29/11/15: Simple analysis of the EU-Turkey 'deal' on refugees

What does EU-Turkey refugees 'deal' means:

• With closure of land-crossing, duration of refugees passage to Europe over sea is going to be up;
• This means that cost of smuggling refugees will rise, which means safety of refugees during crossing is down (due to quality of boats / procedures, as their ability to pay higher costs is severely restricted, and due to longer crossing routes); 
• Thus, risk of losses of lives is up 
• Which will require greater sea monitoring & rescue missions efforts to avoid horrific losses of lives (unless EU abandons all and any humanitarian considerations);
• Which means EU dilemma of what to do with sea-crossing refugees has gone even less solvable, whilst adding a new dilemma of facing Turkey acting as a physical barrier for legitimate refugees, triggering potential humanitarian crisis on Turkish borders.

So, in summary, it is hard to see how the 'deal' is not a humanitarian crisis gone more acute.

26/11/15: Refugee Camps Are the Cities of Tomorrow

Given the plight of refugees and the current global crisis involving movements of people displaced by wars, famines, natural disasters and internecine governments, the problem of designing facilities for refugees is non-trivial and extremely important. Here is a fantastically informative interview by DeZeen on the topic: http://www.dezeen.com/2015/11/23/refugee-camps-cities-of-tomorrow-killian-kleinschmidt-interview-humanitarian-aid-expert/.

Quote: "These are the cities of tomorrow," said Kleinschmidt of Europe's rapidly expanding refugee camps. "The average stay today in a camp is 17 years. That's a generation. In the Middle East, we were building camps: storage facilities for people. But the refugees were building a city."

11/11/15: New Cost Estimates of European Refugees Crisis: Ifo

Back in September, German think tank, CESIfo estimated the cost of European refugees crisis to be at around EUR10 billion (Germany costs alone). Yesterday (with update today), the Institute released updated estimates:

Crucially, per above release, the Ifo pours some serious cold water on the commonly repeated in the media claims that refugees can provide a substantial boost to the German economy due to their alleged employability.