#Nepal gets a new beat with its rapper PM, having felt the effects of multiple crises in the past 25 years. #thisweekthosebooks offers context with a 5-minute read from 2 books. via @medium.com medium.com/this-week-th...

#Nepal, an old country with ancient traditions, will get its youngest prime minister ever. Crucial context from two books and the back story from #thisweekthosebooks. A 5-minute free read thisweekthosebooks.substack.com/p/nepal-gets...

#Nepal gets a new beat with its rapper PM. Two books offer crucial context #thisweekthosebooks open.substack.com/pub/thisweek...

#Oil crosses the psychologically important mark of $100 per barrel as #Iran war escalates. via @axios.com www.axios.com/2026/03/08/i...

@semaforben.bsky.social : Stephen Walt in Foreign Affairs described Trump’s foreign policy as “predatory hegemony”...but...to quote Ernest Hemingway...a consistent policy of predatory hegemony could cause US global influence to decline ‘gradually and then suddenly. www.semafor.com/article/03/0...

Insightful @Hanif Kureishi: “In William Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, he wrote ‘Without Contraries is no progression.’ To stay in a relationship, or a friendship, or even a functioning democracy, is to keep discovering how much disagreement we can bear" open.substack.com/pub/hanifkur...

The events playing out in #Chagos and around the islands underlines the extraordinary intertwining of far right British politics with neo-imperialist Trumpian America and the use of emotive arguments about homeland, belonging, #decolonisation and self-determination. www.rashmee.com/chagos-islan...

How the rights of peoples of #Chagos intersect with #Trump and #Farage politics. @thecontinent.org has the story www.rashmee.com/chagos-islan...

@thecontinent.org: "Sandra Muhoza, a Burundian journalist who was jailed in April 2024, has been released on parole... 1/2 www.thecontinent.org/_files/ugd/2...

Reading Lyse Doucet’s book, The Finest Hotel in Kabul, right now, with great interest, @nikatalbot.bsky.social, not just because I lived in Kabul for a year, but I had the privilege of co-presenting on the World Service with her. 1/2 www.nikatalbot.io/p/free-bird-...

My piece in @thenewworldmag.bsky.social offers crucial context about #Nepal, which most people know only as the home of the world's highest mountain, Everest. It's just elected a former rapper and structural engineer,35-year-old Balen Shah,as its youngest PM thenewworld.substack.com/p/can-a-rapp...

Reading Lyce Doucet’s book, The Finest Hotel in Kabul, right now, with great interest, @nikatalbot.bsky.social, not just because I lived in Kabul for a year, but I had the privilege of co-presenting on the World Service with her. 1/2 open.substack.com/pub/nikatalb...

@sarayasin.bsky.social , former managing editor of the LA Times, has launched a magazine that aims to fill the gaps in the #Palestine story with all those untold tales spiked in the mainstream media. I’ve just subscribed and am sharing a link: www.thekeymagazine.com/subscribe?re...

I've just subscribed to @sarayasin.bsky.social 's new magazine that aims to fill the gaps in the #Palestine story with all those untold tales spiked in the mainstream media. Will report back as I read. www.thekeymagazine.com/subscribe?re...

Just subscribed to @sarayasin.bsky.social 's new publication about #Palestine, which is meant to be "a home for journalists who have had their stories spiked in mainstream outlets". Looking forward to reading www.thekeymagazine.com

Just subscribed to @sarayasin.bsky.social 's new publication about #Palestine and look forward to reading www.thekeymagazine.com

As #Nepal gets a 35-year-old former rapper as prime minister, five months after transformative Gen Z-led protests, how to understand this country in transition? Context here in my piece in @thenewworldmag.bsky.social www.thenewworld.co.uk/rashmee-rosh...

Don’t miss the Balochistan dimension here too.

M J Akbar in Open magazine: "War breeds chaos, but chaos does not have borders. West Asia is a region of regimes living in status-quo comfort zones. When war destroys the status quo, change can go viral." #USIranWar openthemagazine.com/world/the-af...

Dr Albert B Wolf, who knows Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraqi Kurdistan etc very well: Washington should abandon the Kurdish gambit. Every day it remains on the table, Turkey, Iraq, and Pakistan edge further toward the conclusion...1/2 via @warontherocks.bsky.social warontherocks.com/2026/03/why-...

Per @timkmak.bsky.social’s Iran War Despatches: The exiled former prince, Reza Pahlavi, face of many of the anti-regime protests, has offered a digital platform through which members of the Iranian government can register their defection 1/2 open.substack.com/pub/irandisp...

Per @timkmak.bsky.social 's Iran War Despatches: "WAR ON IRAN COSTS U.S. $3.7 BILLION IN FIRST 100 HOURS: The U.S. has spent an estimated $3.7 billion during the first 100 hours of the war, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies." open.substack.com/pub/irandisp...

Per @axios.com : #Trump officials broker massive #US-#Venezuela gold deal in "the third extraction deal made under the Trump administration's supervision after the US took control of Venezuela's most crucial and abundant resource, oil." www.axios.com/2026/03/05/t...

per @nytimes.com : "The blue-collar industries that #Trump has promised to help had a bad month last month. Employment fell by 12,000 in manufacturing, and 11,000 in construction. Mining and logging, which includes the oil and gas sector, cut 2,000 jobs." www.nytimes.com/live/2026/03...

@goldsmithsuol.bsky.social @mediacomgold.bsky.social #journalism student Sachin Badrakia reports on the deliberations of #Hackney Council committee meeting thegoldstandard1.substack.com/p/hackney-co...

"Believe the unbelievable," @mpmacy.bsky.social says to @mrjamesob.bsky.social on @lbc.co.uk re. #US-Israel war on #Iran, quoting journalist David Satter's observations on Putin's actions in Russia.

Brahma Chellaney is spot on:The old Monroe Doctrine has been globalized into a claim that American power itself is legal authority. The age of empire was not a moral tragedy but a civilizational achievement. The past they praise rests on racial domination via @thehill.com thehill.com/opinion/inte...

@goldsmithsuol.bsky.social @mediacomgold.bsky.social #journalism student Yassmine Tabka reports on the response to a worrying meme in some parts of #London thegoldstandard1.substack.com/p/tower-haml...

Historian Peter Frankopan recently warned against another 'Versailles moment' for the world. We don't need a throwback to 1919. #thisweekthosebooks has 3 reads thisweekthosebooks.substack.com/p/beware-ano...

Historian Peter Frankopan recently warned against another 'Versailles moment' for the world, vengeful humiliation of #Iran to the point it stores up trouble for the future. We don't need a throwback to 1919. #thisweekthosebooks has 3 reads thisweekthosebooks.substack.com/p/beware-ano...

@mrjamesob.bsky.social Historian Peter Frankopan recently warned against another 'Versailles moment' for the world, vengeful humiliation of #Iran to the point it stores up trouble for the future. We don't need a throwback to 1919 Treaty of Versailles thisweekthosebooks.substack.com/p/beware-ano...

“Distress” is an emotive word but it is shot through much of the writing from and on #Nepal since the turn of the millennium. It's had a royal massacre, a deadly quake and Gen Z-led protests. The books that provide context via @thenewworldmag.bsky.social www.thenewworld.co.uk/rashmee-rosh...

Can a rapper save #Nepal, which goes to the polls in its first election since the Gen Z-led protests? via @thenewworldmag.bsky.social www.thenewworld.co.uk/rashmee-rosh...

India's Congress Parliamentary Party chair Sonia Gandhi's op-ed in The Indian Express asks why Modi's BJP government has stayed silent on the violation of #Iran's sovereignity: "The Government of India has refrained from condemning the assassination or the violation of Iranian sovereignty. 1/3

@daliborrohac.bsky.social's brilliant piece on the peril facing American democracy open.substack.com/pub/persuasi...

We are all interconnected. Copper mining in Africa will be hit by a prolonged #war because 90% of sulphur it imports is from the Middle East & sulphuric acid is needed to leach copper out of ores.

With #Israel vowing to kill #Iran’s next leader, no matter who he is, important to remember 1919 & not repeat its mistakes, when unduly harsh measures were imposed on a country, leading to other wars. #thisweekthosebooks has 3 books. Free to read thisweekthosebooks.substack.com/p/beware-ano...

With #Israel vowing to kill #Iran’s next leader, no matter who he is, important to remember 1919 & not repeat its mistakes, when unduly harsh measures were imposed on a country, leading to other wars. #thisweekthosebooks has 3 books. Free to read thisweekthosebooks.substack.com/p/beware-ano...

@tansyhoskins.org on bombing #Iran: "The only crime of the school girls and their teachers, was to be born in a country that has been 'marked for destruction' by the USA for longer than I have been alive." tansyhoskins.org/no-to-war/?r...

@goldsmithsuol.bsky.social @mediacomgold.bsky.social #journalism student Joseph Mason reports from south #London thegoldstandard1.substack.com/p/residents-...

@goldsmithsuol.bsky.social @mediacomgold.bsky.social #journalism student Joseph Mason reports from #Croydon in south #London thegoldstandard1.substack.com/p/residents-...

Residents slam AI ‘decline porn’ set in Croydon, @goldsmithsuol.bsky.social @mediacomgold.bsky.social #journalism student Joseph Mason reports open.substack.com/pub/thegolds...

3 books in 5 minutes. #iran #trump. 1919 versailles treaty. #thisweekthosebooks thisweekthosebooks.substack.com/p/beware-ano...

As local, global superstar @raye releases her song ‘Nightingale Lane’ we’re LIVE there this morning. What other songs connect to South West London? Riverside Breakfast with @JasonRosam and @BatterseaPwrStn 📻 DAB+ 🖥️ RiversideRadio.com 📱 App 🔈 Smart Speaker

Personal news update: I'm delighted to announce that as of today, I am an actual Bluesky employee! I'll be working to welcome indie media and local govt to Bsky—and supporting those already here. I'll always want to hear your thoughts on how we can make Bsky the sort of social media we all want!

Thought-provoking piece by @carneross.bsky.social Ross suggesting we at least question assumptions such as that the centralised, top-down state is a good thing: “States are responsible for far, far more death and destruction than individuals or non-state groups" open.substack.com/pub/carneros...

@vermontgmg.bsky.social offers key points on the #US strikes against #Iran, not least that it "takes two years (or longer) to procure a Tomahawk, so we’re depleting rapidly a scarce commodity". www.doomsdayscenario.co/p/upheaval-i...

@carneross.bsky.social offers a gruesome nugget on the last Shah of #Iran’s “autocratic, repressive yet western-backed rule…his secret police, the SAVAK, used to boil political opponents in oil. The son, Reza Pahlavi...has never dissociated himself from his father” open.substack.com/pub/carneros...

As David Andelman notes in his book on the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, the great powers of the day were paternalistic, ignorant and self-serving and so are they now. #iran #trump thisweekthosebooks.substack.com/p/beware-ano...

Beware another ‘Versailles moment’ in how the #US eventually deals with #Iran. #thisweekthosebooks offers crucial context from three books via @medium.com. Free to read medium.com/this-week-th...