I follow very few podcasts but I do this one, and episodes like this is the reason why.

Bad news from Georgia where Georgian Dream is banning the opposition and charging its main leaders with plotting a coup.

I’ve had two conferences—one in the US and one international—change titles of panels or the entire gathering to avoid being targeted or make people’s lives more difficult. It’s the exact kind of thing the US used to label totalitarian when foreign countries did this to their scholars.

US cuts funding for Hungary’s Szabad Európa, one of its last independent outlets, days before Orbán’s WH visit as Trump ally Kari Lake slashes Voice of America, Radio Free Europe and Radio Free Asia, steps watchdogs call “a gift to autocrats.”

GMF’s Zsuzsanna Végh shared her insights with The Hill on the political impact of Orbán’s White House visit👇

Outstanding work by @fesonline.bsky.social mapping the tech/policy/finance connections binding the network undermining US democracy now, and that is coming for Europe next. Great visuals. www.authoritarian-stack.info

Trailer here. Looks amazing, both for its content and filmmaking. youtu.be/dcUeDa8FK_8...

Saw this film today at the Cottbus Festival and am still in awe. An incredible and real documentary about how a Russian provincial school descends into a totalitarian indoctrination camp. Everyone should watch it!

The Kenya Human Rights Commission (an independent nonprofit, not the statutory body) now estimates that up to 3,000 people might have been killed by the police and armed forces in post election violence in Tanzania.

Touché

This is working out well! 😀 28 signed up in person for Brussels (we've space for 50), 78 signed up for the web stream - for the launch of my report about the future of the Channel Tunnel on 17th November #CrossBorderRail All welcome! crossborderrail.trainsforeurope.eu/projects/cro...

The situation in Tanzania is worse than we realised. Some journalists have managed to smuggle information out of the country. Current death toll is close to 1,000 by some reports. A harshly enforced curfew is in place.

"Chiang Seeta, a Chinese artist and activist, reported that nearly all participating directors in China faced intimidation. Even directors abroad, including those who are not Chinese nationals, reported that their relatives and friends in China were receiving threatening calls from police."

Mail voting is essential to U.S. democracy & free, fair, & secure elections. In a new article, @brookings.edu our research shows mail voting in every U.S. state, particularly universal vote-by-mail, is secure & benefits millions of U.S. voters. Read more here: www.brookings.edu/articles/mai...

Armenia’s state-run Orbeli Forum has hosted Azerbaijani and Turkish participants in Yerevan. 🟥 The forum marks the second visit of Azerbaijani Civil Society members to Armenia since the pre-signing of the peace agreement. 🔗 Read more: oc-media.org/azerbaijani-...

The organizer of the inaugural IndieChina Film Festival in New York said he was forced to cancel after facing a "relentless" pressure campaign, and that he may be unable to travel back to China. "I did think it might be better here....It turns out I was wrong."

If you want to learn a lot about Moldova and its current challenges, the IDIS think tank has a comprehensive list of Moldova's top 100 challenges in 2024, spanning the economy, education, foreign policy, and so on. You can read the (300-page!) report here: viitorul.org/files/librar...

⚡How does illiberalism transform Europe? Watch our discussion with 🎙️@petraguasti.bsky.social @charlesuni.cuni.cz 🎙️Marlene Laruelle @illsp.bsky.social @gwu1821.bsky.social 🎙️Bálint Mikola @ceudeminst.bsky.social Chair: @veghzsuzsanna.bsky.social @gmfus.bsky.social ▶️ youtu.be/xg6sPTQfsc0

This is a sensitive topic, but an important one: when we talk about disinformation & propaganda we (rightly) think of Russia. But how should we react when our partners - specifically the US - uses its information channels to attack our values or laws and aims to increase societal divisions?

Incredible- Meta projected 10% of its 2024 revenue would come from ads for scams and banned goods, documents seen by Reuters show. And the social media giant internally estimates that its platforms show users 15 billion scam ads a day."

FAFO, Russian style. “After Irina reportedly discovered her husband’s affair, she began revealing in private conversations with other Russian emigres that Igor had been cooperating for years with an FSB officer named Yevgeny.” www.themoscowtimes.com/2025/11/04/r...

😮 Norway finds out that its electric busses - produced by a Chinese firm - can be remotely controlled from China! The good news of this is that the Norwegians realised this because they did a cybersecurity test. We need to think about, and test, stuff like this more. www.focus.de/panorama/wel...

It absolutely was going to be FIFA

The US military is now advising its soldiers in Germany, who are not receiving their paychecks due to the shutdown, to ask for food from local German food banks. One advantage France has of being one of the few countries in Europe without a US base: you don't have to feed starving US soldiers.

🇪🇺 In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Central and Eastern European companies led the charge in voluntarily exiting the Russian market. Yet the same region has also remained a key conduit for sanctions evasion.

Vital piece of investigative reporting from Sky. They've uncovered the X algorithm which feeds users extremist right wing material from the moment they join the site. It is a far-right radicalisation engine, by design. news.sky.com/story/the-x-...

The EU is preparing to further tighten visa rules for Russian citizens, effectively ending the issuance of multi-entry Schengen permits in most cases. But visa issuance remains a national competence, meaning that the European Commission cannot impose a total, sweeping ban on Russian visitors.

Thread (or 'fil', if you prefer)

"chatgpt agrees" = hard block

A rule of law transition period? Let's see what that looks like. The Commission could avoid accusations of double standards (after all, there was the CVM for Romania and Bulgaria) but much will depend on how seriously it takes implementation.

Awful... European leaders including Friedrich Merz and Ursula von der Leyen will skip the EU’s summit with Latin American and Caribbean states due in part to concerns over angering Donald Trump.

Taking a look at EU enlargement reports, rule of law & democracy still remains an area where candidates are lagging. I made this chart last year to show how prepared each country is based on the reports' assessments... www.cer.eu/insights/enl...

Another sign the Kremlin is losing faith in Trump: Putin’s spokesman confirmed today that Moscow has stopped sharing maps of the front lines in Ukraine with Washington. How long before Kirill Dmitriev changes his MAGA tune on social media? www.rbc.ru/politics/04/...

These tactics - data breach of an opposition database used for "we know where you live" type of intimidation, threat of prosecution and national security inquiry, etc. - are depressingly familiar from Russia from the past 5-6 years. www.euractiv.com/news/orban-r...

Ukraine is showing "remarkable commitment" to joining the EU, but must reverse recent negative trends in the fight against corruption and accelerate rule of law reforms, the European Commission said in a draft text seen by Reuters on Monday.

💳 Help keep our work independent with a donation: buff.ly/Esg0DvG

The AfD is asking questions about us and sending a message. No big surprise here. We are staying on course with our goal of providing constitutional expertise on the challenges democracy faces in Germany, the U.S., and elsewhere. Read more in our new editorial by MAX STEINBEIS buff.ly/eVxn5WT

U.S. elections will be increasingly shaped by closing-space dynamics. Relying on lessons learned from two decades of work in closed and closing spaces, I explain how authoritarians weaken their opponents and what Democrats need to do to build resilience to common tactics before it’s too late.

Kyrgyzstan tried getting Interpol to issue a red notice for the arrest of independent journalist Rinat Tuvatshin who is exiled abroad. Tajikistan used the same strategy about a decade ago, but Interpol's internal controls are thankfully more robust these days. www.occrp.org/en/news/inte...

Vucic is on the back foot and he knows it. His political skills until now have been top notch but the students have outplayed him. "But in a televised public address on Friday, Vucic made a rare gesture and apologized for saying things that, he said, he now regretted." www.lemonde.fr/en/internati...

Belarus continues to lock up anyone who criticizes the government. The Belarusian journalists Igor Ilyash and Katsiaryna Andreyeva, who are married, have both been detained for their work — showing how President Aleksandr Lukashenko’s repressive machine grinds on despite warming ties with the U.S.

Whenever people ask me how AI is going to affect transnational repression this is the kind of example that comes to mind

The arrest and detention of a former top energy official in Ukraine this week is an alarming new episode of democratic backsliding, Ukraine's civil society and lawmakers say — the latest in a series of politically motivated attacks on individuals and institutions.

17th Nov I will release the report from my #CrossChannelRail work All the STATIONS that could be served by trains from London, all the OPERATORS, and all the TYPES OF TRAIN, analysed and assessed Launch event - online & in person in Brussels 👇 crossborderrail.trainsforeurope.eu/projects/cro...

I hate to give even more air to MG, but he is the canary in the coal mine. There are more and more scholars (including of the far right) that enable, normalize, or even support the far right in some form or another. And we should reflect on how we engage with them (individually and collectively).

I've written a couple of things over the last days about how the government and much of Westminster remaining on X as the platform becomes increasingly toxic is having consequences for our politics...

84% of political science experts said creating such a force poses a threat to democracy, including 65% who said the threat was extraordinary or serious brightlinewatch.org/violence-red... However, it is overwhelmingly popular among Republicans brightlinewatch.org/violence-red...

#US diplomats intend to set up working groups with their #Armenian and #Azerbaijani counterparts to accelerate implementation of the US-brokered provisional peace plan signed in August in Washington, according to a state-connected media outlet in Azerbaijan.

I've only conceived of this as a real conversation, but seeing it in print, I appreciate it for the spectacular monologue it is.

NEW: Trump has announced that the US will admit the lowest level of refugees ever at 7,500 in FY 2026. The US will only be admitting as refugees White people from South Africa and "victims of illegal or unjust discrimination," which leaked memos suggest means far-right Europeans.