New @EmpirePodUK pod-drop:
Writers on Empire Part 2:

Orwell: Fighting Fascism In The Spanish Civil War

linktr.ee/empirepoduk

UN Expert Says US Boat Strikes Are “Crime Against Humanity,” With 61 Killed Amnesty International USA said the strikes are nothing more than a “murder spree.”…

Amnesty International USA condemned the strikes as a “murder spree.” “The administration has not even named its victims, nor provided evidence of their alleged crimes. But even if they did, intentionally killing people accused of committing crimes who pose no imminent threat to life is murder.”

Zoë Wicomb obituary South African-Scottish author admired for her first book You Can’t Get Lost in Cape Town, a collection of short stories

Terribly sorry to hear Zoe Wicomb has died. A wonderful writer of both fiction and nonfiction. "You Can't Get Lost in Cape Town", "David's Story", "October", "Race, Nation, Translation" — an important body of work.

www.theguardian.com/books/2025/o...

Carl Sagan’s Demon Haunted World

Still slaps, though I’m utterly heartbroken by its prescience.

Same. The first music that really electrified me was late 50s rock n roll on some compilations my parents had on cassettes.

this is a chart of how bad your executives are at decision making

🧵 / YouGov's new study finds Britain's ethnic minority communities now tend to have a negative view of the Labour party

Greens: +17 net favourable
Lib Dems: +1
Labour: -19
Conservatives: -44
Reform UK: -62

Breakdowns by individual ethnic group in chart 👇

yougov.co.uk/politics/art...

Lebanon’s Aoun says army to confront Israeli forces after deadly incursion Hezbollah welcomes the president's announcement as Israel escalates attacks on Lebanese territory.

Hezbollah welcomes the president's announcement as Israel escalates attacks on Lebanese territory.

Little bits of direct action holding things together.

BTW American journalists: calling her an auntie does not imply that she is Johannesburg’s parents’ sibling…

If only someone… anyone… could possibly have foreseen this.

Labour ministers are still considering how not to respond to the International Court of Justice’s opinion - delivered 15 months ago - calling on states to stop aiding Israel’s illegal occupation.

#DCUKparliament

Foreign minister Hamish Falconer doesn’t know how much UK aid has actually reached Gaza because of the “complex operating environment” and “restrictions” imposed by his ally, Israel.

#DCUKparliament

Challenging some limiting beliefs Lately I've been processing the last nearly five years of my professional life, from the time I joined my last full-time employer. I went looking for underlying beliefs I hold so I could hold them up to the light and see if they are actually true. I found several that aren't. Here's the background. It's in thumbnail as many of the details are confidential to that company and I'm bound not to share them.

Challenging some limiting beliefs

Lately I've been processing the last nearly five years of my professional life, from the time I joined my last full-time employer. I went looking for underlying beliefs I hold so I could hold them up to the light and see if they are actually true. I found several…

Stealth plush fabrics. Because discretion is the better part of velour.

I should be fair and say that @anitaanand.bsky.social clarified this somewhat. But if Orwell became part of a "soft right" as @willdalrymple.bsky.social claimed, then Jeremy Corbyn is also on the soft right. Orwell had massive flaws. But support for capitalism and condemnation of socialism... no.

And comparing him to C Hitchens was particularly galling - a man who became a neoliberal, Islamophobic hawk. Orwell was convinced by the *betrayal of the left* in Spain by the USSR that authoritarian communism was evil. He never gave up his admiration for his anarchist and Trotskyist colleagues 2/2

I'm enjoying @empirepoduk.bsky.social's 4-parter on Orwell. Less so them characterising his experiences in Spain shifting him to the right. Orwell was turned against authoritarian communism - a fringe that still tries to claim the left despite everything. He remained a socialist for life. 1/2

Agreed. But so accessible. Why is no one else alarmed? Leaves me concerned but still somewhat sceptical.

When the IDF finally gets serious about investigating events…

how are other academia handling the use of AI?

Our schools policy is that students can use it to help out but they have to properly source, and yet they don’t and seems to be using to generate whole papers.

And the papers are absolutely trash.

#academicsky

Israel Executes 9-year-old Palestinian Child in West Bank, Netanyahu Resumes Bombing Gaza The Israeli military has killed more than 100 Palestinians since the "ceasefire" and still faces no accountability while western media remains largely silent

Since the “ceasefire,” Israeli military has killed more than 100 Palestinians, including a 9 year old Palestinian child in the West Bank, shooting him in the head.

Netanyahu’s new strikes in Gaza killed 104 Palestinians, including 46 children.

This is genocide.
www.qasimrashid.com/p/israel-exe...

But it’s obvious where this tech is going, right? Instead of robots it’ll be remote servants from Africa and Latin America.

Highly recommend the French language comedy Bigbug (2022) directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet.

Three household robots lock a blended family and their neighbor inside their AI-driven home "for their own safety" during a global robot uprising.

Love Jeunet and hadn’t heard of this. Thanks!

Palestinians across the occupied West Bank have faced a wave of Israeli settler violence as they try to reach their olive groves.

Here are the latest figures from UN OCHA

🔴 LIVE updates: aje.io/yo5bqd ⤵️

"They found that art positively influences the immune, hormone and nervous systems all at once – something never previously recorded.

The findings suggest that seeing original art not only moves people emotionally, but also calms the body and promotes health and wellbeing."

#Art #WellBeing 😌🖼🧘🏾‍♀️

Amnesty International is calling a U.S. strike in April on a prison in Yemen that killed dozens of detained African migrants a war crime. It followed a similar strike on the same prison compound back in 2022 by a Saudi-led coalition targeting the Houthis.

Scientists had to change more than 700 grant titles to receive NIH funding. Health disparities researchers fear what’s next The titles of more than 700 multi-year NIH grants have been changed this year, according to an analysis by Jeremy Berg, a former agency official

Yup because the powers that be do not know the difference between transgenic and transgender.
www.statnews.com/2025/10/29/n...