Germany to quash historic convictions of gay men, pay compensation: minister

A reveller waves the rainbow flag during the Christopher Street Day parade in Berlin, June 23, 2012. REUTERS/Thomas Peter BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany plans to annul the historic convictions of tens of thousands of men charged under a law that criminalized homosexuality and to grant them financial compensation, the justice minister said on Wednesday. The law originated in the 19th century, was toughened up by Hitler's Nazis and retained for decades in postwar West Germany, which used it to convict and jail some 50,000 men until 1969, when it finally decriminalized homosexuality. German homosexuals...

Read more »

Top Congo court says Kabila stays in power if election not held

KINSHASA (Reuters) - Democratic Republic of Congo's highest court ruled on Wednesday that President Joseph Kabila would stay in power beyond the end of his mandate if his government failed to hold an election due in November. The ruling is a blow to the opposition, which had argued that an interim president should serve after the end of Kabila's mandate if the election was delayed. Kabila took power in 2001 when his father, who was president, was assassinated, but is required by the constitution to step down in December after two five-year terms in office. In Congo's second city of...

Read more »

European rights watchdog complains about Greek migrant camps conditions

People queue for free food at a makeshift camp for migrants and refugees at the Greek-Macedonian border near the village of Idomeni, Greece, May 11, 2016. REUTERS/Marko Djurica STRASBOURG (Reuters) - Urgent measures are need to address overcrowding and poor living conditions in refugee and migrant camps in Greece, Europe's top rights watchdog warned on Wednesday. The Council of Europe, which brings together 47 countries, said some facilities were "sub-standard" and able to provide no more than the most basic needs such as food, hygiene products and blankets. The report echoes warnings...

Read more »

Political Deadlock Leaves Lebanon to Unravel

BEIRUT—On the surface, Lebanon appears to be weathering the mayhem that has engulfed the Middle East surprisingly well. Despite dire predictions of sectarian strife spreading from next-door Syria, there has been relatively little violence. Fancy restaurants on Beirut’s seafront remain packed with diners, the streets clogged with traffic. But it is also increasingly a country adrift, hostage to the regional conflict between Saudi Arabia, long a supporter of Lebanon’s Sunni political bloc, and Iran, sponsor of the Shiite bloc dominated by the Hezbollah militia. This zero-sum confrontation has...

Read more »

Difficult Political Decisions Ahead For Clinton, Trump

As a veteran political operative involved in campaigns going back to 1976 I can say that each one is different but has similar characteristics. I also feel safe in saying that this year is probably more dissimilar from any campaign I have ever been associated with or witnessed over the past four decades. Like most other observers and pundits, I have written several times of Mr. Trump’s imminent demise only to be abruptly slapped in the face by the reality of the contemporary exasperation, frustration and anger of an electorate that is as anti-establishment as any since the turmoil of the...

Read more »

Understanding terrorism: Attacks have a political logic, although they are usually ineffective, scholar says

The site of explosions in the suburb of Beir Hassan, Beirut, Lebanon, Feb. 19, 2014, where two suicide attackers from an al-Qaida-linked group blew themselves up. (Credit: AP/Hussein Malla) Terrorism is clearly reprehensible. Yet media reports and politicians often present terrorist attacks as if they are less calculated than they really are. Scientific research shows that this view is mistaken. Terrorism scholars have found that, leaving aside the question of immorality, there is an internal political logic to terrorist attacks — although they are frequently ineffective. A lot of what...

Read more »

Unconventional #10: This year’s conventions won’t be ‘contested.’ Here’s why they could still be crazy

1. Why this year’s conventions could still be crazy — even if they aren’t ‘contested’ May 3, 2016, will go down in history as the day that every political journalist’s most feverish fantasy — the fantasy of a contested GOP convention in Cleveland — finally slipped out of reach. With his commanding win in Indiana over Texas Sen. Ted Cruz — and with Cruz’s and John Kasich’s subsequent decisions to suspend their campaigns — tinsel-haired mogul Donald Trump cemented his status Tuesday night as the Republican Party’s likely nominee. Cruz’s supporters were shocked. As he delivered the news, cries...

Read more »

Clinton has the map on her side, but history working against her

Hillary Clinton makes a stop at the Lincoln Square pancake house in Indianapolis on May 1. (Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty Images) If you want to experience the full-on contempt of the leftist intelligentsia right now, go on social media and suggest, as I did this week, that Donald Trump isn’t certain to get crushed in November. (Trump, in case you hadn’t noticed, brings out pretty much the worst in everybody.) The way a lot of partisan Democrats see it, Hillary Clinton — despite a loss to Bernie Sanders in Indiana Tuesday — will soon lock down her party’s nomination, and the only way she finds...

Read more »

Palin on being Trump’s VP nominee: ‘I wouldn’t want to be a burden on the ticket

Sarah Palin says she’d be open to being Donald Trump’s vice presidential running mate but doesn’t want to hurt his chances the way many believe she did for John McCain in 2008. “I want to help and not hurt” the former Alaska governor said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday. “And I am such a realist that I realize there are a whole lot of people out there who would say, ‘Anybody but Palin.’ I wouldn’t want to be a burden on the ticket, and I realize in many, many eyes, I would be that burden.” “I just want the guy to win. I want America to win,” Palin, who endorsed Trump in January, continued....

Read more »

A failed pact tells you why Trump is winning

Like Stalin and Churchill huddled over a map of Europe in 1944, Ted Cruz and John Kasich began a very odd week by announcing — publicly, for reasons known only to them — that they were divvying up the remaining primary states in order to maintain individual spheres of influence. Cruz would get Indiana (which is next to Ohio), while Kasich would get New Mexico (which shares a border with Texas). Super-logical. Of course, primary voters — unlike, say, Polish peasants — tend to do whatever they want, so all this plotting didn’t exactly make Cruz and Kasich grandmasters of global domination....

Read more »

Kerry expresses reservations about all-volunteer U.S. military

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry delivers remarks on trade at an event with the Pacific Council on International Policy in Los Angeles, April 12, 2016. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst By Jon Herskovitz AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Wednesday he feels all Americans should find a way to serve their country, suggesting the need for a renewal in public service that could also affect the military. "I have deep reservations about just an all-volunteer military," Kerry said at a forum on the Vietnam War at the University of Texas in Austin. "There should be shared...

Read more »

Tennessee law to allow counselors to deny service based on beliefs

Tennessee Republican Governor Bill Haslam listens during the National Governors Association Winter Meeting in Washington, in this February 22, 2014, file photo. REUTERS/Mike Theiler/Files By Alex Dobuzinskis (Reuters) - Tennessee's Republican governor on Wednesday signed a law allowing mental health counselors to refuse service to patients on "sincerely held principles," the latest in a string of U.S. state measures criticized as discriminatory against the gay community. Governor Bill Haslam signed the bill into law three weeks after it was approved by the legislature. It goes into effect...

Read more »

U.S. seeks three more years in prison for mobster Bulger's girlfriend

Catherine Greig, longtime girlfriend of former mob boss and fugitive James "Whitey" Bulger, is seen in a booking mug photo released to Reuters August 1, 2011. REUTERS/U.S. Marshals Service/U.S. Department of Justice/Handout By Scott Malone BOSTON (Reuters) - Federal prosecutors on Thursday are set to ask a judge to order former Boston mob boss James "Whitey" Bulger's girlfriend to spend three more years in prison for refusing to say if anyone helped the couple during their 16 years on the run. But lawyers for Catherine Greig, 64, said that punishment was too severe for a woman they...

Read more »

Warrants served in California linked to San Bernardino case: FBI

A memorial still remains outside as workers return to work for the first time at the Inland Regional Center (IRC) in San Bernardino, California, January 4, 2016. REUTERS/Mike Blake LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - FBI agents served warrants in Corona and Ontario, California, on Thursday morning in the investigation of the December mass shooting by a radicalized Muslim couple in San Bernardino, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation told Reuters. The Riverside-based Press-Enterprise newspaper reported the Corona warrant was served at the home of Syed Raheel Farook, the brother...

Read more »

Trump’s ‘America First’ neo-isolationism

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump delivers a foreign policy speech at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C., April 27, 2016. (Photo: Jim Bourg/Reuters) After rolling over its opponents in all five Eastern seaboard primaries, the Trump juggernaut entered Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, where the victorious candidate gave a speech intended to add gravitas to his scattershot positions on foreign policy and national security. As he edges closer to becoming the Republican nominee for president, Donald Trump field-tested a new bumper sticker to describe his unique brand of economic...

Read more »

Shakespeare's school to open to visitors to celebrate 400th anniversary

The school room in Stratford-upon-Avon where Shakespeare learned “small Latin and less Greek” – as affectionately mocked by his friend Ben Jonson – will open its doors, scarred by centuries of rowdy schoolboys, as part of the town’s commemoration of the 400th anniversary of the death of its most famous son. “We’re not opening a museum,” said Bennet Carr, head of the King Edward VI school, which will continue to use the building, “we’re welcoming visitors into our world.” The children and teachers are well used to the tourists pressing their noses and camera lenses beseechingly against the...

Read more »

A Modest Proposal: Reforming Supreme Court Justice Selection

I don’t have much interest in adding my voice to the thousands spilling ink on Senate Republicans’ tactics regarding the Supreme Court vacancy. All I’ll say is that I disapprove, but for anyone who believes that Democrats wouldn’t be doing the exact same thing were the situation reversed, well, there’s a bridge I’d like to sell you. I’m much more interested in taking the long view and talking about how to avoid this kind of gridlock in the future, and also how to avoid the opportunities for such transformational and society-altering appointments to begin with. Here is the proposal: 1)...

Read more »