“Stripping citizenship requires no criminal conviction. It is done at the stroke of a home secretary’s pen.” Samira Shackle on the UK’s increasingly draconian rules on removing citizenship

NEW OP-ED | A Forever War in the Making The lesson here is not that diplomacy failed. It is that Washington and Tehran treated the memorandum not as a bridge from war to diplomacy, but as an extension of war, writes @alivaez.bsky.social in @nytimes.com.

#Sudan 's 'war economy' sustains conflicts and abuses - says UN Human Rights Chief. @eudiplomacy.bsky.social should take more measures to stem flow of product linked to funding abuses. www.ohchr.org/en/press-rel...

‘For years politicians had taken it for granted that they could profit from the grey economy of French politics. Sarkozy’s mistake was to take it too far.’ Jeremy Harding reads Nicolas Sarkozy’s prison memoir. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Ten years after Brexit, British support for Ukraine—a gruelling, expensive exercise in European solidarity—is rock solid, writes Andrew Adonis

12 people have been arrested as part of an investigation into a suspected extreme right-wing terror plot against an Islamic gathering in Suffolk The UK Ijtima, which hosted 15,000 Muslims for a programme of talks and discussions, was closed and evacuated by police on Sunday

Hundreds of firefighters and emergency workers were still battling a deadly wildfire on Saturday in southern Spain that killed at least 12 people, officials said. More than 20 people were still missing as of Saturday afternoon.

South African footballer Jayden Adams, 25, has died, shortly after playing at the World Cup last month. (Cause of death not yet known; police investiigating). RIP www.theguardian.com/football/202...

BBC reporting a murder investigation into the death of Ann Widdecombe www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cp...

For non-British friends puzzled by what's happening to the charming Nigel Farage, read this essay about Count Binface and the politics of humour. www.forkingpaths.co/p/count-binf...

Alan Shearer: "When the referee goes back to VAR for Egypts goal & cancels it due to an interference at the start of play, but doesn't go back to VAR for Agentina's winning goal despite 2 interferences at the start of play... then we're watching a "theatre" not a football match.

Many govt ministers, advisers and half the parliamentary party have just not yet clocked that Mahmood's could see 750k people (about three-quarters of those on the 15 year route) lose their legal status by 2029. Mostly black/Asian Commonwealth migrants (eligible to vote!) bsky.app/profile/jame...

In Havana, places across the city carry remnants of the lives people used to lead. A Human Rights Watch researcher traveled to Cuba and spoke with dozens of people across Havana. Learn more: https://bit.ly/4w1AwoA

NEW - Greens won’t stand in Clacton. So it is Nigel Farage versus Count Binface.

Responding to Dario Amodei's call for industry self-governance, Oversight Board members Kenji Yoshino and Ronaldo Lemos lay out three requirements for credible AI oversight: independent overseers, external standards, and transparency.

An Afghan national who fought alongside U.S. forces has died from an allergic reaction while in ICE custody, one day after he was detained for deportation proceedings, his death certificate shows. www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...

‘Cumulatively these statistics are proof of a failing North and a successful South. The reversal of roles is dramatic. Today the economy of Northern Ireland is smaller than that of Lithuania and its GDP is a tenth the size of the Republic’s.’ Patrick Cockburn: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Bangladesh and China announce a “new era” in ties during Prime Minister Tarique Rahman’s trip.

South Africa built its post-apartheid identity on pan-African solidarity. A new wave of “Afrophobia” is putting that vision under unprecedented strain. Read more: bloom.bg/4bpt5PQ 📷: Rajesh Jantilal/AFP/Getty Images

‘The Libyan financing affair remains the defining intrigue among several that plunged Sarkozy into a nightmare of investigations, as his conduct in and out of office came under scrutiny.’ Jeremy Harding reads Nicolas Sarkozy’s prison memoir. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Happy about Morocco, but hardly surprised. They're for real.

the Cape Verde national anthem is quite lovely. With dignity, bury the seed In the dust of the naked island At the escarpment of life Hope is As big as the sea Which embraces us Sentinel of the oceans and winds Persevering Between the stars And the Atlantic Intone the Chant of Freedom.

Cabo Verde made their fans very proud tonight. So inspiring...🫶 What an amazing run in this World Cup. ⚽️🇨🇻

The morning after it is clearer, Cape Verde’s performance last night was one of the top few athletic performances I’ve ever seen in my life. In the top five for sure. Maybe in the top two or three.

Do NGOs need to hire creators? Or do more offline? Or create content labs? Come join us to talk about the future of social change communications. w/ @dantelicona.com and Valeriia Voshchevska from the Shape Change agency. What else should we be asking?

Universal basic capital could provide a much-needed hedge against a future AI dystopia—but only if it’s designed the right way, Rogé Karma argues.

www.ft.com/content/d28f... ‘They will come back at night’: migrants flee South Africa vigilantes

More than one million undocumented immigrants in Spain have applied to legalize their status to bring them into the formal labor force, said Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez of the new program that allows them a path out of legal limbo.

Wow, Roberts refers to the right to have rights #HannahArendt

'I resisted xenophobic pressure in the past. But now, we have to leave': In South Africa, a violent campaign against foreigners

‘The​ surviving works of St Augustine run to more than five million words. To give some sense of scale, that’s roughly 10 per cent of all the Latin literature extant from before 600 AD.’ Christopher Kelly on a new account of Augustine. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka have new governments brought to power in the wake of mass protest movements. Now they must grapple with the fallout from Iran and tense ties with India.

Early responses of U.N. member States have been poor on specifically including disability in the draft #CrimesAgainstHumanity treaty, write Janet Lord, Kate McInnes, and colleagues. But the window for course correction remains open:

‘Hobsbawm’s canonization was a Western tribute to a great historian who had erected a monument to Europe amid its decline, when the lights and shadows of its civilization appeared, in retrospect, as a vanished past, as impressive as it was tragic.’ www.theideasletter.org/essay/the-ce...

“As the historian @samuelmoyn.bsky.social put it, we set a floor beneath how far the poor could fall, but no ceiling on how high the wealthy could rise. We made our peace with an economic order that produced extreme inequality - treating it as natural” www.opensocietyfoundations.org/newsroom/rei...

BBC Radio 4 staff receive instruction that social and digital platforms are now correspondents' top priority over traditional TV and radio, including the UK's agenda-setting Today program. www.theguardian.com/media/2026/j...

The average life expectancy of a new Russian recruit—from arrival at a training ground to death in a combat zone—lies somewhere between 10 days and three weeks. Once sent onto the battlefield, they survive an average of 20 to 35 minutes. @peterfrankopan.bsky.social foreignpolicy.com/2026/06/25/r...

With tech regulation slated to form a large part of Ireland’s presidency of the Council of the EU, the elephant in the room will be the country’s close relationship with U.S. tech giants. 🔗 politico.eu/article/irel...

Paradoxes loom. But the moment we decide that a new generation does not have within it the ability to shape the world it lives in — to shape the future — that is the true enemy of open society. So let us not be apathetic. The future is still yours to shape. Congrats, class of 2026!

“Dear migrants, before I say any other word to you, I want to bow before your dignity. “You are not numbers or case files. “You are people — with a family and a home left behind, with dreams that no one has the right to scorn.” — Pope Leo XIV

“Andy Burnham will soon have a monumental task,” Idrees Kahloon argues. His plans for economic growth are Britain's last chance to “save the Labour Party, change Britain’s economic trajectory, and fend off its rising nationalists”:

Keir Starmer’s time as prime minister has been consumed by foreign affairs. Any new prime minister will face a relentless deluge of international issues and challenges.

When reality surpasses fiction! Top: fictional forecast for August 2050, broadcast by French TV in 2014 to warn about the consequences of global warming. Bottom: Real French forecast for yesterday, June 22, 2026.

In the face of a 38-day US-Israeli assault, Tehran survived and demonstrated it could strike across the Middle East and close the Strait of Hormuz.

‘Maxim Gorky was the designated mourner for a vanished moment in Russian culture. He wanted socialism or democracy but he no longer wanted Bolshevism, which seemed to him psychopathically preoccupied with power.’ Adam Thirlwell on Gorky, Tolstoy and Chekhov: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

‘Fin-de-siècle Europe, which found itself both dominating the world and in the grip of a deep internal malaise, bears a strong resemblance to the situation of the US today.’ David Todd on Frances’s ‘first fascist’. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Data centers are harming every environment they are placed in.

It was my honor to speak at CEU commencement, an institution my father founded for those emerging from behind the Iron Curtain. Today, as then, progress is neither linear nor guaranteed. Open societies must be carried forward by each generation. Congratulations, Class of 2026!

“I carry with me a photo of a Muslim child who, during my visit to Lebanon, was standing there holding a sign that said ‘Welcome, Pope Leo,’ and in this latest phase of the war, he was killed. “As a Church, I say again: as a pastor, I cannot be in favor of war.” — Pope Leo XIV

"It is in the point four percent that we go to work. " Masterful blending of the sports and the politics and the joy and the energy of the moment.