Türkei: Staatsanwalt fordert hohe Haftstrafe für Deniz Yücel

ZEIT ONLINE: In der Türkei hat der Staatsanwalt sein Plädoyer im Prozess gegen den Journalisten Deniz Yücel gehalten. Er fordert bis zu 16 Jahre Haft.

Die türkische Staatsanwaltschaft wirft dem Welt-Reporter Deniz YücelTerrorpropaganda und Volksverhetzung vor. Dafür fordert sie für ihn nun bis zu 16 Jahre Haft, wie Yücels Anwalt Veysel Ok mitteilte. Der Staatsanwalt hatte sein Plädoyer nicht laut verlesen, sondern zuvor schriftlich eingereicht.

Ok forderte mehr Zeit für die Verteidigung. Der Prozess soll nun am 2. April fortgesetzt werden. Yücel selbst ist nicht anwesend. » | Quelle: ZEIT ONLINE, dpa, fin | Donnerstag, 13. Februar 2020

Blasphemy 'Is No Crime', Says Macron amid French Girl's Anti-Islam Row

THE GUARDIAN: Schoolgirl Mila received death threats after posting anti-religious diatribe on Instagram

Emmanuel Macron has waded into a row over a schoolgirl whose attack on Islam has divided France, insisting that blasphemy is “no crime”.

The French president defended the teenager, named only as Mila, who received death threats and was forced out of her school after filming an anti-religious diatribe on social media.

Macron’s intervention comes after his justice minister, Nicole Belloubet, was criticised for claiming Mila’s attack on religion was “an attack on freedom of conscience” while saying the death threats were “unacceptable”.

The case has sparked a furious public debate in France, a strictly secular republic with a large Muslim population. The education authorities have since found another school for the teenager. » | Kim Willsher in Paris | Wednesday, February 12, 2020

Johnson's Caribbean Christmas Holiday Was a Gift from Tory Donor

THE GUARDIAN: David Ross, co-founder of Carphone Warehouse, provided PM’s accommodation

Boris Johnson’s Caribbean holiday over the New Year was a £15,000 gift from a wealthy and controversial Conservative donor, newly released documents disclose.

The prime minister and his partner Carrie Symonds accepted accommodation for a private holiday in St Vincent and the Grenadines.

David Ross, a Tory donor who co-founded the Carphone Warehouse chain, provided the accommodation, which was reportedly on the private island of Mustique, which is one of the Grenadines.

Ross, 54, has known Johnson for at least 15 years. He was a member of the London 2012 Board as a representative of then-London Mayor Johnson. » | Rajeev Syal | Wednesday, February 12, 2020

Islamic Conquests and Civil War

In this lecture, Professor Freedman discusses the Islamic conquests. Although they were in some sense religiously motivated, Arab did not attempt to forcibly convert or eradicate Jews, Christians, or other non-Muslims. The conquests began as raids, but quickly escalated when the invaders discovered that Byzantium and Persia were too weak to withstand their assault. In a relatively short period of time, the Arabs were able to conquer an area stretching from Spain to India. Against this background of successful conquests, Islam began to experience deep internal divisions. These began as criticisms of the election of Mohammed's successors, but broadened to criticize the Caliphate and the ruling family. Out of this strife came the division between Sunni and Shiite Muslims. Professor Freedman concludes the lecture with observations on the increasingly non-Arab Muslim populations.

Mohammed and the Arab Conquests

In this lecture, Professor Freedman introduces Islam. He begins with a discussion of its geographical context: the dry desert lands of the Arabian peninsula. The Bedouins, or nomadic Arabs of the region, lived in a tribal society somewhat similar to the Germanic tribes discussed earlier in the course. Their raids against the Byzantine and the Persian Empire, for lack of strong opposition, would lead to the Arab conquests. The second half of the lecture focuses on the life of Mohammed (570/580 -- 632) and the early years of Islam. Mohammed's revelation was one of the unity of God and a progressive interpretation of God's prophets, with Mohammed as the last of these. Early Islam was slow to differentiate itself for Christianity and Judaism, though this process accelerated after Mohammed's flight to Medina in 622. Professor Freedman ends with a discussion of the tenets of Islam and anticipates the discussion of the Arab conquests in the next lecture.

Christians Converted to Islam in Modern Mediterranean World · Noel Malcolm

What Forced Meghan and Harry to Do a Royal Runner? | 60 Minutes Australia

It's not quite disintegrating, but there's little doubt the Royal Family is fraying at the edges. Bad enough is Prince Andrew being entangled in an ongoing sex scandal involving young women, but even more gob-smacking is Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's daring – many say disrespectful – escape from the Firm.

As Tom Steinfort reports from London, the shame of it is the Duke and Duchess of Sussex had promised so much in the way of positive PR for the Royals. Sticking to the fairytale script, they'd fallen in love, married in a castle, and produced a beautiful boy. But somehow it's now all gone horribly askew.

BBC HARDtalk (2016): Julian Assange 4th Year in Ecuador Embassy Highlighted by Foreign Minister (Guillaume Long) Interview

BBC HARDtalk interview with the Ecuador Foreign Minister Guillaume Long.

Trump Has Total Meltdown over Viral Photo Showing His Tan Lines

The online community erupted in hysterics this weekend as a photo of Donald Trump went viral. The photo showed his horrid combover and his obviously fake tan lines, prompting ridicule from every corner of the internet. But Trump insists that the photo is fake, even though the authenticity of it has been verified. This is the kind of thin-skinned person we have in charge of our nuclear arsenal. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins discusses this.

Photo Credit: U.S. President Donald Trump walks across the South Lawn to the Oval Office as he returns from a day trip from North Carolina at the White House in Washington, U.S., February 7, 2020. - Joshua Roberts | Reuters

US Sanctions Venezuela Again to Prove Socialism Doesn't Work

Shortly after Venezuelan opposition leader and self-declared president Juan Guaidó got a standing ovation at Trump's State of the Union address, United States officials promised more sanctions on Venezuela. Why?

Arab League Rejects Trump's Middle East Plan

The Arab League has rejected US President Donald Trump's Middle East plan. At an emergency meeting in Cairo, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas attacked the proposal, saying his people will never accept it. Al Jazeera's Nida Ibrahim reports from Ramallah, the occupied West Bank.

The 200-year-old Diary That's Rewriting Gay History

BBC: A diary written by a Yorkshire farmer more than 200 years ago is being hailed as providing remarkable evidence of tolerance towards homosexuality in Britain much earlier than previously imagined.

Historians from Oxford University have been taken aback to discover that Matthew Tomlinson's diary from 1810 contains such open-minded views about same-sex attraction being a "natural" human tendency.

The diary challenges preconceptions about what "ordinary people" thought about homosexuality - showing there was a debate about whether someone really should be discriminated against for their sexuality.

"In this exciting new discovery, we see a Yorkshire farmer arguing that homosexuality is innate and something that shouldn't be punished by death," says Oxford researcher Eamonn O'Keeffe. » | Sean Coughlan | Monday, February 10, 2020

Why a Young Former Mayor Is Surging in US Election

BBC: Pete Buttigieg has surged towards the top of the pack ahead of New Hampshire's Democratic primary on Tuesday. He's drawing more attention from voters - and more attacks from presidential rivals who view this newcomer to national politics as a serious threat.

There's an old saying about the way the two parties pick their presidential nominees - Democrats fall in love; Republicans fall in line.

After a 2016 election that turned conventional wisdom on its head by producing iconoclastic Donald Trump and establishment-favourite Hillary Clinton as the nominees, that nostrum could be reasserting itself. While the Republican Party is closing ranks behind the president, there's nothing logical or expected about the early success Pete Buttigieg is having in the Democratic fight to take on Trump in November.

He's the former mayor of a modest-sized Indiana city, the 306th-largest in the US - a college town like Oxford in the UK, only smaller.

He's 38 years old, which would make him the youngest president in US history.

He's also the first openly gay major-party presidential candidate, a historic candidacy that would have seemed inconceivable just a few decades ago, when Republicans were campaigning - and winning - on opposition to gay marriage and mainstream Democrats, by and large, avoided the issue. » | Anthony Zurcher, North America reporter | Sunday, February 9, 2020

Brexit : De Gaulle "La Grande Bretagne et l'Europe" | Archive INA

Charles de GAULLE s'interroge sur la candidature de l'entrée de l'Angleterre dans le marché commun. Il pointe du doigt le refus de l'Angleterre, naguère, à participer à la communauté qui se construisait. Il met en relief le caractère "insulaire, maritime, et lié par ses échanges, ses marchés, son ravitaillement aux pays les plus divers et souvent les plus lointains". Il ajoute que "la nature, la structure, la conjoncture qui sont propres à l'Angleterre diffèrent profondément de celles des continentaux"

Simon Wallfisch ist einer von 3000 britischen Juden, die einen deutschen Paß nehmen

Seine Großmutter hat Auschwitz überlebt und schwor, nie in das Land zurückzukehren, das ihre Eltern und sechs Millionen weitere Juden ermordet hat. Doch jetzt hat der Brexit Simon Wallfisch gezwungen, etwas für sie Undenkbares zu tun: Er beantragte die deutsche Staatsbürgerschaft.

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Die Schwulenheiler | Panorama - die Reporter | NDR

Christian Deker, schwul und Panorama Reporter, besuchte Ärzte, die offenbar seine sexuelle Orientierung ändern wollen. Eine Reise in die homophoben Winkel der Republik. Nicht nur christliche Hardliner lehnen Homosexualität ab, auch in den evangelischen Landeskirchen glauben einige, Homosexualität sei Sünde und ließe sich therapieren.

Der "Schwulen-Paragraf" | Doku

Man nannte sie "die 175er". Nach Schätzungen wurde gegen 100.000 Männer ermittelt, 64.000 hat man verurteilt. Der Paragraf hat Leben zerstört, Existenzen vernichtet.

Verbrechen: Liebe - Seltene Bilder aus der NS-Zeit | Kontrovers | BR Fernsehen

Die Fotos rufen Beklemmung hervor. Zwei junge Frauen mit Schildern um den Hals. Darauf steht: "Wir sind aus der Volksgemeinschaft ausgeschlossen - wegen Verkehr mit Kriegsgefangenen". Welche Geschichte steckt hinter diesen Bildern? Kontrovers-Reporter auf Spurensuche.

Verbotene Liebe - Homosexualität im NS-Regime

Gleichgeschlechtliche Liebe war in den Augen der Nazis entartete Sexualität. Tausende schwule Männer kamen in den Konzentrationslagern ums Leben. Das schwul-lesbische Filmfestival Pink Apple in Zürich widmete im Mai 2015 diesen verboteten Liebesgeschichten einen Schwerpunkt.

Joe Scarborough Reads Bible to Critique Trump’s Prayer Breakfast Speech | Morning Joe | MSNBC

Joe Scarborough discusses President Trump's remarks at Thursday's National Prayer Breakfast and why he says Trump mocked the words of Jesus Christ and got away with it. Aired on 02/07/20.