The Guardian: Everything you need to know about being gay in Muslim countries

It doesn’t mean what you might think it means, but it’s also less surprising than it might seem. Gender segregation, which goes to extreme lengths in the more conservative Muslim countries, encourages homosocial behaviour, creating a situation where men are often more comfortable in the presence of other men and where placing a hand on another man’s knee is a sign of friendship, not an invitation to sex. They hug and kiss a lot too – and according to a former head of Al-Azhar’s fatwa committee in Egypt, there’s nothing wrong with same-sex kissing so long as there is “no chance for any temptation”.

These laws have a catastrophic effect on the lives of people who are unlucky enough to get caught but, despite occasional crackdowns, the authorities don’t, on the whole, actively seek out gay people to arrest them. Statistics are scarce but the number of arrests is undoubtedly lower than it was during the British wave of homophobia in the 1950s. In England in 1952, there were 670 prosecutions for sodomy, 3,087 for attempted sodomy or indecent assault, and 1,686 for gross indecency. [...]

The difference is that over the last 60 years or so many Christians have taken a fresh look at the story and concluded that it’s about attempted male rape and the ill-treatment of strangers rather than consensual sex between males. So far, though, there have been only a few Muslims willing to reappraise it. [...]

Although Muslim societies today can be described as generally homophobic, it’s a mistake to view homophobia as a self-contained problem: it’s part of a syndrome in which the rights of individuals are subsumed in the perceived interests of the community and – often – maintaining an “Islamic” ethos. The result is that society places a high value on conformity and expressions of individuality are frowned upon; there is a strong emphasis on upholding social “norms” and keeping up appearances – in public if not necessarily in private. The patriarchal system plays a major part in this too, with strongly defined roles for men and women. Gay men, especially those who show feminine traits, may thus be regarded as challenging the social order.

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FiveThirtyEight: Trump Was Loyal To Corey Lewandowski — Until He Fell Behind Clinton

Trump took his first lead in the primary on July 14, which was 29 days into his campaign. At the same point in the general election (May 31), he had already given up his lead to Clinton. By Day 49 into the primaries, Trump was up 10.1 percentage points over his nearest competitor, compared with being down 6 percentage points now. That’s a 16.1 percentage point difference in standing.

Trump, who once claimed that he personally made polls “a very important thing,” can’t be unaware that the polls have now turned against him. Whatever Trump was doing in the primary has not been working in the general election. The decline became too obvious to ignore, and at the same moment, Trump decided Lewandowski had to go. [...]

Still, my guess is that Lewandowski was a symptom and not the cause of Trump’s campaign problems. For example, Lewandowski wasn’t the one who, day after day, was attacking Judge Gonzalo Curiel based on his ethnic background which drew widespread criticism from leaders in Trump’s own party. Trump is still Trump, President Obama is fairly popular and the economy is about average. Right now, Trump is losing, and he has a tough road ahead to reverse that with or without Lewandowski.

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The Atlantic: The Republican Party’s White Strategy

Coulter is right. California, where Latinos now outnumber non-Latino whites, offers valuable lessons about what American politics will be like as the share of Latinos grows in the country as a whole. But those lessons suggest that the Trump insurrection will fail miserably. If the Golden State is any guide, the Trump campaign does not herald the beginning of a mass nativist backlash against Latino immigration. It heralds something closer to the end. [...]

This partisan split undermines the claim that Republicans are embracing Trump’s anti-immigration message primarily because of economic hardship. As the data journalist Nate Silver has pointed out, Trump supporters earn more than supporters of Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders. Yet Clinton and Sanders voters don’t generally blame immigration for their economic woes. That merely confirms the findings of shelves full of academic studies: Personal economic circumstances are not a major driver of immigration views. [...]

The problem with this scenario is that it requires whites to grow ever more nativist as Latinos grow in number and political influence. That probably won’t happen. California didn’t flip from anti-immigration to pro-immigration just because its Latino population grew larger and more cohesive. It also flipped because enough whites joined Latinos and other minorities in voting for pro-immigration candidates. Since the anti-immigrant initiatives of the mid-1990s, white Californians have not responded to Latinos the way white Mississippians respond to blacks—by voting en masse for the other party. Obama won 45 percent of white Californians in 2012, six points more than the 39 percent of whites he won nationwide. [...]

Such overwhelming opposition is hard to overcome. Before early May, when Trump effectively secured the Republican nomination, polls showed him leading Hillary Clinton among whites by high single digits. By late May, with Hillary Clinton still competing against Bernie Sanders, Trump’s edge among whites had risen to between 12 and 24 points. If Clinton can consolidate Sanders’s support after she wins the Democratic nomination, Trump’s margin among whites might dip. But regardless, Trump probably can’t win. A study by Latino Decisions found that even if Trump defeats Clinton by 20 points among whites—the same margin Mitt Romney achieved in 2012—and even if African Americans don’t turn out for Clinton at the rates they turned out for Obama, Trump will still need more than 40 percent of Latinos to win the popular vote. That’s extraordinarily unlikely.

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The Guardian: Italian PM Renzi looks to electoral reform to keep populist M5S at bay

The M5S – founded by the comedian Beppe Grillo – and his digital guru, Gianroberto Casaleggio, only four years earlier – scooped a quarter of the votes. And since Grillo refused to negotiate with the established parties, which he regards as irredeemably corrupt, the result was stalemate.

Had it not been for a deal between left and right, Italy would have become as deadlocked as Spain since its general election in December, and for a not dissimilar reason: the success of new political movements outside the mainstream. So the grand plan – though only voiced privately – was to nobble the M5S by introducing a new electoral law and a constitutional reform. 

The latter would ensure only one of Italy’s two houses of parliament would have any real clout and, at the next general election, the party that topped the poll would get an outright majority of its seats. That party’s leader, which Renzi has always assumed would be himself, would thus enjoy a full, five-year term in office. What is more, because of the new electoral law which means lawmakers will continue to be accountable to their party leaders rather than their constituents, his new government could expect to be untroubled by party revolts. [...]

The latest poll shows the M5S running a mere 0.4% behind the PD. What if Renzi were to win the referendum, install a winner-takes-all system, but then lose the general election that is expected to be called shortly afterwards?

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Business Insider: Europe's policy towards Russia is starting to crack

That consensus was possible because German Chancellor Angela Merkel was able to keep Russia-friendly members of her own government on-side and convince skeptical EU states like Slovakia, Hungary and Italy to back extensions of the bloc's economic and financial sanctions against Moscow. [...]

In recent weeks, as NATO advanced plans to deploy battalions along Russia's western border, Russian athletes were banned from the Olympic Games over doping and Moscow was threatened with ejection from the European soccer championships because of violent fans, officials in Berlin have begun to express concern that ties with Moscow could suffer irreparable damage.

Coupled with these fears has been growing frustration with the government in Ukraine and its struggles to implement its side of the Minsk peace deal by pushing through a law that would allow elections to take place in the disputed east.

More generally, some German and European officials have begun questioning how many fronts Europe can afford to fight at a time when the bloc faces major threats like Brexit, attacks from Islamic State militants and the simmering refugee crisis.

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The Huffington Post: Save Your Sympathy. You Are The Problem

Because, here’s the thing. We’ve seen a lot of statements and sympathy tweets from lawmakers offering their “thoughts and prayers” to the families of the victims. But most ignore the fact that the shooting was a hate crime against the LGBTQ community. Instead, they use it as an excuse for more xenophobia, more violence, more hatred.

The massacre in Orlando wasn’t an ISIS attack. It wasn’t a “radical Islamic terrorist” attack on the American way of life. It was a targeted hate crime against largely black and Latinx LGBTQ people by a violent, mentally unstable American man from Queens with a history of domestic abuse and an assault weapon he should never have been able to purchase. [...]

Dear weeping politicians, it is long past time for you to connect these dots. You cannot, in one moment, marginalize, demonize and cast as “other” a particular group, and then in the next moment, lament the fact that that group is being targeted for a hate crime. If you advocate for inequality—whether because of your religious beliefs, your cultural beliefs, your political aspirations, etc.—you are helping to create a culture that made LGBTQ people an easy mark for a lunatic homophobe with an assault weapon, regardless of whether his homophobia was internalized or externalized.

By failing to speak up against discrimination and hate, you have made the world unsafe for LGBTQ people, fueling their own self-loathing and inciting homophobic rage in others. You are the reason hate crimes against LGBTQ people were up in 2015, and particularly against people of color, transgender people and those who are gender-nonconforming. You are the reason LGBTQ teens are the daily targets of harassment, bullying and violence in schools. And you are the reason they too often choose suicide over the pain of living as a human target.

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Deutsche Welle: A leader by default?

Opinions can shape international politics at least as much as facts. That's one lesson that can already be drawn from the Brexit debate. Given the fact that fears of a newly ascendant Germany have helped fuel the campaign for Brexit, its proponents should take heed of the opinions voiced in a new pan-European poll that does in fact reveal a growing sense of self-confidence in Germany.

According to the US-based Pew Research Center, 62 percent of Germans think their country has become more important over the past decade. That is a higher share than in any of the other EU countries polled. This new German confidence goes against an overall European trend: from France to Italy and Britain, those polled tend to see their respective countries' international influence shrinking. [...]

Six out of 10 Germans may see their country playing a bigger role on the world stage, but when it comes to using that power, more than two-thirds want allies' interests taken into account - even if that means compromising Germany's own interests. With more than two-thirds willing to compromise on foreign policy, Germans come across as the most diplomatic of the Europeans surveyed. Greece marks the other end of the spectrum with a mere 19 percent willing to sacrifice national interest, compared to an EU-wide share of 44 percent.

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Independent: I don't fear immigration, I fear that bleach-blond megalomaniac Boris Johnson

Yes, fear has got hold of me, but not in the way it has grabbed others. I don’t fear immigration; I fundamentally support the idea of open borders, think we should take in far more refugees and know that our economy would collapse without a steady influx of immigrant labour to work as nurses, teachers, scientific researchers and many more besides.

I don’t fear that the banks will up and leave. Good riddance if they do, although I very much doubt that they’ll suddenly transfer all their workers, sell up their offices and change how they do business overnight. I don’t fear that the rest of Europe or the world will hate us, love us or call us quitters. [...]

I’ve considered the arguments for ‘Lexit’ (a left-wing exit of the EU) and I know there could be a brave new world out there. But, pragmatically, I don’t believe it’s possible in 2016. Whenever I start convincing myself that a post-Brexit house price crash might be worth it all to finally get me on the property ladder, that Rupert Murdoch quote comes back to mind. Asked about why he opposed the EU, he replied: “That’s easy. I go into Downing Street they do what I say; when I go to Brussels they take no notice.”

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Reuters: Rival Kremlin camps prepare for battle over economy

While to the outside world the Kremlin presents a united front, especially in its stand-off with the West, in reality it is divided with Putin often having to act as umpire in contests between different factions.

On one side of the economic argument is a loose coalition of pro-market liberals who say if robust growth is to return, the Kremlin must slash government spending, break up monopolies, and dilute state control over giant corporations.

In the other camp are the people who control those corporations, many of them with state security backgrounds, who have been close to Putin for decades, who say relinquishing the state's control is the path to chaos. [...]

Putin's apparent inability to choose decisively between the camps occasionally produces mixed signals or sudden policy reversals. In one example earlier this year, the government announced that all state-owned companies would be required to contribute more to state coffers by paying at least 50 percent of their profits in dividends.

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Time: What History Teaches Us About Demagogues Like The Donald

In fact, the identification of a “demagogue” turns out, as often as not, to be an act of demagoguery itself, with those occupying each end of the political spectrum leveling the term against leaders springing from, or appealing to, the other side.

I would suggest that there remains one simple test that will allow voters to identify a demagogue: If the would-be leader promises to give, restore, provide, insure, or enhance a country but never asks the citizens to sacrifice, pay, serve, or simply work, then this leader is a potential demagogue. [...]

Democracy suffers from an inescapable, built-in flaw. Each citizen gets an equal, but tiny, share of political power. An individual voter’s ballot makes a difference only if she breaks a tie. But the probability she’ll break a tie, in most cases, is vanishingly small. Thus, most voters have no incentive to be well-informed about politics, or to correct their misinformed opinions. They have no incentive to think rationally about politics or to process information in a reasonable way. They have every incentive to indulge their biases and prejudices.

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The Guardian: JK Rowling condemns 'ugly' rhetoric of EU referendum campaign

Writing on her personal website, the Harry Potter author, who was an outspoken opponent of independence during the Scottish referendum, said the EU referendum campaign had been “one of the most divisive and bitter political campaigns ever waged” and made her consider how fairytale villains had been created by political storytellers. [...]

Rowling said she did not believe all who supported Brexit were racist bigots, calling that view “shameful”. However, she said it was equally nonsensical to pretend racists and bigots were not flocking to the leave cause, or that they were not, in some instances, directing it. “For some of us, that fact alone is enough to give us pause,” she said. [...]

Rowling said she had been worried by strident nationalism across Europe and in the US, saying the US Republican candidate Donald Trump was a “fascist in all but name … the temperament of an unstable nightclub bouncer, jeers at violence when it breaks out at his rallies and wears his disdain for women and minorities with pride”.

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The Washington Post: Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood faces a dilemma: Religion or politics?

The audacious decision of Tunisia’s Ennahda movement to separate politics and religion has raised the question of whether Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood would follow Ennahda’s course. Pundits think the current crisis of the Brotherhood might prompt its leaders to consider taking a similar move and separating the two realms. Furthermore, while some of the Brotherhood’s exiled figures highlighted that they are weighing the idea of separating political and religious activities, others reject it as not viable or realistic. No matter the outcome of the Brotherhood’s ongoing discussion over this issue, assuming it exists, the movement faces many hurdles that preclude reaching a decision similar to that of Ennahda’s.

Calls for separating religion and politics in the Brotherhood are not new. Many Islamist figures, including Mohammed Salim El-Awa, Tariq El-Bishry and Abduallah Al-Nofaisy, urged the Brotherhood to leave politics and focus on da’wa (religious preaching) and tarbiyya (education). The prime reason behind the split of Al-Wasat Party from the Brotherhood in 1996 was to morph the movement into a political entity. As Abu Ela Madi, the chairman of Al-Wasat Party, put it in a recent interview, “The Brotherhood’s activity should be limited to da’wa.” [...]

If the Brotherhood decides to become a religious group only, it will lose its edge in the religious market. When I wrote about the Brotherhood in 2007, many members rejected the idea of having only a religious role. Some of them expressed distress at the idea of separating religion and politics and considered it a form of secularism. These members joined the Brotherhood because of its comprehensive character. Separating religion and politics would alienate many of the Brotherhood’s members, particularly in rural and suburban areas.

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