On today’s News Agents I said that the crunch point for Starmer to choose between Zelensky and Trump would come, despite the bonhomie yesterday. The choice came within 24 hours. podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/t...

I will never forget the photo of Zelenskyy’s face after he saw Russia’s war crimes in Bucha in 2022. He seemed to age years in an afternoon. Watching him constantly cross the world asking for aid that should have been thrown at him is one of the deepest shames of our age.

Assume most academic history depts will be dusting off the long out-of-favour "Great Men" approach to the topic and relabelling it "Bad Men" or some such. What is happening now is surely epochal enough to inspire a rethink.

FT Editorial Board | Elon Musk’s dismantlement of federal agencies, freezing funding and pushing staff to resign goes far beyond a mere restructuring. It aims to shift the constitutional separation and balance of powers. www.ft.com/content/f766...

On LBC this morning, I spoke about why we should be far more worried the power Elon Musk is accruing, especially in light of his Open AI moves. The normalisation of his actions and activity by quite a bit of the US and even UK media is a big part of the problem. www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGnt...

In a piece of personal news, I'm thrilled to have signed a contract with @hurstpublishers.bsky.social to write a book about the #Bosphorus, the magnificent strait that divides European İstanbul from its Asian side. Coming up, a month of ferry rides & interesting encounters. Very exciting.

UK govt seems intent on letting AI owners steal work of creatives of all kinds without pay or acknowledgement. AI is not non-profit so owners shld pay to use work of others. Can't go into shop & empty shelves cos shopkeeper didn't opt out. What's the difference? www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Thirty years ago, the United States persuaded Ukraine that it does not need nuclear weapons and gave Ukraine "security assurances." Today, the United States is persuading Ukraine that it needs to give up territories, forget about NATO membership, and lower the conscription age.

Forget the blasted Commonwealth Games. Surely the money that will cost would be better spent on turning Glasgow back into a vibrant city for the ppl who live there all the time. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

An Anatolian Greek New Years tradition! Aetakia, Double Eagle cookies. The oldest family member, holding an eagle, would say: “As beautifully and proudly as the eagle flies, so beautifully and proudly may our family fly." Then family members kissed his hand and took a cookie!

Massive celebrations sweep across Syria as the nation ushers in 2025, marking the start of a new era free from the former Assad regime. This footage captures the jubilant atmosphere in Damascus.

Imperative that every effort is made to persuade Israel to release Dr Hussam Abu Safiya so that he can receive urgent and appropriate treatment for his injuries. www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

Sadly, have to confess to having returned to the other place. Once again able to read tips on places in Türkiye I'm yet to visit, find out which is the latest illegal cafe to be torn down, even that Ankara appears - finally - to have a public transport map. Don't want to be associated w/anything to

Destroying the "environment" for the sake of protecting the "environment"! Only those who've never seen solar farms could possibly think them anything other than hideous. Put them on roofs where they belong, not on ground where they cover even grass. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

"A request made through ChatGPT, an AI-based virtual assistant, consumes 10 times the electricity of a Google Search" This isn't a game. This is accelerated destruction via huge usage of power, water, resources etc. Stop using it - especially for messing about!! www.unep.org/news-and-sto...

Extraordinary watching country that once used to claim moral high ground abandon all pretence at morality to the extent that it openly attacks hospitals in contravention of international law. Hard now even to remember what started all this. Can never be forgiven. www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

Hagia Sophia was inaugurated by Justinian on December 27, 537

It took less than a year for Israel to normalize waging war on hospitals, their staff, and their patients. Our government supplies the weapons,and accuses anyone who dare object of antisemitism. “The occupation army is burning all the operating departments in the hospital while we are still there”

On a finger-chillingly cold winter's evening in #İstanbul the mournful sound of the boza-seller calling his wares in Çukurcuma is all the more poignant. How on earth does he make his living?

Just popped my head into the other place to check on Ernesto's Cat Sanctuary which is unlikely to move to bluesky. Immediately read great post by Josh Cahill, who is also not on here, about fate of group of female Afghan air crew. Just don't know what to do. Bluesky is good in some ways but way too

One of most poignant clips I ever saw was of two elderly men, one Turkish, the other Australian, who had fought at #Gallipoli. Neither knew anything about the other's country against which they had been fighting. Same now, surely, for these Koreans sent to fight www.theguardian.com/world/2024/d...

This much is certain about the Azerbaijan Airlines flight: the pilots were absolute heroes. To keep a fatally wounded airplane aloft for 72 minutes, and get it down in a way anyone survived, took staggering focus and skill. They fought so hard, and didn’t live to know they had saved 29 people.

After several years of few good books by journalists about Turkey, two new vivid, insightful ones came out. The first inter-splices contemporary dynamics of Istanbul with the history of its fall to the Ottomans. The second illustrates the republic's last century with a series of historical vignettes

I didnt publish much this year bc ive been buried under phd course work. The things i'll remember from this year are my essay on yogurt and the english translation of a a Ladino story. 1 - Yogurt in Sephardi Life, w reminiscing about Buyukada. jewishstudies.washington.edu/sephardic-st...

Frosty Goldfinch! 😍 Taken from my bathroom window earlier this year. 😁 Hope you're all having a lovely Boxing Day! 🎄 #birds 🪶🐦

Today we celebrate Boxing Day in the UK, so named because cats spend the day exploring empty boxes discarded from Christmas Day* *This may not be true

Very nice and positive story on this Christmas day:

Switzerland have also enhanced their agreements to closer alignment. There’s a lesson in these relationships for the UK too. Do we really want constant tweaks & negotiations? Joining the EU is the only way forward so the UK can fully cooperate, influence & have a real say in the future of Europe.

Merry Christmas. Cartoon by the wonderful Liz Climo

Russia's southern Krasnodar region declares an emergency as oil is still washing up on the coastline 10 days after two aging tankers ran into trouble. The tankers were hit by a storm on Dec. 15 when one split in half and the other ran aground reut.rs/4gKArOR

Attached info on latest requirements for getting a Turkish residency permit will be distressing for some. Amount of monthly income required has risen again. Reflects soaring cost of living in Türkiye but fear not everyone will be able to comply.

That's great - thought provoking as always. I find the debate around the fascism analogy important. It didn't work in the US for the reasons Bonnie Honig tells here but I think it works increasingly less and less in Europe which has the experience of fascism. Because I think we don't use this+

While the rest of us have been enjoying ourselves over Xmas, the horrors in Gaza just keep on coming. A 3-week-old baby frozen to death! What was her "guilt"? Israel will never come back from pariah status now. www.theguardian.com/world/2024/d...

Had never noticed that Wales didn't have its own national art gallery. What an obvious omission. Hopefully this exhibition in Aberystwyth will spur the creation of one. On until 6 September. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024...

With talk in air about "managed" end to war in Ukraine, worth remembering that "three decades ago,...Ukraine was briefly the third-largest nuclear power in the world." Was persuaded by West to surrender its nuclear weapons. Without that, war probably wldn't have happened www.npr.org/2022/02/21/1...

Due to this idiotic statement, by a person who has proven his inability to distinguish truth from online propaganda, I just donated to Wikipedia. Please do the same.

Over in the other place, the billionaire owner is threatening to fund ‘moderate’ (rightwing) candidates in heavily Democratic districts too. This is what oligarchy looks like. It’s the biggest threat to democracy today. Not ‘cancel culture.’ Not trans kids. Not college protesters. Oligarchy.

New Wallace & Gromit fantastic. Funny and clever at same time.

Wishing a happy Christmas to all my friends around the world. Please reply with your pictures of cats (and lesser pets) joining in the festivities

Happy Christmas to all those celebrating from an Istanbul so sunny it hardly even feels like winter!

🧵 "Christ is still under the rubble." When Palestinian minister Munther Isaac set up a similar nativity scene in Bethlehem outside the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church last year and again this year, he touched the lives and moved the hearts of so many around the world. (1)

Walking to Christmas Eve service this evening past long line of police vehicles assembled presumably to ensure that nothing untoward happens over next few weeks I was smiling to think how, growing up in Ealing, I cld never have imagined myself in such a scenario.

"We end the year with liberal democracies under threat from the continuing march of oligarchs in our media left unchecked & institutions bamboozled into tolerating intolerance. If the 'centrists' cannot hold, what hope is there for the rest of us?" @peterjukes.bsky.social's Byline Times editorial:

Nice piece about role of Mary (Meryemana) in Islam as well as Christianity. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

I got blocked for this comment. Scientists and journalists: AI "art" takes away commissions from living, breathing artists. There is as much of a moral/ethical problem with AI as there is an environmental one. Remember: the only people excited about AI are excited for their bottom line.

Just rec'd my £10 Xmas bonus from UK Department of Work & Pensions. Hmm, what can I spend it on? If govt had cancelled this "benefit" rather than the winter-fuel payment hardly anyone wld even have noticed. Hasn't been upgraded since 1979!

"New media such as Instagram, TikTok, and X condemn users to information bubbles. But newspapers, radio, and books allow people to encounter the heterogeneity of their culture."

Cheery festive sight greeting pax emerging from #Samandıra Metro today.

Been over today to #Samandıra, #istanbul, to see remains of late C6th Damatrys Palace, Byzantine structure that used to sit in outskirts of city so that emperors approaching & leaving city wld have somewhere to rest. Currently being excavated/restored. Within 10 mins’ walk of Samandıra Metro stop.