Wait Time for Canadian Asylum Claims Could Hit 11 Years, Cost $2.9B: Here’s What We’re Reading
The Daily 5 is Sharp’s essential reading list for what’s happening in the world today. Make sure to follow us on Twitter or subscribe to the Sharp Insider newsletter to stay up to date.
Here’s what we’re reading today.
1. Wait time for Canadian asylum claims could hit 11 years, cost $2.9 billion: Government analysis
“An increase in asylum claims in Canada could eventually mean a staggering 11-year wait for a hearing and $2.97 billion in social supports for claimants in the meantime, an internal government analysis has concluded.
“The Immigration and Refugee Board has been trying to whittle down the current backlog, but received no new money in the latest federal budget.
“With 2017 application numbers expected to far exceed earlier projections, the board simply can’t keep up, says the memo, obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act.”
2. How white nationalism became normal online
“Neo-Nazi groups, once confined to spreading their message through marginal radio programs and small publishing houses, have turned to video gaming forums; websites associated with ironic ‘alt-right’ pranksters, who espouse far-right ideologies grounded in white supremacy; and have blended with the so-called ‘Men’s Rights Movement’ to find new foot soldiers, many of whom are the kind of disaffected young men who are ripe for recruitment into extremist movements around the world.
“The dark humor that has flourished in these forums, with their blurred and overlapping lines, sanitizes ideas of a race war and genocide, featuring pitched battles between racial identities. This online cauldron has been an important factor in fuelling the growth of the ‘alt-right’ and adjacent white nationalist organizations.”
3. Boris Johnson concedes UK will have to pay for Brexit
“The UK will pay money to the EU as part of the Brexit process, Boris Johnson has conceded, having previously said the EU could ‘go whistle’ over a reported bill of between €60bn and €100bn.
“The issue of the ‘divorce bill’ has split the pro-Brexit camp, with some leave supporters demanding that the UK decline to pay a penny, and Johnson told the Commons last month that a demand for €100bn (£92bn) would be extortionate.”
4. Facebook figured out a deep family secrets, and it won’t tell me how
“Rebecca Porter, we discovered, is my great aunt, by marriage. She is married to my biological grandfather’s brother; she met him 35 years ago, the year after I was born. Facebook knew my family tree better than I did
“‘I didn’t know about you,’ she told me, when we talked by phone. ‘I don’t understand how Facebook made the connection.'”
– Gizmodo
+1: Data is the new oil: Your personal information is now the world’s most valuable commodity – CBC News
5. George R.R. Martin is the real winner of season 7 of ‘Game of Thrones’
“Two months ago, it looked like the ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’ scribe had lost control of his life’s work. Now, after an uncharacteristically maligned stretch of episodes, Martin again seems like the true steward of this cherished story.”
+1: Who killed Taylor Swift? – The Atlantic
