27 March 2017
BBC4 Analysis: Detoxifying France's National Front
Has Front National leader Marine Le Pen really detoxified the party founded by her father 40 years ago? Is it a right-wing protest movement or a party seriously preparing for power? Anand Menon, professor of European politics at Kings College London, analyses the process the French call Dédiabolisation. Le Pen has banished the name of the party and even her own surname from election posters and leaflets. Her party is making inroads into socialist and communist fiefdoms in northern and eastern France. Combining nationalism with a message designed to reach out to the left, she speaks up loudly for the have-nots, people who live in the land she calls "the forgotten France." She targets trade unionists, teachers and gay voters. But widening the party's appeal leads to a tricky balancing act. Can Marine Le Pen manage the process of political exorcism without alienating die-hard supporters?
The Atlantic: A Better Way to Argue About Politics
Liberals and conservatives have fundamentally different moral codes, which makes arguing about policy complicated. Many people have found themselves locked in debates surrounding the now-suspended travel ban, with little success in convincing the other. “One reason it’s so hard to reach across the ideological divide is that people tend to present their arguments in a way that appeals to the ethics of their own side, rather than that of their opponents,” says Atlantic writer Olga Khazan in this video. However, there’s a psychological trick that goes a long way to changing peoples minds. According to the Moral Foundations Theory, liberals are more likely than conservatives to endorse fairness-based arguments and are more concerned with principles like care and equality. So, when discussing a contentious topic, liberals should reframe their arguments to appeal the the moral values of conservatives, and vice versa. “At the very least, you can avoid making things worse,” says Khazan. “If you can’t reframe your argument, just get off Facebook.”
This is the seventh episode of “Unpresidented,” an original series from The Atlantic exploring a new era in American politic
Jakub Marian: Percentage of researchers by region in Europe
Researchers form an important pillar of society, creating long-term value upon which entrepreneurs as well as the public sector can build. The following map, based on Eurostat data, shows the percentage of employees that work as researchers by NUTS 2 region. [...]
In London, most researchers are concentrated in one small (but populous) part (which is barely visible on the map), while all other parts of London have less than 0.6% of researchers. On average, London boasts 1.0% of people employed in research.
The data for the two missing regions of Germany are not present in the Eurostat database, and the entries are marked as “confidential”, whatever that means. Perhaps everybody in Niederbayern and Oberpfalz secretly works on a death ray?
Independent: We asked a lot of British Political Historians the same question: is this the End of the Labour Party?
But while the Labour Party is unlikely to shuffle off this mortal coil just yet, its condition is certainly serious. There are fewer and fewer working class voters around. And more and more of them – turned off by a party they see as too politically correct and/or too like the Tories to make much difference – are either plumping for populists or not bothering to vote at all. Meanwhile, the country’s growing middle class simply can’t see Corbyn and co providing them with the combination of compassion and competence that New Labour, at least for a while, delivered.
But all isn’t necessarily lost. First-past-the-post means the party’s unlikely to be replaced by either UKIP or the Lib Dems even when (not if) it’s hammered at the next general election. After that, it might secure itself a more credible, centrist leader who’s capable of communicating and connecting with the public. And the Tories will eventually mess up – governments always do. [...]
But to be the majority party it has to create a coalition of shared interests. At the moment Labour has not got a leader who can do that. He can appeal to only one constituency – liberal, metropolitan types – but not Labour’s more traditional supporters.
The Guardian: Colourful characters beneath Berlin – in pictures
Berlin is known for its underground scene of artists, DJs and techno, but it was the actual underground that captured the attention of photographer Sebastian Spasic. In his project Berlin Lines, a collaboration with website Pixartprinting, Spasic photographed 20 people in the German capital’s metro stations that had a particular significance to them. “Subway stations are part of people’s daily landscape but in most cases go unnoticed,” he says, “but if people wake up to some elements of the stations, like the rich typography, the colour palettes, they can appreciate a new point of view full of meaning and interesting facts.” To Spasic, Berlin is one of the world’s creative capitals: “It’s an eclectic city with a youthful and tolerant mentality. It’s best experienced and not explained.”
The New Yorker: A Last Chance for Turkish Democracy
The last time I met Demirtaş, in September, it was at a tea shop in the trendy neighborhood of Taksim. He was surrounded by bodyguards. Things were going badly for him—not because he had given up on democratic politics but because he had succeeded so well; in 2015, the H.D.P. captured an astounding eighty seats in the Turkish parliament. The Party had even begun to attract non-Kurdish voters. Soon, however, Turkey’s President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, began cracking down on the Kurds. Thousands of members of the H.D.P. were detained. In November, two months after our last meeting, Demirtaş, who is forty-three years old, was arrested and jailed. Now, facing what appear to be preposterous charges—supporting an armed terrorist organization—he is facing a prison sentence of as long as a hundred and forty-two years. [...]
But Erdoğan is a master at self-preservation. He beat back his accusers and then, last July, in what must be regarded as a political gift from the heavens, elements inside the Turkish military tried to overthrow his government. Erdoğan—not without some justification—blamed the attempted coup on the movement of Fethullah Gülen, a Muslim preacher who lives in exile in the United States. After successfully putting down the attempted putsch, Erdoğan launched a sweeping, and still ongoing, campaign to destroy the country’s democratic opposition. Since July, more than forty thousand people have been arrested, and a hundred thousand government employees—including judges, prosecutors, and academics—have been fired. Tens of thousands remain in prison, including more than a hundred and fifty journalists and media workers. The government has closed a hundred and seventy-nine newspapers, television stations, and Web sites. Turkey is now the most prolific jailer of journalists in the world. [...]
Polls show that the referendum has the support of only around fifty per cent of likely Turkish voters. A “no” vote would be a crushing rebuke to the Turkish President, and, in the short-term, could provoke a violent reaction from him. But, if the Turkish people are serious about stemming Erdoğan’s drive to dictatorship, this may be their last chance.
Associated Press: UN: Israel didn't comply with UN call to stop settlements
Israel took no steps to comply with a Security Council call to stop all settlement activity in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, and instead authorized "a high rate" of settlement expansions in violation of international law, the United Nations said Friday.
U.N. envoy Nickolay Mladenov told the council the large number of settlement announcements and legislation action by Israel indicate "a clear intent to continue expanding the settlement enterprise in the occupied Palestinian territory."
He was delivering the first report to the council on implementation of the resolution it adopted in December condemning Israeli settlements as a "flagrant violation" of international law. The resolution was a striking rupture with past practice by President Barack Obama who had the U.S. abstain rather than veto the measure as president-elect Donald Trump demanded. [...]
He called "the January spike" in illegal settlement announcements by Israel "deeply concerning." During that month, he said, two major announcements were made for a total of 5,500 housing units in Area C, the 60 percent of the West Bank exclusively controlled by Israel.
The Huffington Post: Canada Passes Anti-Islamophobia Motion In Spite Of Trolls
In a vote split 201-91 in favor of the non-binding motion, the Parliament agreed to “condemn Islamophobia and all forms of systemic racism and religious discrimination.” The motion, dubbed M-103, also tasks the Parliament with establishing a committee to investigate policies that could be aimed at “reducing or eliminating systemic racism and religious discrimination including Islamophobia in Canada.”
Iqra Khalid, a Liberal member of Parliament who is Muslim, introduced the motion in December as a response to rising anti-Muslim sentiment. It took on renewed significance in January after a mass shooting at a mosque in Quebec City left six worshippers dead. [...]
The motion set off a number of protests and counter-protests across the country as members of Parliament debated it ahead of the vote. A survey published Thursday by polling non-profit Angus Reid Institute found that 42 percent of Canadians said they would vote against the motion. Just 29 percent said they would vote in favor.
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