Captain Haddock

The US is set to ease requirements on oil and gas operations to curb methane emissions in a new climate rollback.

Reupping my longread from earlier this year on a very divided Israel, a global pariah, perpetually at war, heading to the polls, from @prospectmagazine.co.uk >>> www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/world/israel...

Netanyahu going full Trump. Must be looking bad for him.

Farage tying himself in angry knots here ... as he refuses to answer the basic question: Is it racist to call Kemi Badenoch a "Nigerian scammer"?

Pro-Europeans really need to get their act together if they're going to sieze the opportunity which is being presented here. Press and broadcasters reverting right back to their previous position from 2016, with zero update.

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A Russian Geran-5 jet-powered drone has come down in Odesa region. It was either downed or forced down. The dark airframe lies in a harvested field near a rural settlement, its twin tail fins still upright. A new branch of Moscow’s Geran/Shahed family has emerged.

Please enjoy my cartoon in today's Toronto Star

Venice is amazing But by God they know how to part a tourist from their had earned cash

The Independent. 'True scale of Reform UK’s donations from overseas donors revealed 80 per cent of the money received by Reform UK from donations in the year 2025-26 has come from individuals or companies who have been based abroad in the past two years'

Will the US ever get this clarity? (Will the UK? ;-))

But the BBC will keep “going live to”

This is just the maddest argument. These people would trap us in poverty to keep a decade old commitment, which no one ever actually made, to an electorate which no longer exists.

Wow! I was not expecting that.

BBC News just interrupted its coverage to go, live, to Nigel Farage - a man with no contitutional standing in our setup - responding to the budget - a document which nobody has seen yet. WHY

Of course the UK 'doing a better job' has meant that, instead of 60,000 'unelected bureaucrats' as employed across all EU bodies to serve 27 countries, the UK now has an extra 100,000 bureaucrats aka civil servants to cover the same jobs just for 1 country...

Elon Musk not only controls the satellite systems that the Ukrainian army - and other European armies - rely upon, he also controls the algorithms that govern a large swathe of the European information space. Europe needs to decouple from this clear and present threat to their security. My latest

So how did Lula come from behind to defeat Bolsonaro? In short, turnout. Bolsonaro's vote share barely moved. But Lula banked millions of votes from those who didn't vote in the first round & won eliminated candidates' votes. A remarkable mobilisation. Second round turnout is usually below first.

Lula: "We had to overcome foreign interference through digital platforms, which we will have to regulate. A crime in the digital world must be treated the same as a crime in the real world. We cannot have monstrous companies earning millions... not paying taxes... wanting to steer elections."

The correct legal approach to this seems to be that when platforms start favouring some content over other, they don‘t deserve immunity for third party content on the basis that they are just platforms. They should become liable. finance.yahoo.com/media-advert...

The presenter of #r4today opines.

Hannan - strong views about everything, knowledge and expertise about nothing

Mark Carney on Elon Musk crippling Ukraine’s Starlink: “I search for the right adjective to describe whoever took this decision… against a country that is literally fighting for the lives of its citizens against naked aggression."

The new Chair of OfCom has rather oddly suggested I should set up a left wing version of GB News. This suggests he doesn’t quite know what his job is. But I have taken him at his word. app.prospectmagazine.co.uk/story/75420/...

In response to weaker demand Air Canada announced it will cancel 5 routes beginning in /27. Includes flights to Seattle, Nashville, RaleighDurham, Boston& Charleston Canadian travel to US has plunged after repeated threats of annexation by Trump & his trade war #Pinks globalnews.ca/news/1211323...

Feel like dumping a whole load of charts from @ourworldindata.org here.

Netanyahu tells Israelis to brace for sanctions, suggests crypto workaround - https://www.middleeasteye.net/live-blog/live-blog-update/netanyahu-tells-israelis-brace-sanctions-suggests-crypto-workaround

And this is what Trump and his psychopath administration held over the head of Lindsey Graham to get him to conform!. Graham hated Trump, there was a swift shift to kiss Trump's soiled arse, nobody will miss the brown nosing of Lindsey Graham, may HELL give him what he deserves for eternity.

Supposedly eco friendly party in “let’s find ways to block green infrastructure” shock

People obsessed with rugged individualism and the Blitz spirit raging about govt suggesting we should have some self help civil resilience

Brexit was a successful influence operation run by the Russian intelligence services, and it has taken the British political world more than a decade to digest this simple fact. Now it's important to focus on the fact that Nigel Farage was little more than their willing agent in the process.

“whether Musk really acted independently — or whether the pretense that he was acting independently allowed Trump to do what he’s doing — policy is really bad when you leave critical national security interests in the hands of individual plutocrats” paulkrugman.substack.com/p/the-starli...

The immigration doom loop, summed up here by @gabyhinsliff.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

The FBI finally figured out how to catch spies in a globalized, tech-driven world. Then Kash Patel came along. A longread from the archives:

Rolls-Royce nears taxpayer subsidy deal to develop new engine in UK ft.trib.al/2Sxf5gt

I've seen misrepresentations of our findings. We're not blaming Labour for the state of public services or claiming extra funding has had no effect. Rather, we find that public services were in such a mess in 2024 that, despite money and reforms, services won't have recovered to 2019 levels by 2029

Jared Kushner’s hacked iPhone revealed he promised MBS and MBZ he would push their agenda with Trump if they participated in a secret fund, with the two royals initially discussing over $10B before ultimately placing at least $2B into his accounts. Paywalled, use archive. archive.ph/FHGAt

This is insane

The blame game between Elon Musk and the White House is going into the next round. And all what the Ukrainian president did is just name it. Using Starlink respectively Starshield for political games is a political and economic own goal of epic proportions.

One of my favourite actors A legend in Alien and Top Gun

"US conventional withdrawal would weaken Europe’s ability to defend itself below nuclear threshold while simultaneously eroding the credibility of the US nuclear guarantee. It is a double-edged experiment that undercuts both pillars of deterrence" foreignpolicy.com/2026/10/21/n...