Nicolas Bouchet
@nickbouchet.bsky.social
German Marshall Fund Senior Visiting Fellow. US foreign policy, democratization, democracy promotion, civil society. Throw in some Eastern Europe and Russia and we're mostly good to go.
Now, I'm telling you this as a person who has studied Russian information warfare for more than ten years: none of the Russian disinformation campaigns linked to the Ceuta crisis can possibly reach the impact of one techno-oligarch spreading right-wing disinformation on the platform he owns. 3/4
css.ethz.ch/content/dam/... The latest edition of the always excellent Caucasus Analytical Digest addresses shifting politics and civic agency in Georgia, edited by Mariam Bibilashvili
css.ethz.ch
www.azatutyun.am/a/33821078.h... More worrying politically connoted sackings in Armenia’s higher education sector - relatives of opposition MPs are being fired as Armenia’s newly elected parliament convenes.
Yerevan State University Continues ‘Political’ Sackings
Armenia’s leading university has fired one of its most renowned law professors, the latest in a series of sackings of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s critics or their relatives working in the public ...
azatutyun.am
“In recent months, ICE has deployed a round-the-clock digital dragnet to scour the public internet—from Facebook to Instagram to X—for speech that could endanger the agency’s mission.” Speech. www.wsj.com/politics/pol...
How ICE Is Weaponizing Social Media Against its Critics
Agency says its surveillance program searches for threats to agents, but critics see free-speech infringements.
wsj.com
For those in Berlin and around: on Sunday 9th August the best photos from my #CrossBorderRail work are being shown at Lindow (Mark), and I have a little presentation too Interesting place, relaxed Sunday afternoon Come along! www.plattform-paradies.de/grenzuebersc...
Grenzüberschreitende Bahnstrecken Europas
Bildvortrag mit Jon Worth zu europäischen Bahnstrecken am 09.08.26 im Bahnhofsgarten mit Pizza
plattform-paradies.de
I'm pleased to share my latest analysis, "The Black Sea: Romania and Bulgaria Must Move Together". I argue that the changing security environment in the Black Sea requires closer strategic cooperation between #Romania & #Bulgaria to strengthen regional security & resilience. 🇧🇬🇷🇴
The Black Sea: Romania and Bulgaria Must Move Together |
casamariinegre.ro
Does anyone know anyone who is interested in the philosopher William James? Clearing out an attic I have a dozen books by him (and a few about him) - they need a home.
The UK's treatment of its residing EU nationals has been and remains (non pun intended) stupid, incompetent and cruel. Off the top of my head, I cannot think of one member state that has come close to treating UK nationals in a similar way.
Philippe Auclair@philippeauclair.bsky.social · 3d agoCruelty is the foundation of those 'policies'. Making us feel threatened is the purpose. We have no physical proof of our status, we are at the mercy of a glitch. We are aliens, and we must be made aware of it. Reform's 'plan' to strip us of our Leave to remain is just a darker shade of grey.
Scholars being afraid to post their syllabi or email their colleagues because of FOIA requests, or to teach their disciplines because of secret recordings, is a threat to democracy.
NEW: The Treasury Dept. will be going after leftie NGOs to make them disclose all the smaller NGOs they fiscally sponsor. “It will have an asymmetrical impact on the left, just because the right is organized differently,” a source familiar told me. My latest. puck.news/inside-trump...
Marco Rubio’s Enemies Within
The Trump administration is building a counterterrorism framework to target left-wing groups at home and abroad, raising concerns that it could be used against political opponents, nonprofits, activis...
puck.news
The German government is working on a plan on what to do if regions vote in extreme-right AFD governments which may not allow NATO troop movements or may otherwise want to impede defence policies and Russia deterrence. www.n-tv.de/politik/Sorg...
Sorge vor AfD-Wahlerfolgen - Bund arbeitet an Nato-Notfallplan
Im September werden in Sachsen-Anhalt und Mecklenburg-Vorpommern neue Landtage gewählt. In Umfragen liegt die AfD klar vorn. Die Sorge vor einem Wahlerfolg führt in Berlin laut einem Bericht zu konkre...
n-tv.de
Perhaps not the main point here but there is intrinsic funniness in the phrase "billionaire-funded guided tour of Luton"
Anton Shekhovtsov@shekhovtsov.substack.com · 7d agoAustralian far-right leader’s billionaire-funded guided tour of Luton with Tommy Robinson. https://searchlightmagazine.com/2026/07/australian-far-right-leaders-billionaire-funded-guided-tour-of-luton-with-tommy-robinson/
Insufficient level of ambition for Great Britain. Embrace Saharan life!
Roland Smith@rolandmcs.bsky.social · last wk.Nighty night.
I love this view of the UK. We see the population by latitude. Based on this data, where would you place the north/south divide? Source: buff.ly/OskGcdG
what a lot of internet people don't understand is that internet people critique popular things for clout, whereas academic types do it because something is broken in our brains and we don't know how else to engage with the world, we would literally do analysis from inside a locked padded room
Casey Stegman@caseystegman.com · last wk.People who think Emily Wilson is being mean have clearly never presented a paper at an academic conference
It is very hard to see how anything other than a secession of all UEFA countries from Fifa (which other confederations would follow, as the WC is worth very little without European teams and markets) can put a stop to the assault Infantino and his US friends are leading on football.
1-2 CSIS colleagues, @msnegovaya.bsky.social, @maxbergmann.bsky.social and others, firm up the case for a key concern I've had for 2+ years: if fighting in Ukraine stops, the Russian defence industry will continue production at wartime intensity, meaning a very rapid build-up for new aggression.
When I started working on transnational repression, it quickly became obvious that the issue was inseparable from the broader treatment of migrants & the humane operation of migration systems
Yuen Chan@yuenchan.bsky.social · last wk."Where is the humanity here?" asks @nathanlawkc.bsky.social. Indeed. It's hard not to conclude that the rhetoric and politics of immigration and asylum have poisoned the well so much that someone like Wu Chi-wai is treated like this. Imagine what it's like for others.
Norway Tested a Chinese Bus Inside a Mountain and Found a Foreign SIM Card Holding the Kill Switch autos.yahoo.com/policy-and-e...
Norway Tested a Chinese Bus Inside a Mountain and Found a Foreign SIM Card Holding the Kill Switch
Ruter, the public transit authority that runs buses across Oslo and Akershus, didn't settle for a paperwork audit when it wanted to know whether its electric buses could be hijacked by remote control....
autos.yahoo.com
It's telling that Musk smeared his interviewer as a "traitor to the west." As he sits there abusing her in his edgelordy leather jacket, you can see his confidence in his ability to communicate with the global fascist movement rising in real time. newrepublic.com/article/2135...
Poland has formally asked the U.S. to arrest and extradite former Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro, seeking to prosecute the fugitive politician from the nationalist Law and Justice party for alleged abuse of power, diversion of public funds to political allies and spying on opponents.
Poland asks US to extradite its ex-justice minister
Donald Tusk’s pro-EU government vows it’s pursuing the previous nationalist administration over alleged corruption.
politico.eu
Well done to @demos-uk.bsky.social for a report exploring the growing issues of the information well that AI chatbots draw upon being poisoned by state actors to push their false narratives forward demos.co.uk/research/geo...
GEO for Geopolitics: What happens when AI and information warfare collide
Demos is Britain’s leading cross-party think-tank. We produce original research, publish innovative thinkers and host thought-provoking events.
demos.co.uk
Not to victim-blame here, but this is one of the reasons why that interview didn't need to be made in the first place. Musk has nothing interesting to say, he already has a huge platform to speak nonsense, and everyone knew that he was going to behave like a nine-year-old.
Sunder Katwala (sundersays)@sundersays.bsky.social · 2w agoElon Musk, owner of X, has called the editor of the Economist "a traitor to the West, plain and simple" after her recent interview with him. He now argues that "anyone who opposes remigration is a traitor" Musk has been socialising violence since Aug25: "fight or die, that's what it comes down to"
Elon Musk, owner of X, has called the editor of the Economist "a traitor to the West, plain and simple" after her recent interview with him. He now argues that "anyone who opposes remigration is a traitor" Musk has been socialising violence since Aug25: "fight or die, that's what it comes down to"
At this point there is no excuse for not being aware you are a member of a platform that has been engaged in the industrial scale production and distribution of CSAM and whose owner regularly calls for race war. It’s a choice, I guess.
"First the traitors then the invaders" is Elon Musk endorsing an open call to prioritise political murders + assassinations before violence against migrants and minorities. Still little recognition in the UK government at the persistence of the promotion of political violence - inc murder - by Musk
