Scroll: Congress believes Modi won’t stay on as prime minister even if BJP retains power in 2019. Here’s why

Boosted by its performance in the Gujarat Assembly election in December and victory in the Rajasthan bye-polls this month, the Congress has come to believe that Narendra Modi’s days as prime minister are numbered even if his Bharatiya Janata Party retains power in 2019. The logic runs thus: the BJP will lose its majority in the next general election, which means its allies will get to decide the leader – and they will prefer anyone but Modi. [...]

Another top leader argued that the Congress’s “tough challenge” to the BJP in the prime minister’s home state of Gujarat has demonstrated that Modi is not invincible. Moreover, Congress leaders believe anti-incumbency is rising against the BJP governments in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra and Haryana which, they said, will be reflected in its reduced strength in the Lok Sabha. The BJP had scored heavily in these states in the last election primarily because of the unpopularity of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government and Modi’s personal charisma. As a result, the Congress, was reduced to a paltry 44 seats in the last Lok Sabha election. [...]

The recent show of muscle-flexing by the BJP’s allies, Congress leaders believe, is another indication that the saffron party’s ratings are slipping. The Shiv Sena has declared it will not ally with the BJP in the next general election, the Telugu Desam Party is threatening to walk out of the ruling National Democratic Alliance because the Modi government’s promised financial package for Andhra Pradesh has not materialised, and the Shiromani Akali Dal has counselled the BJP to treat its partners better. While all this could well be put down to posturing before the next election, the Congress sees it as a sign of the BJP’s diminishing dominance.

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America Magazine: German cardinal urges pastoral care of gay couples

According to a transcript provided by the German Bishops Conference, when Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich and Freising is asked if he “can imagine that there might be a way to bless homosexual couples in the Catholic Church?” he responds by saying, “There are no general solutions and I think that would not be right, because we are talking about pastoral care for individual cases, and that applies to other areas as well, which we cannot regulate, where we have no sets of rules.” [...]

German Catholic media had interpreted the cardinal’s remarks as moving a step back from a suggestion made by Bishop Franz-Josef Bode of Osnabrück in January that the Catholic Church should debate the possibility of a blessing ceremony for Catholic gay couples involved in the church. [...]

The initial coverage of Cardinal Marx’s remarks led Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Philadelphia to write a blog encouraging bishops to be clear about what they intend or don’t intend to suggest on the subject.

And, Archbishop Chaput said, “any such 'blessing rite' would cooperate in a morally forbidden act, no matter how sincere the persons seeking the blessing. Such a rite would undermine the Catholic witness on the nature of marriage and the family. It would confuse and mislead the faithful. And it would wound the unity of our church, because it could not be ignored or met with silence.” [...]

“I’m not for ‘marriage for all,’ but if two homosexuals enter a same-sex relationship, if they want to take responsibility for each other, then I can bless this mutual responsibility,” Bishop Dieter Geerlings of Münster said. “This is valuable and praiseworthy, even if this bond is not in complete agreement with the church.”

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Ciceroni: How much do you pay for the EU?

Statistics and figures can be very deceptive. This video explains a few effects that distort the figures of contributions to the EU by the Member States. Using the 2015 operating budgetary balance we try to give a more nuanced insight into the net cost of the EU.

Regardless of your opinion about the (cost of the) EU, nuanced facts make for a better discussion.

For more information on the EU and its institutions please subscribe to our channel. In this series we explain complex aspects of the EU in a comprehensive and understandable way. If however, despite our diligence and help of Dr. Jan Oster, we have left something out or made a mistake, please be so kind to tell and forgive us.

Deutsche Welle: Emmanuel Macron walks Corsica tightrope amid growing nationalism

During the ceremony, he praised what he called Erignac's commitment to bringing peace to Corsica. "Twenty years later, the republic must preserve this ambition, to bring about a future for Corsica that matches its hopes without compromising with demands that would tear it away from the bosom of the republic," Macron said.

The shooting of Erignac, outside a theater in the capital Ajaccio, stunned France and marked a sharp escalation in nationalist violence on the island. [...]

Separatists launched a violent campaign involving bombings and assassinations in the mid-1970s. But they laid down their weapons following a ceasefire in 2014 to instead seek change through politics.

They have long called for greater autonomy from Paris, but unlike the region of Catalonia in Spain, they do not want full independence. Other demands include equal recognition of the Corsican language, preferential access to the property market for locals and the release of so-called political Corsican prisoners held in mainland prisons.

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Quartz: A gay love story set in South Africa’s secretive male traditional initiation has sparked outrage

The film’s weekend release on Feb. 2 in cinemas around the country led to protests and some cinemas pulling the film after staff members were threatened. The producers persevered, with no major incidents taking place, except for the public debate on masculinity, cultural appropriation and the lengths communities have to go to protect their traditions.

The knee-jerk response to the film, the first South African film available on Netflix, is mostly linked to media coverage describing it as a gay love story among initiates, but the film is much more than that. The film’s producers argue that anyone who actually sees it and engages with its subject matter would immediately understand this. It follows the story of Xolani, played by musician and author Nakhane Touré, a lonely factory worker who also acts as a caregiver to initiates while they are isolated from society in the bush. [...]

Critics argue that the film threatens to reveal the secrets of ulwaluko, Xhosa initiation rituals that are purposely shrouded in mystery. Each year, thousands of South African boys undergo circumcision as a rite of passage across several different cultures.

The age-old practice has come under modern scrutiny for initiate deaths at the hands of unscrupulous practitioners. While there have been attempts to regulate the practices, and modernize the tools and aftercare used, the vast majority of South Africans know few details of what goes on in the mountain. Most proponents of initiation believe that’s exactly how it should stay.

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Quartzy: Thousands of luxury apartments are sitting empty in London

These luxury flats—most with a starting price of £1 million ($1.4 million)—are simply failing to sell. According to property agent Henry Pryor, they were pitched as “gambling chips for rich overseas investors,” a traditionally lucrative demographic that has since turned its back on the UK’s Brexit-roiled market.

Out of the 1,900 units built in 2017, only 900 were sold, with the total number of empty luxury apartments across London now sitting at a record 3,000. [...]

At its current rate, the existing glut of London properties will take three years to sell. Despite this sluggishness, developers actually have plans to build over 400 brand-new residential towers (each at least 20 stories high), and the city’s councils recently approved another 18,712 total units costing over £1m.

All of this is when the capital is facing a growing crisis in the availability of affordable housing, causing many to accuse the city’s leaders of prioritizing the needs of the super-rich from overseas over those of middle-class Londoners.

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The Guardian: Meet the dogs of Chernobyl – the abandoned pets that formed their own canine community

Tarzan isn’t alone. There are approximately 300 stray dogs in the 2,600km² zone. They live among the moose and lynx, the hares and wolves that have also found a home here. But while the Mongolian horses and Belarusian bears were recently introduced to the area, and other animals have come in as opportunists, the dogs are native. [...]

Life is not easy for the Chernobyl strays. Not only must they endure harsh Ukrainian winters with no proper shelter, but they often carry increased levels of radiation in their fur and have a shortened life expectancy. Few live beyond the age of six.

But it’s not all bad news. The dogs that live near the zone’s checkpoints have little huts made for them by the guards, and some are wise enough to congregate near the local cafe, having learned that a human presence equals food. These canine gangs act as unofficial Chernobyl mascots, there to greet visitors who stop at Cafe Desyatka for some borscht.

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Deutsche Welle: Half of Iran wants to drop headscarf laws: government report

The government of Iran published a three-year old study on Sunday night illustrating growing public distaste for the obligatory hijab just days after police confirmed that dozens of women had been arrested as protests against mandatory Islamic head covering gained momentum.

The study compares data from 2006, 2007, 2010 and 2014 — and illustrates the staggering decline in support for the legal restrictions on women's clothing, one of the major changes pushed during the Islamic Revolution of 1979. [...]

Another interesting data point shows the drop in support for even more restrictive religious clothing. In 2006, 54 percent of those questioned thought that women should wear a chador, a garment that wraps around the entire body, revealing only the face. By 2014, however, that number had dropped to 35 percent. [...]

While Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei blamed the protests on foreign agitators, Rouhani instead insisted that the government listen to what the demonstrators had to say.

Tehran's chief prosecutor Mohammad Jafar Montazeri has similarly blamed the anti-hijab protests on influence from enemy agents.

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