Coda Story

Apple caves in to Pam Bondi and removes an ICE-tracking app, just like it once caved to the Kremlin and removed Alexei Navalny’s smart voting app. Also: Trump scratches his Bagram itch, and Europe’s Gaza test.

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5/5 Read Oliver Bullough's full analysis and sign up to the Oligarchy newsletter for weekly updates on how the super rich are changing the world for the rest of us: buff.ly/AuDxfze

4/5 Charges have been dropped. Sun now dines with Trump and travels into space on Jeff Bezos’s phallic rockets. He is also the prime minister of Liberland, a libertarian fantasy land that promises minimal government oversight.

3/5 Justin Sun is another famous Chinese-born Kittitian. But the contrast with Qian couldn’t be more stark. Sun was once investigated for fraud by the SEC. And then he spent millions buying Donald Trump’s meme coins.

2/5 She was the mastermind behind a massive scheme in China to defraud citizens, before fleeing to the U.K. on a St Kitts & Nevis passport.

A Tale of Two Bitcoin Billionaires - Coda Story There have been some pretty chunky fines imposed by U.S. authorities for money laundering offences over the years. HSBC paid out $1.9 billion in 2012 for moving cash for Mexican mobsters; Goldman…

1/5 NEW OLIGARCHY: In a rare example of collaboration between Western and Chinese law enforcement agencies, writes Oliver Bullough, Zhimin Qian was nabbed in London.
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Governments, tech titans and oligarchs hope instances of abuse remain hidden in the dark. We’re turning on the lights. Support our work! buff.ly/fBylto9

Meet Las Marifachas: Spanish gay YouTubers allying with the far-right Vox party against Muslim immigration. Part of a 'homonationalist' trend that is fracturing Europe's progressive coalitions. buff.ly/8qtHpfi

In Oligarchy this week: Oliver Bullough tells the tale of two bitcoin billionaires. One whose $7 billion bitcoin haul was confiscated in London. And the other, reinventing himself as a champion of liberty and individual autonomy. Sign up here: buff.ly/AuDxfze

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The Shadow Puppet: A Russian's Warning about Trump - Coda Story The US president is not a Kremlin asset. But Americans beware, he and Vladimir Putin are different expressions of the same worldview

1/ “If Trump and his allies sometimes seem detached from reality, the joke is on reality.” Journalist Andrey Babitskiy unpacks why Trump and Putin resonate so deeply with one another, and what Americans can learn from Russia’s experience. buff.ly/wj4hbVV

The periphery is central. Empires rise and fall from the edges. Our three newsletters help you spot crucial patterns before they reach the mainstream. Subscribe: buff.ly/5wK9cid

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A Message from a Budding Autocracy - Coda Story A closer look at Georgia's spiral into autocracy under Bidzina Ivanishvili serves as a warning for countries who think they are safe.

Georgians have been protesting against their government’s growing authoritarianism for about a year now. Local elections could give the protesters a fresh burst of energy, but the future looks grim, writes George Lomsadze. buff.ly/we3hvKL

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1/ Despite a Russian invasion that left 20% of Georgia occupied, the country’s ruling party is reframing the 2008 war – not as Russian aggression, but as a provocation by Tbilisi. We unpack why this narrative shift matters and who benefits from it. buff.ly/Q3IxlNd

Newsletters - Coda Story Coda’s newsletters are designed to help you uncover the complex ways that today’s pressing issues are interconnected, so you can make sense of the world.

What connects OpenAI's AI slop machine, Tony Blair's Gaza power grab, and Telegram's Durov accusing France of election blackmail? It's the age of unaccountable individuals who treat entire populations as laboratories.

Subscribe to see the bigger picture :

Tony Blair as Gaza's governor, Trump lobbyists as power brokers in Africa, and Pavel Durov battling French intelligence to influence elections - who are the unaccountable individuals who shape our world?

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5/5 Read @OliverBullough's full analysis and sign up to the Oligarchy newsletter for weekly updates on how the super rich are changing the world for the rest of us: buff.ly/5wK9cid

4/5 Facing legal action and even jail time though has not pushed kleptocrats’ off their gravy train. They’ve just turned to Moscow and Beijing instead.

3/5 In better news, an NGO has played a significant role in forcing accountability in Paris where corrupt African autocrats and French politicians propped each other up.

2/5 Though it all seems terribly old-fashioned now as crypto exchanges offer kleptocrats more options than ever to move money without accountability, helped by the Trump administration’s enthusiastic endorsement of crypto.

Derailing the Kleptocrats’ Gravy Train - Coda Story Last week, I went to Montserrat on a research trip, the fruits of which I may one day divulge to you, if indeed there ever are any. It is a small British island in the Caribbean with the unusual…

1/5 NEW OLIGARCHY: The Caribbean was once the centre of the money-laundering world, writes Oliver Bullough from Montserrat.
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Governments, tech titans and oligarchs hope instances of abuse remain hidden in the dark. We’re turning on the lights. Support our work! buff.ly/fBylto9

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1/ Hours before her UN AI for Good talk, Abeba Birhane was told to censor references to Gaza/Palestine/Israel and replace “genocide” with “war crimes.” She walked away. Minutes before showtime, organisers backed down. buff.ly/8VyY2Nv

Newsletters - Coda Story Coda’s newsletters are designed to help you uncover the complex ways that today’s pressing issues are interconnected, so you can make sense of the world.

The periphery is central. Empires rise and fall from the edges. Our three newsletters help you spot crucial patterns before they reach the mainstream. Subscribe:

2/ After its first successful international edition in Amsterdam, ZEG lands in London on October 18th. Get your ticket now: buff.ly/cF9aB9H

“It’s a devil’s machine.” - Coda Story Georgia's first female bishop had an unsettling encounter with AI. It prompted her to ask if tech evangelists have misunderstood what it means to be human

1/ At Tbilisi’s ZEG Festival, Coda’s Isobel Cockerell spoke with Bishop Rusudan Gotsiridze about her first encounter with AI – and what it reveals about faith, technology, and the limits of Silicon Valley’s utopian promises. buff.ly/HGAxjRO

In this week’s Currents: How Meta’s experiences quashing regulations around the world prepared it to buy American politicians. Also: A pivotal election in Moldova, Putin’s gift to Pyongyang, and Russia’s increased digital authoritarianism. Sign up here: buff.ly/rWerVQn