Coal-fired data centres at least sound a bit steampunk. Wood-fired data centres just sound deranged. finance.yahoo.com/news/drax-sh...

Can't recommend today's SourceMaterial offering enough, by @marcusleroux.bsky.social. It's the story of the son of a lorry driver from Calabria who has often struggled to distance himself from the Italian mafia and is now poised to buy 11 North Sea gasfields www.source-material.org/mazzagatti-v...

Francesco Mazzagatti is awaiting approval to buy a terminal that provides a fifth of Britain's gas. We took a close look at episodes in his career that experts say ought to be of interest to the regulator in charge of stewarding the UK's oil and gas. www.source-material.org/mazzagatti-v...

"Transparency is a one-way door". A leaked Amazon document reveals its anxiety over disclosing how much water their data centres use.

this is a dizzying yarn with a drunk Australian getting hit by a car in Paris at its centre and threads leading to the dictator of Congo-Brazzaville and a prominent Irish family via Monaco and Dubai. villagemagazine.ie/dubai-heir-c...

I'd love to have attended the meeting where this came up.

At dawn in Accra, Ghana, Lydia Bamfo (51) sets out to collect plastic waste. For 25 years she’s battled the tide of rubbish overwhelming her city. Now she says the World Bank’s “solution” has done nothing to help workers like her. 🧵

William of Ockham: we're gonna need a bigger blade.

Some heartwarming football content from earlier in the week. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

On the Kneecap website you can buy a £25 “RUC not welcome tee”, in reference to a police force that was reformed and renamed before Mo Chara was in primary school. marcusleroux.substack.com/p/the-real-t...

A lie can be half way around the world before a preliminary crisis analysis has its trousers on.

Fresnillo, one of the UK’s largest mining groups, has been told it should pay as much as $630 million to a Mexican community whose land it illegally mined for gold, according to documents obtained by SourceMaterial → www.source-material.org/fresnillo-so...

I wonder if this cross-examination is building up to the 1976 Republican News column where Adams wrote, cryptically: "I'm an IRA volunteer". www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/courts/...

Isobel Oakeshott is a Reform cheerleader - but in 2018 she said the Kremlin “struck gold” with Arron Banks, who Reform’s West of England mayoral candidate. The article is still online. New from @marcusleroux.bsky.social on Democracy for Sale democracyforsale.substack.com/p/does-isabe...

this is why I take AI results with a pinch of bitumen.

When the White House and the Kremlin announced the Black Sea ceasefire deal, it was noted that the Kremlin statement had set specific conditions. Condition No.1: That Russia's state agricultural bank be removed from sanctions lists and reconnected to the global banking communication system. 🧵

If eclectic cricketing yarns is what you need to get through present madness, then the latest edition of The Nightwatchman is, as ever, packed with fascinating stuff - and includes something by me on the surprisingly deep roots of cricket in Porto. www.thenightwatchman.net/wp-content/u...

"A system that ploughs ahead in wilful ignorance of human-caused mass extinction and climate change is only a solution in a particularly nihilistic sense of the word." Good piece on Starmer's aim to make it even harder for green groups to challenge bad infrastructure projects.

Keir Starmer's unintentionally revealing choice of ecovillain. marcusleroux.substack.com/p/keir-starm...

Compelling work by my tenacious colleague Costanza Gambarini with Poline Tchoubar and @asiaballuffier.bsky.social of @lemonde.fr (French with English subtitles available). www.dailymotion.com/video/x9ct360

We’re looking for an investigative journalist to join us. Details below. www.cisionjobs.co.uk/job/111593/s...

We're hiring! If you're an investigative journalist with a nose for a story and a taste for collaborative working, we'd love to hear from you. www.cisionjobs.co.uk/job/111593/s...

Tomorrow starts the AFD party conference. They will decide on a final election programme. So let’s have a look at what the proposal says on security and defence policy.

Reminded of JK Galbraith's description of "private affluence, public squalor" in The Affluent Society. "The city of Los Angeles, in modern times, was the near-classic study in the problem of social balance." bsky.app/profile/pale...

Successive posters on window at a closed Blackwell’s bookshop suggest Waterstones never quite won hearts and minds on the shopfloor.

When I was last in Belfast I popped by the birthplace of Chaim Herzog, former president of Israel and father of current president Isaac Herzog. open.substack.com/pub/marcusle...

This feels significant. Leaked documents show Ed Miliband has promised to pay out up to £6 billion if courts block controversial plans by oil giants BP and Equinor to store carbon dioxide under the North Sea. Great story by @marcusleroux.bsky.social www.source-material.org/bp-equinor-t...

Last week the government announced that a landmark gas-power and carbon storage project in Teesside was getting the go-ahead. What it didn't announce was the £6bn bet against climate litigation that needed to get the deal over the line. www.source-material.org/bp-equinor-t...

worth a follow in my slightly biased opinion 👇

This is very good by @sjamcbride.bsky.social ky.social on how little Northern Ireland features in the UK media. It reminded me of a couple of moments when I was at The Times. When I joined as a trainee, the older reporters knew NI all too well. 1/3 email.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/H/2/v6000001...

Troops in the pay of TotalEnergies were accused of killing, raping and beating neighbours of the company's huge gas project in Mozambique. Total knew – and continued paying them. www.source-material.org/mozambique-t...

Superb digging here by my colleague Jess Staufenberg alongside @datadesk.eco and reporters in seven countries. Transnational problems require transnational reporting. www.source-material.org/toxic-fuel-u...

One of the North Sea's most acquisitive tycoons co-owned a petrochem facility with the Iranian state that the US Treasury found was ultimately funding the IRGC. www.source-material.org/north-sea-ga...

A lot of smart people are talking about this chart, but missing the single most important factor behind the UK's position: Gas It's a very perplexing omission: Let me explain why 1/3

Really wild Global Witness undercover sting here, revealing a senior COP29 official working to arrange fossil fuel deals at the event next week I know you aren't surprised by this, but please do stay angry and loud about it www.globalwitness.org/en/campaigns...

It's striking that the Mediterranean is experiencing a horrific drought while Britain has had the wettest winter on record. "I'm nearly 70 years old, I don't remember ever seeing anything like this, or hearing that my father or grandfather experienced similar" www.france24.com/en/live-news...

"Termination shock" is a helpfully abrupt phrase. www.economist.com/letters/2023...

Saudi Aramco signed a sponsorship deal with F1, with F1 agreeing to promote "advanced sustainable fuel" in 2020. F1 duly lobbied in Brussels for the internal combustion engine to be given a stay of execution. www.source-material.org/saudi-aramco...

A carbon offsetting deal covering a huge chunk of Liberia, brokered by a guy who lives in a self-proclaimed republic consisting of a boat in international waters in the Arabian Gulf. By my colleagues Luke Barratt and Olivia Acland with Clémont Bonnerot. www.source-material.org/dubai-uae-co...

I assume we're not going to make it to 100 days in a row where every one of those days was the hottest of those days on record.....but hey, we tried

"For half a millennium Britain aimed to ensure Europe did not unite against it; as a result of the referendum he promised to call in 2013, Mr Cameron managed it in three short years." I enjoyed @duncanrobinson.bsky.social's breezy demolition of Cameron's credentials www.economist.com/britain/2023...

I'm really proud that our work on the broken carbon offset system, led by my colleague Luke Barratt, was recognised by the European Journalism Centre's climate journalism awards. ejc.net/news/announc...