BBC4 Beyond Belief: How Islamic is the So-Called Islamic State?

In claiming responsibility for the Paris atrocities, the so-called Islamic State described the attacks as "a blessed battle whose causes of success were enabled by Allah". Last year, when the group's self-imposed Caliphate was declared, hundreds of Muslim leaders and scholars from across the world wrote an open letter to the self-professed Caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, accusing him of heinous war crimes and a violation of the fundamental principles of Islam. So how Islamic is 'Islamic State'? Why have mainstream interpretations of Islam so far failed to provide an effective counter-narrative? What needs to happen for the group to be defeated?

William Crawley discusses the beliefs which underpin the so-called Islamic State in the light of the Paris terrorist attacks with Sheikh Dr Salah Al Ansari, an Imam, theologian and academic; Haras Rafiq, Managing Director of the anti-extremism think tank, the Quilliam Foundation; and Dr Katherine Brown, an expert in Islamic Studies at King's College London.

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Reuters: 'Tourists go home': Spain tourism surge brings backlash

On the walls of the grand old houses of this Balearic port which attracts millions of foreigners every year, a new kind of graffiti has flourished: "Tourists go home".

Although still a minority protest, it points to tensions in Palma de Mallorca and elsewhere in Spain over rising numbers of visitors who are propelling the economy but also disrupting the lives of locals and straining services from transport to water. [...]

In some respects local authorities are leaning if not toward limiting tourism, at least toward controlling it.

Next year the smallest of the Balearics' four main islands, Formentera, could introduce taxes on cars entering the area, and the region is looking into capping accommodation for tourists, said Biel Barcelo, the local tourism minister.

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The Guardian: Think TTIP is a threat to democracy? There’s another trade deal that’s already signed

But TTIP is not alone. Its smaller sister deal between the EU and Canada is called Ceta (the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement). Ceta is just as dangerous as TTIP; indeed it’s in the vanguard of TTIP-style deals, because it’s already been signed by the European commission and the Canadian government. It now awaits ratification over the next 12 months.

The one positive thing about Ceta is that it has already been signed and that means that we’re allowed to see it. Its 1,500 pages show us that it’s a threat to not only our food standards, but also the battle against climate change, our ability to regulate big banks to prevent another crash and our power to renationalise industries. [...]

David Cameron takes the most aggressive position on Ceta – not only supporting it entirely but pushing for provisional application in the UK. On this basis, Ceta could take effect in Britain early next year without a Westminster vote. In fact, even if the British parliament voted Ceta down, the corporate court system would still stay in effect for three years. Cameron’s Brexit rebels are not going to like that much.

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The Guardian: However we vote, the elites will win the EU referendum

One of the reasons European integration has stalled is because the EU has adopted this neoliberal model of globalisation, shelving the higher social ideals of a united Europe. These are still wearily trotted out in the grudging rhetoric of a non-taxpaying corporation throwing a Christmas party in an orphanage, and are barely understood by their alleged proponents. With Germany posited as the creditor nation within this model, it is inevitable that its interests will differ from debtor ones, such as the UK and Greece. As integration has floundered, we are stuck with an unelected commission-rather-than-parliament-led EU, anathema for democrats.

Against this, the stentorian voices in favour of exit are even further to the right than their opponents. They too would destroy the few protections citizens still enjoy, only quicker. Whatever happens to the economy in the event of an exit (as with Scottish independence, the claims made by both sides range from fanciful to ludicrous), the UK would remain a debtor nation, only it would now go to China, instead of Germany, to negotiate its terms. Boris Johnson, positioning himself as a Poundstretcher Trump, would be advised to pop across the Atlantic and ask the real thing exactly how that’s working out for America.

For every creditor, there has to be a debtor. Perhaps, rather than considering the wisdom or otherwise of a European exit, we would be better served discussing why the UK has been designated a debtor nation in this global economic order. The problem is that neoliberalism has played its financialisation and privatisation hand. And, as a declining capitalism is no longer able to offer sustained high levels of economic growth, elites and their asset-to-debt-swapping practices have become more isolated and exposed for what they are: tools to exploit their citizens, reducing them to serfdom in the process.

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Crux: Poland this summer won’t get the pope it wants, but the one it needs

Yet there are also signs of underlying weakness, including declines in seminary enrollment and recruitment to religious orders, and mounting frustration with perceived clericalism and indifference to laity. One recent study, for example, found that few of Poland’s more than 10,000 Catholic parishes actually have the pastoral and finance councils involving laity anticipated by canon law.

There’s also evidence that an increasing number of Poles are questioning Church teaching, with a survey last year by Warsaw’s Center for Public Opinion Research finding that three-quarters of Poles part company with the Church on homosexuality, contraception and extra-marital relationships.

Politically, the Church finds itself struggling to manage its relationship with the ruling Law and Justice party, which came to power in October 2015 with strong Catholic support, and which is still perceived as tightly allied with the Church.

Last month, for instance, one Polish priest publicly suggested that anyone who protests the government should be denied Communion.

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Science Alert: Europe announces that all scientific papers should be free by 2020

This week was a revolutionary week in the sciences - not because we discovered a new fundamental particle or had a new breakthrough in quantum computing - but because some of the most prominent world leaders announced an initiative which asserts that European scientific papers should be made freely available to all by 2020.

This would legally only impact research supported by public and public-private funds, which are a vast portion of the papers produced annually; however, the goal is to make all science freely available. [...]

To that end, while a spokesperson for the Competitiveness Council admits the 2020 target "may not be an easy task", all are quick to stress the importance of the council’s new resolve. "This is not a law, but it’s a political orientation for the 28 governments. The important thing is that there is a consensus."

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BBC: The newlyweds with no country to call home

Based on data from 30 countries in 2010, Eurostat estimated one in 12 marriages in Europe were between people of different nationalities. In Switzerland, it was about one in five, compared with about one in 11 in the UK and hardly any at all in Romania. In Australia, nearly one in three marriages in 2014 was mixed. In Singapore, where the number of marriages in 2014 was the highest since 1997, transnational marriages accounted for 37% of those unions up from 23% in 2003. And the US Census Bureau revealed that in 2011, in 21% of married households in America, at least one of the spouses was born outside the US. [...]

Despite economic policies that encourage the globalisation that make transnational marriages inevitable, young couples like Han and Stuart, and people who’ve been married for years, have become unexpected victims of hardening attitudes towards migration.

“There has been increasing stress on ‘managed migration’ by governments to try to maximise economic benefits from migration, and control types of migration not seen as so beneficial,” Katharine Charsley, an academic at the University of Bristol, said by email. Spouses who migrate are selected as a matter of the heart, “rather than selected for their skills to fill shortage occupations by the state”.

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