Australians online have reacted with ire to reports that the visa application fee for journalists visiting the Pacific island of Nauru will skyrocket from $200 to $8,000 AUD ($7,100). Nauru, a country with a population of fewer than 10,000, is home to one of Australia's offshore detention centres, where unauthorised asylum seekers who land in Australia by boat are deported. According to Australia's Department of Immigration and Border Protection, there are 686 people, including 109 children, currently held in immigration detention in Nauru as of November 30.

A French government report has proposed a radical overhaul of the “assimilation” model which requires immigrants to abandon their culture for that of France, including ending the ban on Muslim headscarves in schools and naming streets and squares after notables of foreign origin. In response to fears over growing racism and ethnic divisions in the country, it recommends emphasizing the “Arab-Oriental” dimension of French identity, barring the media from mentioning a person’s ethnicity and promoting the teaching of Arabic and African languages in schools.

During the "Public Diplomacy of the Americas" conference hosted by the USC Association of Public Diplomacy Scholars, former Mexican Ambassador to the U.S. Arturo Sarukhán discussed U.S.- Mexico relations, highlighting the importance of increasing the digital component of Mexico's diplomacy to deal with issues such as trade relations, transnational crime, and immigration.

Ireland has long been a country of emigrants. For around the past 300 years, the Irish have been leaving their homes to escape whatever it is they want to escape—mostly famine or economic depression, historically—in search of a better life elsewhere. I recently became one of the Irish diaspora myself, leaving the country, along with many of my friends, because of the severe lack of jobs and very real prospect of the economy remaining in perpetual decline.

Cuba takes special measures to hold on to one of its most precious cultural resources: ballet dancers. To discourage defections, authorities sometimes keep talented performers from touring or warn younger artists that finding a ballet job will be tough in an unappreciative capitalist world.

How do Israelis who have moved to the United States and made their lives there ensure that their children - and their grandchildren – remain connected to their Israeli identity? That’s the question that Israeli-American community leaders, activists and educators - together with representatives of the State of Israel - were setting out to tackle Sunday as they gathered in New Jersey.

When chipotle and kimchi abound in the suburbs and Univision co-hosts a presidential debate, it is easy to forget how sudden and extraordinary our ethnic makeover has been. Americans middle-aged or older were born into a country where immigrants seemed to have vanished. As recently as 1970, the immigrant share of the population was at its lowest level on record, and the foreign-born were mostly old and white.

At a small store on Eighth Street near Miami's Little Havana, Armando Perez paid $25 to activate his daughter's cell phone in Cuba. Store owner Laura Benitez sat behind a glass window, typing in the phone numbers for Perez and others calling Cuba. "I call my daughter every week, even if it's just for her to say, 'Papi, I love you,'" said Perez, a thin man who left the island on a boat in 2008.