I regularly see people wondering how it's possible that there are so many musicians and writers and film makers and artists from a tiny nation like Iceland.
And the answer is really simple: State funding for art education and artists. I literally get a salary from the government to write books.
Many of the Iranian human rights activists I've interviewed have been calling for this for a long time. The EU has also passed targeted sanctions on regime officials (another request by activists). www.theguardian.com/world/2026/j...
Question for all #Iran watchers: does it feel like there is way more information warfare being waged over the recent uprisings than there was in 2022? I don't remember seeing anywhere near this level of clashing narratives and suspicious online activity during the Woman, Life, Freedom protests
Germany is home to the largest Iranian diaspora in Europe. At protests in Berlin, many told me they want to see European leaders take "real action" against Tehran - such as expelling ambassadors, targeted sanctions, and the classification of the Revolutionary Guard as a terror group
this place needs more jokes about the brooklyn beckham wedding drama
"What has unsettled me more is how quickly Venezuelans ceased to be the subject of the story at all. Almost immediately, the media coverage migrated elsewhere toward abstractions of power and sovereignty, international law." Via @unbiasthenews.bsky.social
unbiasthenews.org/venezuela-wi...
How hard could it really be for Novara Media to find a left-wing Iranian to write about this topic instead? Certain people need to pass the mic and sit this one out.
Fascinating: Miller rails against neoliberalism here and dismisses the world order the U.S. largely established post-WWII.
Neoliberalism has MANY critics (particularly progressives), but Miller is insisting the U.S. act like a superpower while decrying…how it became a superpower in the first place?
Honestly incredible
I see some white Western "leftists" are doing to Venezuelans what they previously did to Syrians: dismissing their voices and lived experience while positioning themselves as the true experts.
Some leftists' racism always comes out when minority groups don't behave the way they believe they should.
Feel like this point should be more central to some of the current discussions. Trump did not single handedly destroy the international order - there are many institutions and individuals who need to do some self-reflection.
From www.theguardian.com/world/2026/j...
Rules-based international order has had a rough couple of decades, but this pretty much ends it entirely. Both the strikes and the capture of Maduro are also blatant violations of US domestic law too, of course.
This is one of the first German habits I picked up. Still don't drink sparkling water, still don't really like pickles, but damn my brain is now fully programmed to WAIT for that green man no matter how empty the street.
Germany may be famous for its memory culture, in which the horrors of the Holocaust and the Nazi regime are commemorated in monuments and days of remembrance, but reflecting on what one’s own family may have done during this period is often more taboo. I met some of the people trying to change this.
Vor kurzem hat @jessicabateman.bsky.social mich für @theobserveruk.bsky.social zu einem Recherche-Workshop zum Nationalsozialismus in der eigenen Familie in München begleitet – und sie ist den Geschichten einiger Teilnehmer*innen weiter gefolgt.
Ten years on from Merkel's "wir schaffen das", German politicians are now asking Syrians to return home.
I marked this bittersweet anniversary by profiling five Syrians who came to Germany as refugees and have changed the country in profound ways - from LGBT activists to artists and doctors.
The "year in review" madness needs to stop. I don't want to be reminded of all the intricate personal data I feed to tech companies every day – please just stay quiet about it. And no I DO NOT want to see my LinkedIn "year in review", what kind of sicko do you think I am?
Once again, never forget the role the richest man in the world played in this
A little bright spark in the winter gloom:
A citizens' initiative designed to allow women in EU countries with draconian abortion laws to get care *elsewhere* in Europe has passed in the European Parliament.
The European Commission will now have to respond
www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/pres...
The German Press Council has ruled that tabloid BILD violated the press code by describing Al Jazeera journalist Anas Al-Sharif as a "Hamas leader" without evidence
www.presserat.de/presse-nachr...
"[The older British media class] believe their own politics to be neutral, impartial- and other people’s politics to be the aberration, or doctrinaire, a belief egged on by the fact that most of the media agrees with them. Orthodoxies are for other people."
A must-read from @lewisgoodall.com
This is a really illuminating piece from @nstamouli.bsky.social on what the future of Europe could look like as we head into COP30: climate refugees are not a concept from the distant future, they are on the continent right now. www.politico.eu/article/euro...
It's an interesting question. On one hand, I think it's helpful to understand that people who do monstrous things are not a separate species to the rest of us. However, I also wish the art world would put just as much effort into humanising people who are 'othered' in different ways.
360 by Charli xcx is actually about Zohran Mamdani
This was a fascinating listen on the role religion has played in the NYC Mayoral election and the myriad of ways faith can shape our politics and voting habits
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w...
New work for @theobserveruk.bsky.social: I took a look at why sobriety is on the rise in Berlin, the world's capital of hedonism, and whether drug-free parties could help save nightlife venues from closure observer.co.uk/news/interna...
Adorable! My cat tries to "dig up" and bury herself under my laptop when it's on my lap.
Just reading the Wikipedia description of that book was too upsetting for me. I do not understand why some people claim to love it.
As Ian Watkins was back in the news recently, it's worth remembering that police received complaints about him almost five years before he was arrested. The women who reported him were dismissed as "crazy exes." He was only charged after his computer was searched as part of a drugs-related raid.
