47]

Arguments for speeding up brain-emulation research:

Arguments for slowing down brain-emulation research:

Emulation research would also speed up neuroscience as a whole, which might accelerate medical advances, cognitive enhancement, lie detectors, and capability for psychological manipulation.[56]

Emulations might be easier to control than de novo AI because

As counterpoint to these considerations, Bostrom notes some downsides:

Because of the postulated difficulties that a whole brain emulation-generated superintelligence would pose for the control problem, computer scientist Stuart J. Russell in his book Human Compatible rejects creating one, simply calling it "so obviously a bad idea".[57]

Ray Kurzweil, director of engineering at Google, has long predicted that people will be able to "upload" their entire brains to computers and become "digitally immortal" by 2045. Kurzweil made this claim for many years, e.g. during his speech in 2013 at the Global Futures 2045 International Congress in New York, which claims to subscribe to a similar set of beliefs.[58] Mind uploading has also been advocated by a number of researchers in neuroscience and artificial intelligence, such as the late Marvin Minsky.[citation needed] In 1993, Joe Strout created a small web site called the Mind Uploading Home Page, and began advocating the idea in cryonics circles and elsewhere on the net. That site has not been actively updated in recent years, but it has spawned other sites including MindUploading.org, run by Randal A. Koene, who also moderates a mailing list on the topic. These advocates see mind uploading as a medical procedure which could eventually save countless lives.

Many transhumanists look forward to the development and deployment of mind uploading technology, with transhumanists such as Nick Bostrom predicting that it will become possible within the 21st century due to technological trends such as Moore's law.[5]

Michio Kaku, in collaboration with Science, hosted a documentary, Sci Fi Science: Physics of the Impossible, based on his book Physics of the Impossible. Episode four, titled "How to Teleport", mentions that mind uploading via techniques such as quantum entanglement and whole brain emulation using an advanced MRI machine may enable people to be transported vast distances at near light-speed.

The book Beyond Humanity: CyberEvolution and Future Minds by Gregory S. Paul & Earl D. Cox, is about the eventual (and, to the authors, almost inevitable) evolution of computers into sentient beings, but also deals with human mind transfer. Richard Doyle's Wetwares: Experiments in PostVital Living deals extensively with uploading from the perspective of distributed embodiment, arguing for example that humans are currently part of the "artificial life phenotype". Doyle's vision reverses the polarity on uploading, with artificial life forms such as uploads actively seeking out biological embodiment as part of their reproductive strategy.

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Mind uploading - Wikipedia

Simple Collaborative Mind Maps & Flow Charts – Coggle

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Realtime Collaboration

Invite your friends and colleagues to work with you, at the same time, on your diagrams.

Look through all the changes to a diagram and make a copy from any point to revert to a previous version.

Drag-and-drop images right from your desktop to your diagrams. There's no limit to the number of images you can add.

Add text labels and images that aren't part of the diagram tree to annotate parts of your map.

Join branches and create loops to create more powerful and flexible diagrams representing process flows and other advanced things.

Add multiple central items to your diagrams to map related topics in a single workspace.

Create as many private diagrams as you like. If you do ever cancel your subscription they stay private, and you keep access.

Pick from a range of shapes to create expressive, powerful flowcharts, process maps, and other diagrams.

Allow any number of people to edit a diagram simply by sharing a secret link with them. No login required.

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Simple Collaborative Mind Maps & Flow Charts - Coggle

What is the Talmud? Biblical Meaning & Definition – Bible Study Tools

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TALMUD

tal'-mud (talmudh):

I. PRELIMINARY REMARKS AND VERBAL EXPLANATIONS

II. IMPORTANCE OF THE TALMUD

III. THE TRADITIONAL LAW UNTIL THE COMPOSITION OF THE MISHNA

IV. DIVISION AND CONTENTS OF THE MISHNA (AND THE TALMUD)

1. Zera`im, "Seeds"

2. Mo`edh, "Feasts"

3. Nashim, "Women"

4. Neziqin, "Damages"

5. Kodhashim, "Sacred Things"

6. Teharoth, "Clean Things"

V. THE PALESTINIAN TALMUD

VI. THE BABYLONIAN TALMUD

VII. THE NON-CANONICAL LITTLE TREATISES AND THE TOSEPHTA'

1. Treatises after the 4th Cedher

2. Seven Little Treatises

LITERATURE

The present writer is, for brevity's sake, under necessity to refer to his Einleitung in den Talmud, 4th edition, Leipzig, 1908. It is quoted here as Introduction.

There are very few books which are mentioned so often and yet are so little known as the Talmud. It is perhaps true that nobody can now be found, who, as did the Capuchin monk Henricus Seynensis, thinks that "Talmud" is the name of a rabbi. Yet a great deal of ignorance on this subject still prevails in many circles. Many are afraid to inform themselves, as this may be too difficult or too tedious; others (the anti-Semites) do not want correct information to be spread on this subject, because this would interfere seriously with their use of the Talmud as a means for their agitation against the Jews.

I. Preliminary Remarks and Verbal Explanations.

(1) Mishnah, "the oral doctrine and the study of it" (from shanah, "to repeat," "to learn," "to teach"), especially

(a) the whole of the oral law which had come into existence up to the end of the 2nd century AD;

(b) the whole of the teaching of one of the rabbis living during the first two centuries AD (tanna', plural tanna'im);

(c) a single tenet;

(d) a collection of such tenets;

(e) above all, the collection made by Rabbi Jehudah (or Judah) ha-Nasi'.

(2) Gemara', "the matter that is leaned" (from gemar, "to accomplish," "to learn"), denotes since the 9th century the collection of the discussions of the Amoraim, i.e. of the rabbis teaching from about 200 to 500 AD.

(3) Talmudh, "the studying" or "the teaching," was in older times used for the discussions of the Amoraim; now it means the Mishna with the discussions thereupon.

(4) Halakhah (from halakh, "to go"):

(a) the life as far as it is ruled by the Law; (b) a statutory precept.

(5) Haggadhah (from higgidh, "to tell"), the non-halakhic exegesis.

II. Importance of the Talmud.

Commonly the Talmud is declared to be the Jewish code of Law. But this is not the case, even for the traditional or "orthodox" Jews. Really the Talmud is the source whence the Jewish Law is to be derived. Whosoever wants to show what the Jewish Law says about a certain case (point, question) has to compare at first the Shulchan `arukh with its commentary, then the other codices (Maimonides, Alphasi, etc.) and the Responsa, and finally the Talmudic discussions; but he is not allowed to give a decisive sentence on the authority of the Talmud alone (see Intro, 116, 117; David Hoffmann, Der Schulchan-Aruch, 2nd edition, Berlin, 1894, 38, 39). On the other hand, no decision is valid if it is against the yield of the Talmudic discussion. The liberal (Reformed) Jews say that the Talmud, though it is interesting and, as a Jewish work of antiquity, ever venerable, has in itself no authority for faith and life.

For both Christians and Jews the Talmud is of value for the following reasons:

(1) on account of the language, Hebrew being used in many parts of the Talmud (especially in Haggadic pieces), Palestinian Aramaic in the Palestinian Talmud, Eastern Aramaic in the Babylonian Talmud (compare "Literature," (7), below). The Talmud also contains words of Babylonian and Persian origin;

(2) for folklore, history, geography, natural and medical science, jurisprudence, archaeology and the understanding of the Old Testament (see "Literature," (6), below, and Introduction, 159-75). For Christians especially the Talmud contains very much which may help the understanding of the New Testament (see "Literature," (12), below).

III. The Traditional Law until the Composition of the Mishna.

The Law found in the Torah of Moses was the only written law which the Jews possessed after their return from the Babylonian exile. This law was neither complete nor sufficient for all times. On account of the ever-changing conditions of life new ordinances became necessary. Who made these we do not know. An authority to do this must have existed; but the claim made by many that after the days of Ezra there existed a college of 120 men called the "Great Synagogue" cannot be proved. Entirely untenable also is the claim of the traditionally orthodox Jews, that ever since the days of Moses there had been in existence, side by side with the written Law, also an oral Law, with all necessary explanations and supplements to the written Law.

What was added to the Pentateuchal Torah was for a long time handed down orally, as can be plainly seen from Josephus and Philo. The increase of such material made it necessary to arrange it. An arrangement according to subject-matter can be traced back to the 1st century AD; very old, perhaps even older, is also the formal adjustment of this material to the Pentateuchal Law, the form of Exegesis (Midrash). Compare Introduction, 19-21.

A comprehensive collection of traditional laws was made by Rabbi Aqiba circa 110-35 AD, if not by an earlier scholar. His work formed the basis of that of Rabbi Me'ir, and this again was the basis of the edition of the Mishna by Rabbi Jehudah ha-Nasi'. In this Mishna, the Mishna paragraph excellence, the anonymous portions generally, although not always, reproduce the views of Rabbi Me'ir.

See TIBERIAS.

The predecessors Rabbi (as R. Jehudah ha-Nasi', the "prince" or the "saint," is usually called), as far as we know, did not put into written form their collections; indeed it has been denied by many, especially by German and French rabbis of the Middle Ages, that Rabbi put into written form the Mishna which he edited. Probably the fact of the matter is that the traditional Law was not allowed to be used in written form for the purposes of instruction and in decisions on matters of the Law, but that written collections of a private character, collections of notes, to use a modern term, existed already at an early period (see Intro, 10).

IV. Division and Contents of the Mishna (and the Talmud).

The Mishna (as also the Talmud) is divided into six "orders" (cedharim) or chief parts, the names of which indicate their chief contents, namely, Zera`im, Agriculture; Moe`dh, Feasts; Nashim, Women; Neziqin, Civil and Criminal Law; Qodhashim, Sacrifices; Teharoth, Unclean Things and Their Purification.

The "orders" are divided into tracts (maccekheth, plural maccikhtoth), now 63, and these again into chapters (pereq, plural peraqim), and these again into paragraphs (mishnayoth). It is Customary to cite the Mishna according to tract chapter and paragraph, e.g. Sanh. (Sanhedhrin) x.1. The Babylonian Talmud is cited according to tract and page, e.g. (Babylonian Talmud) Shabbath 30b; in citing the Palestinian Talmud the number of the chapter is also usually given, e.g. (Palestinian Talmud) Shabbath vi.8d (in most of the editions of the Palestinian Talmud each page has two columns, the sheet accordingly has four).

1. Zera`im, "Seeds":

(1) Berakhoth, "Benedictions":

"Hear, O Israel" (Deuteronomy 6:4, shema`); the 18 benedictions, grace at meals, and other prayers.

(2) Pe'ah, "Corner" of the field (Leviticus 19:9; Deuteronomy 24:19).

(3) Dema'i, "Doubtful" fruits (grain, etc.) of which it is uncertain whether the duty for the priests and, in the fixed years, the 2nd tithe have been paid.

(4) Kil'ayim, "Heterogeneous," two kinds, forbidden mixtures (Leviticus 19:19; Deuteronomy 22:9).

(5) Shebhi`ith, "Seventh Year," Sabbatical year (Exodus 23:11; Leviticus 25:1); Shemiqqah (Deuteronomy 15:1).

(6) Terumoth, "Heave Offerings" for the priests (Numbers 18:8; Deuteronomy 18:4).

(7) Ma`aseroth or Ma`aser ri'shon, "First Tithe" (Numbers 18:21).

(8) Ma`aser sheni, "Second Tithe" (Deuteronomy 14:22).

(9) Challah, (offering of a part of the) "Dough" (Numbers 15:18).

(10) `Orlah, "Foreskin" of fruit trees during the first three years (Leviticus 19:23).

(11) Bikkurim, "First-Fruits" (Deuteronomy 26:1; Exodus 23:19).

2. Mo`edh, "Feasts":

(1) Shabbath (Exodus 20:10; 23:12; Deuteronomy 5:14).

(2) `Erubhin, "Mixtures," i.e. ideal combination of localities with the purpose of facilitating the observance of the Sabbatical laws.

(3) Pesachim, "Passover" (Exodus 12; Leviticus 23:5; Numbers 28:16; Deuteronomy 16:1); Numbers 9, the Second Passover (Numbers 9:10).

(4) Sheqalim, "Shekels" for the Temple (compare Nehemiah 10:33; Exodus 30:12).

(5) Yoma', "The Day" of Atonement (Leviticus 16).

(6) Cukkah, "Booth," Feast of Tabernacles (Leviticus 23:34; Numbers 29:12; Deuteronomy 16:13).

(7) Betsah, "Egg" (first word of the treatise) or Yom Tobh, "Feast," on the difference between the Sabbath and festivals (compare Exodus 12:10).

(8) Ro'sh ha-shanah, "New Year," first day of the month Tishri (Leviticus 23:24; Numbers 29:1).

(9) Ta`anith, "Fasting."

(10) Meghillah, "The Roll" of Esther, Purim (Esther 9:28).

(11) Mo`edh qatan, "Minor Feast," or Mashqin, "They irrigate" (first word of the treatise), the days between the first day and the last day of the feast of Passover, and likewise of Tabernacles.

(12) Chaghighah, "Feast Offering," statutes relating to the three feasts of pilgrimage (Passover, Weeks, Tabernacles); compare Deuteronomy 16:16 f.

3. Nashim, "Women":

(1) Yebhamoth, "Sisters-in-Law" (perhaps better, Yebhamuth, Levirate marriage; Deuteronomy 25:5; compare Ruth 4:5; Matthew 22:24).

(2) Kethubhoth, "Marriage Deeds."

(3) Nedharim, "Vows," and their annulment (Numbers 30).

(4) Nazir, "Nazirite" (Numbers 6).

(5) Gittin, "Letters of Divorce" (Deuteronomy 24:1; compare Matthew 5:31).

(6) Cotah, "The Suspected Woman" (Numbers 5:11).

(7) Qiddushin, "Betrothals."

4. Nezikin, "Damages":

(1) (2) and (3) Babha' qamma', Babha' metsi`a', Babha' bathra', "The First Gate," "The Second Gate," "The Last Gate," were in ancient times only one treatise called Neziqin:

(a) Damages and injuries and the responsibility; (b) and (c) right of possession.

(4) and (5) Sanhedhrin, "Court of Justice," and Makkoth "Stripes" (Deuteronomy 25:1; compare 1Corinthians 11:24). In ancient times only one treatise; criminal law and criminal proceedings.

(6) Shebhu`oth, "Oaths" (Leviticus 5:1).

(7) `Edhuyoth, "Attestations" of later teachers as to the opinions of former authorities.

(8) `Abhodhah zarah, "Idolatry," commerce and intercourse with idolaters.

(9) 'Abhoth, (sayings of the) "Fathers"; sayings of the Tanna'im.

(10) Horayoth, (erroneous) "Decisions," and the sin offering to be brought in such a case (Leviticus 4:13).

5. Qodhashim, "Sacred Things":

(1) Zebhahim, "Sacrifices" (Le 1).

(2) Menachoth, "Meal Offerings" (Leviticus 2:5,11; 6:7; Numbers 5:15, etc.).

(3) Chullin, "Common Things," things non-sacred; slaughtering of animals and birds for ordinary use.

(4) Bekhoroth, "The Firstborn" (Exodus 13:2,12; Leviticus 27:26,32; Numbers 8:6, etc.).

(5) `Arakhin, "Estimates," "Valuations" of persons and things dedicated to God (Leviticus 27:2).

(6) Temurah, "Substitution" of a common (non-sacred) thing for a sacred one (compare Leviticus 27:10,33).

(7) Kerithoth, "Excisions," the punishment of being cut off from Israel (Genesis 17:14; Exodus 12:15, etc.).

(8) Me`ilah, "Unfaithfulness," as to sacred things, embezzlement (Numbers 5:6; Leviticus 5:15).

(9) Tamidh, "The Daily Morning and Evening Sacrifice" (Ex 29:38; Nu 38:3).

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What is the Talmud? Biblical Meaning & Definition - Bible Study Tools

What Is the Talmud? | My Jewish Learning

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Talmud (literally, study) is the generic term for the documents that comment and expand upon the Mishnah (repeating), the first work of rabbinic law, published around the year 200 CE by Rabbi Judah the Prince in the land of Israel.

Although Talmud is largely about law, it should not be confused with either codes of law or with a commentary on the legal sections of the Torah. Due to its spare and laconic style, the Talmud is studied, not read. The difficulty of the intergenerational text has necessitated and fostered the development of an institutional and communal structure that supported the learning of Talmud and the establishment of special schools where each generation is apprenticed into its study by the previous generation.

Want to learn Talmud with us? Daf Yomi is a program of reading the entire Talmud one day at a time, and My Jewish Learning is offering a daily dose of Talmud in your inbox. Sign up for it here!

In the second century, Rabbi Judah the Patriarch published the Mishnah in six primary sections, or orders, dealing with agriculture, sacred times, women and personal status, damages, holy things, and purity laws. By carefully laying out different opinions concerning Jewish law, the Mishnah presents itself more as a case book of law. While the Mishnah preserved the teachings of earlier rabbis, it also shows the signs of a unified editing. Part of that editing process included selecting materials; many of the traditions that did not make it into the Mishnah were collected in a companion volume called the Tosefta (appendix, or supplement).

After the publication of the Mishnah, the sages of Israel, both in the land of Israel, and in the largest diaspora community of Babylonia (modern day Iraq), began to study the both the Mishnah and the traditional teachings. Their work consisted largely of working out the Mishnahs inner logic, trying to extract legal principles from the specific statements of case law, searching out the derivations of the legal statements from Scripture, and relating statements found in the Mishnah to traditions that were left out. Each community produced its own Gemara which have been preserved as two different multi-volume sets: the Talmud Yerushalmi includes the Mishnah and the Gemara produced by the sages of the Land of Israel, and the Talmud Bavli includes the Mishnah and the Gemara of the Babylonian Jewish sages.

In some ways, the Talmud was never completed; the Tosafist commentators during the middle ages extended to the whole of the Gemara the same kinds of analysis that the sages of the Gemara had performed upon the Mishnah. Other commentators, like Rashi, sought to explain the text in a sequential manner.

Many modern scholars have begun applying the tools of literary and linguistic analysis to the text of the Talmud. Some have used these tools to focus on the underlying uniformity and consistency of the text, while others have done sophisticated analysis of the sources and alleged history of the text. Still others have examined the literary artistry of the Talmud. Many scholars have, with varying degrees of success, tried to use the Talmud as a source for historical inquiry.

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Migrant Crisis

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The migrant crisis has been ongoing since 2018. The current wave of migrants coming to El Paso began in April 2022 and the sudden surge we are seeing now started in late August. The number of people released to the City of El Paso and local non-government organizations (NGOs; i.e., humanitarian agencies) has grown from approximately 250 per day in early August to as high as over 1,000 per day during the month of September 2022. The number fluctuates daily and is currently averaging 900 per day.The City of El Paso places our priority on the individual migrant, providingfood and water, connectivity, transportationassistance, and temporary shelter if needed.

The people crossing come from all parts of the world to escape economic devastation and extreme crime. The situation is dynamic. However, the main countries migrants are coming from today are Venezuela, Ecuador, El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Cuba. Though the numbers have been as high as 90% and as low as 50% from Venezuela, the number is currently holding at approximately 70%. The remainder of the migrants is from other countries including Ecuador, El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Cuba.

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Migrant Crisis

2015 European migrant crisis – Wikipedia

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2010s migrant crisis in the European Union

The 2015 European migrant crisis, also known internationally as the Syrian refugee crisis,[2][3] was a period of significantly increased movement of refugees and migrants into Europe in 2015, when 1.3 million people came to the continent to request asylum,[4] the most in a single year since World War II.[5] Those requesting asylum in Europe in 2015 were mostly Syrians,[6] but also included significant numbers of Afghans, Nigerians, Pakistanis, Iraqis and Eritreans,[7] as well as economic migrants from the Balkans.[8]

Europe had already begun registering increased numbers of refugee arrivals in 2010 due to a confluence of conflicts in parts of the Middle East, Asia and Africa, particularly the wars in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, but also terrorist insurgencies in Nigeria and Pakistan, and long-running human rights abuses in Eritrea, all contributing to refugee flows.[9] Many millions initially sought refuge in comparatively stable countries near their origin, but while these countries were largely free of war, living conditions for refugees were often very poor. In Turkey, many were not permitted to work; in Jordan and Lebanon which hosted millions of Syrian refugees,[10] large numbers were confined to squalid refugee camps.[9][11] As it became clear that the wars in their home countries would not end in the foreseeable future, many increasingly wished to settle permanently elsewhere. In addition, starting in 2014, Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt stopped accepting Syrian asylum seekers. Together these events caused a surge in people fleeing to Europe in 2015.[9]

The vast majority of refugees coming to Europe did so by crossing the Aegean Sea from Turkey to Greece[12] and subsequently making their way by land through the Balkans towards the European Union.[13] This was a significant change to previous years: before 2015, most refugees had reached Europe by crossing the Mediterranean Sea from Libya to Italy, largely due to the collapse of border controls during the Second Libyan Civil War;[14] these were mainly migrants originating in Sub-Saharan Africa.[15][16] The Aegean Sea route was used by refugees originating in the Middle East, mostly from Syria, or destinations further into Asia, mostly from Afghanistan.[17] The southeastern and central European countries through which refugees traveled to reach Western Europe were unaccustomed to and unprepared for the sudden movement of tens of thousands of refugees through them. Many reacted by closing their borders to neighboring countries. While intended to regain some measure of control, these measures often contributed to chaos as huge numbers of people repeatedly became trapped in one country or were shunted back and forth to another. Most countries refused to take in the arriving refugees; Germany ultimately accepted most of them after the government decided to temporarily suspend its enforcement of an EU rule requiring asylum seekers to remain in the first EU country they set foot in. Refugee arrivals began decreasing rapidly in autumn 2015 as winter set in and the cold made the journey more dangerous. In March 2016, Turkey agreed to strengthen border security measures in order to "take any measures necessary to stop people travelling irregularly from Turkey to the Greek islands".[18][19] In exchange, Turkey received 6 billion to improve the humanitarian situation faced by refugees in the country.[19]

The crisis had considerable short-term and long-term effects on the politics of both the affected EU countries and the EU as a whole. Right-wing populist parties in the affected countries capitalized on anti-immigrant sentiment, in many cases making it the centerpiece of their platform. Although they generally did not win enough votes to enter government, their presence often influenced politics by complicating the formation of governing coalitions and making opposition to immigration part of the political mainstream. A strong push for reforms to EU asylum law was made during and immediately after the crisis, but largely fizzled out after refugee arrival numbers receded.

News organisations and academic sources use both migrant crisis and refugee crisis to refer to the 2015 events, sometimes interchangeably. Some argued that the word migrant was pejorative or inaccurate in the context of people fleeing war and persecution because it implies most are emigrating voluntarily rather than being forced to leave their homes.[20][21] The BBC[22] and The Washington Post[23] argued against the stigmatization of the word, contending that it simply refers to anyone moving from one country to another. The Guardian said while it would not advise against using the word outright, "'refugees', 'displaced people' and 'asylum seekers' ... are more useful and accurate terms than a catch-all label like 'migrants', and we should use them wherever possible."[24] Al Jazeera, on the other hand, expressly avoided the term migrant, arguing it was inaccurate and risked "giving weight to those who want only to see economic migrants".[21]

The most significant root causes of the wave of refugees entering Europe in 2015 were several interrelated wars, most notably the Libyan civil war, Syrian civil war and the 20142017 War in Iraq.

In 2014, the year before the 2015 refugee crisis, the European Union counted around 252,000 "irregular arrivals", especially refugees from Syria, Eritrea and Somalia. Most crossed the Mediterranean Sea from Libya.[25]

According to Eurostat, EU member states received 626,065 asylum applications in 2014, the highest number since the 672,000 applications received in the wake of the Yugoslav Wars in 1992. The main countries of origin of asylum seekers, accounting for almost half of the total, were Syria (20%), Afghanistan (7%), Kosovo (6%), Eritrea (6%) and Albania.[26] The overall rate of recognition of asylum applicants was 45 percent at the first instance and 18 percent on appeal, although there were huge differences between EU states, ranging from Hungary (accepted 9% of applicants) to Sweden (accepted 74%).[27]

Four countries Germany, Sweden, Italy and France received around two-thirds of the EU's asylum applications and granted almost two-thirds of the applicants protection status in 2014. Sweden, Hungary and Austria were among the top recipients of EU asylum applications per capita, when adjusted for their own populations, with 8.4 asylum seekers per 1,000 inhabitants in Sweden, 4.3 in Hungary, and 3.2 in Austria.[28][29] The EU countries that hosted the largest numbers of refugees at the end of 2014 were France (252,000), Germany (217,000), Sweden (142,000) and the United Kingdom (117,000).[30]

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, most of the people who arrived in Europe in 2015 were refugees fleeing war and persecution[31] in countries such as Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and Eritrea: 84 percent of Mediterranean Sea arrivals in 2015 came from the world's top ten refugee-producing countries.[32] Wars fueling the migrant crisis are the Syrian Civil War, the Iraq War, the War in Afghanistan, the War in Somalia and the War in Darfur. Refugees from Eritrea, one of the most repressive states in the world, fled from indefinite military conscription and forced labour.[33][34]

Below are the major regions of conflict that have resulted in the increase of asylum seekers in the European region.

Migration from Kosovo occurred in phases beginning from the second half of the 20th century. The Kosovo War (February 1998-June 1999) created a wave. On 19 May 2011, Kosovo established the Ministry of Diaspora. Kosovo also established the Kosovo Diaspora Agency (KDA) to support migrants. Migrants from Kosovo newly arriving in the EU, detected but not over an official border-crossing point, was around 21,000 in 2014 and 10,000 in 2015.[36] At the same period detected illegal border crossings to the EU from Kosovo was 22,069 in 2014 and 23,793 in 2015.[37] In 2015 there was sudden surge, which Kosovo became helpless to stem.[38]

The Syrian Civil War began in response to the Arab Spring protests of March 2011, which quickly escalated into a civil uprising. By May 2011, thousands of people had fled the country and the first refugee camps opened in Turkey. In March 2012, the UNHCR appointed a Regional Coordinator for Syrian Refugees, recognising the growing concerns surrounding the crisis. As the conflict descended into full civil war, outside powers, notably Iran, Turkey, the United States and Russia funded and armed different sides of the conflict and sometimes intervened directly.[39] By March 2013, the total number of Syrian refugees reached 1,000,000,[40] the vast majority of whom were internally displaced within Syria or had fled to Turkey or Lebanon; smaller numbers had sought refuge in Iraq and Egypt.[41]

Afghan refugees constitute the second-largest refugee population in the world.[42] According to the UNHCR, there are almost 2.5 million registered refugees from Afghanistan. Most of these refugees fled the region due to war and persecution. The majority have resettled in Pakistan and Iran, though it became increasingly common to migrate further west to the European Union. Afghanistan faced over 40 years of conflict dating back to the Soviet invasion in 1979. Since then, the nation faced fluctuating levels of civil war amidst unending unrest. The increase in refugee numbers was primarily attributed to the Taliban presence within Afghanistan. Their retreat in 2001 led to nearly 6 million Afghan refugees returning to their homeland. However, after the Taliban insurgency against NATO-led forces and subsequent Fall of Kabul, nearly 2.5 million refugees fled Afghanistan.[43]

The Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria has resulted in the deaths of 20,000 people and displaced at least 2 million since 2009.[44] Around 75,000 Nigerians requested asylum in the EU in 2015 and 2016, around 3 percent of the total.[35]

In all, over 1 million refugees and migrants crossed the Mediterranean (mostly the Aegean Sea) in 2015, three to four times more than the previous year.[45] 80% were fleeing from wars in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan.[46] About 85% of sea arrivals were in Greece (via Turkey) and 15% in Italy (via northern Africa). The European Union's external land borders (e.g., in Greece, Bulgaria or Finland) played only a minor role.[47]

Crossing the Central Mediterranean Sea to Italy is a much longer and considerably more dangerous journey than the relatively short trip across the Aegean. As a result, this route was responsible for a large majority of migrant deaths in 2015, even though it was far less used. An estimated 2,889 died in the Central Mediterranean; 731 died in the Aegean sea.[47]

The EU Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex) uses the terms "illegal" and "irregular" border crossings for crossings of an EU external border but not at an official border-crossing point.[48] These include people rescued at sea.[49] Because many migrants cross more than one external EU border (for instance when traveling through the Balkans from Greece to Hungary), the total number of irregular EU external border crossings is often higher than the number of irregular migrants arriving in the EU in a year. News media sometimes misrepresent these figures as given by Frontex.[25]

Because the refugees entering Europe in 2015 were predominantly from the Middle East, the vast majority first entered the EU by crossing the Aegean Sea from Turkey to Greece by boat; Turkey's land border has been inaccessible to migrants since a border fence was constructed there in 2012.[50] A number of Greek islands are less than 6km (4mi) from the Turkish coast, such as Chios, Kos, Lesbos, Leros, Kastellorizo, Agathonisi, Farmakonisi, Rhodes, Samos and Symi. At one point, incoming refugees on some of these islands outnumbered locals.[51] A small number of people (34,000 or 3% of the total) used Turkey's land borders with Greece or Bulgaria.[47] From Greece, most tried to make their way toward through the Balkans to Central and Northern Europe.[13] This represented a stark change to the previous year, when most refugees and migrants landed in Italy from northern Africa. In fact, in the first half of 2015, Italy was, as in previous years, the most common landing point for refugees entering the EU, especially the southern Sicilian island of Lampedusa. By June, however, Greece overtook Italy in the number of arrivals and became the starting point of a flow of refugees and migrants moving through Balkan countries to Northern European countries, particularly Germany and Sweden. By the end of 2015, about 80% of migrants had landed in Greece, compared to only 15% in Italy.[32]

Greece appealed to the European Union for assistance; the UNCHR European Director Vincent Cochetel said facilities for migrants on the Greek islands were "totally inadequate" and the islands were in "total chaos".[52] Frontex's Operation Poseidon, aimed at patrolling the Aegean Sea, was underfunded and undermanned, with only 11 coastal patrol vessels, one ship, two helicopters, two aircraft, and a budget of 18 million.[53]

A section of northeastern Croatia is believed to contain up to 60,000 unexploded land mines from the Croatian War of Independence in the 1990s. Refugees were feared to be at risk of unknowingly detonating some of these minefields as they crossed the area. However, there were no reported cases of this happening in 2015 or 2016.[54]

The number of people making the considerably more dangerous sea journey from northern Africa to Italy was comparatively low at around 150,000.[47] Most of the refugees and migrants taking this route came from African countries, especially Eritrea, Nigeria, and Somalia.[55] At least 2,889 people died during the journey.[47]

A few other routes were also used by some refugees, although they were comparatively low in number. One such route was entering Finland or Norway via Russia; on a few days Arctic border stations in these countries saw several hundred "irregular" border crossings per day.[56] Norway recorded around 6,000 refugees crossing its northern border in 2015.[57] Because it is illegal to drive from Russia to Norway without a permit, and crossing on foot is prohibited, some used a legal loophole and made the crossing by bicycle.[58][59] A year later in 2016, Norway built a short 200 m fence at the Storskog border crossing,[60] although it was viewed as a mostly symbolic measure.[61]

Some observers argued that the Russian government facilitated the influx in an attempt to warn European leaders against maintaining sanctions imposed after Russia's annexation of Crimea.[56][62] In January 2016, a Russian border guard admitted that the Russian Federal Security Service was enabling migrants to enter Finland.[63]

Because asylum seekers are usually required to be physically present in the EU country where they wish to request asylum, and there are few formal ways to allow them to reach Europe to do so,[64] many paid smugglers for advice, logistical help and transportation through Europe, especially for sea crossings.[65] Human traffickers charged $1,000 to $1,500 (901 1352) for the 25-minute boat ride from Bodrum, Turkey to Kos.[66] An onward journey, not necessarily relying on smugglers, to Germany was estimated to cost 3,000 4,000 and 10,000 12,000 to Britain.[66] Airplane tickets directly from Turkey to Germany or Britain would have been far cheaper and safer, but the EU requires airlines flying into the Schengen Area to check that passengers have a visa or are exempted from carrying one ("carriers' responsibility").[67] This prevented would-be migrants without a visa from being allowed on aircraft, boats, or trains entering the Schengen Area, and caused them to resort to smugglers.[68] Humanitarian visas are generally not given to refugees who want to apply for asylum.[69]

In September 2015, Europol estimated there were 30,000 suspected migrant smugglers operating in and around Europe. By the end of 2016, this number had increased to 55,000. 63 percent of the smugglers were from Europe, 14 percent from the Middle East, 13 percent from Africa, nine percent from Asia (excluding the Middle East) and one percent from the Americas.[70]

On several occasions, unscrupulous smugglers caused the deaths of the people they were transporting, particularly by using poorly-maintained and overfilled boats and refusing to provide life jackets.[66][71] At least 3771 refugees and migrants drowned in the Mediterranean Sea in 2015. A single shipwreck near Lampedusa in April accounted for around 800 deaths.[72] Apart from drownings, the deadliest incident occurred on 27 August 2015, when 71 people were found dead in an unventilated food truck near Vienna.[73][74] Eleven of the smugglers responsible were later arrested and charged with murder and homicide in Hungary. The charges and trial took place in Hungary as authorities determined that the deaths had occurred there.[74]

The Mafia Capitale investigation revealed that the Italian Mafia profited from the migrant crisis and exploited refugees.[75][76]

The first half of 2015 saw around 230,000 people enter the EU. The most common points of entry were Italy and Greece.[79] From there, arrivals either applied for asylum directly or attempted to travel to other countries, especially Northern and Western European ones. For many, this involved traveling through the Balkans and re-entering the EU in Hungary or Croatia. As required by EU law, Hungary registered most of them as asylum seekers and attempted to prevent them from traveling on to other EU countries. At the same time, Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbn began using fear of immigration as a domestic political campaign issue[80][81] and stated his hard opposition to accepting any refugees long-term.[82]

By August 2015, Hungary housed about 150,000 refugees[83] in makeshift camps.[84] Due in part to the Hungarian government's unwelcoming stance towards refugees, squalid conditions in the camps, and their poor prospects of being allowed to stay, most had little desire to remain in Hungary.[85]

On August 21, 2015, the German Federal Office for Migration and Refugees, overwhelmed with the number of incoming asylum applications and the complexity of determining whether each applicant had previously made an application in another EU country, and faced with the reality that almost all asylum applications by Syrians were being granted anyway, began to permit asylum applications even from people who had previously applied for refugee status in another EU country. Sweden made a similar decision. Up to that point, Germany had been deporting such refugees 'back' to the first country where they had claimed asylum.[b][87] Interpreting this to mean that Germany would begin accepting larger numbers of refugees, tens of thousands in Hungary and southeastern Europe began attempting to make their way towards the country.[88] Viral video footage of refugees being warmly received by German crowds also burnished the country's reputation as a welcoming one for immigrants.[89]

On September 1, Hungarian government closed outbound rail traffic from Budapest's Keleti station, which many refugees were using to travel to Austria and Germany.[90] Within days, a massive buildup of people had formed at the station. On September 4, several thousand set off to make the 150km journey towards Austria on foot, at which point the Hungarian government relented and no longer tried to stop them. In an effort to force the Austrian and German governments' hands, Hungary chartered buses to the Austrian border for both those walking and those who had stayed behind at the station.[91] Unwilling to resort to violence to keep them out, and faced with a potential humanitarian crisis if the huge numbers languished in Hungary indefinitely,[88][92] Germany and Austria jointly announced on September 4 that they would allow the migrants into their borders and apply for asylum.[93][94] Across Germany, crowds formed at train stations to applaud and welcome the arrivals.[95]

In the following three months, an estimated 550,000 people entered Germany to apply for asylum, around half the total for the entire year.[96] Though under pressure from conservative politicians, the German government refused to set an upper limit to the number of asylum applications it would accept, with Angela Merkel arguing that the "fundamental right to seek refuge...from the hell of war knows no limit."[97] She famously declared her confidence that Germany could cope with the situation with "wir schaffen das" (roughly, "we can manage this"). This phrase quickly became a symbol of her government's refugee policy.[98]

Within ten days of Germany's decision to accept the refugees in Hungary, the sudden influx had overwhelmed many of the major refugee processing and accommodation centres in Germany and the country began enacting border controls[99] and allowing people to file asylum applications directly at the Austrian border.[100] Although Austria also accepted some asylum seekers, for a time the country effectively became a distribution centre to Germany, slowing and regulating their transit into Germany and providing temporary housing, food and health care.[101] On some days, Austria took in up to 10,000 Germany-bound migrants arriving from Slovenia and Hungary.[102]

Germany's imposition of border controls had a domino effect on countries to Germany's southeast, as Austria and Slovakia successively enacted their own border controls.[103][104] Hungary closed its border with Serbia entirely with a fence that had been under construction for several months, forcing migrants to pass through Croatia and Slovenia instead.[105] Croatia tried to force them back into Hungary, which responded with military force.[106] Croatian and Hungarian leaders each blamed each other for the situation and engaged in a bitter back-and-forth about what to do about the tens of thousands of stranded people.[106] Three days later, Croatia likewise closed its border with Serbia to avoid becoming a transit country.[107] Slovenia kept its borders open, although it did limit the flow of people, resulting in occasionally violent clashes with police.[108]

In October, Hungary also closed its border with Croatia, making Slovenia the only remaining way to reach Austria and Germany. Croatia reopened its own border to Serbia[109] and together with Slovenia began permitting migrants to pass through, providing buses and temporary accommodation en route.[110] Slovenia did impose a limit of 2,500 people per day, which initially stranded thousands of migrants in Croatia, Serbia and North Macedonia.[111][112] In November, Slovenia began erecting temporary fences along the border to direct the flow of people to formal border crossings.[113] Several countries, such as Hungary,[114] Slovenia[115] and Austria,[116] authorized their armies to secure their borders or repel migrants; some passed legislation specifically to give armed forces more powers.[117]

EU officials generally reacted with dismay at the border closures, warning that they undermined the mutual trust and freedom of movement that the bloc was founded on and risked returning to a pre-1990s arrangement of costly border controls and mistrust. The European Commission warned EU members against steps that contravene EU treaties and urged members like Hungary to find other ways to cope with an influx of refugees and migrants.[118]

As winter set in, refugee numbers decreased, although they were still many times higher than in the previous year. In January and February 2016, over 123,000 migrants landed in Greece, compared to about 4,600 in the same period of 2015.[119]

Sweden took in over 160,000 refugees in 2015, more per capita than any other country in Europe (other than Turkey). Well over half of these came to Sweden in October and November.[120] Most entered Sweden by traveling through Germany and then Denmark; few wanted to apply for asylum in Denmark because of its comparatively harsh conditions for asylum seekers.[121] There were occasionally scuffles as Danish police tried to register some of the arrivals, as they were technically required to do according to EU rules.[122][123] In early September, Denmark temporarily closed rail and road border crossings with Germany.[124] After initial uncertainty surrounding the rules, Denmark allowed most of the people wishing to travel on to Sweden to do so.[125] In the five weeks following 6 September, approximately 28,800 refugees and migrants crossed the Danish borders, 3,500 of whom applied for asylum in Denmark; the rest continued to other Nordic countries.[126]

In November 2015, Sweden reintroduced border controls at the Danish border, although this did not reduce the number of arrivals as they still had the right to apply for asylum.[127] Within hours of Swedish border control becoming effective, Denmark instituted border controls at the German border.[128] Some bypassed the border controls by taking a ferry to Trelleborg instead of the train to Hyllie,[129][128] The border controls were never fully lifted before the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, which saw renewed border closures throughout Europe.

In October 2015, the Slovenian government accused Croatian police of helping migrants bypass Slovene border controls and released a night time thermovision video allegedly documenting the event.[130][131]

Because the vast majority of refugees arriving in Europe in 2015 passed through Turkey, the country's cooperation was seen as central to efforts to stem the flow of people and prevent refugees from attempting to make dangerous sea crossings. There was also a recognition that it would be unfair to expect Turkey to shoulder the financial and logistical burden of hosting and integrating millions of refugees on its own. In 2015, the European Commission began negotiating an agreement with Turkey to close its borders to Greece in exchange for money and diplomatic favours. In March 2016, after months of tense negotiations[132] during which Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoan repeatedly threatened to open Turkey's borders and "flood" Europe with migrants to extract concessions,[133] a deal was announced. Turkey agreed to significantly increase border security at its shores and take back all future irregular entrants into Greece (and thereby the EU) from Turkey. In return, the EU would pay Turkey 6 billion euros (around US$5 billion).[134] In addition, for every Syrian sent back from Greece, the EU would accept one registered Syrian refugee living in Turkey who had never tried to enter the EU illegally, up to a total of 72,000. If the process succeeded in dramatically reducing irregular immigration to a maximum of 6,000 people per month, the EU would set up a resettlement scheme by which it would regularly resettle Syrian refugees registered in Turkey and upon vetting and recommendation by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The EU also promised to institute visa-free travel to the Schengen area and to breathe new life into Turkey's EU accession talks.[135]

The deal came into force on March 20, 2016.[136] On April 4, the first group of 200 people had been deported from Greece to Turkey under the provisions of the deal. Turkey planned to deport most of them to their home countries.[137] The agreement resulted in a steep decline of migrant arrivals in Greece; in April, Greece recorded only 2,700 irregular border crossings, a 90 percent decrease compared to the previous month.[138] This was also the first time since June 2015 that more migrants arrived in Italy than in Greece.[138]

The plan to send migrants back to Turkey was criticized by human right organisations and the United Nations, which warned that it could be illegal to send the migrants back to Turkey in exchange for financial and political rewards.[139] The UNHCR said it was not a party to the EU-Turkey deal and would not be involved in returns or detentions.[140] Like the UNHCR, four aid agencies (Mdecins Sans Frontires, the International Rescue Committee, the Norwegian Refugee Council and Save the Children) said they would not help to implement the EU-Turkey deal because blanket expulsion of refugees contravened international law.[141] Amnesty International called the agreement "madness", and said 18 March 2016 was "a dark day for Refugee Convention, Europe and humanity". Turkish prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu said that Turkey and EU had the same challenges, the same future, and the same destiny. Donald Tusk said that the migrants in Greece would not be sent back to dangerous areas.[142]

Turkey's EU accession talks began in July 2016 and the first $3.3 billion was transferred to Turkey.[136] The talks were suspended in November 2016 after the Turkey's antidemocratic response to the 2016 Turkish coup attempt.[143] Erdoan again threatened to flood Europe with migrants after the European Parliament voted to suspend EU membership talks in November 2016: "if you go any further, these border gates will be opened. Neither me nor my people will be affected by these dry threats."[144][145] Over the next few years, Turkish officials continued to threaten the EU with reneging on the deal and engineering a repeat of the 2015 refugee crisis in response to criticism of the Erdoan government.[146][147] In one notable incident in March 2020, the Turkish government bused large numbers of Syrians living in Turkey to the Greek border and encouraged them to cross. Greece repelled the arrivals with border guards.[148][149]

One effect of the closure of the "Balkan route" was to drive refugees to other routes, especially across the central and eastern Mediterranean. As a result, migrant deaths due to shipwrecks began increasing again. On 16 April, a large boat sank between Libya and Italy, with as many as 500 deaths.[150] In addition, countries that had seen comparatively few refugee arrivals began recording significant numbers. In 2017, for instance, there was a 60% significant jump in the number of migrants reaching Spain.[151] Similarly, Cyprus recorded an approximately 8-fold increase in the number of arrivals between 2016 and 2017.[152][153]

In response to the increased numbers of people reaching Italian shores, Italy signed an agreement in early 2017 with the UN-recognized government of Libya, from where most migrants started their boat journeys to Italy. In return for Libya making more efforts to prevent migrants from reaching Europe, Italy provided money and training for the Libyan coast guard and for migrant detention centres in northern Libya. In August of that year, the Libyan Coast Guard began requiring NGO rescue vessels to stay at least 360km (225mi) from the Libyan coast unless they were given express permission to enter.[154] As a result, NGOs MSF, Save the Children and Sea Eye suspended their operations after clashes with the Libyan Coast Guard after the latter asserted its sovereignty of its waters by firing warning shots.[65] Soon afterwards, refugee arrivals in Italy dropped significantly. At the same time, the lack of rescue vessels made the crossing much more dangerous; by September 2018, one in five migrants attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea from Libya either drowned or disappeared.[155] In 2019, the deal was renewed for a further three years.[156]

After inspecting a refugee camp in Traiskirchen, Austria, in August 2015, Amnesty International noted inhabitants were receiving insufficient medical care and claimed Austria was "violating human rights".[157]

In late November, Finnish reception centers were running out of space, which forced authorities to resort to refurbished shipping containers and tents to house new asylum seekers.[158] Deputy prime minister Petteri Orpo announced that special repatriation centers would be established to house denied asylum seekers. While he stressed that these camps would not be prisons, he described the inhabitants would be under strict surveillance.[159]

Many migrants tried to enter the United Kingdom, resulting in camps of migrants around Calais where one of the Eurotunnel entrances is located. In the summer of 2015, at least nine people died in attempts to reach Britain, including falling from trains, being hit by trains, or drowning in a canal at the Eurotunnel entrance.[160] In response, a UK-financed fence was built along the A-216 highway in Calais.[161][162] At the camp near Calais, known as the Jungle, riots broke out when authorities began demolishing the illegally constructed campsite on 29 January 2015.[163] Amid the protests, which included hunger strikes, thousands of refugees living in the camp were relocated to France's "first international-standard refugee camp" at the La Liniere refugee camp in Grande-Synthe which replaced the previous Basroch refugee camp.[164]

Germany has a quota system to distribute asylum seekers among all German states, but in September 2015 the federal states, responsible for accommodation, criticised the government in Berlin for not providing enough help to them.

In Germany, which took in by far the highest number of refugees, the federal government distributes refugees among the 16 states proportionally to their tax revenue and population;[165] the states themselves are required to come up with housing solutions. In 2015, this arrangement came under strain as many states ran out of dedicated accommodation for incoming refugees.[166] Many resorted to temporarily housing refugees in tents or repurposed empty buildings. The small village of Sumte (population 102), which contained a large unused warehouse, famously took in 750 refugees.[167] Although media and some locals feared racial strife and a far-right political surge, the town remained peaceful and locals largely accepting. By 2020, most of the arrivals had moved on to bigger German cities for work or study; a small number have settled in Sumte permanently.[168]

Source: Eurostat[169]^note 2:although the majority of refugees arrived in Europe in 2015,[170] many did not file asylum claims until 2016 or 2017.

Europe needs to fulfil its humanitarian duty, helping those fleeing for their lives, and as a Christian Democrat, I want to reiterate that is not Christian rights, but human rights that Europe invented. But we also need to better secure our external borders and make sure that asylum rules are used properly and not abused.

Manfred Weber, leader of the European People's Party in the European Parliament.

Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, used uncharacteristically strong language addressing the refugee crisis and warned that freedom of travel and open borders among the 28 member states of the EU could be jeopardised if they did not agree on a shared response to this crisis.[171]

Nicolas Sarkozy, president of the Republicans and former French president, compared the EU migrant plan to "mending a burst pipe by spreading water round the house while leaving the leak untouched".[172] Sarkozy criticised Merkel's decision to allow tens of thousands of people to enter Germany, saying that it would attract even greater numbers of people to Europe, of which a significant part would "inevitably" end up in France due to the EU's free movement policies and the French welfare state. He also argued that the Schengen agreement on borderless travel should be replaced with a new agreement providing border checks for non-EU citizens.[173]

British Home Secretary Theresa May said that it was important to help people living in war zone regions and refugee camps, "not the ones who are strong and rich enough to come to Europe".[174]

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said the EU should forge a single European policy on asylum.[175] French Prime Minister Manuel Valls stated, "There must be close cooperation between the European Commission and member states as well as candidate members."[176] Sergei Stanishev, President of the Party of European Socialists, stated:

At this moment, more people in the world are displaced by conflict than at any time since the Second World War. ... Many die on the approach to Europe in the Mediterranean yet others perish on European soil. ... As social democrats the principle of solidarity is the glue that keeps our family together. ... We need a permanent European mechanism for fairly distributing asylum-seekers in European member states. ... War, poverty and the stark rise in inequality are global, not local problems. As long as we do not address these causes globally, we cannot deny people the right to look for a more hopeful future in a safer environment.[177]

In the years preceding the refugee crisis, EU officials had made numerous attempts to coordinate refugee and immigration policies, all of which failed due to stark differences in members' openness to immigration.[178] In April 2015, several months before the massive surge in refugee arrivals, Angela Merkel had called for redistributing asylum seekers across the EU member states.[179]

In May 2015, the European Commission proposed distributing a portion of newly arrived refugees from Syria, Eritrea and Iraq (chosen because applicants from these countries had high rates of success in obtaining asylum) across EU states based on their GDP and population. Countries also had the option of not to accepting any asylum seekers and instead contributing money to support their resettlement in another country.[180] Due to objections from several countries, the idea was never implemented, as decisions by the European Commission generally require unanimity.[181] However, by September that year, the large numbers of refugees arriving in the EU put renewed pressure on leaders to pass meaningful reforms. This time the Commission proposed redistributing 120,000 refugees and forced the plan through on a highly unusual qualified majority vote rather than unanimity.

The plan proved extremely divisive; the countries that had voted against it Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and the Czech Republic declared their intention to defy the decision and refuse to accept any refugees at all.[182][183] As a result, even countries voting for it questioned its feasibility.[184] Viktor Orbn, the prime minister of Hungary, began using the issue in political campaigns, claiming the EU was planning to flood Hungary with immigrants.[185] The Czech Secretary for European Affairs Tom Prouza commented that "if two or three thousand people who do not want to be here are forced into the Czech Republic, it is fair to assume that they will leave anyway... we can't just move them here and there like a cattle." Meanwhile, western European politicians, particularly from countries with historically high refugee intakes, criticized what they saw as these member states' intransigence.[186] Some called for the EU to reduce funding for member countries that blocked burden-sharing initiatives.[187] French President Hollande declared, "those who don't share our values, those who don't even want to respect those principles, need to start asking themselves questions about their place in the European Union."[188]

In September 2017, the European Court of Justice dismissed legal actions brought by Slovakia and Hungary against the redistribution system.[189] Nevertheless, the commission, in the face of continuing opposition by dissenting countries and in acknowledgment of their success in instrumentalizing the issue with domestic voters, abandoned the idea in 2020,[190] although several thousand refugees did ultimately end up being resettled to willing countries.[191]

In 2016 the European Commission began reforming the Common European Asylum System (CEAS) which was initially designed to create a unified asylum system for the EU. In an attempt to create measures for safe and managed paths for legal migration to Europe, the European Commission created five components that sought to satisfy the minimum standards for asylum.[192]

On 13 July 2016, the European Commission introduced the proposals to finalise the CEAS' reform. The reform sought to create a just policy for asylum seekers while providing a new system that was simple and shortened. Ultimately, the reform proposal attempted to create a system that could handle normal and impacted times of migratory pressure.[193]

The Dublin Regulation was criticised for placing too much responsibility for asylum seekers on member states on the EU's external borders (especially Italy, Greece, Croatia and Hungary), instead of sharing responsibility among EU states.[194] In June 2016, the European Commission proposed reforms to the Dublin Regulation.[195]

One component of the European Commission's 10-point plan in April 2015, drawn up in response to a deadly shipwreck on April 19, called for the European Asylum Support Office to deploy teams in Italy and Greece to asylum applications to eliminate the need for dangerous Mediterranean Sea crossings.[196]

On 25 October 2015, the leaders of Greece and other states along Western Balkan routes to wealthier nations of Europe, including Germany, agreed to set up holding camps for 100,000 asylum seekers.[197] On 12 November 2015, it was reported that Frontex had been maintaining combined asylum seeker and deportation hotspots in Lesbos, Greece, since October.[198]

In 2014, Italy had ended Operation Mare Nostrum, a large-scale naval search-and-rescue operation to save stranded migrants in the Mediterranean, saying the costs were too large for one country alone to manage. The Italian government had requested additional funds from the EU to continue the operation but did not receive sufficient support.[199] The UK government cited fears that the operation was "an unintended 'pull factor', encouraging more migrants to attempt the dangerous sea crossing and contributing to drownings.[200] The European Border and Coast Guard Agency took over search and rescue operations throughout the Mediterranean under the name Operation Triton,[201] although its budget, equipment and mandate were far more limited than Mare Nostrum.[202][203] On 18 May 2015, the European Union launched a new operation based in Rome, named EU Navfor Med, under the command of the Italian Admiral Enrico Credendino,[204] to identify, capture and dispose of vessels used by migrant smugglers.[205] By April 2016, the operation rescued more than 13,000 migrants at sea and arrested 68 suspected smugglers.[206]

Non-governmental organizations often filled the vacuum when Italian or EU operations were insufficient to rescue migrant boats in the Mediterranean. Some Italian authorities feared that rather than saving lives, the NGO operations encouraged more people to use the dangerous passage facilitated by human traffickers.[207] In July 2017, Italy drew up a code of conduct for NGO rescue vessels delivering migrants to Italian ports. These rules prohibited coordinating with human traffickers via flares or radio and required vessels to permit police presence on board. More controversially, they also forbade entering the territorial waters of Libya and transferring rescued people onto other vessels, which severely limited the number of people NGOs could save.[208] The Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International criticised the code of conduct and some NGOs, including Doctors Without Borders, eventually suspended rescue operations.[207] In the years following its implementation, Mediterranean Sea crossings dropped considerably, although the degree to which this was caused by the NGO code is disputed. A study conducted from 2014 to 2019 concluded that external factors like weather and the political stability of Libya contributed more to the ebbs and flows of migrants crossing the Mediterranean.[209]

In September 2016, Greek volunteers of the "Hellenic Rescue Team" and human rights activist Efi Latsoudi were awarded the Nansen Refugee Award by the UNHCR "for their tireless volunteer work" in helping refugees arrive in Greece during the 2015 refugee crisis.[210]

After 700 migrants drowned following a shipwreck in the Mediterranean Sea on April 19,[211] EU leaders called for an emergency meeting of European interior ministers.[212][213] The prime minister of Malta, Joseph Muscat, called the 19 April shipwreck the "biggest human tragedy in recent years". Aydan zouz, the German minister for immigration, refugees, and integration, said that emergency rescue missions in the Mediterranean should recommence as more migrants were likely to arrive as the weather turned warmer. "It was an illusion to think that cutting off Mare Nostrum would prevent people from attempting this dangerous voyage across the Mediterranean", she said.[214]

A previously scheduled routine meeting of EU foreign ministers the day after the shipwreck was dominated by refugee policy and preventing migrant deaths.[215] The same day, the European Commission published a ten-point plan to address deaths in the Mediterranean Sea, which doubled the size and budget of Operation Triton and called for capturing or destroying smuggler boats.[216] On April 23, EU leaders held an emergency summit, where they agreed to triple the budget of Operation Triton to 120million for the year.[217] Ireland and the United Kingdom both committed patrol boats and helicopters to the rescue effort.[217][218] Amnesty International criticised the EU's response as "a face-saving not a life-saving operation" and said that "failure to extend Triton's operational area will fatally undermine today's commitment".[219] The EU sought to increase the scope of EU Navfor Med include patrols inside Libyan waters in order to capture and dispose of vessels used by smugglers there.[220][221] Land operations on Libya to destroy vessels used by smugglers had been proposed, but such an operation would have needed UN or Libyan permission.

Throughout the crisis, many countries experienced public debates on whether to limit the number of asylum applications they would accept. Proponents argued that such measures were necessary because no country had the capacity to absorb unlimited numbers of refugees, and that limiting refugee inflows would give countries space to deal with the influx properly.[222][223] Opponents, most notably German chancellor Angela Merkel, argued that limiting the numbers of refugees would undermine the principle of asylum, contravene national or international laws[224] and be physically unworkable.[225] Others noted that the numbers of people arriving was small relative to most EU countries' populations. Some drew parallels to previous refugee waves, such as during World War II when many countries set limits to refugee admissions from Europe, abandoning many victims of Nazism.[226][227][228]

Nevertheless, several countries began setting upper limits to the number of asylum applications it would process per year. In January 2016, Austria announced a limit of 37,500 in each of the next four years[229] later temporarily reduced to 80 per day.[230] In 2018, Germany set a "goal" of not exceeding a net intake of 220,000 annually.[231] Germany also suspended family reunifications for beneficiaries of "subsidiary protection" from 2016 to 2018.[232] Sweden did so for all refugees from 2016 to 2019.[233]

In 2015 and following years, many governments also began formally designating certain countries "safe" in order to make it easier to deny asylum applications from and deport people from them. "Safe country lists" usually included the Balkan countries (Kosovo, Albania, North Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia), Georgia, Morocco and Tunisia.[234] Some also controversially listed certain parts of war-torn countries like Iraq or Afghanistan.[235]

A report by EU inspectors in November 2015 found that Greece failed to identify and register arrivals properly.[236] In February 2016, the EU gave Greece a three-month deadline to fix its border controls, or other member states would be authorized to extend border controls to Greece for up to two years instead of the standard six months.[237]

In July 2016, the European parliament and Commission approved a proposal to permanently increase the funding and scope of Frontex, which until then only coordinated the coast guards and border patrols of individual EU countries, and turn it into a true EU-wide border agency and coast guard. Such a step had long been controversial because of sovereignty concerns, as it allows Frontex intervention in border countries even if they did not request it.[238]

February 2016, NATO announced that it would deploy ships in the Aegean Sea to deter smugglers taking migrants from Turkey to Greece. NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said the mission would not be about "stopping or pushing back refugee boats", but about intelligence gathering and sharing information with Turkey and Greece, which are both NATO members.[239]

In late December 2015, Slovenia erected a razor-wire fence along the Istria and Gorski Kotar sections of its border with Croatia, to block migrants and refugees heading for more northern parts of Europe. The WWF and locals warned that the fence would threaten endangered species that roam across the area, such as lynx and brown bears, which are protected by law in Croatia.[240][241]

On 9 March 2016, the Hungarian government declared a state of emergency for the entire country and deployed 1500 soldiers to its borders.[242][243] Some observers considered the supposed risk of increased immigration a pretext for centralising executive power, since migrant numbers had already receded significantly by this point.[244] In August 2017 the state of emergency was extended to March 2018.[245]

In total, ten permanent or semi-permanent border barriers were constructed as a direct response to the refugee crisis:

The Valletta Summit on Migration between European and African leaders, on 11 and 12 November 2015, resulted in the EU creating an Emergency Trust Fund to create jobs in African countries, admit more Africans to Erasmus Plus study programmes, and set up regional development programmes in Africa, in return for African countries to counteract migrant smuggling and migrant trafficking and readmit migrants not receiving asylum in Europe.[257]

For example, Germany in 2016 announced new development aid for and security partnerships with Niger, which serves as a transit country for many migrants and refugees from sub-Saharan Africa, and Ethiopia, which hosts 750,000 refugees from other countries.[258]

The table above summarizes the 1.7 million asylum applicants in 2015 cost 18 billion in maintenance costs in 2016, with the total 2015 and 2016 asylum caseload costing 27.3 billion (27.296 in Mil.) in 2016. Sweden is observed to bear the heaviest cost.[259]

Yes

Abstention

No

Non-EU state

On 15 December 2015 the EU proposed taking over the border and coastal security operations at major migrant entry pressure points via its Frontex operation.[260]

In the time during and immediately after the refugee crisis, crimes committed by immigrants were often widely publicised and seized upon by opponents of immigration.[261]

During 2015, foreign fighters who had joined the Islamic state travelled with the migration flow back to Europe. In the January 2016-April 2017 period, four asylum seekers were involved in terrorist incidents, but none who had been granted refugee status. Most of the terrorist attacks in Europe in the period were carried out by citizens of European countries.[262] In 2015, Swedish authorities reported 500 cases of suspected terrorism links or war criminals to the Swedish Security Service.[263] Twenty individuals were denied asylum in Sweden in 2015 due to suspected involvement in war crimes.[263]

On November 13, 2015, a group of men consisting of both EU citizens and non-citizens detonated suicide bombs at a football stadium, fired on crowded cafes and took hostage a concert hall of 1500 people. 130 people died in the attacks.[264] Although very few of the perpetrators came to Europe as asylum seekers,[265] the event sparked a public debate on asylum policy and the need for counterterrorism measures.[266] German Vice-Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel defended Germany's and the EU's refugee policy and pointed out that most migrants are fleeing terrorism.[267]

In 2016, 18 of 31 men suspected of violent assaults on women in Cologne on New Year's Eve were identified as asylum seekers, prompting calls by German officials to deport convicted criminals who may be seeking asylum;[268] these sexual attacks brought about a new wave of anti-immigrant protests across Europe.[269]

On January 11, 2016, there were reports that multiple sexual harassment incidents occurred at the We Are Sthlm festival over the course of several years.[270]

In 2016, the Italian daily newspaper La Stampa reported that officials from Europol conducted an investigation into the trafficking of fake documents for ISIL. They identified fake Syrian passports in the refugee camps in Greece meant for supposed members of ISIL to avoid Greek security and make their way to other parts of Europe. The chief of Europol also said that a new task force of 200 counter-terrorism officers would be deployed to the Greek islands alongside Greek border guards in order to help Greece stop a "strategic" level campaign by ISIL to infiltrate terrorists into Europe.[271]

In October 2016, Danish immigration minister Inger Stjberg reported 50 cases of suspected radicalised asylum seekers at asylum centres. These reports ranged from adult Islamic State sympathisers celebrating terror attacks to violent children dressing up as IS fighters to decapitate teddy bears. Stjberg expressed her frustration at asylum seekers ostensibly fleeing war yet simultaneously supporting violence. Asylum centres that detected radicalisation routinely reported their findings to police. The 50 incidents were reported between 17 November 2015 and 14 September 2016.[272][273]

In February 2017, British newspaper The Guardian reported that ISIL was paying smugglers fees of up to $2,000 USD to recruit people from refugee camps in Jordan in a desperate attempt to radicalize children for the group. The reports by counter-extremism think tank Quilliam indicated that an estimated 88,300 unaccompanied childrenwho are reported as missingwere at risk of radicalization by ISIL.[274]

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2015 European migrant crisis - Wikipedia

The climate crisis, migration, and refugees – Brookings

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On March 14, 2019, Tropical Cyclone Idai struck the southeast coast of Mozambique. The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees reported that 1.85 million people needed assistance. 146,000 people were internally displaced, and Mozambique scrambled to house them in 155 temporary sites.1 The cyclone and subsequent flooding damaged 100,000 homes, destroyed 1 million acres of crops, and demolished $1 billion worth of infrastructure.2

One historic storm in one place over the course of one day. While Cyclone Idai was the worst storm in Mozambiques history, the world is looking towards a future where these unprecedented storms are commonplace. This global challenge has and will continue to create a multitude of critical issues that the international community must confront, including:

All of these challenges are serious, but the scope and scale of human migration due to climate change will test the limits of national and global governance as well as international cooperation.

In 2018, the World Bank estimated that three regions (Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, and Southeast Asia) will generate 143 million more climate migrants by 2050.3 In 2017, 68.5 million people were forcibly displaced, more than at any point in human history. While it is difficult to estimate, approximately one-third of these (22.5 million4 to 24 million5 people) were forced to move by sudden onset weather eventsflooding, forest fires after droughts, and intensified storms. While the remaining two-thirds of displacements are the results of other humanitarian crises, it is becoming obvious that climate change is contributing to so-called slow onset events such as desertification, sea-level rise, ocean acidification, air pollution, rain pattern shifts and loss of biodiversity.6 This deterioration will exacerbate many humanitarian crises and may lead to more people being on the move.

Multilateral institutions, development agencies, and international law must do far more to thoroughly examine the challenges of climate change (early efforts, like the World Banks 2010 World Development Report on climate change,7 had little uptake at a time when few thought a climate crisis was around the corner). Moreover, neither a multilateral strategy nor a legal framework exist to account for climate change as a driver of migration. Whether in terms of limited access to clean water, food scarcity, agricultural degradation, or violent conflict,8 climate change will intensify these challenges and be a significant push factor in human migration patterns.

To date, there are only a few cases where climate change is the sole factor prompting migration. The clearest examples are in the Pacific Islands. The sea level is rising at a rate of 12 millimeters per year in the western Pacific and has already submerged eight islands. Two more are on the brink of disappearing, prompting a wave of migration to larger countries.910 By 2100, it is estimated that 48 islands overall will be lost to the rising ocean.11 In 2015, the Teitota family applied for refugee status in New Zealand, fleeing the disappearing island nation of Kiribati.12 Their case, the first request for refuge explicitly attributed climate change, made it to the High Court of New Zealand but was ultimately dismissed. Islands in the Federated States of Micronesia have drastically reduced in size, washed down to an uninhabitable state, had their fresh water contaminated by the inflow of seawater, and disappeared in the past decade.13 Despite their extreme vulnerability, the relatively small population (2.3 million people spread across 11 countries14) and remote location of the Pacific Islands means that they garner little international action, for all the attention they receive in the media.

Although there are few instances of climate change as the sole factor in migration, climate change is widely recognized as a contributing and exacerbating factor in migration and in conflict.

In South Asia, increasing temperatures, sea level rise, more frequent cyclones, flooding of river systems fed by melting glaciers, and other extreme weather events are exacerbating current internal and international migration patterns. Additionally, rapid economic growth and urbanization are accelerating and magnifying the impact and drivers of climate changethe demand for energy is expected to grow 66 percent by 2040.15 Compounding this, many of the expanding urban areas are located in low-lying coastal areas, already threatened by sea level rise.16 The confluence of these factors leads the World Bank to predict that the collective South Asian economy (Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, and Sri Lanka) will lose 1.8 percent of its annual GDP due to climate change by 2050.17 The New York Times reports that the living conditions of 800 million people could seriously diminish.18 Diminishing living conditions on this scale and intensity will prompt mass migrationpossibly at an unprecedented level.

Northwest Africa is facing rising sea levels, drought, and desertification. These conditions will only add to the already substantial number of seasonal migrants and put added strain on the country of origin, as well as on destination countries and the routes migrants travel. The destabilizing effects of climate change should be of great concern to all those who seek security and stability in the region. Climate and security experts often cite the impacts of the extreme drought in Syria that preceded the 2011 civil war.19 The security community also highlights the connection between climate change and terrorismfor instance, the decline of agricultural and pastoral livelihoods has been linked to the effectiveness of financial recruiting strategies by al-Qaida.20

The intersection of climate change and migration requires new, nimble, and comprehensive solutions to the multidimensional challenges it creates. Accordingly, the signatories to the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change requested that the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage Associated with Climate Change (WIM) develop recommendations for addressing people displaced by climate change.21 Similarly, The Global Compact for Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration (adopted by 164 countriesnot including the U.S.in Marrakech in December 2018) called on countries to make plans to prevent the need for climate-caused relocation and support those forced to relocate.22 However, these agreements are neither legally binding nor sufficiently developed to support climate migrantsparticularly migrants from South Asia, Central America, Northwest Africa, and the Horn of Africa.

As gradually worsening climate patterns and, even more so, severe weather events, prompt an increase in human mobility, people who choose to move will do so with little legal protection. The current system of international law is not equipped to protect climate migrants, as there are no legally binding agreements obliging countries to support climate migrants.

While climate migrants who flee unbearable conditions resemble refugees, the legal protections afforded to refugees do not extend to them. In the aftermath of World War II, the United Nations established a system to protect civilians who had been forced from their home countries by political violence. Today, there are almost 20.4 million officially designated refugees under the protection of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR)however, there is an additional group of 21.5 million people23 who flee their homes as a result of sudden onset weather hazards every year.24

The UNHCR has thus far refused to grant these people refugee status, instead designating them as environmental migrants, in large part because it lacks the resources to address their needs. But with no organized effort to supervise the migrant population, these desperate individuals go where they can, not necessarily where they should. As their numbers grow, it will become increasingly difficult for the international community to ignore this challenge. As severe climate change displaces more people, the international community may be forced to either redefine refugees to include climate migrants or create a new legal category and accompanying institutional framework to protect climate migrants. However, opening that debate in the current political context would be fraught with difficulty. Currently, the nationalist, anti-immigrant, and xenophobic atmosphere in Europe and the U.S. would most likely lead to limiting refugee protections rather than expanding them.

While there are no legally binding international regimes that protect climate migrants, there are voluntary compacts that could be used to support them. Most notably, 193 countries adopted the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which address both migration and climate change.

Several of the 169 targets established by the SDGs lay out general goals that could be used to protect climate migrants. SDG 13 on climate action outlines several targets that address the climate crisis:

To meet these goals, extensive bilateral and multilateral development assistance will be needed. The U.S. must create a strategic approach to focus development assistance and multilateral organizations on those targetsparticularly to create resilient societies that can keep people in their communities.

Although the SDGs do not explicitly link climate change and migration, SDG target 10.7 calls for signatories to facilitate orderly, safe, and responsible migration of people, including through implementation of planned and well-managed policies. Again, the United States should channel multilateral development assistance to support the implementation of this target.

The scale and scope of climate change demand dynamic and comprehensive solutions. The U.S. must address climate stress on vulnerable populations specifically, rather than funneling more money into existing programs that operate on the periphery of the growing crisis.

U.S. development agencies and international development financial institutions need to redirect their development assistance to incorporate todays unfolding climate crisis. Significantly more resources will need to be channeled to the new U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (USDFC), USAID, the Green Climate Fund, UNHCR, as well as to other critical international bodies, in particular those that make up the International Red Cross and Red Crescent organizations.

The Obama administration undertook myriad efforts to update the institutions that can address climate. Several of President Obamas executive orders, particularly Executive Order 13677, which required incorporating climate resilience into decisionmaking on development assistance, took on the climate crisis. For the first time in the Department of Defenses history, the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) recognized climate change as a threat multiplier, with the potential to exacerbate current challenges.25

While the current administration has deemphasized or opposed climate-friendly approaches, the current security implications of the migration crisis might prompt a re-examination of those policies. There should be bipartisan support, particularly in the security community, for reducing the conditions that accelerate international migration.

A variety of medium-term investments (five to 10 years) could create more resilience to the effects of climate change. For example, the climate change factors that push migration in Northwest Africa couldat least in partbe addressed by supporting irrigation infrastructure, providing food supplies, fostering regional water cooperation, and supporting livelihood security.26

Dedicating greater resources to mitigate climate migration is also part of an effective solution. Research is needed to determine the best way to improve the migratory process itselfbe it increasing migration monitors, providing safer modes of transport, and consolidating and expanding destination country integration resources.

This discussion is not new: In 2010, Center for American Progress staff were part of a task force that suggested a Unified Security Budget for the United States, to address complex crisis scenarios that transcend the traditional division of labor among defense, diplomacy, and development.27 The need for longer-term, more calculated assessment strategies and investments has only increased over the past decade. The Pentagon already supports a variety of operational missions that respond to sudden onset climate disasters. The Navy, in particular, serves at the emergency hotline for international extreme weather events and mobilized to support the Haitian people after the 2010 earthquake, the Filipino people after the 2013 typhoon, and the Nepalis after the 2015 earthquake.

Alternatively, creating a single dedicated fund (by drawing funds from Operations and Maintenance, Research and Development, and the Refugee Assistance Fund) would allow the United States to streamline and refine its support strategies, address the effects of climate change directly, and rebuild its reputation abroad. Such a dedicated fund should try to emulate and partner with the United Kingdoms Department for International Development (DFID), Germanys Society for International Cooperation (GIZ), and Japans International Cooperation Agency (JICA). American seed funding in this area could lead to major investments of allies and partnersand in cooperation with the development agencies of these countries can mobilize massive resources at the scale required to confront the global climate crisis.

The strategies to address climate migrants presented here are far reaching, but this crisis will only intensify, and our response to it will define international relations in the 21st century.

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The climate crisis, migration, and refugees - Brookings

Migrant crisis, violent crime, high gas prices all easy to solve …

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STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. Some things seem so complex.

But theyre actually quite simple.

Take the migrant crisis thats engulfing New York City right now, including Staten Island.

Some are worried about how the migrants, many of them from politically unstable Venezuela, will be taken care of. Where will they live? Where will they work? Where will the kids go to school?

This is a problem created by President Joe Bidens border policy and changes in asylum procedures. Biden invited people over, only to leave them stranded.

Either the president should help provide for the people hes allowing to come here or he should stop them from coming. He could take either route today.

Its simple.

Cities like New York are already being overwhelmed by the influx of migrants and are preparing to continue to be overwhelmed into the future. Mayor Eric Adams declared a state of emergency here, while Gov. Kathy Hochul called on the feds to take ownership of the crisis.

So lets stop the flow of people coming while we figure out what to do about the folks already here. Thats fair to everyone, including the migrants and the communities like Travis where theyre being housed.

But that might look mean-spirited. And we want to have nice people in charge of the country, not someone like that evil Donald Trump.

So New York City and Travis, like communities across the country, are left to figure out Bidens migrant crisis for themselves. Its amazing what voters will endure as long as the good-hearted people are in office.

With the president feeling some heat from fellow Democrats like Hochul and Adams, the Biden administration this week said that some 24,000 additional Venezuelans who have sponsors in the U.S. will be allowed into the country while those without sponsors will be turned back to Mexico. The more than 100,000 Venezuelans already here will be allowed to stay.

So while Biden has at least turned the spigot down somewhat, it remains to be seen how the feds provide for those asylum-seekers already here. And dont forget: Its not just asylum seekers from Venezuela who are flooding across the border. Biden has left the gate open for many others.

Crime is another easy fix. Bail reform and other criminal-justice measures aimed at ginning up votes for Democrats in big blue cities have led to increased violent crime. Thats what happens when you tell criminals that they wont go to jail if they commit an offense.

Killings in the New York City subway system since 2020 have hit their highest levels in 25 years, according to the New York Post. And thats with lower ridership thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic.

There have been 21 murders in the subway system since 2020, more than the transit system saw between 2008 and 2019 combined, the Post reported.

Thats all in addition to the random attacks we see on city streets and the smash-and-grabs and broad-daylight thefts from stores.

Its time to roll back the reforms. Its time to reinstate a judicious form of stop-and-frisk. Its time to once again attack the small crimes before they become big ones. Its time for violent repeat offenders to do the time if they do the crime.

And gas prices? Theyve come down lately but are still higher now than when Trump was president.

Weve been energy independent in the past. We can be again. We dont have to worry about OPEC production cuts. We can drill responsibly in our own country. We can use nuclear power responsibly. We can make money by being an energy exporter. Energy security is national security.

These problems arent hurricanes or blizzards or other natural phenomenon that are beyond our control. Theyre cause-and-effect policy decisions. They can be reversed.

All it takes is political will.

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Migrant crisis, violent crime, high gas prices all easy to solve ...

NYC migrant crisis highlights long standing homeless shelter issues …

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Under the FDR Drive in midtown Manhattan, dozens of asylum seekers gathered under the parkway last Thursday, waiting for a mobile soup kitchen to arrive.

Most of them have recently arrived in the city and are living in the citys homeless shelter system. But they say shelter food is largely inedible so they have been gathering at this spot, not far from the citys largest mens shelter, every night to eat.

At the shelter, the meat patties on the hamburgers are frozen, and they just put them between the bread and it's really, really horrible, said Tony Palomares, a Venezuelan native whos been living at the 30th Street Mens Intake Shelter since arriving in New York from Colombia this summer.

Long before thousands of migrants began arriving in New York City this year, shelter residents have raised alarms about the food and safety issues inside the facilities. And the recent surge of asylum seekers is amplifying long-standing concerns about the shelter system, immigration and housing advocates say.

A common concern that we've heard for years among shelter residents is that the food in shelters is of poor quality and insufficient portions, and that's also something that we have heard from the recent arrivals, said Jacquelyn Simone, director of policy for the advocacy group Coalition for the Homeless.

Since some shelters dont have places for residents to cook, the shelters provide them with frozen meals that need to be heated in microwaves, Simone added.

Alexander, a 37-year-old migrant from Venezuela whos also been living at the 30th Street Mens Intake Shelter, said through a translator that hes been throwing out most of the food he gets at the shelter.

A lot of the food that they're getting is two, three, four days old, said Alexander, who declined to provide his last name for fear of being kicked out of the facility. They have no place to warm it.

Instead, Alexander and Palomares have been coming each night to this spot for a warm meal, that on a chilly October night consisted of a meatball stew, a bagel, an orange, and milk.

For breakfast, the men go to another spot on 32nd Street, between First and Second avenues. Although free lunches are also offered at this location, the two usually go hungry and skip lunch so they can look for work instead.

A spokesperson for Department of Social Services said in a statement that all city shelter sites provide meals that comply with city food standards and that the agency is "conducting comprehensive surveys across shelter sites to make doubly sure that sites know how to access additional food if needed to meet demand."

"The health and safety of our clients are our top priorities, and as we have always done, we work to ensure that all clients across sites are receiving the same standard of services, security, and supports to help stabilize their lives," spokesperson Neha Sharma said in an email.

In recent weeks, the number of people waiting for the mobile soup kitchen under the FDR has exploded, said Juan De La Cruz, director of emergency relief services for the Coalition for the Homeless, which runs the soup kitchen.

We've had as high as 140 people here, he said. That extra hundred-plus has been the migrants that have been coming.

As of mid-October, more than 15,000 asylum seekers, including 4,400 children, have been living in city shelters, according to city stats presented to members of the City Council in closed meetings that were shared with Gothamist.

The sudden influx of migrants, many of whom are being bused to New York City from southern border states with hardline immigration practices in protest of President Joe Bidens immigration policies, prompted Mayor Eric Adams to declare a state of emergency last month.

The migrant crisis, Adams said, could cost the city as much as $1 billion and heavily strain resources.

As of Tuesday, 63,437 people were residing in city shelters, according to the daily census report from the Department of Homeless Services. The figure has routinely reached new highs in recent weeks.

The city spent close to $138 a day to house a single adult in a homeless shelter last fiscal year and $198 a day to house a family with children, according to the Mayors Management Report released in September. In 2021, the city spent roughly $3 billion on homeless services.

But even drinking water is hard to come by at the 30th Street Mens Intake Shelter, Palomares and Alexander said.

The men said the only water fountain in the building that works well is on the third floor outside the cafeteria. One day in October, Palomares said he went to fill his water bottle, but a security guard stopped him.

So he ended up having to come over here to the hospital just to fill his cup his water bottle, said De La Cruz.

Access to food is not the only long-standing issue in shelters that migrants are encountering.

Violence is another concern that has been raised by some residents over the years, advocates said.

Murad Awawdeh, executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition, said hes aware of at least two dozen asylum seekers living in city shelters who have been assaulted or threatened with violence.

Some were threatened with violence, others with other threats and just feeling the sense of wanting to go somewhere where they were going to be safe,Awawdeh said.

Many of the migrants who feared for their safety were transferred to other shelters, Awawdeh said.

Sharma, the DSS spokesperson, said there is no tolerance against any misconduct.

"Any such cases are immediately investigated and addressed," she said.

Niurka Melendez and her husband, Hector Arguinzones, founders of Venezuelans and Immigrants Aid, said she and her husband heard from a number of people about fights breaking out inside shelters causing a sense of unease among the new arrivals.

The couples organization has been holding events inside and outside shelters to assist the newly arrived migrants.

Some have shared with us that they don't feel safe, Melendez said. There are spaces in which they feel quite insecure because of the behavior of other residents in that place.

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NYC migrant crisis highlights long standing homeless shelter issues ...

What Is Coronavirus? | Johns Hopkins Medicine

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Infectious Diseases

Updated on July 29, 2022

Coronaviruses are a type of virus. There are many different kinds, and some cause disease. A coronavirus identified in 2019, SARS-CoV-2, has caused a pandemic of respiratory illness, called COVID-19.

As of now, researchers know that the coronavirus is spread through droplets and virus particles released into the air when an infected person breathes, talks, laughs, sings, coughs or sneezes. Larger droplets may fall to the ground in a few seconds, but tiny infectious particles can linger in the air and accumulate in indoor places, especially where many people are gathered and there is poor ventilation. This is why mask-wearing, hand hygiene and physical distancing are essential to preventing COVID-19.

The first case of COVID-19 was reported Dec. 1, 2019, and the cause was a then-new coronavirus later named SARS-CoV-2. SARS-CoV-2 may have originated in an animal and changed (mutated) so it could cause illness in humans. In the past, several infectious disease outbreaks have been traced to viruses originating in birds, pigs, bats and other animals that mutated to become dangerous to humans. Research continues, and more study may reveal how and why the coronavirus evolved to cause pandemic disease.

Symptoms show up in people within two to 14 days of exposure to the virus. A person infected with the coronavirus is contagious to others for up to two days before symptoms appear, and they remain contagious to others for 10 to 20 days, depending upon their immune system and the severity of their illness.

Infectious disease expert Lisa Maragakis explains the advances in COVID-19 treatments and how knowledge of COVID-19 can assist in preventing further spread of the virus.

COVID-19 symptoms include:

Some people infected with the coronavirus have mild COVID-19 illness, and others have no symptoms at all. In some cases, however, COVID-19 can lead to respiratory failure, lastinglungandheart muscle damage,nervous system problems,kidney failureor death.

If you have a fever or any of the symptoms listed above, call your doctor or a health care provider and explain your symptoms over the phone before going to the doctors office, urgent care facility or emergency room. Here are suggestionsif you feel sick and are concerned you might have COVID-19.

CALL 911 if you have a medical emergency such as severe shortness of breath or difficulty breathing.

Learn more about COVID-19 symptoms.

COVID-19 is diagnosed through a test. Diagnosis by examination alone is difficult since many COVID-19 signs and symptoms can be caused by other illnesses. Some people with the coronavirus do not have symptoms at all.Learn more about COVID-19 testing.

Treatment for COVID-19 depends on the severity of the infection. For milder illness, resting at home and taking medicine to reduce fever is often sufficient. More severe cases may require hospitalization, with treatment that might include intravenous medications, supplemental oxygen, assisted ventilation and other supportive measures

There are several COVID-19 vaccines recommended by the CDC. It is also important to receive a booster when you are eligible.

In addition, it helps to keep up with other safety precautions, such as following testing guidelines, wearing a mask, washing your hands and practicing physical distancing.

Yes, severe COVID-19 can be fatal. For updates of coronavirus infections, deaths and vaccinations worldwide, see theCoronavirus COVID-19 Global Casesmap developed by the Johns Hopkins Center for Systems Science and Engineering.

Two COVID-19 vaccines Pfizer and Moderna - have been fully approved by the FDA and recommended by the CDC as highly effective in preventing serious disease, hospitalization and death from COVID-19.

The CDC notes that in most situations the two mRNA vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna are preferred over the Johnson & Johnson vaccine due to a risk of serious adverse events.

It is also important to receive a booster when eligible. You can get any of these three authorized or approved vaccines, but the CDC explains that Pfizer and Moderna are preferred in most situations.

Coronaviruses are named for their appearance: corona means crown. The viruss outer layers are covered with spike proteins that surround them like a crown.

SARSstands for severe acute respiratory syndrome. In 2003, an outbreak of SARS affected people in several countries before ending in 2004. The coronavirus that causes COVID-19 is similar to the one that caused the 2003 SARS outbreak.

Since the 2019 coronavirus is related to the original coronavirus that caused SARS and can also cause severe acute respiratory syndrome, there is SARS in its name: SARS-CoV-2. Much is still unknown about these viruses, but SARS-CoV-2 spreads faster and farther than the 2003 SARS-CoV-1 virus. This is likely because of how easily it is transmitted person to person, even from asymptomatic carriers of the virus.

Yes, there are different variants of this coronavirus. Like other viruses, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 can change (mutate). Mutations may enable the coronavirus to spread faster from person to person as in the case of the delta and omicron variants. More infections can result in more people getting very sick and also create more opportunity for the virus to develop further mutations. Read more aboutcoronavirus variants.

If you are concerned that you may have COVID-19, follow these steps to help protect your health and the health of others.

What you need to know from Johns Hopkins Medicine.

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What Is Coronavirus? | Johns Hopkins Medicine

Twenty-second Amendment to the United States Constitution

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1951 amendment limiting presidents to two terms

The Twenty-second Amendment (Amendment XXII) to the United States Constitution limits the number of times a person is eligible for election to the office of President of the United States to two, and sets additional eligibility conditions for presidents who succeed to the unexpired terms of their predecessors.[1] Congress approved the Twenty-second Amendment on March 21, 1947, and submitted it to the state legislatures for ratification. That process was completed on February 27, 1951, when the requisite 36 of the 48 states had ratified the amendment (neither Alaska nor Hawaii had yet been admitted as states), and its provisions came into force on that date.

The amendment prohibits anyone who has been elected president twice from being elected again. Under the amendment, someone who fills an unexpired presidential term lasting more than two years is also prohibited from being elected president more than once. Scholars debate whether the amendment prohibits affected individuals from succeeding to the presidency under any circumstances or whether it applies only to presidential elections. Until the amendment's ratification, the president had not been subject to term limits, but both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson (the first and third presidents) decided not to serve a third term, establishing the two-term tradition. In the 1940 and 1944 presidential elections, Franklin D. Roosevelt became the only president to win third and fourth terms, giving rise to concerns about a president serving unlimited terms.[2]

Section 1. No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once. But this Article shall not apply to any person holding the office of President when this Article was proposed by the Congress, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of President, or acting as President, during the term within which this Article becomes operative from holding the office of President or acting as President during the remainder of such term.

Section 2. This Article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several states within seven years from the date of its submission to the states by the Congress.[3]

The Twenty-second Amendment was a reaction to Franklin D. Roosevelt's election to an unprecedented four terms as president, but presidential term limits had long been debated in American politics. Delegates to the Constitutional Convention of 1787 considered the issue extensively (alongside broader questions, such as who would elect the president, and the president's role). Many, including Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, supported lifetime tenure for presidents, while others favored fixed terms. Virginia's George Mason denounced the life-tenure proposal as tantamount to elective monarchy.[4] An early draft of the U.S. Constitution provided that the president was restricted to one seven-year term.[5] Ultimately, the Framers approved four-year terms with no restriction on how many times a person could be elected president.

Though dismissed by the Constitutional Convention, term limits for U.S. presidents were contemplated during the presidencies of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. As his second term entered its final year in 1796, Washington was exhausted from years of public service, and his health had begun to decline. He was also bothered by his political opponents' unrelenting attacks, which had escalated after the signing of the Jay Treaty, and believed he had accomplished his major goals as president. For these reasons, he decided not to run for a third term, a decision he announced to the nation in his September 1796 Farewell Address.[6] Eleven years later, as Thomas Jefferson neared the halfway point of his second term, he wrote,

If some termination to the services of the chief magistrate be not fixed by the Constitution, or supplied by practice, his office, nominally for years, will in fact, become for life; and history shows how easily that degenerates into an inheritance.[7]

Since Washington made his historic announcement, numerous academics and public figures have looked at his decision to retire after two terms, and have, according to political scientist Bruce Peabody, "argued he had established a two-term tradition that served as a vital check against any one person, or the presidency as a whole, accumulating too much power".[8] Various amendments aimed at changing informal precedent to constitutional law were proposed in Congress in the early to mid-19th century, but none passed.[4][9] Three of the next four presidents after JeffersonJames Madison, James Monroe, and Andrew Jacksonserved two terms, and each adhered to the two-term principle;[1] Martin Van Buren was the only president between Jackson and Abraham Lincoln to be nominated for a second term, though he lost the 1840 election and so served only one term.[9] At the outset of the Civil War the seceding States drafted the Constitution of the Confederate States of America, which in most respects resembled the United States Constitution, but limited the president to a single six-year term.

In spite of the strong two-term tradition, a few presidents before Roosevelt attempted to secure a third term. Following Ulysses S. Grant's reelection in 1872, there were serious discussions within Republican political circles about the possibility of his running again in 1876. But interest in a third term for Grant evaporated in the light of negative public opinion and opposition from members of Congress, and Grant left the presidency in 1877 after two terms. Even so, as the 1880 election approached, he sought nomination for a (non-consecutive) third term at the 1880 Republican National Convention, but narrowly lost to James Garfield, who won the 1880 election.[9]

Theodore Roosevelt succeeded to the presidency on September 14, 1901, following William McKinley's assassination (194 days into his second term), and was handily elected to a full term in 1904. He declined to seek a third (second full) term in 1908, but did run again in the election of 1912, losing to Woodrow Wilson. Wilson himself, despite his ill health following a serious stroke, aspired to a third term. Many of his advisers tried to convince him that his health precluded another campaign, but Wilson nonetheless asked that his name be placed in nomination for the presidency at the 1920 Democratic National Convention.[10] Democratic Party leaders were unwilling to support Wilson, and the nomination went to James M. Cox, who lost to Warren G. Harding. Wilson again contemplated running for a (nonconsecutive) third term in 1924, devising a strategy for his comeback, but again lacked any support; he died in February of that year.[11]

Franklin Roosevelt spent the months leading up to the 1940 Democratic National Convention refusing to say whether he would seek a third term. His vice president, John Nance Garner, along with Postmaster General James Farley, announced their candidacies for the Democratic nomination. When the convention came, Roosevelt sent a message to the convention saying he would run only if drafted, saying delegates were free to vote for whomever they pleased. This message was interpreted to mean he was willing to be drafted, and he was renominated on the convention's first ballot.[9][12] Roosevelt won a decisive victory over Republican Wendell Willkie, becoming the first (and to date only) president to exceed eight years in office. His decision to seek a third term dominated the election campaign.[13] Willkie ran against the open-ended presidential tenure, while Democrats cited the war in Europe as a reason for breaking with precedent.[9]

Four years later, Roosevelt faced Republican Thomas E. Dewey in the 1944 election. Near the end of the campaign, Dewey announced his support of a constitutional amendment to limit presidents to two terms. According to Dewey, "four terms, or sixteen years (a direct reference to the president's tenure in office four years hence), is the most dangerous threat to our freedom ever proposed."[14] He also discreetly raised the issue of the president's age. Roosevelt exuded enough energy and charisma to retain voters' confidence and was elected to a fourth term.[15]

While he quelled rumors of poor health during the campaign, Roosevelt's health was deteriorating. On April 12, 1945, only 82 days after his fourth inauguration, he suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and died, to be succeeded by Vice President Harry Truman.[16] In the midterm elections 18 months later, Republicans took control of the House and the Senate. As many of them had campaigned on the issue of presidential tenure, declaring their support for a constitutional amendment that would limit how long a person could serve as president, the issue was given priority in the 80th Congress when it convened in January 1947.[8]

The House of Representatives took quick action, approving a proposed constitutional amendment (House Joint Resolution27) setting a limit of two four-year terms for future presidents. Introduced by Earl C. Michener, the measure passed 285121, with support from 47 Democrats, on February 6, 1947.[17] Meanwhile, the Senate developed its own proposed amendment, which initially differed from the House proposal by requiring that the amendment be submitted to state ratifying conventions for ratification, rather than to the state legislatures, and by prohibiting any person who had served more than 365 days in each of two terms from further presidential service. Both these provisions were removed when the full Senate took up the bill, but a new provision was, however, added. Put forward by Robert A. Taft, it clarified procedures governing the number of times a vice president who succeeded to the presidency might be elected to office. The amended proposal was passed 5923, with 16 Democrats in favor, on March 12.[1][18]

On March 21, the House agreed to the Senate's revisions and approved the resolution to amend the Constitution. Afterward, the amendment imposing term limitations on future presidents was submitted to the states for ratification. The ratification process was completed on February 27, 1951, 3years, 343days after it was sent to the states.[19][20]

Once submitted to the states, the 22nd Amendment was ratified by:[3]

Conversely, two statesOklahoma and Massachusettsrejected the amendment, while five (Arizona, Kentucky, Rhode Island, Washington, and West Virginia) took no action.[18]

Because of the grandfather clause in Section 1, the amendment did not apply to Harry S. Truman, the incumbent president at the time it was submitted to the states by the Congress. Without this full exemption, Truman would not have been eligible to run again in 1952. He had served nearly all of Franklin Roosevelt's unexpired 19451949 term and had been elected to a full four-year term beginning in 1949.[13] But with his job approval rating at around 27%,[21][22] and after a poor performance in the 1952 New Hampshire primary, Truman chose not to seek his party's nomination. Since becoming operative in 1951, the amendment has been applicable to six presidents who have been elected twice: Dwight D. Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama.

As worded, the focus of the 22nd Amendment is on limiting individuals from being elected to the presidency more than twice. Questions have been raised about the amendment's meaning and application, especially in relation to the 12th Amendment, ratified in 1804, which states, "no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States."[23] While the 12th Amendment stipulates that the constitutional qualifications of age, citizenship, and residency apply to the president and vice president, it is unclear whether someone who is ineligible to be elected president due to term limits could be elected vice president. Because of the ambiguity, a two-term former president could possibly be elected vice president and then succeed to the presidency as a result of the incumbent's death, resignation, or removal from office, or succeed to the presidency from another stated office in the presidential line of succession.[9][24]

Some argue that the 22nd Amendment and 12th Amendment bar any two-term president from later serving as vice president as well as from succeeding to the presidency from any point in the presidential line of succession.[25] Others contend that the original intent of the 12th Amendment concerns qualification for service (age, residence, and citizenship), while the 22nd Amendment concerns qualifications for election, and thus a former two-term president is still eligible to serve as vice president. Neither amendment restricts the number of times someone can be elected to the vice presidency and then succeed to the presidency to serve out the balance of the term, although the person could be prohibited from running for election to an additional term.[26][27]

The practical applicability of this distinction has not been tested, as no twice-elected president has ever been nominated for the vice presidency. While Hillary Clinton once suggested she considered former President Bill Clinton as her running mate,[28] the constitutional question remains unresolved.[1]

Over the years, several presidents have voiced their antipathy toward the amendment. After leaving office, Harry Truman described the amendment as stupid and one of the worst amendments of the Constitution with the exception of the Prohibition Amendment.[29] A few days before leaving office in January 1989, President Ronald Reagan said he would push for a repeal of the 22nd Amendment because he thought it infringed on peoples democratic rights.[30] In a November 2000 interview with Rolling Stone, President Bill Clinton suggested that the 22nd Amendment should be altered to limit presidents to two consecutive terms but then allow non-consecutive terms, because of longer life expectancies.[31] Donald Trump questioned presidential term limits on multiple occasions while in office, and in public remarks talked about serving beyond the limits of the 22nd Amendment. During an April 2019 White House event for the Wounded Warrior Project, he suggested he would remain president for 10 to 14 years.[32][33]

The first efforts in Congress to repeal the 22nd Amendment were undertaken in 1956, five years after the amendment's ratification. Over the next 50 years, 54 joint resolutions seeking to repeal the two-term presidential election limit were introduced.[1] Between 1997 and 2013, Jos E. Serrano, Democratic representative for New York, introduced nine resolutions (one per Congress, all unsuccessful) to repeal the amendment.[34] Repeal has also been supported by Representatives Barney Frank and David Dreier and Senators Mitch McConnell[35] and Harry Reid.[36]

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Twenty-second Amendment to the United States Constitution

Is AI cybersecuritys salvation or its greatest threat? – VentureBeat

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This article is part of a VB special issue. Read the full series here: AI and Security.

If youre uncertain whether AI is the best or worst thing to ever happen to cybersecurity, youre in the same boat as experts watching the dawn of this new era with a mix of excitement and terror.

AIs potential to automate security on a broader scale offers a welcome advantage in the short term. Yet unleashing a technology designed to eventually take humans out of the equation as much as possible naturally gives the industry some pause. There is an undercurrent of fear about the consequences if things run amok or attackers learn to make better use of the technology.

Everything you invent to defend yourself can also eventually be used against you, said Geert van der Linden, an executive vice president of cybersecurity for Capgemini. This time does feel different, because more and more, we are losing control as human beings.

In VentureBeats second quarterly special issue, we explore this algorithmic angst across multiple stories, looking at how important humans remain in the age of AI-powered security, how deepfakes and deep media are creating a new security battleground even as the cybersecurity skills gap is a concern, surveillance powered by AI cameras is on the rise, AI-powered ransomware is rearing its head, and more.

Each evolution of computing in recent decades has brought new security threats and new tools to fight them. From networked PCs to cloud computing to mobile, the trend is always toward more data stored in ways that introduce unfamiliar vulnerabilities, larger attack vectors, and richer targets that attract increasingly well-funded bad actors.

The AI security era is coming into focus quickly, and the design of these security tools, the rules that govern them, and the way theyre deployed carry increasingly high stakes. The race is on to determine whether AI will help keep people and businesses secure in an increasingly connected world or push us into the digital abyss.

In a hair-raising prediction last year, Juniper Research forecast that the annual cost of data breaches will increase from $3 trillion in 2019 to $5 trillion in 2024. This will be due to a mix of fines for regulation violations, lost business, and recovery costs. But it will also be driven by a new variable: AI.

Cybercrime is increasingly sophisticated; the report anticipates that cybercriminals will use AI, which will learn the behavior of security systems in a similar way to how cybersecurity firms currently employ the technology to detect abnormal behavior, reads Junipers report. The research also highlights that the evolution of deepfakes and other AI-based techniques is also likely to play a part in social media cybercrime in the future.

Given that every business is now a digital business to some extent, spending on infrastructure defense is exploding. Research firm Cybersecurity Ventures notes that the global cybersecurity market was worth $3.5 billion in 2014 but increased to $120 billion in 2017. It projects that spending will grow to an annual average of $200 billion over the next five years. Tech giant Microsoft alone spends $1 billion each year on cybersecurity.

With projections of a 1.8 million-person shortfall for the cybersecurity workforce by 2022, this spending is due in part to the growing costs of recruiting talent. AI boosters believe the technology will reduce costs by requiring fewer humans while still making systems safe.

When were running security operation centers, were pushing as hard as we can to use AI and automation, said Dave Burg, EY Americas cybersecurity leader. The goal is to take a practice that would normally maybe take an hour and cut it down to two minutes, just by having the machine do a lot of the work and decision-making.

In the short-term, companies are bubbling with optimism that AI can help them turn the tide against the mounting cybersecurity threat.

In a report on AI and cybersecurity last summer, Capgemini reported that 69% of enterprise executives surveyed felt AI would be essential for responding to cyberthreats. Telecom led all other industries, with 80% of executives counting on AI to shore up defenses. Utilities executives were at the low end, with only 59% sharing that opinion.

Overall bullishness has triggered a wave of investments in AI cybersecurity, to bulk up defenses, but also to pursue a potentially lucrative new market.

Early last year, Comcast made a surprise move when it announced the acquisition of BluVector, a spinoff of defense contractor Northrop Grumman that uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to detect and analyze increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks. The telecommunications giant said it wanted to use the technology internally, but also continue developing it as a service it could sell to others.

Subsequently, Comcast launched Xfinity xFi Advanced Security, which automatically provides security for all the devices in a customers home that are connected to its network. It created the service in partnership with Cujo AI, a startup based in El Segundo, California that developed a platform to spot unusual patterns on home networks and send Comcast customers instant alerts.

Cujo AI founder Einaras von Gravrock said the rapid adoption of connected devices in the home and the broader internet of things (IoT) has created too many vulnerabilities to be tracked manually or blocked effectively by conventional firewall software. His startup turned to AI and machine learning as the only option to fight such a battle at scale.

Von Gravrock argued that spending on such technology is less of a cost and more of a necessity. If a company like Comcast wants to convince customers to use a growing range of services, including those arriving with the advent of 5G networks, the provider must be able to convince people they are safe.

When we see the immediate future, all operators will have to protect your personal network in some way, shape, or form, von Gravrock said.

Capgeminis aforementioned report found that overall, 51% of enterprises said they were heavily using some kind of AI for detection, 34% for prediction, and 18% to manage responses. Detection may sound like a modest start, but its already paying big dividends, particularly in areas like fraud detection.

Paris-based Shift has developed algorithms that focus narrowly on weeding out fraud in insurance. Shifts service can spot patterns in data such as contracts, reports, photos, and even videos that are processed by insurance companies. With more than 70 clients, Shift has amassed a huge amount of data that has allowed it to rapidly fine-tune its AI. The intended result is more efficiency for insurance companies and a better experience for customers, whose claims are processed faster.

The startup has grown quickly after raising $10 million in 2016, $28 million in 2017, and $60 million last year. Cofounder and CEO Jeremy Jawish said the key was adopting a narrow focus in terms of what it wanted to do with AI.

We are very focused on one problem, Jawish said. We are just dealing with insurance. We dont do general AI. That allows us to build up the data we need to become more intelligent.

While this all sounds potentially utopian, a dystopian twist is gathering momentum. Security experts predict that 2020 could be the year hackers really begin to unleash attacks that leverage AI and machine learning.

The bad [actors] are really, really smart, said Burg of EY Americas. And there are a lot of powerful AI algorithms that happen to be open source. And they can be used for good, and they can also be used for bad. And this is one of the reasons why I think this space is going to get increasingly dangerous. Incredibly powerful tools are being used to basically do the inverse of what the defenders [are] trying to do on the offensive side.

In an experiment back in 2016, cybersecurity company ZeroFox created an AI algorithm called SNAPR that was capable of posting 6.75 spear phishing tweets per minute that reached 800 people. Of those, 275 recipients clicked on the malicious link in the tweet. These results far outstripped the performance of a human, who could generate only 1.075 tweets per minute, reaching only 125 people and convincing just 49 individuals to click.

Likewise, digital marketing firm Fractl demonstrated how AI could unleash a tidal wave of fake news and disinformation. Using publicly available AI tools, it created a website that includes 30 highly polished blog posts, as well as an AI-generated headshot for the non-existent author of the posts.

And then there is the rampant use of deepfakes, which employ AI to match images and sound to create videos that in some cases are almost impossible to identify as fake. Adam Kujawa, the director of Malwarebytes Labs, said hes been shocked at how quickly deepfakes have evolved. I didnt expect it to be so easy, he said. Some of it is very alarming.

In a 2019 report, Malwarebytes listed a number of ways it expects bad actors to start using AI this year. That includes incorporating AI into malware. In this scenario, the malware uses AI to adapt in real time if it senses any detection programs. Such AI malware will likely be able to target users more precisely, fool automated detection systems, and threaten even larger stashes of personal and financial information.

I should be more excited about AI and security, but then I look at this space and look at how malware is being built, Kujawa said. The cat is out of the bag. Pandoras box has been opened. I think this technology is going to become the norm for attacks. Its so easy to get your hands on and so easy to play with this.

Researchers in computer vision are already struggling to thwart attacks designed to disrupt the quality of their machine learning systems. It turns out that these learning systems remain remarkably easy to fool using adversarial attacks. External third parties can detect how a machine learning system works and then introduce code that confuses the system and causes it to misidentify images.

Even worse is that leading researchers acknowledge we dont really have a solution for stopping mischief makers from wreaking havoc on these systems.

Can we defend against these attacks? asked Nicolas Papernot, an AI researcher at Google Brain, during a presentation in Paris last year. Unfortunately, the answer is no.

In response to possible misuse of AI, the cybersecurity industry is doing what its always done during such technology transitions try to stay one step ahead of malicious players.

Back in 2018, BlackBerry acquired cybersecurity startup Cylance for $1.4 billion. Cylance had developed an endpoint protection platform that used AI to look for weaknesses in networks and shut them down if necessary. Last summer, BlackBerry created a new business unit led by its CTO that focuses on cybersecurity research and development (R&D). The resulting BlackBerry Labs has a dedicated team of 120 researchers. Cylance was a cornerstone of the lab, and the company said machine learning would be among the primary areas of focus.

Following that announcement, in August the company introduced BlackBerry Intelligent Security, a cloud-based service that uses AI to automatically adapt security protocols for employees smartphones or laptops based on location and patterns of usage. The system can also be used for IoT devices or, eventually, autonomous vehicles. By instantly assessing a wide range of factors to adjust the level of security, the system is designed to keep a device just safe enough without having to always require maximum security settings an employee might be tempted to circumvent.

Otherwise, youre left with this situation where you have to impose the most onerous security measures, or you have to sacrifice security, said Frank Cotter, senior vice president of product management at BlackBerry. That was the intent behind Cylance and BlackBerry Labs, to get ahead of the malicious actors.

San Diego-based MixMode is also looking down the road and trying to build AI-based security tools that learn from the limitations of existing services. According to MixMode CTO Igor Mezic, existing systems may have some AI or machine learning capability, but they still require a number of rules that limit the scope of what they can detect and how they can learn and require some human intervention.

Weve all seen phishing emails, and theyre getting way more sophisticated, Mezic said. So even as a human, when I look at these emails and try to figure out whether this is real or not, its very difficult. So, it would be difficult for any rule-based system to discover, right? These AI methodologies on the attack side have already developed to the place where you need human intelligence to figure out whether its real. And thats the scary part.

AI systems that still include some rules also tend to throw off a lot of false positives, leaving security teams overwhelmed and eliminating any initial advantages that came with automation, Mezic said. MixMode, which has raised about $13 million in venture capital, is developing what it describes as third-wave AI.

In this case, the goal is to make AI security more adaptive on its own rather than relying on rules that need to be constantly revised to tell it what to look for. MixModes platform monitors all nodes on a network to continually evaluate typical behavior. When it spots a slight deviation, it analyzes the potential security risk and rates it from high to low before deciding whether to send up an alert. The MixMode system is always updating its baseline of behavior so no humans have to fine-tune the rules.

Your own AI system needs to be very cognizant that an external AI system might be trying to spoof it or even learn how it operates, Mezic said. How can you write a rule for that? Thats the key technical issue. The AI system must learn to recognize whether there are any changes on the system that feel like theyre being made by another AI system. Our system is designed to account for that. I think we are a step ahead. So lets try to make sure that we keep being a step ahead.

Yet this type of unsupervised AI starts to cross a frontier that makes some observers nervous. It will eventually be used not just in business and consumer networks, but also in vehicles, factories, and cities. As it takes on predictive duties and makes decisions about how to respond, such AI will balance factors like loss of life against financial costs.

Humans will have to carefully weigh whether they are ready to cede such power to algorithms, even though they promise massive efficiencies and increased defensive power. On the other hand, if malicious actors are mastering these tools, will the rest of society even have a choice?

I think we have to make sure that as we use the technology to do a variety of different things we also are mindful that we need to govern the use of the technology and realize that there will likely be unforeseen consequences, said Burg of EY Americas. You really need to think through the impact and the consequences, and not just be a naive believer that the technology alone is the answer.

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Is AI cybersecuritys salvation or its greatest threat? - VentureBeat

AI and ‘Enormous Data’ Could Make Tech Giants Like Google … – WIRED

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AI and 'Enormous Data' Could Make Tech Giants Like Google ... - WIRED

Google AI executive sees a world of trillions of devices untethered from human care – ZDNet

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If artificial intelligence is going to spread to trillions of devices, those devices will have to operate in a way that doesn't need a human to run them, a Google executive who leads a key part of the search giant's machine learning software told a conference of chip designers this week.

"The only way to scale up to the kinds of hundreds of billions or trillions of devices we are expecting to emerge into the world in the next few years is if we take people out of the care and maintenance loop," said Pete Warden, who runs Google's effort to bring deep learning to even the simplest embedded devices.

"You need to have peel-and-stick sensors," said Warden, ultra-simple, dirt-cheap devices that require only tiny amounts of power and cost pennies.

"And the only way to do that is to make sure that you don't need to have people going around and doing maintenance."

Warden was the keynote speaker Tuesday at a microprocessor conference held virtually, The Linley Fall Processor Conference, hosted by chip analysts The Linley Group.

Warden offered the assembled, mostly chip industry executives, a wish list, as he put it, for hardware for devices.

That wish list includes ultra-low-power chips that do away with complex memory access and file access mechanisms, and instead focus on the repetitive arithmetic operations required in machine learning. Machine learning makes heavy use of linear algebra, consisting of vector-matrix and matrix-matrix multiplication operations.

Embedded deep learning needs chips that have "more arithmetic," said Warden.

"ML workloads are usually compute-bound," he told the audience. "We load a few activation and weight values, and do a lot of arithmetic on them in registers."

Warden's vision is that of self-sufficient devices that would run on battery power, perhaps for years, without needing to connect to a wall socket very often, perhaps not ever.

That would exclude the Raspberry Pi, said Warden, and anything else that requires "mains power," being plugged into a wall, and things that draw watts of power from a battery, such as a smartphone.

Instead, "We are aiming at the edge of the edge," said Warden, devices that are even more resource-constrained than cell phones, things such as peel-and-stick sensors that can be used in industrial applications.

"We are really looking at running on devices that are less than a dollar, maybe even 50 cents in price, that have a very small form factor."

Also: What is edge computing? Here's why the edge matters and where it's headed

Such devices might draw a single milliwatt to operate, he said, which "is really important, because that means you have a device that can run on double-A batteries for a year or two years, or even via energy harvesting from solar or vibration."

The challenge at present for deep learning forms of machine learning, Warden told the audience, is that many deep learning neural networks can't run at all on embedded devices because of the diffuse requirements of all the many micro-controller platforms that exist.

"We interact with a lot of product teams inside Google trying to build very interesting new products, and product teams at companies all over the world, and we often have to say, No, that's not quite possible yet," Warden told the audience.

"Because what's happening is the technology around deep learning, and the kinds of models that you can actually build on the training side that would be useful for product features, they often can't actually be deployed on the kinds of devices that people have in their actual hardware platforms."

If such models could be made to run on those billions of devices, "they would enable a whole bunch of new experiences for users," he said.

Embedded machine learning of the kind Warden discussed is part of a broader movement called TinyML. Today, examples of TinyML are fairly limited, things such as the wake word that activates a phone, such as "Hey, Google," or "Hey, Siri." (Warden confided to the audience, with a chuckle, that he and colleagues have to refer to "Hey, Google" around the office as "Hey, G," in order not to have one another's phones going off constantly.)

Warden has been leading the software effort to make possible the kinds of ultra-light-weight devices he was talking about. That effort is called TensorFlow Lite Micro, or TF Micro.

Warden and colleagues built on the existing TensorFlow Lite framework that exports trained machine learning models to run on embedded devices. While TF Lite removes some of the complexity of TensorFlow to make it feasible in a smaller-footprint device, TF Micro goes even further, to make machine learning able to run in devices with as little as 20 kilobytes of RAM.

TF Micro was introduced this month in a formal research paper by Warden and colleagues. The researchers had to build a framework that would work across numerous chip instruction sets, work with low-power microcontrollers, and they had to design it to support a greatly-reduced number of operations, excluding functions such as loading files from external locations.

The team also had to handle refinement of machine learning models for low-resource devices, which meant optimizing the quantization of models, representing operands in 8-bit integer form, say, rather than 32-bit floating point.

What Warden and team settled on is an interpreter that runs multiple models simultaneously. Using an interpreter not only makes it possible to run across the plethora of embedded platforms, it also makes it possible to update machine learning models as they improve without having to recompile models for a given device.

Chips to run TF Micro will have to do things that get around the limited nature of the embedded framework, Warden said. While full-blown TensorFlow supports 1,200 operations, TF Micro only supports a small fraction of those.

As a result, chips for running inference have to be able to "fall back to general-purpose code" rather than supporting every single last instruction.

"One of the real drawbacks of a lot of hardware accelerators is that they fail to run a lot of the models that people want to run on them," said Warden. "We want custom accelerators to fall back to run general-propose code without a massive performance penalty."

Summing up his wish list, Warden told the audience, "Really, what I'm looking for is tens or hundreds of billions of operations per second per milliwatt."

Some of the demands may be beyond what's feasible at present, he acknowledged. "I would love to have megabytes of model storage space instead of kilobytes," although, "I understand that's challenging."

"And, of course, I want it cheaper," he said.

The Linley conference, now in its fifteenth year, has over 1,000 attendees this year, conference organizer Linley Gwennap told ZDNet, which is more than three times as many attendees as in prior years, when the event was held at hotel ballrooms in the Silicon Valley area.

The conference continues through today.

The rest is here:

Google AI executive sees a world of trillions of devices untethered from human care - ZDNet