Dem Soc Nerd

Displaced Sudanese people who left El-Fasher seek shelter in Tawila, on February 11, 2026

🇸🇩 The UN's independent fact-finding mission on Sudan has said the paramilitary siege and capture of El-Fasher bore "the hallmarks of genocide".
➡️ u.afp.com/S6ea

Ahead of tomorrow's first Board of Peace meeting, I hope that journalists covering the new mechanism will remember that this is much more than a silly vanity project, but rather a sinister effort to reorganize the international order around privatization and transactionalism.

Genuinely one of the stranger countries in Asia when it comes to politics and that’s a high bar to clear considering some of the competition.

Exclusive: Ecuador prison deaths climb again despite Noboa security strategy, data shows After hundreds of Ecuadorean inmates were killed in prison riots in 2021 and 2022, President Daniel Noboa made restoring order in jails one of the central pillars of his security strategy when he took office in 2023.

Exclusive: Ecuador prison deaths climb again despite Noboa security strategy, data shows reut.rs/4bY6Ulc

Ethiopia revokes accreditation of Reuters journalists The Ethiopian Media Authority has declined to renew the accreditation for three Addis Ababa-based journalists from Reuters, the news agency said.

Ethiopia revokes accreditation of Reuters journalists reut.rs/3ZExkRv

You have to wonder if Merkel was a double agent. Aside from entirely annihilating European solidarity in the wake of the economic meltdown, shutting down power plants in your own country to import Russian gas has the foresight of a newt. A truly ghastly leader.

Which is ultimately why you’d think in a race, Rubio would have a more fun time against Vance. He can do whatever he wants to reinvent himself now to be MAGA friendly but for most voters he’s still seen as a normal neocon and that’s fine by them.

Ultimately Rubio can ‘reinvent’ himself here because the movement he’s doing it for has no coherent ideology. It’s America first but loves intervention. It’s working class yet staffed and run by billionaires. It’s populist and drain the swamp but the most corrupt admin to ever exist.

Remembering the think pieces post 2016 and 2024 when people spent thousands of words saying Trump and MAGA is a coherent, realigning ideology when it’s entirely thought up for the benefit of enriching individuals that names end in Trump (with a sprinkle of tax cutting and ruining everything)

Kim Ju Ae: North Korea leader Kim Jong Un chooses daughter as heir, Seoul says South Korea's spy agency says Ki Ju Ae's prominent public presence indicates she is the chosen heir.

A gender neutral hereditary popular dictatorship. How progressive.

Ultimately it seems that the British public (not just Labour voters) hate almost every politician that’s in or around power that isn’t Farage or Burnham. Makes watching Labour fiddle around with Starmer all the more embarrassing.

Just name him Francesco Schettino - the captain who abandoned ship (left the UK for Monaco) after orchestrating a disaster (endorsing Brexit)

Just name him Francesco Schettino - the captain who abandoned ship (left the UK for Monaco) after orchestrating a disaster (endorsing Brexit)

Energy company absolutely fleecing domestic market has slightly lower profit margin

The haters said the Japanese opposition couldn't do it. And they were correct. Honestly, great call by the haters

Just one more centrist mish mash alliance bro I swear it’ll work this time

You’ve got to imagine in a world where trump actually gets booted out (without kicking a fuss), the absolute paralysis this mass ejection will cause to any incoming administration will be absolutely devastating

Standing on the rake every time and expecting a different result

This is an incredible article. Lebanese politics is a basket case in the best of times but this is beyond parody.

How the United States Is Raising the Risk of African Coups | Journal of Democracy Last December, a group of elite special-forces members attempted to overthrow Benin’s elected government. This was just the latest in a spate of African coup attempts, both successful and unsuccessful…

Last December, a group of elite special-forces members attempted to overthrow Benin’s elected government. This was just the latest in a spate of African coup attempts, both successful and unsuccessful, in the last half-decade.

Haven’t been verified since they were last provided in the late 2000s from my understanding. In fairness I don’t think it matters whether they have the most or just a lot. They’re in big trouble either way

Famine spreads to more towns in Sudan’s Darfur region, hunger experts say as war rages on A global hunger monitoring group says that famine is spreading in war-torn Sudan’s western Darfur region and has now engulfed two more towns there.

Famine is spreading in Sudan’s western Darfur region and has now engulfed two more towns there, a global hunger monitoring group said.

You’d hate to be in a world where USAID was completely gutted during a famine…

Being an Italian polling firm must be the easiest job on the planet. Survey respondents and come back with the exact same numbers 12 months in a row

You have to wonder at what the neocons and regime change lovers will do if a detente is reached here. No nuclear threat but the regime clings on after slaughtering protesters. Can’t imagine that’ll go down well with them at all.

End of republic type of operation (if it wasn’t already dead)

Trusting the evidently inept ‘guardrails’ that exist in America on a matter like this seems somewhat optimistic to me

All feels quite tiring aye

Can Sanae Takaichi govern Japan on star power alone? The new prime minister has revived the LDP, which had looked as if it might collapse. But if she wins this week’s elections, she will face harsh realities

I'm happy to be quoted in this long read from the @financialtimes.com but in general it's a great overview of the tension between Takaichi's popularity and what's waiting when the campaign is over.

giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

Big difference in Trump 2 vs Trump 1 is this damage is far more likely to be long-term. Tying yourself as a country to a place that decides every 4 years or so to just commit suicide isn’t a viable strategy.