In the first half of this year alone, at least 137,000 men, women and children crossed the Mediterranean Sea to reach the shores of Europe, according to the United Nations. Thousands are traveling across the Balkans now. However, are they refugee or migrants? Does it make any difference? In search for these answers, let’s read the interview.

Q. Does it matter what you call them?

A. Yes. The terms “migrant” and “refugee” are sometimes used interchangeably, but there is a crucial legal difference between the two.

Q. Who is a refugee?

A. Briefly, a refugee is a person who has fled his or her country to escape war or persecution, and can prove it.

Q. What does the distinction mean for European countries?

A. Refugees are entitled to basic protections under the 1951 convention and other international agreements. Once in Europe, refugees can apply for political asylum or another protected status, sometimes temporary. By law, refugees cannot be sent back to countries where their lives would be in danger. “One of the most fundamental principles laid down in international law is that refugees should not be expelled or returned to situations where their life and freedom would be under threat,” the refugee agency said in a statement on Thursday

Q. Who is a migrant?

A. Anyone moving from one country to another is considered a migrant unless he or she is specifically fleeing war or persecution. Migrants may be fleeing dire poverty, or may be well-off and merely seeking better opportunities, or may be migrating to join relatives who have gone before them. There is an emerging debate about whether migrants fleeing their homes because of the effects of climate change – the desertification of the Sahel region, for example, or the sinking of coastal islands in Bangladesh – ought to be reclassified as refugees.

Q. Are migrants treated differently from refugees?

A. Countries are free to deport migrants who arrive without legal papers, which they cannot do with refugees under the 1951 convention. So it is not surprising that many politicians in Europe prefer to refer to everyone fleeing to the continent as migrants.

Technology has long been a deciding factor on the battlefield, from powerful artillery to new weaponry to innovations in the seas and the skies. Twenty-five years ago, it was no different, as the United States and its allies proved overwhelmingly successful in the Persian Gulf War. A coalition of U.S. Army Apache attack helicopters, cruise missiles from naval vessels, and Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk “stealth fighters” soundly broke through Saddam Hussein’s army defenses in Kuwait during Operation Desert Storm, which became known as the “100-hour war”.

But for all the possibilities that this “Computer War” offered, Operation Desert Storm was not won by smart weaponry, alone. Despite the “science fiction”-like technology deployed, 90 percent of the pieces of ammunition used in Desert Storm were actually “dumb weapons”. The bombs, which weren’t guided by lasers or satellites, were lucky to get within half a kilometer of their targets after they were dumped from planes. While dumb bombs might not have been exciting enough to make the headlines during the attack, they were cheaper to produce and could be counted on to work. But frequency of use doesn’t change why history will remember Desert Storm for its smart weapons, rather than its dumb ones.

Adapted from http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/operation-desert-storm-was-not-won-smart-weaponry-alone-180957879/

Those are among the findings from a survey about the work life of independent contractors for on-demand startups, a booming sector of the tech industry, being released Wednesday.

“We want to shed light on the industry as a whole,” said Isaac Madan, a Stanford master’s candidate in bioinformatics who worked with two other Stanford students and a recent alumnus on the survey of 1,330 workers. “People need to understand how this space will change and evolve and help the economy.”

On-demand, often called the sharing economy, refers to companies that let users summon workers via smartphone apps to handle all manner of services: rides, cleaning, chores, deliveries, car parking, waiting in lines. Almost uniformly, those workers are independent contractors rather than salaried employees.

That status is the main point of contention in a recent rash of lawsuits in which workers are filing for employee status. While the survey did not directly ask contractors if they would prefer to be employees, it found that their top workplace desires were to have paid health insurance, retirement benefits and paid time off for holidays, vacation and sick days – all perks of fulltime workers. Respondents also expressed interest in having more chances for advancement, education sponsorship, disability insurance and human-relations support.

Because respondents were recruited rather than randomly selected, the survey does not claim to be representational but a conclusion one may come to is that flexibility of new jobs comes with a cost. Not all workers are prepared for that!

Genetically modified (GM) foods are foods derived from organisms whose genetic material (DNA) has been modified in a way that does not occur naturally, e.g. through the introduction of a gene from a different organism. Currently available GM foods stem mostly from plants, but in the future foods derived from GM microorganisms or GM animals are likely to be introduced on the market. Most existing genetically modified crops have been developed to improve yield, through the introduction of resistance toplant diseases or of increased tolerance of herbicides.

In the future, genetic modification could be aimed at altering the nutrient content of food, reducing its allergenic potential, or improving the efficiency of food production systems. All GM foods should be assessed before being allowed on the market. FAO/WHO Codex guidelines exist for risk analysis of GM food.