Linkliste unbehandelter Themen

Politics: 

French and Malian forces are advancing against the Islamist Rebels in Mali (including airstrikes by the French air force), and France declared its intention to start withdrawing troops in "as early as two weeks". Foreign Affairs predicts that Mali's problems are migrating to Niger, and Jadaliyya writes about the situation of internally displaced refugees in Mali.

Here's the full text and video of President Obama's State of the Union speech. 

Republicans are threatening to filibuster the confirmation of Chuck Hagel, who is about to succeed Robert Gates as United States Secretary of Defense.

Creepiest thing to appear in the news these weeks: domestic drones. Happy Valentine's Day, United States!

ProPublica has a chart of the "players" involved in the News International scandal.

There'll be a new pope soon (favourite hashtag of the week: #exbenedict)

Pop Culture: 

Sylvia Plath died fifty years ago.

I recently started catching up with My Mad Fat Diary, a British TV show set in Lincolnshire in 1996, portraying the life of Rae, a teenage girl who finds a new circle of friend and tries to find confidence after a mental breakdown. It's incredibly acted and written. 

Bomb Girls started a five-week-long mid-season break but will resume on March 25th, and air its second season in the US on Reelz starting March 27th. 

And Being Human is back for its fifth and final season, and is absolutely lovely, mainly because Michael Socha, Damien Molony and Kate Bracken are a fantastic team as the new modern werewolf&vampire&ghost family. I don't know why I always forget how much I love this show whenever it isn't on.

Mad Men's sixth season starts April 7th, Breaking Bad resumes its fifth and final season in summer.

The xx played a Tiny Desk concert for NPR last week. 

Thao & The Get Down Stay Down (their new record, We the Common, was released February 4) played a concert for KEXP (so did Calexico, Frightened Rabbit

More music released this year: Erin McKeown's Manifestra (here's the video for Proof), Tocotronic's Wie wir leben wollen (here's the BtVS inspired Auf dem Pfad der Dämmerung), and Foals' Holy Fire.