In a couple of years time when universities are bankrupt we will probably learn how some law firm PR financial vehicle benefited from this „compensation“ scheme…

"Dear Sir: We do high quality journalism, investigations & insights into complex global developments, but there are some issues where we can't budge from neoliberal propaganda"

Four minutes of air conditioning-Billions of people have access to far less electricity per day than is required to run an air conditioner for just one hour. @ourworldindata.org on what a hotter planet means for billions of people.

And another bites the dust? The BBC World Service will run out of funding in just seven weeks. Its funding arrangement with the Foreign Office finishes at the end of March. There is no plan for what happens next. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

1/ Issue 228 of The Continent is out: Wagner’s info warriors, post-Prigozhin. Leaked docs reveal their influence in 22 African countries. We focus on South Africa, Mali, CAR, Niger & Angola.

People are wondering why Germany's second most-powerful politician Julia Klöckner agreed to an IDF-guided tour in Gaza without speaking to a single Palestinian or aid organization; for pictures likes this: 100% MAGA-chic, 0% empathy. This is what "conservatives" want to be known for globally

Amazing a whole story about Eddie Bauer filing for bankruptcy can leave out the fact that it was owned by private equity from 2009 to 2021 www.nytimes.com/2026/02/10/b...

The case of Swedish-American Joanna Rubinstein who just stepped down from UNHCR Sweden‘s board is such an illustrative case study of how full of crap „global elites“ are; she visited Epstein‘s island AFTER his conviction…here are highlights from her CV:

The impact of the climate crisis in Mozambique, Portugal & Australia does not get the attention it deserves.

One of the great tragedies of AI and science is that the proliferation of garbage papers and journals is creating pressure to return to more closed systems based on interpersonal connections and established prestige hierarchies that had only recently been opened up somewhat to greater diversity.

There are probably more & more people in Brussels who think "thank God they voted for Brexit & left the EU" www.theguardian.com/politics/liv...

So WEF will end up in the Gulf because isn’t „where the Modern world is built“ code for autocratic countries like them that would allow Netanyahu to attend???

This is probably bigger news than the previous announcement to withdraw from 60 more UN entities abcnews.go.com/Health/us-of...

Action Aid is ending child sponsorship, a controversial aid model that many orgs tried to tweak for many years. But will the future really see "a feminist, anti-racist organisation that focuses more on fundraising through partnerships with civil society groups"? www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

A reminder that only grifters launch new products in Davos-especially when it is a new social network

It’s another example of BBC „journalism“ how they merely describe this unqualified train wreck of white male Trump cronies rather than calling out this „board of peace“ nonsense for what it is www.bbc.com/news/article...

"Let's go through with Brexit-we will just export all our stuff to our friends in the USA"

I don't engage in frame-by-frame analysis because it doesn't impact my or anyone else's views. An armed violence worker shot someone. The chattering class will dissect, oh the foot was there, and the gun was there, and the whatever whatever. Most of the media will say "it's a close case."

Captain it's Wednesday

Nicolás Maduro Charged With Felony Oil Possession

ugh

🧵1/6 After the El Fasher massacre, I identified a large UAE-aligned influence operation on X promoting the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Around 19,000 accounts showed strong indicators of automation - bots marcowenjones.substack.com/p/i-found-19... #Sudan #Dysinfluence

No amount of UN managerial plastic language around a „humanitarian reset“ will be able to absorb c. 15bn dollars of cuts; the UN system is doing itself a huge disservice by pretending it can absorb these cuts as some of the worst crises in the 21st century need urgent attention.

Always remember that government spending is a political choice; there is no fixed amount of aid. You can support Ukraine *AND* increase humanitarian assistance or aid to Africa, but increasingly right-leaning governments in Europe are presenting dangerous binary choices for their global engagement

When a military dictatorship sells valuable natural resources ordinary people will not benefit, exhibit 952: "Fewer than 15,000 people will be needed to run the mines, the ports, and the 670 km railway specially built to allow exports"; Rio Tinto is happy, though...

FRANCE 24 and Mother Jones have won a UN journalism award for their reporting on the testimony of #Gaza Humanitarian Foundation contractor Anthony Aguilar. www.france24.com/en/americas/...

The next UNHCR commissioner will most likely not be a European! Exciting news!!

The body of USAID is barely cold, but the academic dissection already begins ;)...on a more serious note: This sounds like an excellent project with a great team (limited to 2 years, but at least a 100% position (not always the norm at German universities...).

Americans have community colleges, great public universities and world-class Ivys…but they want to „disrupt“ the system so they can sell tickets to individual lectures with no discussion and praise this as a democratic form of education…

"Last week, Kenya became the first country to join a new US-sponsored health agreement that grants Washington unprecedented access to Kenyan health data for the next 25 years. (...) In exchange, Kenya receives $1.6 billion over 10 years" www.linkedin.com/pulse/kenya-...

#GivingThursday is the day when even the most obscure organization that never sends out anything bothers to send an email asking for money…real delete- and unsubscribe-fest in my inbox…

Analyzing 500k Chinese theses & linking them to 60k public sector officials, new paper finds that "plagiarism is pervasive & predicts adverse political selection (dishonest individuals are more likely to enter & advance in the public sector); dishonest individuals perform worse when holding power"

"Anybody can study/learn from anywhere at any time & at any stage of their professional career" is not the inclusive answer it may appear, but another desperate message from the UK higher ed sector looking for a future & money; as always, all of this is expressed in managerial plastic language

[EN] #ArchivesduCrash 📖 The Crash team invites you to (re)discover “Humanitarian action in situations of occupation”, a Cahier by Xavier Crombé published in 2007. 👉 Find this Cahier on our website: msf-crash.org/en/war-and-h...

🗓️ The aid system is losing legitimacy. Join us for our Annual Event on 4 Dec as we explore how humanitarians can rebuild a narrative that admits flaws, shifts power to marginalised voices and defends core principles – while resonating with both donors & crisis-affected communities → buff.ly/9p4ZKZG

@andypsumner.bsky.social and @stephanklingebiel.bsky.social ask: What does the #GlobalDevelopment architecture look like in this world five years from now? The experts see four stylised visions emerging in competition. Which is most likely to prevail? 🔗 policybrief.org/briefs/compe...

In today's "evidence-based policy-making" case study I am almost certain that 250m+ GBP will be spent to renovate Hammersmith Bridge into a car-friendly crossing again...

They line up perfectly.

The humanitarian NGO medico international has adopted a three-pronged strategy towards humanitarian aid: to defend it, to criticize it, and to overcome it. I propose to adopt a similar perspective regarding development cooperation" From our blog www.developmentresearch.eu?p=2231

This is not the worst book we've ever read but it is the meanest episode we've ever done.

The global humanitarian system is disintegrating in real time; this is the reality for @unhcr.org: 1. UNHCR is ending 2025 with $1.3 billion less than last year, a 30% workforce reduction, and 185 offices consolidated or closed. (1/x)

Can I quietly ask we stop talking about what "AI" *could* do in education and identify instead what's actually happening with AI in education? I'll start...

Dear journalism students, when the assignment requires you to write a piece that makes the perpetrator look like the victim, get inspired by the summary below…

📝 More than 300,000 refugees live in Kakuma camp in northern Kenya, an isolated and arid region, shut away from the rest of the country, depending on a faltering aid system for survival. These poems by Peter Kidi explore that tension ⬇️ buff.ly/tDBYPxB

“Abundance”

Sharing the Sudan issue of Transition Magazine with you with essays, analysis and art work by Sudanese writers and artists. transitionmagazine.fas.harvard.edu/home/current...

A good summary of what’s going on in Tanzania, and how we got here:

Powerful image. They are delivering humanitarian aid in the capital of the United States of America-and as problematic as Huffington's "Third World America" was even in 2010 it is a phrase that captures some of the current downward dynamics relatively accurately...