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The International Criminal Court and its officials have been awarded the European Parliament's 2026 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought.
Learn more about the laureate here ➡️ link.europa.eu/rVBvTR

ALT A group of judges in blue robes sit in session at the International Criminal Court. The text reads: “2026 Laureates of the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, The International Criminal Court and its officials, Democracy in action.” The European Parliament logo is in the bottom right‑hand corner.
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“I think it is a bit unusual that we have a leader with such power, which the president of the United States has, who happens to be such an inadequate leader for the world.” Former Irish President Mary Robinson reflects on the importance of rule of law and her view of the Trump administration's conduct.
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🔴 Mamdani, sobre Lorca en el encuentro con Sánchez: "En la Guerra Civil la represión de Franco perpetraba atrocidades contra los que consideraban de izquierdas. Lorca fue asesinado por los hombres de Franco, ejecutado por un pelotón de fusilamiento" eldiario.es/politica/ultima-…
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So Trump went for the weekend to Ireland to watch some golf with his very adoring assistant Natalie Harp, leaving Melania at home (Nothing to see here…😱).
He took with him an excessively large number (21) of U.S. military and VIP aircraft (including 2 Presidential jets, 5 cargo planes, 4 large military helicopters alongside additional support and VIP transport aircraft to carry his estimated 1,000-person entourage.
He also deployed a motorcade consisting of 34 vehicles.
The cost of was in the region of $5 million to the U.S. taxpayers.
The cost to Irish taxpayers, was in the region of 20 million Euros. ($23 million USD)
This is shameful…
Irish taxpayers could have better used this money in health and education. Instead this lump of lard made his way over to ‘watch some golf’
He needs to stay the fuck at home. 😡
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Personally, I think this is nonsense. I will break down what I think is happening in this video.
It appears that Jeff Banks is a longtime Reform supporter, so Nigel is granting him two favors. The first is the opportunity to secure a contract to produce Reform's merch. The second is the opportunity to appear in this video, which effectively functions as an advertisement.
I think it is a mischaracterization to call Jeff Banks a "designer." A more apt term is "businessman." There's nothing inherently wrong with being a businessman, but if we were to survey everyone in the menswear industry, the greatest concentration of hucksters would be in this category.
For decades now, Jeff Banks has been sourcing his production in low-wage countries and then importing those items into Britain, which in turn undercuts British production. For instance, this shirt pictured below, which was made in China. To be clear: there is nothing inherently wrong with Chinese production. Some of it can be quite high-quality. But when someone arrives in the country with only the intention of maximizing profits, quality is not their central concern.
If Nigel actually cared about British manufacturing, he could have contacted @paddygrant, who has been a champion in this area for decades. While Jeff Banks was outsourcing his production, Patrick was not only manufacturing in the UK, but also saving British factories. In 2015, he saved the Blackburn factory Cookson & Clegg from closure by purchasing the operation and saving countless jobs. That factory could have easily made Reform's merch. And the money would have gone to someone who has been a genuine champion of UK manufacturing.
Jeff Banks claims that it's a "nightmare" to produce neckties in the UK, so he had to go to Como, Italy to get his silk. This is the sort of lie you can expect from a huckster who is principally concerned with profits, not British jobs.
I'm sure he knows that Macclesfield has a long tradition of producing British silk. Adamley still produces there, as you can see in the third slide. Some of their designs are inspired by David Evans's archival prints, which would have given Nigel and his team the opportunity to promote a long-forgotten British tradition. (I will save the story for David Evans for another time). These Macclesfield silks could have been given to Drake's, a domestic British neckwear producer.
Yes, this would have been expensive for the end consumer. But this is what you would have had to tell Reform supporters: if you want genuine, high-quality British manufacturing, it will cost you.
Jeff Banks doesn't take this route with his production because he knows supposed "British patriots" are often cheap bastards, much like their American counterparts. So he cuts corners where he can. By cutting costs in this way, you undercut actual British producers. Consumers see this advertisement, go to Jeff Banks, and see that the goods are cheap. They then wonder why British manufacturers are charging so much more.
Unfortunately, this corner of the market is full of hucksters who are not real patriots. Nigel promotes this guy in return for his support, which brings consumers to him, helping line his pockets — much of it cheap imports. If you want real British-made clothing, there is no shortage of options. But you have to be serious about supporting domestic craftspeople and factory workers.
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Europe is not idly waiting for a billionaire to unshackle its economy – it has the world’s most talented people, billions of euro in savings and nearly half a billion consumers, writes Sinéad O'Sullivan
irishtimes.com/opinion/2026/…
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While Canada takes decisions showing dignity & courage, Europe takes decisions showing insecurity & fear.
While 🇨🇦citizens demand their leaders show self-respect, 🇪🇺🇬🇧citizens accept their leaders humiliating this continent with their grovelling to Trump.
davekeating.substack.com/p/e…
🗣️Thierry Henry: I watched the first half of the World Cup final, and one question keeps running through my mind: Is football still being decided on the pitch, or somewhere else?
The officiating was so controversial that many fans are left wondering whether these decisions were simply mistakes or something more. At the biggest sporting event in the world, every call matters. When questionable decisions consistently favor one side, it's only natural for people to ask difficult questions.
FIFA owes football fans transparency and fairness. The World Cup is built on trust, and once that trust begins to fade, the tournament's credibility and prestige are put at risk.
This isn't about hating Argentina or taking anything away from their players. It's about protecting the integrity of the beautiful game. Football should be won by talent, hard work, and determination—not by decisions that leave millions of fans debating the referee long after the final whistle.
If this is the direction football is heading, then I have even greater respect for Cristiano Ronaldo, whose achievements I believe came without these kinds of controversies.
Football deserves better. Fans deserve better. The game deserves better.
#ESPARG #ArgentinaVsEspaña #spain
🚨 Roy Keane on Nico Williams disallowed goal against Argentina:
“I’ve just seen the biggest robbery of this World Cup. The ball comes into the box, nobody touches anybody, everyone goes up for it, then one Argentina player starts shouting. The next thing you know, two defenders are on the floor appealing,
Nico Williams has scored, and Emiliano Martinez … who wasn’t even touched… is somehow lying there as well asking for a foul.
The referee blows immediately. No VAR review. No replay. No check to see if there was actually any contact. Just disallowed. Apparently if enough Argentina players fall over at the same time, that’s now considered conclusive evidence.
If we’re being honest, Paredes shouldn’t even still be on the pitch after some of the tackles he’s made today. Yet somehow the only thing the referee managed to spot instantly was an invisible foul.”
Roy Keane on The referee disallowing Egypt’s goal after a VAR review:
🗣️ “I don’t agree with that decision at all. That’s a World Cup knockout game, and you’ve just wiped out a massive goal for something that, in my opinion, doesn’t justify overturning it. Football is becoming obsessed with finding reasons to disallow goals instead of rewarding attacking play.”
“The referee has made himself the biggest talking point of the match. If you’re going to cancel a goal in a moment this big, it has to be absolutely obvious. For me, that wasn’t clear enough. The players have done their job, and now they’re paying the price for another controversial VAR intervention.”
“This is exactly why fans get frustrated with VAR. Instead of talking about Egypt’s brilliant finish, everyone is debating the officials. Decisions like this can change the entire course of a World Cup, and if they’ve got this one wrong, it’s a decision that will be remembered for all the wrong reasons.”
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I painted this self portrait from a photograph the New York Post and Daily Mail ran over and over again alongside horrible stories about me. They averaged about 3 stories a day between them for years. The image came from their complete theft of my digital life. In the photograph I am in the worst stretch of my addiction. Exhausted. Contemplating how I could end everything.
They published it over and over because they believed it showed something disturbing, something degenerate, something people would recognize as evidence of whatever they were accusing me of that particular day.
I set out to paint it because I wanted to take back what they were trying to steal from me. It wasn’t just the image they had stolen. They had stolen thousands of images. They wanted to steal my humanity. Their portrait was of a monster. My portrait is of a man being reassembled piece by piece, bit by bit, pixel by pixel through the hard work of recovery.
A portrait of someone worth saving. Someone worth forgiveness. For all of me. Past. Present. Future. Gratitude for all of it.
The images they meant as weapons are no longer weapons to me. The man in them is no longer theirs to describe. He is mine, and I love him.
We do recover.
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Michelle Obama to Barack Obama: You were doing the people's work. Rescuing our economy. Expanding healthcare. Ending a war. Ordering the Bin Laden raid. Saving the auto industry. Winning a peace prize. Keeping us safe from Ebola. Regulating the banks. Standing up for marriage equality. Listening to science. And comforting an entire nation. And you did it all with such grace, and class, and cool.
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🚨🗣️New: Thierry Henry reacts to the Brazil, Morocco, and Netherlands press conferences, where questions in Spanish were reportedly not permitted for Hakimi, Vinícius Jr., and Frenkie de Jong:
“I have covered World Cups for years, and this situation makes absolutely no sense to me. You’re telling me a World Cup co-hosted by Mexico can stop journalists from asking questions in Spanish? That’s like hosting a Formula 1 race and banning cars from using their engines.
We saw it with Hakimi. We saw it with Vinícius. Now we’re hearing similar stories involving Frenkie de Jong. The players understood the questions. The journalists spoke one of the most widely spoken languages on the planet. Yet somehow the language became the problem.
Gianni Infantino talks about inclusion, diversity, and bringing football to everyone. Fine. Then explain this contradiction. How can FIFA celebrate diversity in every promotional video and then create headlines because Spanish journalists are being told to switch languages at a tournament hosted by Mexico?
Spanish isn’t some obscure dialect spoken by a handful of people. It’s the language of hundreds of millions across the Americas and beyond. If a journalist from Mexico, Spain, Argentina, Colombia, or anywhere else asks a question in Spanish and the player understands it, why is football creating barriers where none existed?
The irony is unbelievable. FIFA keeps telling us football belongs to everyone, but this controversy has many fans asking whether some voices are more welcome than others.
Maybe there’s a logistical explanation. Maybe it’s a translation issue. But perception matters. And right now the perception is terrible.
Because what fans are seeing is simple: a World Cup hosted partly by a Spanish-speaking nation, players who understand Spanish, journalists who speak Spanish, and officials telling them not to use Spanish.
If that’s progress, somebody needs to explain it better. Because from the outside, it looks like football’s governing body is tripping over its own message.”
“FIFA wanted a celebration of diversity. Instead, they’ve handed the internet a controversy that won’t stop being discussed.”
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huffpost.com/entry/released-…
“At least 15 cases of sexual assaults, including rape. Shot with rubber bullets at close range. Tens of people’s bones broken,” organizers of the Global SumudFlotilla posted on the Telegram social media app.
“While the world’s eye is trained on the suffering of our participants, we cannot emphasize enough that this is a mere glimpse of the brutality Israel imposes daily on Palestinian hostages.”
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As Meghan heads to Switzerland at the WHO’s invitation to speak, brace for the inevitable British tabloid onslaught.
We have seen this playbook countless times: a deluge of sneering coverage, not because her work lacks merit, but precisely because it succeeds so compellingly.
Contrast Kate’s recent Italy trip, hyped as a triumph, yet the one public speaking moment was so awkward that even her loyal media buried it in silence.
James O’Brien nails the double standard here with forensic precision: the vitriol isn’t about substance, it’s ENVY.
Harry and Meghan are simply better at this.
Watch the clip, then watch the predictable script unfold again this week.
The pattern is unmistakable. 👇👇👇
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For 20 years, the journalist in me has been fascinated by the politics of #Eurovision.
But in this piece for The Guardian, I write from the fan perspective - about why things have crossed a line and so many of us won't be watching this year.
theguardian.com/commentisfre…
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CARNEY: "There are some who say there's no need for a comprehensive plan. They believe we should wait it out in the hope that the United States will return to normal. That the good old days will come back. But hope isn't a plan and nostalgia is not a strategy."



































