Peter Ungphakorn

'Prescott said his memo was a “reasonable edit” of concerns raised, but conceded it was “unbalanced” because it did not include examples of where an internal review had praised the coverage.'

Twitter accounts are based in Russia. BlueSky accounts are based in homes with, frankly, too many books, plants, obsolete cables, and pieces of rustic pottery, that could do with a bit of a tidying up, to be honest.

There is a reason why the concept of the “single market” in the EU has four freedoms instead of one: it's a closer replication of the internal market of a single country where goods, services, labour and capital move about freely.

Some federal systems don't even manage that.

great thread on UN-speak and why there is even less than meets the eye in COP30 text

The EU single market: benefits, facts and figures Find out how the single market ensures the free movement of goods, services, capital and people, stimulates growth and boosts innovation.

Maybe different people are talking about different things. If a single market in goods only, then that should be spelt out.

“The EU single market … enables the free movement of goods, services, people and capital … across all EU member states.”

www.consilium.europa.eu/en/policies/...

Good 🧵⬇️ but I question "more radical". They are different; work differently.

1. Customs union = goods only. EU single market = goods, services (a UK strength), capital and people.

2. Customs union = a common set of tariffs, less flexibility, as ⬇️

There are other options for closer trade relations

Trump says Ukraine deal is not ‘final offer’ as officials gather for Geneva summit US president signals potential room for adjustments after Zelenskyy says proposals force Ukraine to choose between national dignity and losing the US

And that makes Sunday's meeting in Geneva quite bizarre

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/n...

U.S. Senators Say They Spoke With Rubio About Trump’s Ukraine Peace Plan Who Denied It Is A U.S. Plan Senators said Rubio told them the peace plan Trump is pushing Kyiv to accept is a “wish list” of the Russians and not the actual U.S. plan.

From AP. Senators say Rubio told them the plan was a Russian wishlist.

www.huffpost.com/entry/senato...

Trump v the BBC cont'd: an odd and desperate letter from the US media regulator Or: why you should have your evidence in place before you threaten a law suit

Trump v the BBC cont'd: an odd and desperate letter from the US media regulator

Or: why you should have your evidence in place before you threaten a law suit

A new post by me:
emptycity.substack.com/p/trump-v-th...

US broadcast regulator writes to BBC over Panorama edit of Trump speech The letter is reportedly also sent to the BBC's US partners, and seeks to find out if any US rules were broken.

The only news is rather desperate attempt by US regulator to find if the programme was provided to US outlets: www.bbc.com/news/article...

You would have thought US president and his lawyers would have this evidence *before* they sent their legal threat.

Oh well.

Whoopsie.

Screenshot of Article 8 on notifications of the agreement: ARTICLE 8: NOTIFICATION AND TRANSPARENCY 8.1 Without prejudice to Article 25 of the SCM Agreement and in order to strengthen and enhance notifications of fisheries subsidies, and to enable more effective surveillance of the implementation of fisheries subsidies commitments, each Member shall (a) provide the following information as part of its regular notification of fisheries subsidies under Article 25 of the SCM Agreement12,13: type or kind of fishing activity for which the subsidy is provided; (b) to the extent possible, provide the following information as part of its regular notification of fisheries subsidies under Article 25 of the SCM Agreement12,13: (i) status of the fish stocks in the fishery for which the subsidy is provided (e.g. overfished, maximally sustainably fished, or underfished) and the reference points used, and whether such stocks are shared14 with any other Member or are managed by an RFMO/A; (ii) conservation and management measures in place for the relevant fish stock; (iii) fleet capacity in the fishery for which the subsidy is provided; (iv) name and identification number of the fishing vessel or vessels benefitting from the subsidy; and (v) catch data by species or group of species in the fishery for which the subsidy is provided.

Still to come:

● Setting up the Fisheries Subsidies Committee
● Notifications from members of their subsidies under the agreement
● Ratifications from the remaining almost one-third of members so the agreement applies to them as well

www.wto.org/english/trat...

docs.wto.org/dol2fe/Pages...

2/2

WTO Fish Fund approves USD 2.9m in first grants, gears up for next Call for Proposals At its meeting on 18 and 19 November, the WTO Fish Fund Steering Committee approved 26 requests for project grants - totalling USD 2.9 million - to support developing and least-developed country (LDC)...

One feature of the 2022 WTO Fisheries Subsidies Agreement is now up and running after two thirds of members ratified it on Sep 15—the Fish Fund has approved its first grants to help developing countries implement the agreement. 26 requests, $2.9mn, approved.

1/2

www.wto.org/english/news...

Andy Robertson (BBC): "I've been in bits. I couldn't get my mate Diogo Jota out of my head today. We spoke so much together about the World Cup. We always discussed what it would be like going to this World Cup. I know he'll be somewhere smiling over me tonight." 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

Four spectacular goals in very different ways

Unbelievable game of football 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

Austria wants new EU regulations to keep out Chinese trains As CRRC’s long-distance trains were rolled out for the first time in Western Europe last week, Austria’s transport minister Peter Hanke said Vienna will launch an EU initiative…

Complaints against China on trade are raining in from across Europe. Will collect them in this rolling thread

Austria to launch EU initiative by end of this year to regulate against “cheap imports” from Chinese state-backed rolling stock manufacturers.

The Prescott memo flunks the impartiality test | The Observer

David Aaronovitch argues that the document at the heart of the BBC’s crisis is unfairly selective and ignores most of the corporation’s output.
@theobserveruk.bsky.social

observer.co.uk/news/opinion...

Screenshot of multiple posts from The Observer's feed all marked as spam by BlueSky's moderator account

All of these posts by @theobserveruk.bsky.social use [at]bit.ly as the URLs to link the articles

For some reason bluesky moderators @moderation.bsky.app‬ are labelling @theobserveruk.bsky.social as a spam account. Perhaps @theobserveruk.bsky.social should stop converting its URLs to [at]bit.ly

Boardroom dramas, backstabbing and the BBC‘s darkest hour | The Observer

A long account of what's been happening inside the top levels of the BBC from @theobserveruk.bsky.social

observer.co.uk/news/nationa...

"How can the WTO foster ...?" A lot more complicated than it sounds. The WTO is not an aid or financial agency. It's a sytem of negotiated agreements specifying members' rights and obligations. For recommendations to strengthen existing rules, "the WTO" means its members. They wd have to negotiate.

this @WTO report provides some evidence on the value of committee discussion--many issues are indeed resolved. Next question: which countries/issues get resolved?

Yes. In some databases you can get the relevant paragraphs from the minutes. Here they give a link to the minutes but you have to find the relevant bit yourself

Text: Secretariat report on resolution of WTO Goods Council trade concerns How effective are the discussions in reducing trade conflict? In November 2025, the WTO Secretariat took a different approach. It asked WTO members

Even more nerdy, the full text of the report. Sometimes organisations are functioning well, even though we never hear about them. I'm willing to bet that this will not be reported in the media. Please prove me wrong …

tradebetablog.wordpress.com/text-secreta...

About half of trade concerns reported ‘resolved’ to WTO Goods Council The paper sheds additional light on how the WTO can reduce trade tensions by providing a place for countries to discuss and share the issues they experience with each other in trade.

A bit nerdy, but a reminder that organisations like the WTO are useful for discussing concerns multilaterally and for defusing trade tensions. Not always, but it's better than not having the WTO at all.

tradebetablog.wordpress.com/2025/11/16/h...

What does it mean for a "country" to be "safe"? Asylum takes many forms. Individuals can seek asylum because the government goes after them, when others in the country are not in the same situation and therefore safe. So it's whether "a person" is safe. That's more complicated to establish.

Scotland couldn't quite get the third. I did learn that the Greek goalkeeper's name is Odisseas. Not that he's going anywhere in this tournament.

There was I ready to shut everything down when Scotland go from 3-0 down to 3-2 with bizarre things happening in Copenhagen

Cheer-leading had little effect on the WTO fish subsidies deal ratifications The WTO has now gone quiet on ratifications of the Fish 1 agreement. Will the ambition for everyone to ratify by March 2026 be achieved?

The old long, rambling piece on @wto.org "fish" ratifications has now been separated into two and (hopefully) streamlined. The first part is ⬆️. This ⬇️ is the second part.

How will @noiweala.bsky.social achieve her ambition of 100% ratifications by march

tradebetablog.wordpress.com/2025/11/15/c...

The slow pace of ratifications of the WTO Fisheries Subsidies Agreement The celebrated “consensus” agreement finally entered into force—partially—on September 15, 2025, over three years after it was originally agreed. Speaks volumes for governments’ commitment to susta…

@wto.org has suddenly gone quiet on ratifications of its 2022 Fisheries Subsidies Agreement. I almost missed adding Mauritania and St Kitts & Nevis.

Does it matter? Yes. The agreement doesn't apply to non-ratifying countries so one third of members and a quarter of the global catch is not covered.