November nights

'For decades, free speech & an impartial justice system were assets reassuring allies, attracting talent & offering hope to those living under repressive governments' writes @dantenkate.bsky.social. 'Now it’s becoming increasingly difficult to discern what values the US stands for' bit.ly/4oK7GFh

Malaysia, Truly Asia #MalaysiaBoleh www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/opi...

'The underlying structure of Sino-American relations is getting terribly precarious,' says Hal Brands. 'The question is whether Trump grasps this ugly truth' www.bloomberg.com/opinion/feat...

'Do you want to polish slides no one will remember, or tackle the problems no one can forget?' asks @simonvanteutem.bsky.social www.ft.com/content/f01c...

The ECHR has taken over post-Brexit as the symbolic oppressor of Britain’s sovereign freedom. But grandiose gesture of leaving would do little to solve the problem it’s designed to address: immigration. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

'The prospect of pledging allegiance to a country out of fear that said country might deport me is an unsettling one,' says @meganjgibson.bsky.social 'Who can feel settled in a system this arbitrary or a state this cruel?' www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-...

Japan could soon make history with its first-ever female prime minister. Hardline conservative Sanae Takaichi has been elected the new leader of Japan's ruling party, putting her on track to lead the world's fourth-biggest economy: https://bloom.bg/4gRaKNc

'Britain already feels like a less tolerant country than when my family moved here from Asia three years ago,' writes @mbrooker.bsky.social 'This anti-immigrant environment will impact the high-skilled, high-value workers the UK would like to attract' www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

'Together, political predators & digital conquistadors have decided to wipe out the old elites & their rules,' says Giuliano da Empoli 'If they succeed it will not only be the parties of lawyers & technocrats that will be swept away, but liberal democracy as we have known' www.ft.com/content/85ee...

“I had this terrible thirst for contact with Chinese people,” Jerome Cohen, RIP, once said. He went on to spend decades influencing the country’s legal, trade and human-rights policies. www.wsj.com/world/china/...

'Has Dubai, which has much higher numbers of immigrants but essentially no permanent path to citizenship,' asks @stephenkb.bsky.social 'really done a better job of integrating people and preserving its identity than the UK has?' www.ft.com/content/43da...

'Doubling the visa pathway to 10 years would damage the UK’s global reputation for integrity, dependability and fairness — and hand a propaganda coup to China,' writes @mbrooker.bsky.social www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

'How have conditions led to so many feeling unheard, frustrated and angry?' asks @helenpidd.bsky.social 'Until the foundations of Britain are fixed – the NHS, schools, potholes, fuel prices – I can’t see this movement doing anything other than growing' www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

London: sunny with gale ⚠️

'You either fight back or you die,' Elon Musk told yesterday's crowd in London. @robynvinter.bsky.social was at the front line www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

London's transport chaos adds to the impression of an administration adrift, says @mbrooker.bsky.social, but rather than driverless subway trains , what Britain really needs is a driver for the country www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

'What we so often describe as politics is, in fact, a series of shoves,' writes Jonathan Liew 'Splenetic, emotional and with a wilful blindness to consequence that can so easily be exploited by those with a clear destination in mind' www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

'At some point,' writes @roberthutton.co.uk, 'Labour are going to have to accept the possibility that sometimes the advice they get is bad' thecritic.co.uk/free-for-me-...

'The US pivot from free trade and global security has the makings of a decades-defining transformation,' write Tom Orlik and Jennifer Welch. '(Now) Donald Trump’s new world order is crashing into the century-defining challenges of climate change and AI' www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

'Keir Starmer should be calling out the racists, unashamedly defending British tolerance and embrace of different cultures and not shirking the duty of enhancing the present by critically examining the past,' says Stephen Vines open.substack.com/pub/stephenv...

'It is absurd to imagine that, in a porn-soaked culture, in which rape is virtually decriminalised, protesting outside migrant hostels should be anyone’s first priority in keeping women and girls safe,' says @glosswitch.bsky.social thecritic.co.uk/reclaiming-p...

'Tolerance, freedom and justice were and are supreme Enlightenment values' writes Will Hutton 'Universal human rights are foundational. And thus, the vital primacy of impartial law to govern all of this' observer.co.uk/news/columni...

'History shows that many countries have fallen because of obsession with defending language, race or religion,' Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. 'A civilised Malaysia can only have meaning through understanding, commitment and a clear resolve to safeguard unity'

'The rule of law depends heavily on having a president willing to accept it,' writes @gregstohr.bsky.social 'and even some conservatives say the biggest threat to the rule of law is the administration’s penchant for pushing legal bounds' www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

There are better ways to build unity and patriotism than putting out more flags, writes @mbrooker.bsky.social www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

Europe is welcoming a new wave of immigrants seeking refuge from political upheaval, with some European institutions offering "asylum" to scientists willing to uproot and take lower pay, writes @ashifakassam.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

'Each application is determined on its individual merit,'Hong Kong's immigration department said, @hongkongfp.com reported hongkongfp.com/2025/08/23/b...

'For the most part, Britain has shown it is good at integrating new arrivals,' says @philipstephens.bsky.social www.ft.com/content/a54a...

Shirt sponsors are no longer delightfully local like Walkers crisps, Dagenham Motors and Newcastle Brown Ale, writes @agordon.me Today 4 teams are sponsored by a betting website licensed by TGP Europe, which exited the UK after being fined by the nation's regulator www.bloomberg.com/graphics/202...

'Barely a century ago,' writes @kenanmalik.bsky.social, 'Jewish beliefs and practices were seen as being as incompatible with British values as many now deem Muslims to be' observer.co.uk/news/opinion...

'The geopolitical risks for Hong Kong aren’t likely to go away — even if risk-savvy Wall Street CEOs decide the pros outweigh the cons,' write Dave Sebastian, Lulu Chen, Julia Fioretti & Charlotte Yang www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

'The past 2 years have been incredibly challenging for many firms & lawyers in Asia,' writes Jessica Seah. 'Like-minded professionals offering help include former COO Brian Henderson, who left Baker McKenzie in 2020 and now runs a Hong Kong mental health support group' www.law.com/internationa...

'The attack on India is the most jarring example of Trump seeking tactical wins without any long-term strategy,' writes Dan Ten Kate. 'The US aim of balancing China took a backseat to his top priorities: ending Russia’s Ukraine war and securing a Nobel Peace Prize' www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

It's Aug. 6 in Japan, 80 years on since the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Geopolitical tensions stoke fear that nuclear weapons could be deployed again. asia.nikkei.com/spotlight/so...

'The government really does need to think again,' said Deborah Hinton OBE, who was arrested after refusing an order to put down a placard which said 'I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.' She was ready to go to prison on the principle of the right to protest. observer.co.uk/news/nationa...

'There is an ominous sense in the air in Britain — a sense that the country is headed toward the rocks and that the captain has no idea how to steer the ship' www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

'Britain retains an admirable reluctance to make a prime minister of someone who can’t be trusted around matches,' says @andrewrawnsley.bsky.social (Nigel Farage's economic plan is 'so wildly fantastical that even Liz Truss might find it a tad implausible,' he notes) observer.co.uk/news/politic...

'Stop the boats,' writes Matthew Syed, but also, Keir Starmer must make all Britons give up some of their privilege for the good of the whole country, 'everything, everywhere all at once' www.thetimes.com/comment/colu...

'The pandemic seems finally to have broken Japan’s long Ice Age,' says John Authers, and 'the emerging realities of America’s new national priorities, economic agenda and undemocratic leadership style are unacceptable to the Japanese people' he cites Jesper Koll www.bloomberg.com/opinion/news...

These ambassador nominations for Malaysia and Singapore will cement the view that Beijing is a better partner than Washington, @karishmajourno.bsky.social writes www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

'Some time in the 1990s,' says @simonkuper.bsky.social, after the calculator and Google, 'the decades-long international rise in IQs began going into reverse... large language models, even with their mistakes and hallucinations, are already smarter than us' on.ft.com/3GEoP2R

'Many cling to the hope, after all, that the eruption of geoeconomics in the west will be a temporary phenomenon,' writes @gilliantett 'but politics keeps poisoning the well' www.ft.com/content/762c...

'The welfare reform farce was another demonstration that @Keir_Starmer & @RachelReevesMP aren’t particularly good at their jobs,' says @adwooldridge 'Yet, before them, we had two of the worst prime ministers in our long history: @trussliz & @BorisJohnson' www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

An affluent expat lawyer in Hong Kong joked casually that they would do fine in a prisoner-of-war camp,' when asked by @kayewiggins.ft.com if they had a backup plan in the event of a conflict over Taiwan www.ft.com/content/3de5...

'One of the things that makes the FT unique and special is that it’s very collegial, and very communitarian,' says John Ridding of @financialtimes.com journalists no-confidencing him for his $3 million pay as CEO. 'Like many media organizations, it’s pretty left-wing' bit.ly/4eymGSO

Red dawn

'The humor, pragmatism & hard work of #HongKongers continues,' writes @frostyhk 5 years after the '2nd handover.' But 'how the city has evolved is still too risky a topic for public discussion,' leaving 'the trauma of 2019 and the pandemic' unresolved www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

Paetongtarn could be the fifth prime minister forced from office by #Thailand's Constitutional Court, writes Philip Wen. Her father's clash with the pro-monarchist, pro-military establishment has defined the kingdom’s political landscape for over 20 years www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia...

#HongKong #28YearsLater