Venezuela’s government is arresting journalists and sending paramilitary forces to suppress anyone who is too happy about Maduro's removal giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/... via @FT

A ruthless, expansionist Leviathan on Saturday. A banana republic on Tuesday.

I’m starting to think maybe they need to get rid of that damn peace prize. Seems like it causes more harm than it’s worth. We got peace prize recipients offering to trade it to imperialist regime changers who murdered her countrymen in exchange for political power.

BBC journalists have been banned from describing the kidnapped Venezuelan leader as having been kidnapped. The BBC News Editor has sent this to BBC journalists.

“The practice of “phoenixism” – the art of liquidating a company and allowing the directors to rise from the ashes with a new entity, free of debts – is estimated by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) to have cost taxpayers about £800m a year.” www.theguardian.com/business/202...

This isn't getting enough attention in Western media: Ukraine is effectively imposing a civil aviation blockade on the most populous part of fascist Russia ahead of the Orthodox Christmas (Jan. 7) holiday. The air war could be decisive in 2026, and it's already intensifying.

At least 40 people were killed in the U.S. attack on Venezuela early Saturday, including military personnel and civilians, according to a senior Venezuelan official.

Big question for NATO members. Realistically, to what extent can they defend themselves against Russian offensives WITHOUT U.S intelligence, weaponry and troops?

What gaslighting it is to centre his comments on the UK “wasn’t involved”. Of course it wasn’t. It’s pathetic, comical to think we might have been. Lee Harvey Oswald wasn’t involved either. Starmer needs to say something relevant. Does he approve or disapprove? www.theguardian.com/world/2026/j...

FLASHBACK—Trump in 2023: When I left, Venezuela was ready to collapse. We would have taken it over, we would have gotten all that oil.

Europeans committed to democratic pluralism, the rule of law, an independent judiciary and a free press are hoping that national governments and the EU know what they’re doing by appeasing Trump. We’re hoping but we’re also completely blind as to what our leaders’ core risk assessments are.

America: bringing democracy to the world...

I frankly cannot believe how over the top complicit the press is in implicitly supporting Trump's illegal actions. By this standard, he could shoot a homeless person in cold blood in the streets and the Reuters headline would be "Trump frees man from a lifetime of drug addiction."

What the fuck is this headline

The mad king is completely incoherent. If a drunk at a bar was engaging you with this, you wouldn’t argue. You’d just walk away. Even if you yourself were drunk.

The US Attorney General confirms Maduro is being charged with "conspiracy to possess machine guns" - something Republicans usually call a constitutional right.

This could be CNN or CBS.

Fear of economic reprisals doesn’t justify the weak UK & EU response to the abduction of Maduro. The only thing might justify it is fear of exacerbating the risk of the U.S reneging on Article 5. Even then, there may not be much we can do about that either. Mad King’s gonna Mad King til he’s gone.

Keir Starmer should condemn Trump’s illegal action in Venezuela. Maduro is a brutal and illegitimate dictator, but unlawful attacks like this make us all less safe. Trump is giving a green light to the likes of Putin and Xi to attack other countries with impunity.

Starmer must condemn Trump’s illegal actions in Venezuela

A defining moment for Europe. If it endorses/fails to condemn this flagrant breach of international law, it will have surrendered its core justification for opposing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

fwiw it’s been about six weeks since Trump pardoned the former president of Honduras who had been convicted of trafficking drugs into the US

Starmer had better distance himself from Trump today.

Mamdani has only been Mayor for a day & criminals are already fleeing New York

Wall Street’s biggest banks made more money financing green projects than they did from working with fossil fuel companies for a fourth straight year, even as they faced ongoing pressure to pull back from the business

X/grok creating and platforming sexually explicit material of children isn’t just a lapse, it’s criminal. Elon Musk and his companies should be held to account. It’s been over a year since I dumped X. It was the right decision then and even more so now. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Is anyone else predicting that JD Vance will be fired in the first half of this year? Too much talk of him succeeding during or at the end of Trump’s term of office?

I've been saying this for a while, but Meta execs need to face criminal procedures

Somewhere in Denmark, the last letter is being delivered by the Danish Post Office. After today, a private company will deliver letters www.theguardian.com/world/2025/d...

Korean telco failed at femtocell security, exposed customers to snooping and fraud

Rift Widens Between Elon Musk, Anyone Who Ever Met Him https://theonion.com/rift-widens-between-elon-musk-anyone-who-ever-met-him/

How does Moscow view Donald Trump at the end of 2025? One Russian paper today: “The US leader’s philosophy is closer to the values of Russia’s president, not the politicians of the Old World…he sees Europe as a liberal stronghold to be destroyed…” #ReadingRussia youtu.be/7EwZNk6KgHU

Preparing for my call with Donald before i reject his ceasefire plea.

Brexiteers prattled, postured and whined about the UK’s “loss of sovereignty” in the EU in social and economic matters. Today they are silent on our virtually intractable dependence for our defence on a U.S administration that overtly seeks to manipulate our democracy to its own ends.

Free speech for those with power but not for those who contest it: the new narrative the world over.

The banality of evil.

NEW: last night, the US govt launched an assault on the ‘global censorship industrial complex’, aka European tech researchers/campaigners. It’s a deeply chilling move & speaks as to why we need international solidarity more than ever. open.substack.com/pub/broligar...

Not a lot of cheer to be had out there but The Economist’s assessment of Syria as its country of the year for 2025 offers some respite.

Putin welcomed to Alaska. Applauded even. Thierry Breton banned from entering the country. Got it.

I mean yeah it’s an authoritarian takeover but can we take some comfort in the fact that the people doing it are INSANELY stupid?

DOJ briefly uploaded this letter from Jeff Epstein to serial child molester Larry Nassar: "Our president shares our love of young, nubile girls. When a young beauty walked by he loved to 'grab snatch,' whereas we ended up snatching grub in the mess halls of the system."

“The reality is that Vladimir Putin and Russia set out to conquer Ukraine as a whole, to change its regime and prevent the existence of a nation state called Ukraine, and they have totally failed.” Very good Observer interview with Finnish President #AlexanderStubb. observer.co.uk/news/interna...

CBS paid the president of the United States millions in bribe money and now they censor news reports so it does not annoy him. I don’t know how much plainer we can put this.

Europe gets serious about cutting digital umbilical chord with Uncle Sam's big tech

Donald Trump has made it his explicit policy to interfere in European politics and ‘cultivate resistance’ in the UK and elsewhere. The government should include the US administration in the scope of its investigation.