🚨 BREAKING: Microsoft illegally tracked students, data watchdog finds. The Austrian DPA has ruled that Microsoft 365 Education used tracking cookies without consent — illegally collecting student data - following a complaint supported by @noyb.eu noyb.eu/en/noyb-win-...

Nauruans to head to the polls on 11 October "The Nauru parliament is made up of 19 members in multi-seat constituencies - 14 administrative districts grouped into eight constituencies - and the parliamentary term is three years" #Nauru www.rnz.co.nz/internationa...

Everyone who studies research methods just had an aneurysm

NEW Law versus politics Both the UK and the US face a choice between unchecked executive power or a balanced constitution By me at @prospectmagazine.co.uk www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/law/th...

🧵🚨 The UK’s independent scientific bodies are highly vulnerable to politicisation - over the past 5 months I've been working with @martinmckee.bsky.social to map out their vulnerabilities and it's not good news. Today our report is published! www.ucl.ac.uk/policy-lab/n... 1/11

Seychelles president bids to avoid opposition sweep in run-off election uk.news.yahoo.com/seychelles-p...

New report out from the Scottish Social Attitudes Survey today, with new data on a wide range of issues, including constitutional preferences: Independent in EU: 40% Independent out EU: 8% Devolution (w/ tax powers): 33% Devolution (no tax powers): 8% No Holyrood: 9% natcen.ac.uk/publications...

Very interesting: Since 2013, polls have consistently shown that the British people don't want to leave the European Convention on Human Rights👇 🔗 theconversation.com/do-british-p... via @uk.theconversation.com #ECHR #OurRightsAndFreedoms

Oliver Stuenkel, a prominent analyst of Brazilian politics, breaks down the trial and conviction of former president of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro, and their implications for global democracies, with Jon Bateman on The World Unpacked youtu.be/RJ9dS92rZew?...

"At the Pentagon, some military lawyers, including international law experts within DoD’s Office of General Counsel, have raised concerns about the legality of the lethal strikes on suspected drug traffickers.... Multiple current and former JAGs ... told CNN that the strikes do not appear lawful."

Lord Wolfson's legal advice to Kemi Badenoch on ECHR withdrawal has now been published. In this thread I'll highlight a few passages that stood out for me - not meant to be a full analysis (in [] are the paragraph numbers). /1 rozenberg.substack.com/p/how-uk-cou...

Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman declared guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Darfur, Sudan. See overview here: www.bbc.com/news/article...; see the judgment here: www.icc-cpi.int/court-record...

French PM resigns after just 27 days amid widespread criticism of his cabinet. Sébastien Lecornu: "I found myself in a situation where I was ready to compromise, but each political party wanted the others to adopt its entire platform." Read here:

New issue of the Asian Journal of Law and Society now available 📚 cup.org/46VqwSQ #LawandSociety

Our latest Analyst’s Notebooks are out. 🇬🇳 Franklin Nossiter on Guinea’s political divisions. 🇭🇹 Daniel Forti on the UN vote to create a Gang Suppression Force in Haiti 🇲🇩 Marta Mucznik on Moldova’s pro-European integration party. Read the latest insights here: www.crisisgroup.org/latest-updat...

Robert Buckland epitomises the branch of conservatism that pays attention to the Union (and the legal commitments underpinning it), values personal liberty and instinctively distrusts silver bullet solutions to multi-faceted issues. Feeling for him today: conservativehome.com/2025/10/05/r...

Many Syrians are unaware of the first parliamentary election since Assad’s fall [due to take place tomorrow] apnews.com/article/syri...

1/3 With #Syria’s (indirect) #parliamentary #elections less than a week away, I’ve put together an explainer on how the process works and the key issues to watch. A guide for both experts and observers. www.arab-reform.net/publication/...

In a new paper, we find that sycophantic #AI chatbots make people more extreme--operating like an echo chamber Yet, people prefer sycophantic chatbots and see them as less biased Only open-minded people prefer disagreeable chatbots: osf.io/preprints/ps... Led by @steverathje.bsky.social

Just published: my latest House of Commons Library Briefing Paper on the UK Sanctions Framework. This paper explains the current operation of sanctions in the UK, and is meant as a resource for navigating a complicated framework of legislation. commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-bri...

'Czechs go to the polls on Friday and Saturday facing a deteriorating security situation in Europe and fears of Russian interference' www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

This is the judgment on the PPE/Medpro claim. A cracking £122m win for the Government Legal Service And is wonderful to see the government bringing a claim in contract against a shoddy supplier. This does not happen often, and it should happen far more. www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/u...

What’s Europe’s public sentiment? Here’s ⁦‪ECFR data confirming what we’ve been perceiving since early 2025: an unprecedented support for EU action, criticism for its inaction, against the backdrop of a cultural war brought by the US ecfr.eu/publication/...

I hear the President has decreed that it is possibly a crime to refer to Americans as "fascists," but "fascism" is a word that has a relatively clear meaning that's worth understanding. Here's how an official publication of the US Army defined "fascism" in 1945.

These remarks follow the U.S. military’s lawless premeditated killing of people aboard boats in the Caribbean.

Public vs published opinion: the #EU remains mostly popular, both at home & abroad

Legally Available Options in Response to Russia’s Penetrations of NATO Airspace By leading legal expert @mikeschmitt.bsky.social #NATO #RussiaUkraineWar www.justsecurity.org/121527/russi...

Here, Ruxandra Teslo makes a persuasive argument that the growing scepticism of technology and the broader rise in zero-sum thinking is one of the defining ideological challenges of our time www.writingruxandrabio.com/p/ideas-matt...

New research by Dr. Friedrich Götz and Dr. Patricia Andrews Fearon shows “zero-sum mindset” stifles cooperation, even when working together would benefit everyone involved. bit.ly/3CM6JtB

🇲🇩🗳️ 🇪🇺 Astonishingly, it's Moldova that proves that a democratic rebound is sustainable, even in the face of massive interference from a malicious superpower. Maia Sandu's PAS needs to improve its delivery of promises, but voters haven't given up on Moldova's European dream. 1/

Assuming no saturation, if we project the 80% success curve into the future, 2037 is the year when AI will be performing lifelong (100+ years) tasks. In 2038, the Bicentennial Man will be born. I also predict people saying it is still not "real intelligence"™ by then.

💥 The independence of @electoralcommission.org.uk must be fully restored to safeguard the UK’s electoral integrity from a future authoritarian government, our new report warns. Covered exclusively by Rowena Mason in today’s @theguardian.com 👇

#Seychelles president seeks a second term as people vote in African tourist haven apnews.com/article/seyc...

If you, inexplicably :-), missed the most recent episode of my 🎙️ #podcast, #TheGlobalAgora, with @dioniscenusa.bsky.social, here it is: ▶️ Moldova's elections: What will happen if pro-Russian forces win? podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/and... #Moldova #EU #Russia #Putinswar #Ukraine

My latest piece: “Moldova’s Parliamentary Elections: A Test for the EU, a “Revenge” for Russia?” For @ispionline.bsky.social www.ispionline.it/en/publicati...

Elections in Moldova on Sunday. The diaspora including an estimated 40,000 in the UK will be critical as Russia floods country and diaspora outlets with offers of money in what former deputy PM Nicu Popescu told me was a "brutal vote buying" operation by Kremlin. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/s...

Keir Starmer’s plan for digital IDs risks creating “an enormous hacking target”, a cybersecurity expert has warned, as technology companies prepared to bid for contracts that could run into billions of pounds www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

Useful reminder from Peter Kellner on the problems we refuse to acknowledge are getting better, and the politics of hopelessness that this breeds open.substack.com/pub/kellnerp...

Ruth’s whole thread is worth a reading and this is a key point- one that I think often gets missed in news coverage. If government announces it plans to do something (that will require legislative/parly approval) it should be reported as ‘govt announces plans to do X’ and not as ‘govt will do X’

🇫🇷 Former French president Nicolas #Sarkozy has been sentenced to five years in prison for criminal conspiracy over illegal campaign funds from Libya. Once a dynamic leader, he becomes the first French head of state in decades to face jail time

This is big and a really good piece of policing and prosecutorial work - bribes to help foreign states get a more favourable hearing in parliaments and with the public should never have a place in the UK or Europe.

Bunkers, bomb shelters, mines and mountains all play critical roles protecting against our latest existential threat: the terrifying prospect of data loss.

Coming up at 4pm on Radio 4, Rethink Winners and Losers where we look at the idea of a ‘zero-sum mindset’ something that affects people of all political backgrounds. With Stephanie Stancheva, Parth Patel, @igmansfield.bsky.social, Patricia Andrews Fearon and Cleo Watson.

My review of Peter Turchin's latest book. rdcu.be/eHxjD

Secret Service agents dismantle network that could shut down New York cellphone system www.nbcnews.com/politics/nat...

This is a picture of the cellphone cache they found in NYC and holy shit. All of those little chiclets in the rack cases are SIM cards; apparently the rig could send 30 million anonymous texts per minute

Looks legit

Why are illiberal & far-right movements gaining ground in Europe & the U.S.? In one of this week's most popular YouTube videos, Marlène Laruelle goes beyond politics & populism to uncover the deeper cultural shifts fueling this rise. 🎥 Rewatch her lecture here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwRM...

On today’s show we welcome @bcfinucane.bsky.social to discuss international law and the Article I crisis we find ourselves in (and maybe, just maybe, how we can fix it). With @lizdye.bsky.social podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/l...

🚨🚨 "Surprise, surprise": #Moscow has devised a plan to interfere in the #Moldovan parliamentary elections and disrupt the country's path toward EU membership, @bloomberg.com reported on Sept. 22, citing documents it had seen. 🧵 kyivindependent.com/media-reveal...