An outstanding interview. Patrick Iber of Dissent Magazine has interviewed the legendary Polish political scientist Adam Przeworski about de-democratisation in the USA, and what lessons he’s gleaned from Chile, Peru & beyond. Iber’s questions are stellar. Przeworski’s answers, chillingly candid.

There is a ridiculous claim that Stockholm is built on 14 islands but the list is total nonsense. I will sort this out

Saudi Arabia signing a defence treaty with Pakistan in which Pakistan extends its nuclear umbrella over Saudi Arabia is one of the most significant stories of the last week. It's weird how little it was covered.

Oggi elezioni in Moldavia 🇲🇩

Greece and Italy have also signed the ICC but Netanyahu knows our governments are not gonna stop him

Good morning from Brussels, where we have solutions for all the questions no one has ever asked.

Italy: Thousands join pro-Palestinian protests, strikes

Il Corriere la deve smettere di usare le mappe del globo in proiezione di Mercatore.

Wiki "As of September 2025, the State of Palestine is recognised as a sovereign state by 150 of the 193 member states of the United Nations" So 153 now

Carretta, Quatremer, Kokcharov. What is this, 2015?

Dave Keating is writing a book. And Mr “Ethical Lobby” Alberto Alemanno is still on X 🤮

I don't know about you, but as a European, I strongly get the impression by events like these that the U.S. is rapidly descending into full-blown fascism. Or a dictatorship, if you prefer that word.

What if they were paid by their employers instead?

It's not just America. Some of the biggest spreaders of conspiracies and disinformation are now in top government posts in Slovakia where the national broadcaster is coming under political control. The EU may soon have its own post-truth nation.

In Italy we have no qualms about calling out fascism because we know what it is and how to recognise it. In Britain fascism has always been seen as something that could only happen elsewhere. Well, now the fascists are among you, openly, proudly even. It's time to wake up and push back.

I do wonder if Scottish Labour remember that this voting bloc (non-citizen voters) is now actually really sizable in Scotland and can absolutely be the difference between a NOC parliament and an SNP majority.

Was delighted in particular to tell a wee lad from the Philippines that he is entitled to vote in Scotland despite not being a citizen. Genuinely heartwarming to tell someone they have rights and power to resist

Went canvassing today. Four different people said they are concerned about immigration, by which they all meant they are concerned by how demonised it is and blame Labour for failing to fight fascism. Inner city Glasgow. Stick that in your narratives

Top *eight* articles on NYT devoted to Charlie Kirk, top one asks if he will be remembered like MLK. This is a man who only a tiny percent of Americans had even heard of before his death, whose views are too nasty for NYT to detail. But they are trying so hard to turn into martyr.

🌈-washing 🇲🇹

i dont think anything can really be concretely said to have been found out about the shooter beyond the fact that the press were extremely happy to help the republican party with a completely unsupported anti-trans blood libel. this latter fact is really the only thing that matters atm

We don't do propaganda to make you believe something. It's to make you believe nothing. So you do nothing.

I’m not the first person to make this observation, but this being the biggest story in the world at present really speaks to how much Twitter still serves as a universal assignments editor for English-language journalists.

he was a champion of free speech and if you disagree youre under arrest

3. Refusing to introduce Proportional Representation. Under our First Past The Post system, a party with a minority of the vote can achieve a huge majority (as Starmer did with 34%). There is no way Farage could become Prime Minister under a PR system. Only under FPTP.

2. Empowering and legitimising the far right by echoing its themes, threats, cruelty and nastiness. Even if you set aside the moral implications, it’s an utterly baffling policy, as all the evidence shows that this gifts voters to the far right. www.newstatesman.com/politics/202...

If Farage wins the next election, it will be down to one person. His name is Keir Starmer. This thread explains why. 1. Destroying faith in democracy. The UK decisively voted out the Tories, only for Starmer to give us a Continuity Tory government, shamefully beholden to economic power. 🧵

Labour have had a year to do something like this, to walk onto Farage's own turf and put the screws to him. Instead, they've taken every opportunity to raise his profile and advance his messaging as part of a deliberate strategy that's killing their own party. Polanski's still in his first week.

Maybe I’m schizoposting but isn’t the surveillance state run by incompetent dunces with technology that barely works? Why are we being encouraged to police ourselves like we’re in a sci-fi robot panopticon

Sulla Stampa, una pagina dietro l'altra, interviste a Kubilius Vurkkunen e Dombrovskis. Dieci anni fa sarebbe stato impensabile. Forse una sfera pubblica europea non è poi così lontana

The UK government is mobilising police in a military mode consonant with counterinsurgency strategy with the objective of suppressing insurgent popular political affinities deemed a threat to its power & legitimacy, while using that same police-military assemblage to enforce a political line. COIN.

This has nothing to do with anything typically associated with 'this thing we call policing' (fighting crime, public safety, law & order) and everything to do with a political-military campaign to marginalise and suppress a political movement that directly challenges the imperatives of power. COIN.

Important to remember that everyone involved in renaming the DoD to the Department of War is afraid to take the subway.

LOL, China's state television network, China Central Television (CCTV — nice), has forced Reuters to take down its video of Xi and Putin talking about living to 150, or maybe forever, on biotech breakthroughs. Beijing is revoking legal permission to use the footage. www.reuters.com/business/med...

Thinking of @jonworth.eu right now. Train from Bruxelles just pulled into Aachen. 3 police officers boarded, spoke to only Asian man in the carriage (think he is Chinese) made him go and get his bags off the luggage rack. Didn’t even look at, let alone speak to, anyone else. Really nasty atmosphere

And anyone going "the sooner the EU cuts its dependency on US tech (such as GPS) the better!" sure I am with you, ethically But this is the same EU institutions that cannot cut their communications addiction to X. If they can't do what's easy, are they going to do what's hard? Doubtful

webtv.senato.it/webtv ora in onda Giovedì 4 Settembre 2025 alle ore 12:00 Conferenza stampa: Impatto sanzioni USA su relatrice ONU L’impatto delle sanzioni USA sulla relatrice ONU Francesca Albanese. Su iniziativa del senatore Giuseppe De Cristofaro

Israel's treatment of Palestinian prisoners since 7 Oct is comparable to the worst dictatorships on earth. - the number keeps growing, and is now around 11k - close to 90% are held without trial - starvation as policy - rampant torture - dozens died in prison, no accountability

Look guys, the martial law is temporary. It’s just a brief vacation from having any rights.

Tajani: "Abbiamo regalato la Pimpa in arabo ai bambini palestinesi". E adesso chi è che merita il Nobel per la pace? Eh?? #Tajani #Pimpa

...non è cambiato nulla! :-/

The unambiguous return of a single-party state to Turkey will coincide with the final end of the party that built its first such state. I have a lot of thoughts about this, one of them being that we’re here mainly because of the CHP’s inability to get out of its own way.

I'm back teaching some comparative social policy this year. Starting with the question of why compare. So of course we have to look at health spending and outcomes...

Old enough to remember the outrage in the United States when Serb forces killed Bosnian civilians fetching water during the siege of Sarajevo.

Israeli hum rts orgs: "We see no point in continuing a futile legal process that only serves the state: It allows it to continue exercizing unchecked power, starving innocent people, and denying them life-saving humanitarian aid — while presenting as if its hands are clean" gisha.org/en/human-rig...

"Sorry, we can't proceed with your report that your dad is physically abusing you without your dad's consent."

‼️Meanwhile in Hungary: Austria’s Erste Group released an AI-generated video of historic European acts of “courage, solidarity, and shaping the future”—then, at Erste Hungary’s request, cut the part about the 2025 Budapest Pride march, banned by Orbán’s government. 🎥 Original video in low quality.👇

Indeed. "Credo quia absurdum" (Tertullianus) 🇺🇸

Walcott vs Naipaul: what has ever been created in the Caribbeans? #podcast #literature #colonialism open.spotify.com/episode/6OXr...