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Portuguese news media have been talking about this for nearly *eight* hours. Panels of pundits punditing & reporters on repeat since mid-afternoon. It's been going on for longer than election nights, than the Euro 2016 title, and likely on track to be the longest event ever on Portuguese television

Manuel Müller @manuelmueller.foederalist.eu · 30/09/2026

Reposted by João

This is a bit embarrassing: 🇫🇮 PM Orpo has signed the "Frugals" letter demanding across-the-board #EUbudget cuts – although he had been campaining for *more* EU agriculture spending. Now he has distanced himself from the letter, and @hs.fi is wondering whether he was even aware what he was signing.

hs.fi

HS-analyysi | Vaikuttaa siltä, että Orpo ei itse ymmärrä, millaisen kirjeen on allekirjoittanut EU:lle

Suomi on mukana ryhmässä, joka vaatii leikkauksia myös maataloustukiin, vaikka pääministeri Petteri Orpo muuta väittää, HS:n EU-kirjeenvaihtaja Jarno Hartikainen kirjoittaa.

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It's 18:07 WEST, and Portugal's three main news channels are *all* simultaneously broadcasting panel discussions & commentary on Cristiano Ronaldo's relationship with the national team amid speculation that he's annoyed over getting benched during last Sunday's match with Norway (which we won, btw).

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Janne M. Korhonen @jmkorhonen.fi · 30/09/2026

@detig.bsky.social hahahahaha o teu jornalista desportivo favorito outra vez a ser estrela sem o querer

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Little birds told me that the day this was announced, orders were issued to crack open bottles of the best cognac

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Cold War Conversations Podcast @coldwarpod.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

#OTD 1949: The #BerlinAirlift ends. For 15 months, Allied aircraft supplied blockaded West Berlin, delivering over 2.3 million tonnes of food, fuel and essentials. Stalin’s blockade failed—without the crisis becoming a shooting war. An early Cold War victory in the skies.

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Matthew Doyle @mattdoyle.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

The Prem knew about it for years and allowed it b/c Man U was becoming a shitshow and they needed another club with global reach — one that would expand the league’s dominance in new markets. And it worked. So they let it continue. Business decision. www.theguardian.com/football/201...

theguardian.com

Arsène Wenger accuses Manchester City of bending Uefa fair-play rules

Arsène Wenger has called on Uefa to investigate Manchester City's sponsorship deal with Etihad Airways

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POP @populismblog.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

A paradox: parties and voters do the opposite. VOX praises Franco rather openly, yet only ~11% of its voters see continuity with him. Chega uses dog-whistles, yet 55%+ of its voters see continuity with Salazar. 81% of PSOE voters link VOX to Franco; only 42% of PS voters link Chega to Salazar.

Bar chart with two measures:

- Whether Chega is seen as a threat to democracy
- Whether it is associated with Salazar’s ideas
- Left-wing voters overwhelmingly see Chega as a threat
- Majority of Chega voters do not
- Moderate share of voters link Chega to Salazar

Bar chart with two measures:

- Perceived democratic threat
- Association with Franco
- Left-wing voters strongly perceive threat
- VOX voters largely reject both threat and Franco link
- Stronger perceived link to Franco than in Portugal

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POP @populismblog.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

New book out 🔥 The Fascist Zeitgeist. Authoritarian Legacies and the Iberian Far Right. (Elements in the History and Politics of Fascism @universitypress.cambridge.org) How is the success of the Iberian far right linked to the memory of Franco and Salazar? doi.org/10.1017/9781009588072

The image shows, on the right half, the book's cover, with fascist architecture from Rome, which is the signature image used by the series on "The History and Politics of Fascism". The left half of the image shows the book's back, that includes the following summary:
The far right is achieving unprecedented electoral success, even in countries once considered immune such as Spain and Portugal. For decades, the stigma surrounding the long dictatorships of António Salazar and Francisco Franco seemed to inoculate the Iberian Peninsula against far-right mobilisation, yet Chega and VOX have shown that collective memory evolves – and stigma fades. This Element argues that understanding the far right's global rise requires attention to authoritarian nostalgia: a longing for an idealised authoritarian past. When activated by credible political actors with sufficient media visibility, this sentiment can generate support for far-right movements even in societies with a collective memory firmly condemning their authoritarian past. Using original survey data, the Element shows how contemporary far-right forces mobilise the ghosts of authoritarianism to erode democratic norms, revealing the enduring power of collective memory in shaping political behaviour.

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Darth Putin @darthputinkgb.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

This is going to end well for them...

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OTD in 2015 Russia began bombing Syria. -we denied we'd do it -we then did it -we bombed lots of hospitals, shopping centers & schools to create refugees -we said it would be WW3 if NATO got involved -when NATO helped throw us out, we just ran away Sound familiar?

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Pedro Telles @detig.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

O que nao fara sentido do lado da UE ate ser um ponto assente nos partidos do arco de governacao de que o regresso nao depende da cor do governo de turno.

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Jacob Öberg @profjacob.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

🚨🚨 @coe.int of Europe said yesterday that the #US formally notified it that it would leave the Group of States against Corruption, or #GRECO. Only two other countries have left GRECO before — #Russia and #Belarus. The fall of the #US on the world scene is striking. apnews.com/article/trum...

apnews.com

US withdraws from European anti-corruption panel in latest shift away from global groups

The Trump administration has withdrawn the United States from a top European anti-corruption watchdog.

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I'm a little late to this. Nonetheless, these choices tend to change with time and are not to be taken too literally.

The Empty City @davidallengreen.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

The UK's plan to deport people to Rwanda fell apart, but this plan to deport people to Rwanda, Uganda and Uzbekistan will definitely work, won't it?

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Diabolical defending.

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"All this may be hugely confusing to outsiders, but it also does something very important: It serves to minimize the chance that a potentate—a power-hungry autocratic figure like U.S. President Donald Trump, for instance—could ever come to power there."

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Agathe Demarais @agathedemarais.com · 29/09/2026

Donald Trump's statesmanship has put an end to the fears of a Swiss takeover of Greenland.

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Mainstream narrative of China shock decimating EU industry may be overblown • Over past decade, China accounted for just one quarter of growth in bloc's extra-EU imports • China's share of EU’s imports has barely moved over past decade, rising from 20.5% to 22.3% www.economist.com/business/202...

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ianthemouthofmadness.fenrisgames @fenrisgames.com · 28/09/2026

come on Bluesky this belongs to one of you

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João @euroconcern.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Aggressors accusing the allies & supporters of the aggressed of trying to prolong the war? Well, this would certainly not fly today... right?

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SIPRI.bsky.social @sipri.org · 28/09/2026

Global military expenditure increased to $2887 billion in 2025, the 11th year of consecutive rises, bringing the global military burden—military expenditure as a share of gross domestic product (GDP)—to 2.5%, its highest level since 2009. Learn more ➡️ www.sipri.org/media/press-...

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João @euroconcern.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

At least Mr. Burns had 30 minutes to move his car.

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João @euroconcern.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Germany's last four games: - lost to Ecuador in the last group stage game of the World Cup - eliminated by Paraguay in the last 32 of the World Cup - draw with the Netherlands in the first Nations League game - lost to Greece in the second Nations League game

Emmanuelle Chaze @emmanuellechaze.com · 27/09/2026

Reposted by João

The Ukrainian Army drone-delivered ~4 tons of food to occupied Oleshky's residents. ~2,000 Ukrainians remain there, incl. 50 children, with no access to food, water, electricity. The occupiers try to shoot down drones, take away/resell provisions. Locals can be detained/tortured for receiving aid.

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Helene von Bismarck @helenebismarck.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Shortly after the Ukraine war started, I got into a debate with a Western intellectual arguing how hard the 90s had been for Russians, so the war was understandable. To which I said: “You could say this about all of Eastern Europe and we don’t think it is ok if they try to annex their neighbours.”

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Alina Sarnatska @srntska.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Ukraine recently recovered a relatively intact Russian Geran-4 drone after an emergency landing. What investigators found inside is striking: beyond the airframe and final assembly, many of its key components appear to come from abroad.

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Reposted by João

Oh look, @euronews.com forgot to publish this lavish report in the Azerbaijani dictatorship PR agency website again

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That is until the so-called "frugals" start demanding to contribute less into the EU budget and other members want to be seen as giving less for humanitarian aid due to pressure from the far-right.

Matthew Facciani @matthewfacciani.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Reposted by João

A four-wave study in Sweden found that conspiracy thinking, use of right-wing alternative media, and social media reinforce each other over time. In contrast, mainstream news use was associated with lower levels of conspiracy thinking. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

tandfonline.com

Breeding conspiracy thinking? Investigating the longitudinal relationship between media use and conspiracy mindset

Over the last decade, conspiracy theories and beliefs in them have become a more pressing social and political problem. Despite different media being the main channels through which conspiracy theo...

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Judah Grunstein @judah-grunstein.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

It's funny, I've been reading a lot of IR stuff from the 1990s/early 2000s. And while it's now cliché to dunk on the new approaches and possibilities evoked at that time as naive & utopian, the truth is that the next few decades really did see major changes in world politics and its practitioners.

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I don't know what happens after we die but I think that we might have to write detailed reviews of every product and service we ever acquired, with no skippable questions.

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