Deutsche Welle: Germany's Heiko Maas urged to take softer line on Russia by SPD rank and file

Ahead of the meeting, several senior SPD lawmakers voiced their irritation over Germany's top diplomat and SPD lawmaker Heiko Maas and his chiding rhetoric on Russia.

SPD General Secretary Lars Klingbeil stressed that relations between the two countries were "of the highest importance" for the party. [...]

Several lawmakers in the SPD continue to subscribe to former Chancellor Willy Brandt's policy of rapprochement with the former Soviet Union, otherwise known as "Ostpolitik." The center-left party still enjoys relatively strong levels of support in the former East German states, where strong ties to Russia continue to be felt to this day. [...]

Maas' chiding rhetoric marks a major shift from his predecessor Sigmar Gabriel, who before leaving office had called for sanctions on Russia to be eased, provided Moscow worked towards a peaceful resolution to the conflict in eastern Ukraine.

read the article

The Guardian: British 'linguaphobia' has deepened since Brexit vote, say experts

Speaking at the Hay literary festival on Friday, a panel including Cardiff University professor Claire Gorrara and linguist Teresa Tinsley, said that Britons had too long relied on a false belief that English was the world’s lingua franca. Only 6% of the global population are native English speakers, with 75% of the world unable to speak English at all. But three-quarters of UK residents can only speak English. [...]

The same report also found that there was a “growing language deficit” in the UK, which is expected only to grow post-Brexit because the UK’s £1bn “language industry” – including services such as translation and interpreting – already heavily relies on EU citizens, whose expertise may become harder to access.

Speaking at Hay, Tinsley said that in forthcoming research commissioned by the British Council, due to be published next month, a survey of around 700 modern-language teachers in England found that a third felt Brexit had resulted in a negative attitude towards learning foreign languages in their school, among both parents and pupils.

read the article

The Guardian: Could Theresa May’s pact with the DUP lead to a united Ireland?

The warning signs that the Tories had no idea what they were doing were there from the outset: in a stunning display of both arrogance and stupidity, they announced they had reached a deal with the DUP before negotiations had begun, assuming a party with 10 MPs would acquiesce rather than face the embarrassment of correcting them. But the embarrassment was all Theresa May’s, as well the DUP knew, as they forced the Conservatives to step back up to the lectern and admit their error. The next error was assuming that if the Tories flew over for the weekend, the DUP would meet them on a Sunday. If Tory special advisers failed to pick up the most basic knowledge about the working habits of Free Presbyterians on the Sabbath, it’s little surprise they took so long to broker a deal. Unbelievably, the Conservatives hopped on a flight to Belfast assuming it would be a breeze to broker a deal with a party that sat through all of the negotiations leading to the Good Friday agreement and still opposed it. [...]

Keeping gay marriage and abortion illegal has long been made possible by a combination of the Republic opposing both, Sinn Féin maintaining some social conservatism and the rest of the UK largely ignoring the north. Now all of those supports have evaporated: Sinn Féin campaigned to repeal the eighth amendment, and is pushing the British government to legislate on same-sex marriage in Northern Ireland. Both access to abortion and LGBT marriage rights will be enshrined in law in the Republic, and the DUP is scrutinised now more than it has been since the heyday of Ian Paisley. [...]

This hypocrisy runs through the ongoing Brexit negotiations too. New research published by academics at Queen’s University Belfast on the attitudes of people in Northern Ireland show that the majority of people back same-sex marriage rights: 62% of people overall, with 75% of Catholics and 50.5% of Protestants backing mooted legislation.

read the article

The Local: Profile: Italian president Sergio Mattarella, the country's 'political referee'

Mattarella is a well-respected figure in Italian politics, though he was relatively little known by the public and press before he was sworn in in 2015. The 75-year-old was born in the Sicilian capital of Palermo (he's the first Italian president from the region), and studied law in Rome.

After qualifying, he taught law in his hometown, with a focus on constitutional law and Sicily's regional government. His elder brother Piersanti was elected regional president of Sicily, and it was his brutal murder in 1980 at the hands of a local mafia group that persuaded the younger Mattarella to enter the political arena. [...]

In 2008, Mattarella chose not to run in parliamentary elections, and in 2011 was elected a Constitutional Judge. Four years later, he was elected president, and vowed to prioritize tackling corruption and organized crime while in office, as well as getting the country back on track after a crippling recession. [...]

Mattarella is a centre-left-leaning politcian who started his career as a member of the now-defunct Christian Democrats, which his father Bernardo helped create. Later he was one of the founders of the Democratic Party (PD) and that party, led at the time by Matteo Renzi, endorsed him in the 2015 presidential vote, which he won with a comfortable majority.  

read the article