Benjamin Bathke

Despite its record of abuses, Libya’s EU-funded and -trained coast guard is the bloc’s preferred partner to prevent migrants from reaching European soil. Having intercepted some 20,000 people in 2017 alone, the coast guard in the Mediterranean is efficient; it is not as good, however, at abiding by the law. Article for InfoMigrants looking at the funding, training and questionable monitoring of the loosely organized force whose members are often former militia.

Q&A with Estonian President Kersti Kaljulaid about the reasons for the rise of far-right EKRE party, how to counter anti-Europe sentiments, and Estonia’s role as a digital peacekeeper.

Video interview with UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi for InfoMigrants about tackling the root causes of migration and refugee flows, the current rhetoric around people on the move, and Europe's political response.

Radio piece for German public radio (Deutschlandfunk) about the dangers of doxing, the Internet-based practice of researching and broadcasting private or identifying information (especially personally identifying information) about individuals or organizations, and how journalists can better protect their data online.

“You can’t finish a news feed, but you can finish Zetland, and that is just very nice, you know: ‘OK, that was the lesson for today, now I’m off out in the sun, talking to a friend.'”

Radio piece for German public radio (Deutschlandfunk) about the 'time well spent' movement, the war for attention, what (social) media consumption does to our brains, and how a 'digital detox' might help to escape the permanent seductions of social media.

I visited an 'anchor center' in Schweinfurt, Bavaria to talk to asylum seekers from Nigeria, Ivory Coast and Somalia — countries with a low 'protection rate'. Most of them thus don't have good chances of staying in Germany, regardless of the personal suffering many of them have endured to make it to Europe.

How dangerous is AI's exponential growth? Is any job immune to automation? I spoke to technologists and historians to better understand some of the technological and societal upheavals humanity is facing.

“There’s a diversity of talent from around the world coming to Vietnam because of all this excitement and because it’s easy to bootstrap stuff here."

63-page report in German about Vietnam's economic rise. I spent 3 months on the ground in Vietnam conducting 70+ interviews thanks to the Heinz-Kühn-Foundation.

Awash with cash, Asian providers are fighting for market share in Europe with large fleets of free-floating bicycles. In this price battle for supremacy, is monetizing data the only way to profitability?

When Michael M. Richardson walked into a Tallinn police station in December of 2014, he felt somewhat apprehensive. Only knowing Estonia from old movies, the 58-year-old American entrepreneur had a few stereotypes about the former Soviet republic...

Article from COP 23 for Devex on climate displacement.

Article about self-driving vehicles and the future of mobility for DW SciTech.

Automated news, how bots automate fact-checking and the rise of live video.