Germany gay marriage approved by MPs in snap vote

A clear majority of German MPs have voted to legalise same-sex marriage, days after Chancellor Angela Merkel dropped her opposition to a vote.

The reform grants couples now limited to civil unions full marital rights, and allows them to adopt children.

Mrs Merkel's political opponents were strongly in favour. But the chancellor, who signalled her backing for a free vote only on Monday, voted against.

The bill was backed by 393 lawmakers, 226 voted against and four abstained.

The German legal code will now read: "Marriage is entered into for life by two people of different or the same sex", AFP news agency reported.

Following Friday's vote, Mrs Merkel said that for her marriage was between a man and a woman. But she said she hoped the passing of the bill would lead to more "social cohesion and peace".

How did this sudden vote come about?

During her 2013 election campaign, Mrs Merkel argued against gay marriage on the grounds of "children's welfare," and admitted that she had a "hard time" with the issue.

But in an on-stage interview with the women's magazine Brigitte on 26 June, she shocked the German media by saying, in response to an audience member's question, that she had noted other parties' support for gay marriage, and would allow a free vote at an unspecified time in the future.

The usually-cautious chancellor said she had had a "life-changing experience" in her home constituency, where she had dinner with a lesbian couple who cared for eight foster children together.

As the news spread on Twitter, supporters rallied under the hashtag #EheFuerAlle (MarriageForAll) - and started calling for a vote as soon as possible.

'Now my brother can marry his boyfriend'

Mrs Merkel's current coalition partners - the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD), who are trailing Mrs Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) in opinion polls - then seized the political initiative.

They called for a vote by the time parliament went into summer recess at the end of the week - prompting Mrs Merkel to complain she'd been "ambushed".

Does same-sex marriage have popular support?

Yes - a recent survey by the government's anti-discrimination agency found that 83% of Germans were in favour of marriage equality.

The day after the Republic of Ireland voted to legalise gay marriage in May 2015, almost every German newspaper splashed a rainbow across its front page.

"It's time, Mrs Merkel" Green party leader Katrin Goering-Eckhart said then. "The Merkel faction cannot just sit out the debate on marriage for everyone."

Merkel, the canny operator - Jenny Hill, BBC News, Berlin

Angela Merkel voted against legalising same sex marriage. Nevertheless, she'll go down in history as the chancellor who made it possible. Friday marks a historic victory for the political left who've fought for years to bring the bill before parliament.

The bill is one of the very last measures to come through parliament before the September general election. By voting against it, Mrs Merkel has appealed to the more conservative members of her electorate. But, by allowing it to happen, she's cemented her growing reputation as a defender of liberal values and, perhaps more importantly, seen off an issue which might have come to haunt her later on.

If Mrs Merkel wins a majority in September, she's likely to seek coalition with parties who'd already indicated that same sex marriage legislation would have been a condition of partnership.

Why is this happening now?

Because of an upcoming general election. Germans go to the polls on 24 September, and continued opposition to a vote made Mrs Merkel risk looking anachronistic.

Mrs Merkel's coalition partners, the SPD, had ruled out a future coalition deal unless reform was agreed on. The Greens, the far-left Linke, and the pro-business Free Democrats took the same view.

The right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) is now the only party to oppose same-sex marriage.

But conservatives within Mrs Merkel's own CDU were against a change - as was the CDU's Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), whose votes Mrs Merkel needs in the September election.

Commentators say this partly explains why she has rejected a vote on marriage equality until now - and why she was taken off-guard by the snap vote.

Where else in Europe has same-sex marriage?

A host of European countries have beaten Germany to a same-sex marriage law.

Civil marriages are legally recognised in Norway, Sweden, Denmark (excluding the Faroe Islands), Finland, Iceland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Luxembourg, France, the UK (except Northern Ireland and Jersey), and the Republic of Ireland.

But in Austria and Italy - as in Germany before Friday's vote- gay couples are restricted to civil partnerships.

BBC NEWS

Lebanon refugee camps hit by five suicide bombers

Five militants have blown themselves up during a raid by Lebanese troops on refugee camps near the Syrian border, Lebanon's army said.

A young girl was killed and three soldiers wounded by the blasts. Four others were hurt when an attacker threw a hand grenade, the army said.

It happened during an operation to search for militants and weapons in an area near the town of Arsal.

Arsal has often seen violence between troops and Sunni jihadists.

In the raid on Friday, four suicide bombers struck in one refugee camp, and a fifth struck in another camp, the army said.

Some 350 people were detained, including officials from the Islamic State (IS) group, Reuters news agency quoted a security source as saying.

The area is home to tens of thousands of refugees from the war in Syria. The influx has heightened sectarian tensions inside Lebanon since the conflict began in 2011.

A Sunni enclave surrounded by Shia villages, Arsal was the scene of an attack in 2014, when more than two dozen Lebanese security force members were seized by militants from al-Qaeda and IS who had crossed the border from Syria.

Sixteen have since been released and four killed by their captors.

Security forces say members of IS and jihadist group Jabhat Fateh al-Sham have a strong presence in and around the town.

The groups are active in hills overlooking Arsal, where they were pushed back in an offensive by Syrian government and allied Shia Hezbollah forces in mid-2015.

BBC NEWS

Finland rape case: Cuban volleyball players' jail terms cut

A Finnish court has cut the jail terms of four members of Cuba's national volleyball team found guilty of rape, and released a fifth.

The five were jailed in September for raping a Finnish woman during a World League tournament in Tampere.

The appeals court in the south-western city of Turku reduced the five-year sentences handed down to four of them.

The longest of the revised prison terms is that of Osmany Uriarte Mestre - four years. Luis Sosa Sierra was acquitted.

Ricardo Calvo Manzano will now serve three-and-a-half years, team captain Rolando Cepeda Abreu two-and-a-half years and Alfonso Gavilan one year and three months.

They were detained in the southern Finnish city on 2 July after a woman said she had been raped at a hotel. The men denied the accusation.

The team had been taking part in a tournament ahead of the Rio Olympics when the rape took place at their hotel.

Eight men were originally held. Two were released soon afterwards.

In September the Tampere court heard that two of the players had met the woman in a nightclub in the hotel basement. She later went to the room of Uriarte Mestre and consented to sex.

However, Uriarte Mestre was then said to have texted the other men without the woman's knowledge. They entered the room and subjected her to a lengthy ordeal and held her by the hair to prevent her leaving.

When she was eventually allowed to leave, she complained to the hotel receptionist who called police.

The Cuban players were found guilty of aggravated rape and ordered to pay €24,000 (£21,076; $27,383) in compensation to the victim.

As the allegations emerged, two of the team coaches were sacked.

Despite its depleted squad, Cuba fielded a team in Rio and lost all five of its matches.

BBC NEWS

Beijing's struggle to win Hong Kong's young hearts

This week, Hong Kong marks 20 years since its return from the UK to China but Lai Chun-yin is not celebrating.

He is lying on his back on the pavement, spinning a football in the air. Between his stunt and the iconic Hong Kong harbour skyline stand a handful of mesmerised tourists.

Chun-yin is a 20-year-old coffee shop barista and freestyle footballer, supplementing his earnings by busking his ball skills on the street.

"I don't have much sense of belonging to China," he says. "I love Hong Kong and feel like a Hong Konger. My generation just don't have a good impression of China."

His assessment of the mood among young Hong Kongers was borne out by a survey this month suggesting the number choosing to identify as "broadly Chinese" has declined to new lows in the three years since student democracy protestors occupied the heart of the city during the so-called Umbrella Movement.

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Read more about Hong Kong since the handover:

• The Hong Kong handover in a nutshell
• Golden geese and democracy 'infections' - did predictions come true?
• When HK languages get political
• Hong Kong's post-handover generation
• John Simpson: Hong Kong 20 years on

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On a warehouse rooftop 21 floors up in a packed district of Kowloon, art student Prince Wong is putting the finishing touches to a wordless statement in graffiti about her sentiments on the 20th anniversary of Hong Kong's return to China.

Instead of painting the Hong Kong flag in its familiar colours of white flower on red background, she is spraying the background black to symbolise mourning.

Only a few hours later, on the eve of President Xi Jinping's visit, Prince was arrested for clambering onto a monument which was the 1997 handover gift from China to Hong Kong.

At 20, Prince is a veteran protester. Her awakening came at the age of 15, watching pupils demonstrate against a patriotic curriculum on Chinese history which the local government tried to introduce in Hong Kong's schools.

Two years later, she was at the heart of the 79-day Umbrella Movement, mounting a week-long hunger strike to demand democracy. Now she runs workshops in schools to politicise the generation coming up behind. But Prince is no longer optimistic about what protest can achieve.

"We still bear the scars of the Umbrella Movement," she says. "We did our utmost and we lost. Before we hoped to move forward, now we're just trying to avoid moving backwards."

Prince is a symptom of the difficulty Mr Xi faces in connecting with Hong Kong's post-handover generation. She suspects his intentions and despises his values.

"If you want people to love your country, it depends on what you do," she explains. "If your country treats your people well, then your citizens will sure love your country, right? We hate the government because they do bad things. We don't hate it for nothing."

Stern patriotism

In my - admittedly limited - experience this week, the only 20-year-olds in Hong Kong who are reliably celebrating Mr Xi's visit and the 20th anniversary of the handover are the mainlanders.

Those who grew up in the Chinese school system are taught from an early age that the loss of Hong Kong in the 1840s was a moment of national humiliation and that taking it back from Britain 150 years later is correspondingly a moment of national pride.

This Hong Kong story is a crucial part of Mr Xi's political message at home, a centrepiece of his "great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation".

Sunny Tan from Hunan Province in central China is enthusiastic. An economics student at Hong Kong University, Sunny has a summer internship at a big Chinese state bank and when we meet in the busy shopping area of Causeway Bay, she is wearing a sober business suit.

In common with Chun-yin and Prince, she is a 20-year old Chinese national living in Hong Kong.

But unlike them she went to school on the Chinese mainland, believes the history she was taught there and is celebrating the 20th anniversary of Hong Kong's handover.

"I see the handover as a sign of an increasingly powerful China," she says. "I am a patriot and I think we should love our country."

"Young people here just want to achieve a high level of democracy at high speed, they want to do it overnight. But they should understand the realities."

Thinking the unthinkable

University campuses are a natural battlefield in this war of ideas. In his office overlooking Hong Kong bay with the hills of mainland China stretching away on the horizon, the vice chancellor of Hong Kong University, Peter Mathieson, tells me that "the three and a half years I've been in post have been among the most tumultuous in Hong Kong's history".

Some of his local students have moved from demanding democracy in the Umbrella Movement three years ago to calling for self-determination or even independence today, claiming that separation from China may be the only way of realising their goals.

Such ideas are anathema to Beijing and, on the mainland, Mr Xi has subjected university campuses to ever stricter political indoctrination, but Peter Mathieson says that however unrealistic independence may be for Hong Kong, university campuses should be places where people are permitted to think the unthinkable.

"I think the calls for independence are a symptom, not a disease," he explains.

"The actual number of my students who really believe in independence is quite small but they're anxious about the future. So people want self-determination, anxious about the alternative - which is greater and greater integration with China."

After a long career in the Hong Kong civil service spanning the decades before and after the handover, Rachel Cartland takes the long view. She first arrived here from Britain 45 years ago at the age of 22, herself fresh from university.

After watching many politicians come and go, and following the twists and turns of Hong Kong's democracy movement, she is hopeful about the values and the talent of some of the young leaders now emerging.

"I think if they can keep their heads, avoid going to prison as far as they possibly can and think about how to appeal not just to the young hotheads like themselves but also to the more mainstream Hong Kongers," she says. "I think Hong Kong could have a pretty bright future."

"Personally I have enormous faith in the people of Hong Kong. I think it will take a very great deal to make them look more like mainland China is today."

Economic pressure

For some young Hong Kongers the vision of a bright future is less about politics than economics. Ann Tsang is 33 years old, single and saving for an apartment.

She and her 30-year-old brother both live with their parents. She says that is completely normal in Hong Kong, but driving discontent.

"You don't eat, you don't go out, you don't have a social life, just to buy a house and you have a mortgage of 30 to 40 years. Basically you live like a slave for your house."

Ann and I are standing on a busy street, staring at the apartments on offer in the window of an estate agent.

A space little bigger than a living room elsewhere in the world costs more than US$1m (£770,000) here.

Hong Kong is now the world's most unequal city after New York. Ann Tsang is not a political protester, but she would like the politicians to tackle the housing crisis.

'We push back'

"Youngsters get really agitated and frustrated. They don't know what their future is," says local writer Jason Ng.

On a hot Hong Kong tram rattling through this densely packed human hive, he remarks that this is not the tour the Chinese president will get.

"He will be taken on a North Korean-style highly controlled tour where he will only see the best side of Hong Kong. He will not see pain and suffering or protesters."

Jason Ng argues that this lack of connection with ordinary people has caused Chinese leaders to misdiagnose the problem in their relationship with Hong Kong.

"As far as Beijing is concerned the root cause of a lot of the ungovernability of Hong Kong is because young people don't have the sense that they are part of China. And the best way to get at that is to inculcate an idea of patriotism at an early age. To Beijing that is the ultimate solution. But you can't force people to love you."

The writer says if by some miracle he got a chance to speak to the Chinese president during the celebrations to mark the 20th anniversary of the handover, his message would be blunt.

"If you want to govern Hong Kong there's one very simple answer. Leave us alone. That's all we want. We are not interested in ending one-party rule in China. We just want our way of life. So de-escalate. Don't push us because when you push us, we push back."

BBC NEWS

Afghanistan conflict: US says troop withdrawal was too quick

US Defence Secretary James Mattis has said that the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan was done too rapidly.

Mr Mattis was briefing Nato allies on future strategy, amid reports the US will boost its military presence.

His comments were in direct contrast to Nato's secretary-general, who said the withdrawal should have happened sooner.

US troops reached 130,000 in 2011 but were drawn down, leaving the Afghan military in control at the end of 2014. There are now 13,500 Nato troops there.

• Life in Afghanistan under the militants
• World powers jostle in Afghanistan's new 'Great Game'

Mr Mattis was speaking at a press conference after meeting Nato defence ministers in Brussels.

He said: "Looking back on it, it's pretty much a consensus that we may have pulled our troops out too rapidly, reduced the numbers a little too rapidly."

However, Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg insisted it was right to end Nato's combat role in 2014, saying: "If anything, we should have done it before."

Diplomatic and US sources have suggested the number of US troops could increase by between 3,000 and 5,000 to try to counter a resurgent Taliban and the presence of an Afghan branch of so-called Islamic State.

Mr Mattis said: "I don't put timelines on war; war is a fundamentally unpredictable phenomenon.

"The bottom line is that Nato has made a commitment to Afghanistan for freedom from fear and terror, and freedom from terror demands that you can't let this be undone."

The conflict in Afghanistan has dragged on for 16 years, since the 9/11 attacks in the United States.

At the end of 2014, Nato assumed the Resolute Support mission, helping train the Afghan military while handing over frontline combat duties.

Mr Stoltenberg said there would be more Nato troops for Afghanistan but gave no precise figure and said they would not be in combat roles.

UK Defence Secretary Michael Fallon pledged 100 more troops on top of 500 already in Afghanistan.

"We're in it for the long haul," he said.

Afghanistan has been hit by numerous violent attacks in recent weeks, including a massive bomb attack in the capital, Kabul, that killed more than 150 people.

BBC NEWS

Paris mosque: Man held after 'trying to ram crowd with vehicle'

A man has been arrested in Paris after trying to drive his vehicle into a crowd outside a mosque, police say.

The incident took place at about 18:30 local time (16:30 GMT) in the suburb of Créteil and no-one was hurt.

The man was apparently thwarted by barriers put up to protect the mosque.

The suspect's motives remain unclear but Le Parisien newspaper reported that he was of Armenian origin and had said he wanted to avenge Islamist-linked attacks in Paris.

Europe has seen a number of vehicle attacks in the past year, many by those claiming allegiance to IS.

A police statement said the suspect's 4x4 vehicle repeatedly struck bollards and barriers designed to protect the mosque in the south-eastern suburb of the French capital.

The car sped off but crashed and the man fled before being arrested shortly afterwards.

He did not appear to be acting under the influence of drugs or alcohol, Le Parisien said.

It reported that the suspect had said he wanted to avenge attacks on the Bataclan theatre and Champs-Élysées, both linked to so-called Islamic State.

France remains under a state of emergency, in place since attacks on the capital in November 2015, including at the Bataclan theatre, claimed 130 lives.

In April, a gunman killed police officer Xavier Jugelé on the Champs-Élysées before being shot dead. A note defending IS was found near his body.

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Timeline: Vehicle ramming attacks in Europe

• 14 July 2016, Nice, France: A man drove a lorry for 2km (1.2 miles) through a large crowd gathered to watch Bastille Day fireworks in Nice. Eighty-six people were killed, and more than 300 injured
• 19 December 2016, Berlin, Germany: A man drove a lorry through the crowded Breitscheidplatz Christmas market, killing 12 people and injuring 49. IS said one of its "soldiers" carried out the attack
• 22 March 2017, London, UK: Six people died and at least 50 were injured when a car mounted the pavement on London's Westminster Bridge and drove at high speed through pedestrians. The attacker then entered the parliament complex on foot and fatally stabbed a police officer, before being shot
• April 7 2017, Stockholm, Sweden: Four people were killed when a lorry crashed into the front of a department store. The Uzbek driver was arrested and confessed to a "terrorist crime"
• 3 June 2017, London, UK: Eight people were killed when three attackers drove a van into pedestrians on London Bridge and launched a knife attack in Borough Market. The attackers were shot dead
• 19 June 2017, London, UK: A man was arrested on suspicion of terror offences after he drove a van into a group of worshippers close to a mosque in north London. One man died

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