5: 

Artificial intelligence: ‘Homo sapiens will be split into a handful of gods and the rest of us’

If you wanted relief from stories about tyre factories and steel plants closing, you could try relaxing with a new 300-page report from Bank of America Merrill Lynch which looks at the likely effects of a robot revolution.

But you might not end up reassured. Though it promises robot carers for an ageing population, it also forecasts huge numbers of jobs being wiped out: up to 35% of all workers in the UK and 47% of those in the US, including white-collar jobs, seeing their livelihoods taken away by machines.

Haven’t we heard all this before, though? From the luddites of the 19th century to print unions protesting in the 1980s about computers, there have always been people fearful about the march of mechanisation. And yet we keep on creating new job categories.

However, there are still concerns that the combination of artificial intelligence (AI) – which is able to make logical inferences about its surroundings and experience – married to ever-improving robotics, will wipe away entire swaths of work and radically reshape society.

The Guardian

4: 

After 10 Months, U.S. Refugee Program Fails to Admit a Single Kid

3: 

4 Ways to stop Indonesia’s forest fires

It’s been labelled a “crime against humanity”. The “biggest environmental crime of the 21st century”, and most certainly the “worst climate crisis in the world right now.”

Since August, forests have been set alight to make way for plantations – a practice that has been happening for decades. But this year’s El Nino means that conditions are extra dry, leaving toxic smoke to lay and linger. To make matters worse, about half of these fires are taking place on peatlands, which are a major global carbon storehouse. In recent days, the rate of carbon emissions from Indonesia’s fires has outstripped the entire US economy.

Brief rainfall this week in Sumatra and Kalimantan has provided modest relief, but the crisis is far from over. The fires and smoke will return so long as companies are destroying forests and draining peatlands and the government is lax on enforcing its policies. Here’s how we can stop this devastating disaster…once and for all.

2: 

Israeli forces and settlers besiege Hebron

Israeli troops raided the offices of an activist group that monitors human rights violations by Israeli military forces and Jewish settlers, and took over homes in neighbouring districts, a rights group and residents told Al Jazeera.

“The area is besieged,” Issa Amro, coordinator of
Youth Against Settlements in the Old City of Hebron, told Al Jazeera by telephone on Saturday.

Amro said dozens of Israeli settlers gathered outside the building, celebrating the raid and chanting for Israeli troops to kill the Palestinians.

“They are rejoicing that they took over my home and building,” he said.

“One of the soldiers said that they were [raiding the home] as punishment for speaking to the international media about what’s happening in Hebron.”

The raid took place hours after Israeli settlers attacked Palestinian homes in several Hebron neighbourhoods.

Aljazeera

1: 

TPP Trade Pact Would Give Wall Street a Trump Card to Block Regulations

Banks and other financial institutions would be able to use provisions in the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership to block new regulations that cut into their profits, according to the text of the trade pact released this week.

In what may be the biggest gift to banks in a deal full of giveaways to Hollywood, the drug industry and technology firms, financial institutions would be able to appeal any national rules they didn’t like to independent, international tribunals staffed by friendly corporate lawyers.

That could nullify a proposal by Hillary Clinton to impose a “risk fee” on financial firms — or the Elizabeth Warren/Bernie Sanders plan to reinstate the firewall between investment and commercial banks.

Financial firms could demand compensation for these measures that would make them too expensive to manage.

The Intercept