Weekend Readings - International Affairs

End of the Australian Mining Boom and the Exodus of Overseas Workers
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/industry/mining/12142813/Australias-mining-boom-turns-to-dust-as-commodity-prices-collapse.html

Modern Turkey – A Highly Polarized State

An interesting cover story from the New Yorker:

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/02/08/cover-story-personal-history-elif-batuman
The Economist - Special Report on Turkey
http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21689871-under-recep-tayip-erdogan-and-his-ak-party-turkey-has-become-richer-and-more-confident

Pakistan’s Hand in the Rise of International Jihad by CARLOTTA GALL

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/07/opinion/sunday/pakistans-hand-in-the-rise-of-international-jihad.html

US Foreign Aid Programs and Africa

http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2016/01/25/uganda-election-when-democracy-doesnt-count/

The NYRB piece notes –

“In 1940, Franklin Roosevelt told Americans that, by arming Britain against the Nazis, we’d serve as an “arsenal for democracy.” But during the cold war, the opposite was often true, and apparently still is. According to two recent studies, the United States provides aid and sells weapons far more often to autocratic regimes than to democracies; even China partners with democracies more than America does. This pattern is particularly clear in sub-Saharan Africa. For a brief period after the cold war, America used foreign aid and other measures to pressure many countries to democratize; some, like Ghana, Tanzania and Zambia, now hold more or less credible elections. But today, our strongest military allies there, especially in eastern Africa, do not.”