The 'historic' Belfast agreement was more mundanely described by an SDLP politician involved in its negotiation among the sectarian protagonists as 'an agreement to disagree'. They still don't agree and the post-agreement institutions look set once more for collapse www.irishnews.com/news/norther...

Michelle O’Neill says Drumcree dispute ‘brings into question how this whole peace process works’

Some in crowd blocking Garvaghy Road shout ‘bring Stormont down’

irishnews.com

As the world has careened towards climate catastrophe, the fossil-fuelled UAE has been able to buy up a globally pre-eminent football club to sportswash its appalling autocracy and misogyny. Far, far too many blind eyes were turned to this--as with Qatar's PSG: www.theguardian.com/football/202...

How drawn-out saga of Manchester City’s alleged cheating came to this

Club’s ruthless approach was always at odds with their public image and this inglorious story has further to run

theguardian.com

Amid unregulated 'social media' slop, the BBC, mandated to impartiality, faces a 'doom spiral' of job cuts & loss of support from licence fee payers. The UK government must legislate to replace the regressive fee with enlarged, hypothecated funding from taxation: www.theguardian.com/media/2026/s...

BBC ‘risks entering inescapable doom spiral’ as further cuts hit TV and radio

Warning from union comes as corporation cuts local specialist correspondent roles as part of plan to save £500m

theguardian.com

Brilliant from @casmudde.bsky.social as usual, on how the emergence of the new liberal left is as interesting as the re-emergence of the old far right--and that young women are key to this: www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Look again – there’s more to Germany’s election trends than far-right success | Cas Mudde

Defeatist narratives abound. Yet Germany’s latest elections suggest voter dissatisfaction is benefiting the left as well as the right, says the political scientist Cas Mudde

theguardian.com

The four top European football leagues have issued a stinging statement about FIFA's governance of the sport--and Infantino's uno duce, una voce direction of the organisation: www.nytimes.com/athletic/762... #FIFA

Premier League, Bundesliga, La Liga, Serie A call for FIFA reform: ‘Not fit for purpose’ (Gift Article)

The joint statement references the scrapped FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE) proposals and Folarin Balogun's suspended red card ban.

nytimes.com

Most people in the Republic of Ireland want the island to be united. They just don't want anything to change: www.irishtimes.com/politics/202... Progressives need to make clear that unification is not assimilation--or the 'peace walls' across the north dividing neighbourhoods will not change either.

Small minority prepared to consider new flag to make Irish unity acceptable to unionists

Irish Times/Ipsos B&A also asked about attitudes to immigration, with a small majority of voters seeing it, on balance, as a positive

irishtimes.com

A shocking effect of 'Brexit' has been how the British left has just absorbed it. This piece about 'Burnhamism', based on many policy wonks around him, does not once mention Europe, what Britain should learn from mainland progressives or rejoining the EU: www.theguardian.com/news/ng-inte...

Labour’s last chance? The people shaping Andy Burnham’s grand plans for Britain

The long read: The new prime minister has declared he wants to end 40 years of neoliberalism. But is he really prepared to be that radical?

theguardian.com

Burnham, like Starmer, promises 'growth' for the UK without rejoining the EU. Yet NI provides the counterfactual, remaining in the single market, with 12.7% growth since the last quarter (Q4, 2019) before 'Brexit' took effect; meantime UK GDP grew by just half, 6.3%: www.nisra.gov.uk/system/files...

Progressives win via a hegemonic project cementing a 'historical bloc' of the working & professional classes. Social democrats instead chasing the 'median voter' have lost many of the 1st to the left and the 2nd to the greens. Mayors in NY & (soon) Berlin show the way: euobserver.com/239304/eu-40...

EU 40% development aid cut would be ‘drastic betrayal’ of values, says top MEP

The EU's 'Global Europe' development budget is looking vulnerable as the 'frugal' countries and other blocs push for cuts to the 2028-34 EU budget.

euobserver.com

It beggars belief that in 'a world at risk' (Beck) rich EU member states should be mimicking Trump by savaging development aid nationally and EU-wide. The long-term consequences will of course be not just more uncounted deaths but more refugees fetching up in Europe: euobserver.com/239304/eu-40...

EU 40% development aid cut would be ‘drastic betrayal’ of values, says top MEP

The EU's 'Global Europe' development budget is looking vulnerable as the 'frugal' countries and other blocs push for cuts to the 2028-34 EU budget.

euobserver.com

EU inaction on the atrocities by Israeli forces & settlers in Gaza, the west bank & Lebanon is rationalised by purported concern about #antiSemitism. Yet precisely those most opposed to dehumanisation of Jews should be those most opposed to dehumanisation of others: euobserver.com/239181/no-is...

No Israeli bonds on sale in EU for now, in de facto €2.2bn sanction

Neither Ireland nor Luxembourg have been authorising sales of Israeli bonds since the start of September, potentially costing Israel €2.2bn a year, as shock over Gaza and West Bank grows.

euobserver.com

Pursuing the 'dangerous obsession' (Krugman) of 'competitiveness'--as with conservatives and populists stronger capital seeks to free itself from democratic regulation (aka 'simplification')--the @ec.europa.eu environmental 'omnibus' reverses the precautionary principle: www.etui.org/news/unpacki...

Just because climate-related deaths are largely invisible doesn't mean they are not happening: nearly a quarter of a million have died already due to the current, super #ElNino and a similar number will die by February next year: www.newscientist.com/article/2590...

El Niño heat could kill half a million people by February | New Scientist

Higher temperatures around the world due to the record-breaking El Niño will lead to an estimated 450,000 extra deaths by February unless swift action is taken, warn researchers

newscientist.com

Very moving account by the daughter of a victim of Northern Ireland's sectarian conflict--of a life scarred, as for thousands of others (whether killed by paramilitaries or police/army), and the consolation, finally, of official acknowledgement of the truth: www.irishnews.com/news/norther...

‘I moved into a space of serenity and light, all anger taken away’ - daughter of IRA victim Rory O’Kelly on reading the report of his murder

The first report of the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery was released on Wednesday

irishnews.com

The whole world can see that the only way for Northern Ireland to put behind its chronic sectarian division is integrated education--but that is what the far-right education minister is determined to stop: www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/the-min...

‘The minister wants to derail the integrated education project, and he’s on the way to achieving that’

President of teaching union NASUWT hits out at stalling of sector

belfasttelegraph.co.uk

The climate catastrophe has revealed the same terrifying fact as the pandemic: global public understanding of science--of the earth's ecosystem boundaries and the urgency of returning within them--is too low to spur the essential political and policy solutions. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

‘Planetary boundaries’ necessary for flourishing of life have been massively breached, scientists warn

New report shows key indicators of Earth’s health are ‘outside the safe operating space’ as climate disaster looms

theguardian.com

Trump's support continues to crater--in 2 reliable polls taken in the past week, his disapproval rating was > twice his approval--with a successful impeachment potentially looming should the Democrats win a majority in the Senate as well as the House in the midterms: www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

President Trump’s Approval Rating: Latest Polls (Free Access)

Track the latest approval rating and polls on Americans’ approval of President Trump.

nytimes.com

We know already from opinion data that young women are standing out as more left-orientated than others surveyed. Berlin's election showed that translating into a political outcome: www.sueddeutsche.de/kultur/linke...

Wahlen in Deutschland: Was, wenn Frauen nicht mehr gegen ihre Interessen wählen?

Die Linke wird weiblicher, rechte Parteien männlicher. Dafür gibt es Gründe – deren Potenzial womöglich noch gar nicht ausgeschöpft ist.

sueddeutsche.de

The @wfp.org estimates that this #ElNino, exacerbated by and in turn exacerbating global heating, will push 50 million people into acute hunger. The 1997-8 'super' El Nino, already surpassed, caused a $5.7 trillion loss of economic output: www.theguardian.com/environment/...

‘Jaw-dropping’ El Niño bursts through temperature record months before peak

‘Godzilla-level’ phenomenon is supercharging the climate crisis and will have a huge impact on communities across the world

theguardian.com

Turns out Trump's adviser on #AI, determined to block any effort to stop it careening towards catastrophe, is a product of apartheid South Africa (like Musk) who compares the experts' concerns to other 'media-generated panics' such as 'Russiagate' and Covid-19: www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

‘An out-of-touch Silicon Valley radical’: meet Trump’s AI whisperer pushing for limited regulation

David Sacks convinced Trump against any restrictions on AI – putting the White House out of step with its own party

theguardian.com

It's as ever risible that American populists in particular endorse unqualified freedom of speech ... except when they don't like what it says: www.nytimes.com/2026/09/21/b...

CNN, MS NOW and Politico to Sue Trump Administration Over White House Access (Gift Article)

In a joint statement, CNN, MS NOW and Politico argued that President Trump’s decision to bar them from the White House grounds violates their First Amendment rights.

nytimes.com

'The IRA campaign wasn’t worth the loss of a single life, never mind nearly 4,000 ... The IRA gained nothing from this war. Any changes came about as a result of [the] civil rights [movement] and changes in employment and equality law'--IRA veteran: www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/norther...

IRA sniper ‘Blue’ Kelly speaks from the grave in final interview to declare: ‘The Brits won’

Final interview of famous Provo who got arms from Gaddafi tent is revealed as republicans bury IRA gunman

belfasttelegraph.co.uk

The nearest thing to art populists like is kitsch, matching their childish narcissism. The rest is something they don't understand and can't control--so they mangle or destroy it in the most philistine way imaginable: www.nytimes.com/2026/09/20/u...

How President Trump Broke the Kennedy Center

Internal emails and documents demonstrate the political capture of the institution, including how officials once pursued a plan to unload much of the art collection.

nytimes.com

With his compromised 'useful idiot' in the Oval Office, Putin is apparently becoming even more brazen about his execution campaign against dissidents abroad, extending that from Europe to the US: www.theguardian.com/world/2026/s...

‘The rules have changed’: has Russia begun to order assassinations on US soil?

Exiled dissidents and an unsealed indictment suggest Kremlin may have abandoned longstanding taboo on attacks on its rival’s territory

theguardian.com

A referendum on Irish unification in the north will only succeed if liberal cosmopolitans are persuaded, not if it becomes a sectarian headcount--the worst possible basis for ending the late-19th-century religious polarisation on the island which led to partition: www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2026...

Pat Leahy: Any Celtic crusade against the imperialists in London would be very unwise

Remember, flags and anthems and all that is the easy stuff

irishtimes.com

Another excellent report by @sallyhayd.bsky.social on the killing, disabling and traumatisation of countless children in Lebanon, as in Gaza, by dehumanised Israeli forces: www.irishtimes.com/life-style/p...

Lebanon’s lost children: ‘It is the grimmest side of this conflict'

The effects of Israeli attacks on Lebanese children over the last six months have been devastating - and will endure

irishtimes.com

The far-right 'greenlash' could not have come at a worse time, as action to arrest the #climate catastrophe becomes ever more urgent. All the parties that are children of the European enlightenment must unite against the 'know nothings' led by the US under Trump: www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Burning forests, emptying rivers, €180bn in damage: Europe’s politicians face reckoning after ‘summer of truth’

Amid record-shattering heatwaves and popular demand for climate action, why are politicians often timid or in denial?

theguardian.com

Given how Netanyahu's far-right government has alienated global opinion by its forces' brutality in Gaza, it behoves Israelis to listen to the message of this documentary--the sources themselves military, since journalists can't get in--not shoot the messenger: www.theguardian.com/film/2026/se...

From ovations in Venice to death threats in Israel: the extreme responses to NAZA documentary

As Gaza documentary wins cinematic acclaim, its directors face vitriol in Israel amid a febrile election campaign

theguardian.com

If the circular economy is to take hold in Europe--and a future 'beyond growth' depends on it--then the tacit knowledge of workers must be fully tapped: www.socialeurope.eu/europes-circ...

Europe’s Circular Economy Act Will Fail Without Workers at Its Heart

Two union leaders warn that waste, repair and recycling jobs risk becoming Europe’s next low-pay, high-hazard market.

socialeurope.eu

Many hoped that by dealing with war crimes through impartial international tribunals the former Yugoslavia might reach some kind of reconciliation. But ethnonationalist narratives--of 'our' heroes and 'their' villains--discounting the rule of law have prevailed: balkaninsight.com/2026/09/16/k...

Kosovo Slams 'Unjust' Conviction of Hashim Thaci; Serbian Minister Applauds

Top politicians in Kosovo said the Hague judgment finding ex-President Thaci and three other Kosovo Liberation Army ex-leaders guilty of war crimes was unjust – but a Serbian minister said it proved t...

balkaninsight.com