Croatia may now be out of the World Cup but the fondness of a good chunk of their supporters for singing Ustaše songs remains, as ever, unchanged @unawrites.bsky.social

“Croatia has spent three decades declining to reckon with the Ustashe past, treating the fascist puppet state’s symbols as heritage rather than crime.” Strong stuff from @unawrites.bsky.social on Croatia’s ‘beloved’ neo-Nazi balladeer. www.politico.com/live-updates...

Fantastic piece on Trump's architectural traumas and desires. Fun fact, I'm Spanish "Triomf Arch" is an euphemism for men's groin, frequently used to express one's disdain for others' rules: "I walk their opinion across my Triomf's Arch". Perfect from Trump,if I may add...

The Croatian team’s favorite singer is a fascist salute away from the mainstream

“Rather than accepting his place in a long line of leaders who had shaped the city before him, Mussolini wanted to eclipse them entirely by moving Rome’s center of gravity away from the legacy of everyone who had come before him and anchor it to himself instead. Trump is doing the exact same in DC”

Trump’s construction mania is not unprecedented in history — and especially when you factor in the neoclassical elements and the grasping for “ancient” or past glory, it reminds us of Italy’s most (in)famous son of the past century… My piece for @newrepublic.com: newrepublic.com/article/2101...

Bosnia vs. America, on and off the pitch

Why Bosnia's fans also cheer for Palestine

Part of a series of breakout pieces I worked on tonight’s USA-Bosnia game for @politico.com

Bosnia's starting lineup is also a map of its war

Active Club founder Rob Rundo decides to positively post a photo of football ‘ultras’ before a match in LA Problem for the wannabe Serbian nationalist Rundo: it’s the BH Fanaticos from Bosnia, ie one of three (nominally) Muslim-majority countries in Europe. He probably should have this through.

Bosnia’s storied World Cup qualification and opener against Canada are a reminder that this competition ultimately belongs to the players and the fans — and the fairytales they produce along the way. My latest for @euronews: www.euronews.com/2026/06/13/t...

Recordatorio de @unawrites.bsky.social en @newlinesmag.bsky.social sobre los miembros arabófonos del llamado festival de la canción europea y por qué brillan por su ausencia. Esta curiosidad muy olvidada merece 🧶 newlinesmag.com/reportage/eu...

In Colombia, a candidate in recent elections for right-wing Centro Democrático featured a man with heavy blurring in a campaign video — but I still ID’d this blurry guy as leader of the Hitler-loving, B&H/C18-linked Active Club Bogotá. My @bellingcat.com latest www.bellingcat.com/news/2026/05...

Oh wow, Hungary’s Peter Magyar has just invoked the Beneš Decrees in a call with Slovakia’s Robert Fico — a set of WWII-related decisions that imposed collective guilt on ethnic Nazi collaborators (mainly targeting Germans but heavily affecting Hungarians in Slovakia):🧵

In these terrible times, I choose to focus on rare awesome victories: Spain FINALLY ordered the removal of the Ustaša plaque honoring Vjekoslav “Maks” Luburić — the single biggest war criminal of the Croatian Nazi regime during WWII — and will add another plaque describing his crimes!

Thrilled to share my first piece for @thenerve.news—an incredible woman-led team reporting on tech, politics, and culture, founded by the inimitable @carolecadwalla.bsky.social —on why Iran is winning the information war www.thenerve.news/p/nina-janko...

It does sound like allies are pretty skeptical. But it will only take a couple countries designating small far-left factions on their soil as terrorists for the administration to have a pretext to start charging people in the US with material support for engaging with them

For all the “but if he’s really authoritarian why did he concede” people out there

VIKTOR OUTBAN

Siri, show me what getting crushed at the ballot box looks like

Let’s be fair, this was an opinion also widely held amongst tankies

I can remember a group of you unleashing the wrath of the Polish twitterati on me for my Wars car comment, yes

Hi it’s me, I cover the “misfit toys [countries].”

it….could have turned around. it was a ship. it would have taken a few minutes. and you can’t turn the wreck of it around cuz it’ll fall apart the second you try and raise it. what are we doing with our metaphors here man

Carney must act: Canada must join Eurovision

In maart 2025 gebruikte de Servische regering een mysterieus geluidskanon tegen demonstranten. De Russische FSB was ook geïnteresseerd, schrijft @unawrites.bsky.social in @politico.eu www.politico.eu/article/serb...

No notes. This excellent article really nails what so many of us who cover countries the U.S. promised *so much* to have been talking about for years.

My hot take for the evening is that good indie music peaked in the early-mid 2000s and nobody appreciates/makes it like before (currently listening to Shoot the Runner by Kasabian)

Visionary

„Serbian intelligence officers tested sound cannons on dogs in collaboration with Russia’s security service (FSB), according to 🇷🇸 government documents seen by POLITICO - 2 weeks after an anti-government demonstration in Belgrade was disrupted by what protesters described as a crippling sonic blast.“

There’s very little that manages to shock those among us still covering the protests in Serbia. Still, the idea that illegal tests were done on dogs to prop up the govt’s claim that protesters weren’t subjected to cruelty is about as grim as it gets. My story here: www.politico.eu/article/serb...

Serbian intelligence officers have tested sound cannons on dogs in collaboration with Russia’s notorious security service, according to government documents seen by POLITICO.

An absolutely wild one from @unawrites.bsky.social - intelligence officials in Serbia worked with Russia’s FSB to test ‘crowd control’ sound cannons (LARDs) on dogs in defiance of Serbia’s own animal protection laws www.politico.eu/article/serb...

So… people from the Western Balkans (apart from Serbia), Moldova, Belarus and Russia won’t be able to travel to the US anytime soon?

I feel like Gen Z took the confidence boost we tried to pass on to them (like standing up for yourself and your work) and upgraded it to full-blown arrogance. Also: to all my old editors who are here… sorry if we were difficult. We didn’t realize it (these kids are worse!)

I’m not convinced they actually believe this video to be exculpatory. It reads as more triumphalist to me — i.e., a ‘look what we can do’ vibe meant to shock and numb and intimidate

Trump is “singularly obsessed with the spectacle of power. That’s nothing new for the far right—fascist Italy and Nazi Germany were, [too] but Trump, who calls himself a very aesthetic person, takes it to another level.” Michael explains (again) how often fascism surfaces in Trump’s everyday choices

Yeah, so Trump’s use of CCR's anti-war song “Fortunate Son” in his TruthSocial video of the military raid in Venezuela wasn't a mistake — it’s part of a very deliberate far-right approach to aesthetics. A short thinkpiece I did for @newrepublic.com newrepublic.com/article/2049...

Shamelessly stolen from the other website, because of course that specific part of the crisis would have been averted if Europeans were involved 🤣🤣🤣

16 hours in, my guess this was all intended basically as a coup to put VP Delcy Rodriguez in power (likely without her knowledge but 🤷). At least for democracy & human rights, that might be even worse than the "opening shots in a war" scenario. All speculation, but let me explain:

This was the second-biggest wtf moment of the presser (after announcing "we will run the country")

Welcome back, 19th century wars of American expansion 🫠

Trump just announced “we are going to run the country” until they can guarantee a just transition because they “can’t run the risk of someone else taking over” Venezuela. “We are going to run it, essentially.”

This is Gen Z’s Saddam Hussein capture photo

“But what if Russia tries to do this to Zelensky???!!” - people who just woke up from a years-long coma

The US alleges Maduro and other officials participated in a “narco-terrorism conspiracy” involving Venezuela’s Cartel de los Soles and Colombia’s FARC—a far-left guerrilla—dating from at least around 1999 through about 2020 incl. negotiating cocaine shipments and directing support such as weapons.

Venezuelan opposition figure and actual Nobel Peace Prize winner (and Trump policy supporter) Maria Corina Machado said that “what had to happen is happening” and that Venezuelans should be ready to set in motion “what will be communicated to [them] via official channels.”