China has pushed Russia out of Central Asia. In 2024, China’s trade with Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan reached nearly $95 billion - almost twice Russia’s figure of $45 billion. Just 25 years ago, the situation was the opposite: Moscow dominated the region.

There’s even a nice gap there to draw a 5% threshold, @simonhix.bsky.social! It’s as if the party system knows it needs to be defragmented…

Nice thought to sustain us but the lesson learned from the UK’s lengthy flirtation with populist bollocks is that when they’re finally turfed out by a tired electorate their successors somehow never get around to dismantling all the bullshit they inflicted on us.

WOW. A third of ICE recruits can’t pass a fitness test that I do multiple times a week, and I’m a 51 year old woke cat lady with a nose ring who loves a soy latte.

Argentina not feeling it. $ARGT down four straight days. @cnbc.com

Misleading headline: Trump was sued and caved. He now says he will follow the law instead of implementing his plan to screw teachers out of their loan forgiveness.

To take this a bit further: the UK’s lack of constitutional entrenchment plus majoritarian electoral system makes it a risky partner now that the consensus in favour of broad liberalism has collapsed. Other countries will take this into account when negotiating with the UK.

AI video has improved rapidly in recent months. There is no doubt it will be used to further right-wing propaganda. Digital literacy is going to become even more essential. Being informed is not passive. It's a constant, active process. Stay alert. Stay educated. Don't fall for alt-right propaganda.

More than a third of the recruits at ICE's training academy are failing the personal-fitness test, @nickmiroff.bsky.social reports. “It’s pathetic,” one career ICE official told Miroff.

Just shocking incompetence/laziness from @peston.bsky.social @itvpeston.bsky.social here. No excuses.

⚡️ Poland warns Putin's flight to Hungary for Trump talks could be diverted to The Hague. "I cannot guarantee that an independent Polish court won't order the government to escort such an aircraft down to hand (Putin) over to the court in The Hague," Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said.

❗️EU closes in on deal to use Russian frozen assets to fund Ukraine — Politico Belgium will give the nod for the Commission to put forward a legal proposal outlining the €140 billion Ukraine loan.

Wake up, babe, the least subtle visual metaphor in history just dropped

It’s Carrie Fisher’s birthday. Lovely pic of Carrie watching her mother Debbie Reynolds on stage.

🔴 Russians had killed a woman and her goats in the Kherson region on October 20, according to journalist Zarina Zabrisky. She added that just a few weeks ago, she spoke to Lora about how the Russians had destroyed her and other villagers' homes.

what the fuck are you talking about, she made a whole community of friends online and was stabbed to death by two of her classmates

She stated that Philip,a boy from Mariupol taken to Russia,didn’t want to live in Russia.Moreover,he constantly visited pro-Ukrainian websites,sang songs in Ukrainian,&said,"I love Ukraine,everything Russian annoys me" She expressed pride that,over time,they managed to break him&change his attitude

"I abducted a child from Mariupol and brought him into my family." Russia's Presidential Commissioner for Children's Rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, has admitted guilt in a war crime - the abduction of Ukrainian children - for which the Hague court issued a warrant.

Just clocked that it is Jenrick’s stated position that it should be legal to call for asylum hotels to be burned down, but illegal to wear particular clothes.

“The truth no longer matters, all you have to do is go viral”

Oak Park resident Scott Sakiyama reports feds pointed weapons at him across from an elementary school today. They then arrested him and took him to Broadview. While in custody, he saw agents texting in a group chat called "Chiraq Team 2." Full testimony: www.facebook.com/share/p/1GqB...

Mike Johnson has given the house a very very very very very very very very very long vacation because he’s worried about the Epstein files

🇵🇱 Polish FM Radosław Sikorski: “We cannot guarantee Putin’s plane won’t be forced to land for his arrest if it enters Polish airspace.”

To be absolutely clear, it is impossible to vote for a party that cannot bring itself to unequivocally defend the rights of people living and working legally in this country. Because arbitrary removal of legal rights, or sudden varying of terms, for some is ultimately a threat to everyone.

When Labour finally respond to a horrific, far right and racist policy proposal from a Tory MP, it comes with a heavy gloss of 'I get where you're coming from' instead of the outright condemnation it deserves.

They had a full day to craft this statement and they still couldn’t bring themselves to say “this is unconscionable and we would never change the rules on people in this way” without adding the rider “as long as they deserve it”. Who is this even for?

And, of course, the nativist ghouls this performative cruelty is designed to appease either don’t know or don’t care about facts or figures.

EVIL HACKER DID IT And the hacker was SO cunning, they used the same image he had just posted on Twitter, moments earlier. And if you believe that, I have a concrete tree to sell you.

Labour still falling in the national polling average towards parity with the Conservatives. The question is how much centre / left support can Labour win back in a general election against Reform. I suspect quite a lot, but Labour will actually need to start doing something for those voters first

“Why don’t you celebrate Christian holidays” guys go click on his profile and see that that’s what the Archbishop of York does near constantly, because he’s the Archbishop of fucking York, you racist dimwits

Evidence that the place is a sewer is the mass of replies underneath this *absolutely bog standard* bit of interfaith dialogue. This wouldn’t have generated that amount of insanity a decade ago.

Honestly what is the point of a Labour government that won’t take a stand against mass revocation deportation of people with permanent settlement rights? If you won’t stand against anything you stand for nothing.

Latest YouGov opinion poll: Reform + Conservatives: 43% Labour + Lib Dems + Greens: 50%

“This Idi Amin style migrant expulsion system signals to every migrant living here, every migrant thinking of living here and every foreign government that the British government’s commitments to permanent resident foreign citizens are not worth the paper they are written on. Is that good policy?”

From today’s Russian papers it doesn’t sound like Russia's about to stop fighting in Ukraine. Today's edition of MK: “For us, a cessation of hostilities is inadvisable." Plus, Russia’s petrol shortage is now "20% of monthly supplies." #ReadingRussia

And “Idi Amin style migrant expulsion system” should be the standard framing for this until and unless Lam and her supporters can find another example of a democratic government retrospectively revoking permanent settlement grants from a large population and deporting them against their will.

The way to answer "has anybody done this since Idi Amin in 1972" would be for Conservatives to name a democratic government that revoked permanent settlement to remove legal rights & then deported, expelled those people. Important they get asked to give the counter-example to "since Idi Amin"

Lam says on air the policy is to remove those "because" they broke the rules/conditions under which they came But her policy is to retrospectively change the rules/conditions under which they came! Lam knows this will be perceived as unfair: she will feel "great personal sympathy" for deportees

This, in particular,should chime with any centre right voter or politician. We might add that Lam’s desire to torch previously agreed permanent residence rules will make life very difficult for millions of British citizens settled long term abroad, who rely on foreign govt’s abiding by such rules.

This is excellent - the kind of forensic principles based analysis of Lam’s mad idea that Peston so signally failed to provide yesterday. Respecting rules and obligations is a duty on states as well as citizens.

This is definitely one of those things that people would’ve called you hysterical for predicting a year ago. Trump is going to destroy the East Room of the White House without even asking Congress and build a ballroom with funds from private companies that are seeking favors? Settle down, lib.

man this guy just sucks

“The trouble with libertarianism is eventually you run out of the USA’s money,” as Thatcher so nearly said.

I don't personally have any interest in the police recording incidents that are not crimes. What is essential is that the police + the government get much better at policing actual racist hate crimes, because the culture of impunity for online racial hatred is having corrosive offline impacts too

In the whole half century period since the dictator Idi Amin's expelled migrants in 1972, can anybody identify any *democratic* government at all that has stripped past grants of permanent residence from a large number of legal migrants & removed/expelled them?

Speaker of the House holding a formal presser to announce that Jesus is the king of everyone in the USA should be getting more attention

Seeing British stuff like this is really good for Americans because it’s like “what the fuck lol what is this ridiculous nonsense?” and then they go back to reading a press release from a Senator complaining that the Buzz Lightyear movie from 5 years ago had an implied background lesbian marriage

What's she going to do? Sit on his lap?

In yet another genius move, Elon Musk is now turning X into a shitty imitation of WhatsApp. Yeah. That should fix it. Because people totally want their random followers to facetime them.

One of the chief problems of inherited monarchy is that there are either not enough sons or there are too many. The Ottomans came up with a robust solution, albeit one impractical in today’s hellscape of wokeness.