A Bit More Detail

• The Independent noted that the length and severity of the Greek economic crisis means that, for many younger Greeks, the chance to have a family the size they wanted--or the chance to have a family at all--is passing. The Korea Herald, meanwhile, noted that the fertility rate in South Korea likely dipped below 1 child per woman, surely a record low for any nation-state (although some Chinese provinces, to be fair, have seen similar dips).


• The South China Morning Post argued that Hong Kong, facing rapid population aging, should try to keep its elderly employed. Similar arguments were made over at Bloomberg with regards to the United States, although the American demographic situation is rather less dramatic than Hong Kong's.


• Canadian news source Global News noted that, thanks to international migration, the population of the Atlantic Canadian province of Nova Scotia actually experienced net growth. OBC Transeuropa, meanwhile, observed that despite growing emigration from Croatia to richer European Union member-states like Germany and Ireland, labour shortages are drawing substantial numbers of workers not only from the former Yugoslavia but from further afield.


• At Open Democracy, Oliver Haynes speaking about Brexit argued strongly against assuming simple demographic change will lead to shifts of political opinion. People still need to be convinced.


• Open Democracy's Carmen Aguilera, meanwhile, noted that far-right Spanish political party Vox is now making Eurabian arguments, suggesting that Muslim immigrants are but the vanguard of a broader Muslim invasion.

• Ryan Anderson at Anthrodendum takes a look at how the threat posed to coastal properties by sea level rise reveals much about how human beings assign value.


• A BCer in Toronto's Jeff Jedras writes about the food at a Newfoundlander party in Ottawa.


• D-Brief considers how past ice ages might have been caused by the shifting poles.


• Karen Sternheimer at the Everyday Sociology Blog takes a look at the work of Michelle Pannor Silver, looking at how retirement can influence the identities of individuals.


• Far Outliers notes that, in its first major wars, Japan treated prisoners of war well.


• JSTOR Daily examines a paper that takes a look at how the X-Men have achieved such resonance in pop culture, such power as symbols of minorities' persecution and survival.


• Lawyers, Guns and Money is critical of the effusive press coverage of Mitt Romney, new Republican senator.


• Geoffrey Pullum at Lingua Franca shares, for other English speakers, a lexicon of specialized words from the United Kingdom regarding Brexit.


• At the LRB Blog, Hyo Yoon Kang takes a look at a series of legal hearings investigating the possibility of assigning legal responsibility for global warming to "carbon majors" like big oil.


• Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution shares his argument that the history of the 21st century United States might look like that of the 19th century, with progress despite political disarray.


• The NYR Daily shares the arguments of scholar of populism, Jan-Werner Müller, looking at what Cold War liberalism has to say now.


• Peter Rukavina shares the story of his two visits to relatives around the Croatian city of Kutina, with photos.


• Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel looks at how astronomers solved the mystery of the "Zone of Avoidance", the portions of space blotted out by the dense plane of our galaxy.


• Window on Eurasia reports from a conference on minority languages where speakers complain about Russian government pressures against their languages.


• Arnold Zwicky takes a look at tea, starting with tea-time aphorisms and going further afield.

• Croatian-Canadian fans in Mississauga were definitely organized and ready to celebrate the Croatian team playing in the World Cup finals. Global News reports.


• People in Kahnawake are looking forward to an upcoming powwow, as a celebration of indigenous culture and a vehicle for reconciliation. Global News reports.


• CityLab notes the progress that environmental initiatives in Madrid have had in bringing wildlife back to the Spanish capital.


• Politico Europe reports on the mood in Helsinki on the eve of the Trump-Putin summit there. Avoiding a repetition of Munich was prominent in locals' minds.


• Namrata Kolachalam at Roads and Kingdoms reports from Mumbai on the negative environmental impact of a controversial statue of Marathi conqueror Shivaji on local fishing communities.

• Antipope's Charlie Stross considers the question of how to build durable space colonies.


• blogTO notes that the musical Hamilton might be coming to Toronto.


• The Dragon's Tales notes that European populations are descended from Anatolian farmers, not local hunter0-gatherers.


• Far Outliers notes the plight of Czech and Slovak migrants in Russia following the outbreak of the First World War.


• Language Log looks at new programs to promote the learning of Cantonese, outside of China proper.


• Towleroad notes the sad story of a Belgian man who wants euthanasia because he's ashamed of being gay.


• The Financial Times' The World worries about the possible spread of illiberal democracy to Croatia.

Croatia, an EU member, on Wednesday banned Serb vehicles from entering except those with perishable goods. In retaliation, Serbia blocked imports of Croat products. Croatia also accused Serbia of having directed migrants to its territory since Hungary erected a razor-wire fence to stop the influx. The government in Belgrade rejected the allegation, saying it can’t influence the refugees’ route.

“In order to avoid a further escalation of the new situation Brussels should mediate and civil society organizations in both countries must help,” said Gordana Delic, the director of the Balkan Trust for Democracy. “I believe the situation between Croatia and Serbia has not gone that far yet, that it would be impossible to restore the good neighborly relations”.

Croatian Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic said his nation “can’t handle such a huge inflow” and urged Serbia to take the “completely reasonable” steps of setting up registration centers and directing some of the refugee toward Hungary.

EU policy chief Federica Mogherini and Neighborhood Policy and Enlargement Commissioner Johannes Hahn are in close contact with Zagreb and Belgrade “to try and help them to find a solution together in order to restore trade flows as soon as possible,” Mina Andreeva, a spokeswoman for the 28-nation bloc’s executive, the European Commission, told reporters in Brussels on Thursday. Any trade restrictions must be “proportional, non-discriminatory and limited in time,” she said.

• Centauri Dreams notes how the New Horizons probe is maneuvering into mapping orbits of Ceres.


• Crooked Timber examines the decline of inter-generational mobility and class mobility.


• The Dragon's Gaze reports on Jupiter analog HIP 11915b.


• The Dragon's Tales notes Russian claims in the Arctic and links to a comparison of Chinese and American statements on perceived threats.


• Language Hat reports on a project hoping to map the diffusion of ideas over time.


• Language Log reports on the use of the term "mother" in comparative linguistics.


• Marginal Revolution notes the fragility of Greek foreign trade and examines economic dysfunction in Greece and the former Yugoslavia.


• Registan links to a report of an exile from Kyrgyzstan in Ukraine.


• Window on Eurasia notes how the Russian state has not found Western partners willing to partition Ukraine, unlike Stalin's Soviet Union re: Nazi Germany.

Governments from Poland to Croatia are under pressure to mimic Hungary’s help for eastern European borrowers with $40 billion in Swiss-franc loans, without repeating the same mistakes.

Romania is considering a proposal to convert franc loans at a discounted rate while Croatia moved to force banks to take exchange-rate losses for the next year. Poland, for now, isn’t considering emulating Hungary’s full-conversion of franc mortgages. Leaders in all three nations face elections in the next two years.

As countries in the European Union’s east weigh steps to help about 800,000 borrowers, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s five-year fight to root out foreign-currency loans is serving as both a model and a cautionary tale for policy makers. Orban’s measures weakened the forint and curtailed lending before he moved to convert all foreign-currency mortgages in November, ahead of the franc’s surge last week.

“The Hungarian lesson should raise some red flags,” Viktor Szabo, who helps oversee $12 billion in emerging-market debt at Aberdeen Asset Management Plc, said by phone from London on Tuesday. “While there may be valuable lessons in there, a bank-sector shock similar to Hungary’s may jeopardize growth in the region.”

• blogTO has a visual history of the Toronto Islands up.


• Centauri Dreams looks at GU Piscium b and Beta Pictoris b.


• The Dragon's Tales links to a paper examining two concepts for theoretical nuclear fusion-fueled space drives, one using additional coolant and one not.


• Eastern Approaches examines the disastrous floods in the former Yugoslavia.


• Joe. My. God. reports on a study suggesting church attendance is exaggerated by traditional self-reporting methods.


• Language Log notes the success in the digitization of ancient Persian manuscripts, including of a bilingual Persian/Gujarati Zoroastrian text.


• Registan notes the influence of the Internet and social media in reshaping Islam in Uzbekistan.


• Savage Minds features a post by Nick Seaver talking about the ways in which anthropology can get involved with computer-mediated processes, like the algorithms which recommend tunes.


• Towleroad examines Dolly Parton as a gay icon.


• Window on Eurasia notes Russian academic disinterest in Ukrainian culture and covers the Crimean Tatars' commemoration of their deportation in the context of Russian occupation.

• io9 links to a map showing the Milky Way Galaxy's location in nearer intergalactic space.


• The Big Picture has pictures from the Sochi Paralympics.


• blogTO shares an array of pictures from Toronto in the 1980s.


• D-Brief notes the recent finding that star HR 5171A is one of the largest stars discovered, a massive yellow hypergiant visible to the naked eye despite being twenty thousand light-years away.


• The Dragon's Gaze notes recent studies suggesting that M-class red dwarfs are almost guaranteed to have planets.


• Eastern Approaches argues that the lawsuits of Serbia and Croatia posed against each other on charges of genocide at the International Court of Justice will do little but cause harm.


• Far Outliers explores how Australian colonists in the late 19th century feared German ambitions in New Guinea.


• The Financial Times World blog suggests that, in its mendacity, Russia is behaving in Crimea much as the Soviet Union did in Lithuania in 1990.


• Geocurrents notes that the Belarusian language seems to be nearing extinction, displaced by Russian in Belarus (and Polish to some extent, too).


• Joe. My. God. notes the protests of tens of thousands of Orthodox Jews in New York City against mandatory conscription laws in Israel that would see their co-sectarians do service.


• Marginal Revolution notes that, in pre-Israeli Palestine, local Arabs wanted to be part of a greater Syria.Otto Pohl notes the connections of Crimean Tatars to a wider Turkic world and their fear that a Russian Crimea might see their persecution.


• The Power and the Money's Noel Maurer notes that Venezuela has attacked Panama in retaliation for a vote against it by confiscating the assets of its companies there. In turn, Panama has promised to reveal the banking accounts of Venezuelan officials in Panama.


• John Scalzi of Whatever is unimpressed with the cultic adoration of Robert Heinlein's novels by some science fiction fans.

• Bad Astronomy's Phil Plait approves of the names of Pluto's two most recently-discovered moons, Kereberos and Styx.


• Beyond the Beyond's Bruce Sterling observes that Altavista is set to disappear from the Internet as of the 8th.


• Daniel Drezner notes that the inability of Edward Snowden to find a country to grant him, buster of state secrets, asylum demonstrates that states around the world like keeping their prerogatives and secrets intact.


• Commemorating the accession of Croatia to the European Union, Eastern Approaches visits a Dubrovnik that is virtually an enclave on account of the Bosnian frontier, and, at the other end of the Croatian arc, a Vukovar still caught up by ethnic conflict and the legacies of the Serb war in Slavonia.


• Far Outliers notes the decline of immigrant Japanese Buddhism in Hawaii.


• The Power and the Money's Noel Maurer explains why Uruguay, contrary to the wishes of many Argentines including--apparently--the president, is a country separate from Argentina.


• Registan approves of alumnus Sarah Kendzior's examination of the plight of Uzbek migrants, stigmatized by the Karimov dictatorship as lazy for trying to earn a living and forced to witness the victimization of their relatives if they do anything wrong.


• Savage Minds quotes from Umberto Eco's definition of fascism.


• The Tin Man celebrates, as a coupled American gay man, the end of DOMA.


• Torontoist reports that much of the controversy over the Walmart on the fringes of Kensington Market might be--according to the designer--a consequence of a lack of understanding of the design.


• Van Waffle reports on highlights of his 2012 breeding bird survey.


• Yorkshire Ranter Alex Harrowell reports on David Goodhart's still-dodgy use of statistics.