Keir Starmer Faces Mounting Pressure Before Crucial Labour Party Conference

September 28, 2025

Starmer under pressure ahead of Labour Party conference — Mr Starmer recently announced plans to introduce mandatory ID cards, insisting that it will help reduce irregular migration to the UK

Liverpool wakes, and the corridor conversations begin

The city unfurls itself slowly beneath a damp, silver sky — red-brick terraces glistening, seagulls wheeling above the waterfront, and the distant hum of Scouse voices threading through the air. Delegates and journalists, draped in lanyards and rainproofs, spill out of hotels and down to the cavernous conference halls. Steam rises from paper cups of tea; someone jokes about the Beatles having to do their best thinking on terraces just like this. It feels, for a moment, quintessentially Liverpool: warm, noisy, impatient for change.

And yet, beneath the familiar local color, there’s a sharper current running through the Labour Party conference this year — an urgency more brittle than optimism. Keir Starmer, sitting at the head of a party that once promised a new kind of steady stewardship, is being nudged and pinched from every side. Outside, a rising tide of discontent has fuelled opinion polls placing Reform UK in an unexpectedly competitive position. Inside, the chatter is about strategy, discipline and whether the party’s compass is pointing straight.

Identity cards and heated questions about migration

Starmer has staked a bold claim ahead of the conference: a plan for mandatory identification cards, framed as a blunt instrument to curb irregular migration. In the corridors and on the fringes, opinions are falling into two camps almost as fast as the autumn rain. For some, it is a pragmatic attempt to regain political ground on an issue voters name as decisive. For others, it is a dangerous surrender to the politics of fear.

“You either trust the state to register everyone fairly, or you end up giving it tools that can be misused,” said Aisha Khan, a legal aid solicitor who volunteers with migrant support groups. “We’re already seeing people afraid to access services; this would magnify that in a country with racialised policing and hostile immigration systems.”

From the government benches, the pitch is simple: migration is a salient concern for many voters, and tangible action will be judged. From civil-society kitchens and church halls, the reply is equally simple and urgent: civil liberties and the dignity of vulnerable people must not be collateral damage.

To anchor the debate in reality, consider the scale: irregular migration across small-boat routes and other channels has climbed markedly since the mid-2010s, prompting successive governments to strike at policy levers and borders. Tens of thousands of people have made perilous crossings in recent years, and the public appetite for “solutions” has become raw and immediate. Whether ID cards would work, and at what cost, remains fiercely contested.

Voices from the ground

“It might look decisive on a front page, but on the street it looks like more checkpoints for people already living in fear,” said Tom Richards, a lifelong Labour voter from Toxteth, who sat in on the early plenary. “We want secure borders, sure. But not at the expense of our values.”

An academic who studies migration policy, speaking at a fringe panel, put it more clinically: “ID systems in other democracies have often increased administrative control without necessarily reducing clandestine movements. The real question is: are we solving the problem or merely treating a symptom for electoral advantage?”

Irish politics moves centre-stage at a British conference

Running alongside these domestic fights is an unmistakable Irish thread woven through this year’s Liverpool gathering. Sinn Féin, long an uncomfortable presence for British unionists and a rising force in Irish politics, has chosen the conference as a platform for two messages: a sharp critique of the ID proposal and a renewed push on the prospect of a border poll in Ireland.

Mary Lou McDonald, the Sinn Féin leader, is slated to speak at a fringe event this evening. Organisers say she will describe the proposed ID measure as ill-conceived and likely to inflame communities rather than protect them. “This isn’t merely a technical policy,” one Sinn Féin aide told me. “It speaks to how we imagine belonging in a country that shares so much history, cross-border movement, and family ties.”

McDonald is also expected to press both the British and Irish governments to prepare for the possibility of a referendum on Irish unity before the decade’s end, arguing that demographic shifts and political momentum make planning necessary. The British government, down the corridor and in statements from Westminster, has pushed back — indicating a border poll is not currently a priority.

What a border poll would mean

For many in Liverpool’s Irish community — a network of pubs, memorial halls, choirs and charity groups that have helped shape the city’s soul — the talk of referenda is both historical and personal. “Our families crossed the sea for work and safety,” said Deirdre O’Connell, who runs a community centre in the city’s north. “We’ll listen to any democratic process, of course. But it must be fair, legal, and ready to answer the practical questions people will have.”

The urgency in McDonald’s rhetoric taps into wider debates about identity, migration, and sovereignty — questions reverberating across Europe as regionalism and populism reshape political maps.

Philomena’s Law: compassion, reckoning and the long shadow of history

Then there is another, quieter campaign threading through the conference: a call from Labour MPs and campaigners for the UK to adopt what supporters are calling “Philomena’s Law.” Named in honour of Philomena Lee, a survivor of Ireland’s mother-and-baby homes, the bill aims to guarantee survivors living in the UK can access compensation without seeing their welfare benefits docked.

It is an issue that is at once intimate and institutional — the collision of personal testimony with state accounting. Survivors and their advocates describe decades of secrecy, shame and bureaucratic neglect. “You can’t repair what was broken with paperwork alone,” said Siobhán McSweeney, the actor and campaigner due to speak in support of the bill. “But the state can at least stop punishing survivors twice.”

For Liverpool’s Irish diaspora — many with relatives who endured those homes or knew someone who did — the campaign is not abstract. It recalls late-night conversations over tea and bread, stories passed down as warnings, and the delicate calculus of justice decades late.

Politics as a mirror: what the conference reveals

What, then, does this conference reflect about Britain today? It is a country simultaneously hungry for order and anxious about the instruments offered to achieve it. It is a polity where migration, identity, and historical reckoning jostle for primacy, and where parties try to balance conviction with electoral calculation.

“Parties are in the business of persuading, but they must also be in the business of imagining,” said Dr. Eleanor Park, a political analyst. “Policies like ID cards test that balance. Are you persuading by offering a future that people want to live in, or are you merely pandering to fears?”

As the conference unfolds, delegates will vote on motions, network over hurried lunches, and listen to speeches that seek to steady a ship that creaks in places. Starmer’s attempt to reassert control feels less like a single speech than a season of small maneuvers: policy tweaks, public-facing moments, and, crucially, the quiet work of holding a sprawling coalition together.

Questions for the reader

So what do you think? When does security become surveillance? When does principled governance become political expediency? And how do communities — migrant, indigenous, diasporic — find a place in a polity wrestling with these questions?

Will mandatory ID cards calm public fears or create new injustices?
Can cross-border issues like an Irish referendum be handled without inflaming old wounds?
Will moral reckonings — like compensation for survivors — find a place in the ledger of modern politics?

These are not merely policy choices; they are choices about what kind of society Britain will be. And in a humid conference hall in Liverpool, surrounded by slogans and sandwiches, the debate about that future is very much alive.

Listen closely. There are stories being told here that will be told again, in different towns, by different people — and the answers we choose will echo far beyond this city’s docks.

NATO to Expand Baltic Deployment After Recent Drone Incidents

hanad

September 28, 2025

NATO to increase Baltic presence after drone incidents — Mysterious drone observations across Denmark since Monday have prompted the closure of several airports (file image of Aalborg Airport)

Night Visitors Above the Farmland: How a Few Drones Upended Denmark’s Sense of Normal

It was the kind of autumn night in central Denmark that farmers remember by the smell of wet hay and the cry of distant geese. People were in their kitchens, children were finishing homework, and at Karup — the country’s largest military base — floodlights cut through a low mist as soldiers performed routine patrols.

Then came the sightings: one, maybe two small silhouettes moving silently against the stars. Residents called it eerie. “You could see them blinking like mechanical fireflies,” said Lars Jensen, a dairy farmer who lives a few kilometres from the base. “My wife and I stood on the porch and felt suddenly unsure whether to go back inside.”

Those little fireflies — unidentified drones — were more than a local curiosity. Over the course of the past week, Denmark saw a string of incursions near military sites and vital civil infrastructure, culminating in the closure of Copenhagen Airport for several hours and temporary shutdowns at five smaller airports. Authorities say the flights appear sophisticated. NATO has announced a stepped-up presence in the Baltic to respond.

From Airspace to Alliance: What Happened

On an evening that has left officials sparring over motive and origin, the Armed Forces reported that unmanned aerial systems had been observed near military installations. Police said “one to two drones” were seen around 20:15 local time close to Karup, which hosts Denmark’s helicopter fleet, airspace surveillance, flight school and key support functions.

Copenhagen Airport — the busiest hub in the Nordic region, handling upwards of 30 million passengers a year before the pandemic — briefly shut its runways late on Monday after several large drones were detected in its controlled airspace. Five smaller airports, both civilian and military, were also closed temporarily in the days that followed.

Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen called the events “hybrid attacks,” using a term that captures the mix of military, cyber and covert activities that have become a hallmark of modern conflict.

“Over recent days, Denmark has been the victim of hybrid attacks,” she said. “There is one main country that poses a threat to Europe’s security, and it is Russia.”

Russian officials have rejected the accusation. In Copenhagen, the Russian embassy described the incidents as “a staged provocation” in a social media post and Moscow refuted any involvement.

Who’s Behind the Controls?

So far, investigators have not publicly identified the operators. Danish Defence Minister Troels Lund Poulsen said the flights “appeared to be the work of a professional actor,” language that signals capability rather than casual hobbyist mischief.

“This is not the activity of a drone enthusiast,” said Dr. Ewa Kowalska, a defence analyst at the Baltic Security Institute. “We’re looking at coordinated flights near military assets and civilian airspace — an intelligence-gathering or provocation profile that requires planning, reliable communications and disciplined operators.”

NATO Steps In: More Eyes and a Warship

For NATO, the incidents were the latest in a worrying pattern across the Baltic and eastern Europe. The alliance said it would “conduct even more enhanced vigilance with new multi-domain assets in the Baltic Sea region,” and detailed that additional intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) platforms and at least one air-defence frigate would be deployed to bolster the existing “Baltic Sentry” mission.

The Baltic Sentry operation — launched earlier this year in response to a series of suspicious seabed damage to power cables, telecom links and gas pipelines — already includes frigates, maritime patrol aircraft and unmanned surface vehicles tasked with protecting critical infrastructure. The new assets aim to expand surveillance and provide a hardened air-defence posture.

“An air-defence frigate brings radar, missile interceptors and command-and-control systems that complicate any adversary’s calculus,” explained Maj. Gen. Hanna Eriksson, a retired Swedish officer who advises NATO on maritime security. “But ISR platforms are equally vital; spotting an incoming threat early is half the battle.”

Across Borders, a Pattern of Pressure

The Danish incidents did not occur in isolation. In recent weeks and months, NATO members have reported drone incursions and airspace violations ranging from Poland to Romania, and even Norway briefly closed Oslo Airport after an earlier sighting. Estonia said three Russian MiG‑31 jets violated its airspace; the incident prompted Quick Reaction Alert fighters from Italy to escort them out, according to NATO. Moscow disputes some of those accounts.

It’s a pattern that speaks to a new normal in European security: a mix of asymmetric pressure, rapid technological diffusion and deniable operations. Cheap, capable drones and improved electronic systems make disruption easier and attribution harder. And when infrastructure — undersea cables, pipelines and airports — is put at risk, the consequences ripple, not just for defence planners but for ordinary commuters and businesses.

Flights affected: Copenhagen Airport closed for several hours; five smaller airports temporarily shut.
Military response: NATO adds ISR platforms and at least one air-defence frigate to Baltic Sentry.
Other regional incidents: reported incursions in Poland, Romania and Norway; Estonian airspace violation.

On the Ground: People, Anxiety and Resilience

For residents near Karup and commuters in Copenhagen, the headlines land personally. “I missed a flight because of this,” said Anna Sørensen, an airline ground staffer who found herself rebooking passengers on a rainy Tuesday. “People were confused. No one likes to feel the sky over their heads is uncertain.”

Community leaders have tried to soothe nerves. A local pastor in the Jutland town of Viborg, near the base, opened his church in the evening as a place for conversation and calm. “We don’t have answers,” he told the small gathering. “But we have each other.”

Experts say part of the response must be practical — improving detection systems, hardening infrastructure and investing in civil aviation counter-drone measures — and part psychological. “Resilience is built on systems and on communities,” said Dr. Kowalska. “Authorities need to be transparent and provide clear guidance so people aren’t left to fill the gaps with fear.”

What This Means for Europe — and for You

Ask yourself: how secure do you feel when you board a plane, route a bank transfer undersea, or rely on power that crosses borders? These events are a reminder that national security now has a civilian face. Hybrid tactics aim to sow disruption and doubt without triggering conventional warfare thresholds.

As NATO tightens its surveillance ring in the Baltic and countries like Germany declare drone threats “high,” the broader conversation turns to deterrence, diplomacy and the rules of engagement in an era of small, fast, and hard-to-trace weapons.

“We are seeing an evolution of conflict where the front lines are blurred,” said Maj. Gen. Eriksson. “This requires not just military fixes, but legal, technological and political responses. Europe must invest in detection, attribution and resilience — and it has to do so together.”

Questions to Ponder

How should democracies balance civil liberties with increased aerial surveillance? What responsibilities do tech companies have in policing drone sales and control systems? And if attribution remains murky, what forms of collective action are credible — and legal?

For now, Denmark is tightening its security posture, NATO is reinforcing its Baltic presence, and communities under the glow of floodlights are adjusting to a new kind of night sky. The drones are small, but their implications are large: in the modern age, quiet objects overhead can reshape geopolitics and daily life alike.

As you read this, think about your own skies. What would you do if the lights went out or the announcements told you to stay grounded? In a connected world, resilience begins at home — and it looks increasingly like a shared, international project.

Hamas says it hasn’t received US proposal for Gaza ceasefire

hanad

September 28, 2025

Hamas says it has not received US Gaza ceasefire plan — Two Palestinians watch on as smoke rises following an Israeli attack in Gaza City

Smoke over the Mediterranean: Gaza’s latest day of loss and the uneasy talk of deals

The sky above Gaza City has turned familiar shades of ash and copper—smoke ribbons torn by wind, dust drifting like a slow confession through streets that once hummed with vendors and children. In the space of a single day, hospital corridors that survived the early days of the war filled with new arrivals, and the tally on a hospital whiteboard rose by 74. That number—seventy-four people killed in 24 hours—was the figure released by health officials in Gaza. It became, for a few hours, the human cost behind a tangle of negotiations and denials coming from capitals far from the rubble.

What the headlines have turned into a diplomatic chess match—talks of ceasefires, prisoner swaps and political reconfigurations—is lived in Gaza as a series of private catastrophes: a mother cradling a child whose breath is shallow, an elderly man searching for the identity papers of a brother nowhere to be found, staff at a neonatal unit whispering prayers they never thought they’d need in daylight.

The conversation upstairs and the suffering downstairs

From Washington, the tone was brisk and broadly optimistic. US President Donald Trump told reporters he believed “it’s looking like we have a deal on Gaza,” without sharing the full text or a timetable. His special envoy said a package had been presented to leaders in the Middle East that includes a 21-point plan. An Israeli newspaper later reported that Hamas had accepted, in principle, arrangements that would see the release of Israeli hostages in return for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and a gradual Israeli troop withdrawal—conditions that also reportedly included ending Hamas’s rule in Gaza and guarantees against mass expulsions of Palestinians.

But words on paper and the voice of an aide do not carry the weight of boots on the ground. “We have not been shown any plan,” a Hamas official told Reuters, asking not to be named. In Gaza, MSF (Doctors Without Borders) announced it had been forced to suspend medical activities in Gaza City because its clinics were ringed by Israeli forces. “We didn’t want to stop,” an MSF field coordinator said in a statement, “but when ambulances cannot reach the dying, words are no longer enough.”

Numbers that anchor the story

Numbers can numb, but they also anchor outrage. Here are some of the key figures that keep surfacing across briefings and field reports:

74 — reported killed in Gaza in the last 24 hours, according to Gaza health officials.
350,000–400,000 — estimated number of Palestinians who have left Gaza City since the expanded ground offensive began, as reported by the UN World Food Programme.
More than 65,000 — Palestinians killed since October 2023, according to Gaza health authorities; the UN has treated these figures as credible.
1,200 — the number of people killed during the October 7 attack on Israel, and 251 — the number of hostages taken, per Israeli tallies.

These statistics are not abstract. Each number represents another set of rooms without lights, markets without vendors, and classrooms forever empty. “We are counting losses the way we used to count births,” murmured a Gaza City teacher, looking at the shuttered schoolyard where a fig tree still sways.

Medical services fraying at the edges

Healthcare in Gaza is fraying. The World Health Organization reported that four health facilities in Gaza City had closed so far this month and that some malnutrition centers have ceased operating. The picture in hospitals is grim: incubators occupied by infants, oxygen supplies uncertain, surgical kits dwindling. For staff, the decision to suspend operations is wrenching. “There are babies in neonatal care who cannot be moved,” said a nurse at a hospital that had been receiving casualties. “We are running out of options, not just supplies.”

Doctors Without Borders framed their withdrawal as a last resort. In their words: “We are forced to suspend our activities while the needs are skyrocketing.” To international observers, the closures illustrate a larger point—when health infrastructure breaks, mortality climbs beyond the battlefield, especially among the very young and the chronically ill.

Was there a plan? The gap between reports and reality

Amid these human tragedies, the diplomatic chatter sounded detached to many here. Haaretz, an Israeli newspaper, reported that Hamas had consented in principle to an exchange conditioned on the release of Israeli hostages and a phased Israeli troop withdrawal. That report also spoke of ending Hamas’s rule in Gaza and preventing mass displacement. Yet Hamas officials denied seeing any formal plan—and Israel, for its part, had not made a public response to the US president’s comments at the time of reporting.

“Talks can save lives,” said a UN aid worker who has been operating in the region, “but the proof will be in access—humanitarian corridors, safe passages, verified and monitored exchanges.” The suspension of medical services only underscores how fragile any agreement would be if it does not include immediate protections for civilians and guarantees for aid delivery.

Local voices and the texture of suffering

Walk any damaged neighborhood and you will cross the tracks of a thousand small narratives. An elderly grocer in al-Rimal, whose fruit stall was reduced to a pile of charred crates, recalled the prewar rhythm: “People bartered, joked, complained about the heat,” he said. “Now, when I call someone, I ask simply: Are you alive?”

A father at an improvised shelter, wrapped in a blanket in a crowded gymnasium, pressed his fingers to a photo of a son taken years ago. “If there is a deal,” he whispered, “make sure it brings our children back and not just promises.”

From local despair to global questions

The drama in Gaza raises questions that reach beyond one neighborhood or one negotiation table. How does the international community move from statements and plans to enforceable, safe mechanisms on the ground? What responsibility do outside powers bear when their proposals shape the life-or-death calculations of civilians? Who monitors implementation when trust is absent and aid workers are under siege?

Observers worry about the long-term social consequences as well: a generation of children growing up amid ruins; education interrupted; trauma passed from parents to children. The UN’s global hunger monitoring arm has said that a man-made famine is unfolding in Gaza, a characterization that, if accurate, forces a reckoning with the broader patterns of siege, supply blockade, and restricted humanitarian access.

What should you take away—and what can you do?

When news flows from distant places, it’s tempting to turn away. But each line—each 74, each closed clinic—represents human beings whose stories are worth seeing. Ask yourself: what have you done today to learn, to press for accountability, to support relief efforts? If you want to help, look for reputable international humanitarian organizations working in the area, check verified charity monitors, and consider raising your voice where it matters: with elected officials, media outlets, and your community.

This war has become a series of intimate tragedies played out on regional and global stages. A diplomatic brushstroke may one day ease the bombs; but until agreements are robustly enforced, and until aid can move freely into the places that need it, the smoke will remain. And the people—living in neighborhoods with names you’ve heard and faces you haven’t—will keep counting losses the way they used to count birthdays.

Ukraine seeks €76bn in US-made weapons and defense systems

hanad

September 28, 2025

Ukraine seeking to buy €76bn worth of US weapons — Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke to journalists in Ukraine after returning from the US

From Kyiv’s Workshops to Capitol Hill: Ukraine’s Bold Bet on Weapons, Drones and Survival

There is a particular light in Kyiv at dusk this autumn — a ragged, electric glow that comes from factories that never fully turned off when war arrived. Inside, workers in scuffed boots and oil-streaked hands put together components that will, in one way or another, shape the map of Europe. Outside, tramlines hum, shopkeepers trade in sunflowers and canned goods, and the conversation is never far from one number: €76 billion.

That figure — the price tag of a proposed US weapons package Kyiv has quietly prepared — arrived in public conversation like a boom on the horizon. It is not just procurement; it is a wager on survival, a bet that modern war is fought as much with contracts and supply chains as with courage on the front lines.

The MegaDeal: More Than Metal and Missiles

Ukrainian officials, President Volodymyr Zelensky said during recent diplomatic stopovers, will travel to Washington in the coming weeks to press a request that would reshape the country’s defense posture. The list Kyiv has compiled is vast — €76bn worth of US-made arms and equipment meant to shore up air defenses, mobility, and endurance against a war that has slogged on for three-and-a-half years.

“We have to think in decades, not months,” said a senior official at the Ministry of Defence in Kyiv, speaking on condition of anonymity. “This is about building the backbone of Ukraine’s deterrent capability. Not a quick fix, but a sustained capacity.”

What that backbone looks like in practice is telling: hardened air defenses, radar and electronic warfare suites, sustained ammunition supplies, and logistics to keep systems running. Ukraine already deployed its first Patriot missile defense system, transferred via Israel, and expects two more Patriots this autumn — a symbolic and practical boost that underscores the priority Kyiv places on shielding cities and people from rocket and drone barrages.

€76bn: the headline number Kyiv is pitching to the US
Three-and-a-half years: length of conflict that has driven a domestic arms ecosystem
Patriot systems: 1 received via Israel; 2 more expected this autumn

The Drone Deal: Ukraine as Supplier, Not Just Recipient

There is an irony here that will not be lost on arms suppliers: the country pleading for weapons aid has grown its own drone industry from scratch. From basements and garages early in the war, a sprawling ecosystem of hundreds of small producers now turns out millions of relatively inexpensive unmanned aerial vehicles — loitering munitions and reconnaissance drones that have become the war’s ubiquitous presence.

“Three years ago, we were testing on the kitchen table,” laughed Olena, a 38-year-old production manager at a mid-sized drone plant on the outskirts of Kyiv. “Now we have 120 people on two shifts. Our export managers are on the phone all day.”

Zelensky’s team is pitching a “Drone Deal” alongside the MegaDeal: the United States would buy Ukrainian-made drones directly, scaling up production with cash and orders even as Western workshops supply heavier systems. Technical working groups, Kyiv says, are preparing contracts and specifications.

“This is not charity,” said Dr. Hanna Melnyk, a defense economist at a Kyiv think tank. “It is a strategic alignment. For the US, buying Ukrainian systems could mean cheap, scalable platforms for theatre-level operations. For Ukraine, it is capital to industrialize defense production and create jobs.”

Nightly Drones and the Civilian Cost

The stakes are not abstract. Russia has intensified missile and drone strikes, sometimes launching hundreds of small unmanned systems in a single night. In response, Ukraine has targeted Russian energy and oil infrastructure — a brittle, tit-for-tat logic of attrition that bleeds into cities, hospitals and schools.

“When the sirens start, you know the night will be long,” said Mykhailo, a volunteer medic who spends nights shuttling between bombed apartment blocks and temporary shelters. “You also know that whatever we have — air defenses, drones, everything — it has to be enough to keep people alive and lights on.”

Air defense is not a glamour line item. It is an insurance policy for civilian life: for families who cook at night, for markets that try to reopen, for children who should be learning rather than listening for knock-on-the-door alerts.

Warnings, Rhetoric and the Wider Diplomatic Chessboard

As Kyiv moves to secure big-ticket US hardware, Moscow’s rhetoric has stiffened. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned at the UN General Assembly that any aggression against Moscow would be met with a “decisive response,” and cautioned NATO countries considering firmer reactions at alleged airspace violations. “If any country downs objects still within Russian airspace, they will very much regret it,” he told reporters.

That statement is part of a broader pattern of testing and signaling. European capitals have reported incursions and provocations — fighter jets and drones brushing the fringes of airspace — and NATO tests its thresholds. Each episode raises the risk of miscalculation, and of conflicts that slip beyond local control.

“The danger now is cumulative,” said Prof. Miriam Schultz, a European security analyst in Berlin. “You don’t need a dramatic escalation for an accident to become a crisis. Dense airspace, proxy activity, dual-use technologies — it’s a recipe where a single mistake can have outsized consequences.”

Local Color: Life Between Assembly Lines and Air Raid Sirens

Visit a factory or a market in central Ukraine and you will find the dissonant everyday: a vendor selling pickled tomatoes beside a stall of replacement drone propellers; a grandmother carrying a shopping bag of barley while a young technician sketches circuit boards on a café napkin. Coffee is strong; humor is black; patience is being stretched but not yet broken.

“The people here are stubborn the way a tree is,” said Kateryna, a baker near a tram stop. “Roots deep. We bend, but we don’t break. We make do.”

What This Means for the World

If the MegaDeal comes to pass, it will be more than an arms sale. It will be a reconfiguration of supply chains, a deeper integration of Ukrainian industry with Western markets, and a hardening of the idea that allied support can be monetized into long-term capacity. It will also highlight uncomfortable questions: How much war can be industrialized before it becomes normal? What does security mean for a continent living with persistent low-level conflict?

There are economic echoes too. Orders for drones and spares will create jobs and skills — potentially reconstructive forces in peacetime, but also more capable tools of war while the conflict continues.

So, what do we want to believe as readers watching from afar? That weapons and money will buy stability? That technology can protect civilians indefinitely? That diplomacy can keep up with the speed of weaponization?

These are not rhetorical games. They are pragmatic decisions that will shape lives for years — in Kyiv’s factories, in the small towns that feel the impact of strikes, and in capitals grappling with the ripple effects of supply commitments.

Back at the plant, Olena looks at a row of finished drones, each one a product of improvisation, determination, and profit. “We build things to keep our people alive,” she says. “If the world wants to buy them, let them buy. But remember: the money buys more than machines. It buys time.”

Time, in wars like this, is everything. And at its heart, the MegaDeal is a gamble on buying more of it.

Moldova’s decisive election: democracy under siege from disinformation

hanad

September 27, 2025

Moldova's high-stakes vote: Democracy v disinformation — Supporters of the ruling Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS) during a pro-EU rally yesterday, on the final day of the electoral campaign in Chisinau, Moldova

On the Eve of Decision: Moldova’s Tightrope Between Europe and Moscow

There is a crispness to the air in Chisinau that feels like expectation: flags flutter, campaign posters peel at the edges, and the city’s cafés—where students sip black coffee under chestnut trees—are full of hushed debates. For a nation of roughly 2.4 million people, this ordinary evening hum carries extraordinary weight. Tomorrow’s parliamentary election will not only shape domestic policy; it may decide whether Moldova continues toward the European Union or slides back into Moscow’s orbit.

“This is about the future of our country,” President Maia Sandu told me in a short video call. Her voice, measured but intense, cut through the static of international speculation. “They want to buy our future. They want to buy our people. This is dirty money, illegal financing, and a campaign of lies.”

Why the Stakes Feel So High

Moldova is small in population but large in geopolitical importance. Straddling the Black Sea corridor and sharing a border with Ukraine, the republic sits on a fault line of European security. Since applying for EU membership in March 2022 and gaining candidate status by June, Moldova has signalled a deliberate pivot west. Accession negotiations began at the end of 2023—a rapid integration trajectory for a country that only cast off Soviet rule in 1991.

Yet domestic life is less about diplomacy and more about practical worries: low wages, soaring energy costs, and the memory of systemic corruption that has hollowed public trust. A million Moldovans live abroad—many of them voters—and their remittances keep families afloat. Which way those votes lean may prove decisive.

Two Blocs, One Tight Race

Polls show the incumbent pro-EU Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS), founded by Sandu, and the Patriotic Bloc, a coalition of left-leaning, pro-Russian parties, locked in a near tie—each hovering around 25%. With 101 seats in parliament, neither side looks likely to win an outright majority. Coalitions are all but certain.

“This is not just another election,” Prime Minister Dorin Recean told reporters recently, casting the contest as a siege. “This is a matter of sovereignty.” The government has accused external actors of pouring money into campaigns and of orchestrating disinformation to sway public opinion; Moscow has dismissed such claims and accused the EU and NATO of hostile intent.

Money, Lies, and the Machinery of Influence

The narrative that has dominated headlines is painfully simple: cash and noise. Last winter’s presidential contest and a companion referendum were shadowed by allegations of widespread vote buying and disinformation. Moldovan officials estimated that more than €100 million flowed into attempts to buy influence. This time, the drumbeat has been louder.

Investigative teams—both local and international—have filmed networks promising money for social media posts, false polls, and anti-government propaganda. Police report that large sums of cash have been smuggled into the country, and they have conducted raids this week on over 100 people allegedly preparing to stage mass disturbances. One of the Patriotic Bloc’s four parties was barred from fielding candidates after accusations of voter bribery.

“They’ve weaponised poverty,” said Andrei Lutenco, director of the Centre for Policy and Reform in Chisinau. “Disinformation is aimed at economic grievances—blame energy bills on the West, blame inflation on sanctions. It’s a toxic mix that can poison a campaign very quickly.”

The Shor Factor

No account of this moment is complete without Ilan Shor, the exiled oligarch. Convicted in 2023 over a major banking fraud and sentenced to 15 years, Shor fled to Russia and has been linked by investigators to covert funding channels. He has been sanctioned by both the EU and the United States for attempting to undermine Moldova’s democratic processes. A recent video message attributed to him offered payments of $3,000 a month to people willing to protest against the current government—a vivid example of how money and theatre can be combined to destabilise.

Voices from the Market and the Frontlines of Fact

Walk into the central market in Chisinau and you will hear a chorus of concern and defiance. “I’m tired of politics,” said Natalia, a fruit vendor who has been here for two decades. “But I worry who will run things. Money talks loudly here. People take cash because they have to feed children.”

Across from her stall, a 22-year-old university student, Mihai, sighed. “My generation wants Europe. Work, rules, chance to stay without leaving. But fear is strong. Many elders remember Russian TV and stories—those seeds are hard to pull out.”

Experts warn that the battle being fought in Moldova is less about tanks than algorithms. A BBC investigation traced networks of hired posters and paid social media operatives producing fake polls and smear content aimed at discrediting PAS. The Kremlin’s foreign intelligence service has upped the rhetorical ante, issuing statements alleging NATO plans to “intimidate Transnistria”—claims dismissed by independent analysts as baseless but potent in their ability to inflame anxieties.

Transnistria and the Shadow of Troops

The breakaway region of Transnistria, a sliver of territory running along Moldova’s east, hosts a small Russian military presence. Estimates vary; Ukrainian sources have suggested a contingent perhaps as small as 1,500. Still, the symbolism is what matters: the presence of foreign forces on Moldovan soil turns elections into matters of security as well as policy.

International Attention and What Comes Next

International observers are watching closely. The Organization for Security and Co‑operation in Europe (OSCE) has deployed more than 100 observers, including a small delegation from Ireland. “We will be at polling stations, documenting procedures,” said Irish parliamentarian Barry Ward, a member of the observer team. “If we see vote-buying or intimidation, our role is to report—not to intervene.”

An exit poll is expected within hours of the polls closing; by Monday morning we should have a clearer picture. The OSCE will publish preliminary findings on the conduct of the vote the following afternoon. But whatever the immediate outcome, the deeper questions will linger: can institutions withstand sustained information warfare? Can a small, economically fragile democracy resist the gravitational pull of a larger neighbour?

Beyond Moldova: A Global Story

Moldova’s election is not simply local theatre. It is a case study in how money, migration, and media collide in the 21st century. It asks a blunt question that many nations must now answer: how resilient are democratic choices when adversaries can fund, fabricate, and foment at scale?

“Moldovan democracy is fragile,” Sandu warned. “EU membership would put it in a safer place, but we can only get there if our people decide for themselves, not under the pressure of lies and dirty money.”

As you read this, consider the texture of your own civic life. How susceptible are our choices to invisible forces? Who decides what is news, and who pays for it? In Chisinau the answers will begin to reveal themselves at the ballot boxes tomorrow. The rest of the world should be watching—not as distant spectators, but as a community that understands how a small country’s choice can ripple across continents.

Population: ~2.4 million
Parliament seats: 101
Diaspora voters: ~1 million
Estimated funds allegedly used to influence past elections: >€100 million (claimed by Moldovan officials)
OSCE observers deployed: 100+

Spanish city commemorates Gaelic chieftain Red Hugh O’Donnell

hanad

September 27, 2025

Spanish city honours Gaelic chieftain Red Hugh O'Donnell — The Spanish city of Valladolid came to a standstill as Red Hugh's royal funeral was re-enacted

A Spanish city pauses to remember an Irish rebel: the night Red Hugh came home

On a mild evening in Valladolid, the kind of dusk that softens stone and throws lamps into relief, the city stopped. Shops shuttered a little early, tourists gathered on narrow sidewalks, and entire families stepped out of apartment windows to watch a pageant that braided two histories together—one Gaelic, one Castilian—across four centuries.

A horse-drawn carriage rolled slowly through the medieval lanes, flanked by torch-bearers whose flames licked drystone facades. Men in 16th-century armor clicked spurs on cobbles; friars in brown habits walked with bowed heads; Irish wolfhounds padded solemnly beside soldiers in ceremonial dress. A lone chanter set the tone, then a piper raised Amhrán na bhFiann and sent the anthem weaving through the alleys like wind through wheat.

It was a reenactment that made history feel breathing and immediate: the royal funeral of Red Hugh O’Donnell—Aodh Rua of Tír Chonaill—who died in Spain in 1602 while seeking support against English rule. For many here, it was also an intimate ceremony of gratitude and kinship, evidence that centuries-old alliances can survive on memory and ritual as easily as on treaties.

Who was Red Hugh? A man of stormy times

Red Hugh O’Donnell was not a king in the modern sense, but a Gaelic chieftain whose life read like an epic. Born into the rugged landscapes of Donegal—Tír Chonaill in Irish—he was a central figure in the Nine Years’ War (c. 1594–1603), the largest Gaelic uprising against Elizabethan conquest. Alongside Hugh O’Neill, O’Donnell led a confederacy of Irish lords that nearly halted English expansion in Ireland before the pivotal loss at the Battle of Kinsale in 1601.

After Kinsale, O’Donnell sailed for Spain to plead his case to King Philip III. Spain, embroiled in its own continental conflicts, represented a flicker of hope—an ally bound by Catholic faith and common cause. But illness struck while O’Donnell was on Spanish soil. He died far from the heather and bogs of home. Philip III ordered a royal funeral and, in a gesture that has been celebrated in Valladolid ever since, the chieftain was laid to rest in the city then serving as the Spanish capital.

The night’s procession: spectacle and tenderness

The reenactment—now in its fourth year—unfolded like a living tapestry. Organisers had deliberately mixed solemnity with pageantry: King Philip and Queen Margaret (in period costume), Franciscan friars, mounted cavalry, pipers from Ireland and Spain, and former members of the Irish Defence Forces marched together. A wreath-laying in front of the Chapel of Marvels, the site linked to O’Donnell’s burial, drew a hush; Mayor of Valladolid stepped forward to speak, his voice carried on the chill air.

“We honour not only a man but a bond,” said Mayor Isabel Romero, addressing the crowd. “This city remembers because remembrance enriches us.” Her words were met with applause and a spontaneous chorus of conversations in Spanish and Irish, mixing languages as if they were familiar friends.

“It’s a strange and humbling sight,” said Eddie Crawford, a veteran from Lifford who carried the Irish tricolour that night. “I grew up hearing stories of Red Hugh in Donegal. To march here, wearing my uniform, with the people of Valladolid beside me—it’s more than ceremony. It’s homecoming.”

Local color and human moments

There were small, tender scenes that television cameras rarely catch. An elderly Spanish woman, lace shawl wrapped tight against the evening breeze, dabbed at tears as the Irish anthem rose. A group of schoolchildren, clutching miniature flags, shadowed the procession with wide eyes. Near the Chapel of Marvels, a street vendor selling churros watched solemnly, then placed a single flower at the plaque’s base—an unplanned and genuine offering.

The ties that bind: festivals, plaques, and shared archives

The funeral reenactment is the centerpiece of a three-day Hispano-Irish celebration organized by the Hispano-Irish Association of Valladolid, founded 17 years ago. This festival threads history lectures, film screenings, live music, and academic exchanges into a weekend that aims to make the past useful in the present.

“There is something very powerful about the connection the Spanish feel with the Irish,” said organizer Carlos Burgos. “It carries a sense of brotherhood. People here take pride in being guardians of this story.”

Valladolid, a city of roughly 300,000 inhabitants in Spain’s Castilla y León region, has embraced this guardianship with municipal support. The city is twinned with Lifford in County Donegal, a symbolic pairing that draws attention to migration, exile, and how memory crosses borders. The festival has even funded an archaeological dig in 2020 at the Chapel of the Marvels, searching for traces of O’Donnell’s burial.

The Hispano-Irish Association’s voluntary committee hopes to extend recognition beyond Valladolid. Their next ambition is to place a commemorative plaque at Dublin Castle, where a young Red Hugh was once imprisoned and famously escaped as a teenager—an episode that reads like a legend in local lore.

Archives and echoes: Simancas holds secrets

The delegation of Irish guests also visited Simancas, a nearby town whose castle archives—Archivo General de Simancas—hold a trove of documents from the 16th and 17th centuries. Among the papers are O’Donnell’s last will, reportedly dictated in Irish, and correspondence between Irish exiles and Spanish officials. There are even interrogation notes about James Blake, a Galway merchant suspected of spying for England during that fraught summer.

“These documents are fragile, but they are thunderous,” said Professor Elena Martín, a historian at the University of Valladolid. “They let us hear, imperfectly, the last acts of a man who was not simply an Irish chieftain but an actor on a European stage where empires met.”

Why this matters today

Why should a modern audience care about a 17th-century funeral? Because the story of Red Hugh O’Donnell carries forward themes that still resonate: migration and exile, the search for allies across seas, and the small mercies that communities bestow upon those who have come from elsewhere. In a world where borders are again hotly contested and diasporas are reshaping cities, the Valladolid reenactment is both commemoration and conversation.

“History is not a museum piece,” said Hugo O’Donnell, the 7th Duke of Tetuan and a descendant of the O’Donnell dynasty. “It’s a relationship. Red Hugh was a man of loyalty and conviction—qualities that bind people, nations, and generations.”

As the procession concluded and the last torch guttered, people lingered, unwilling to let the spell break. A young Spaniard asked an Irish marcher in weathered uniform, “Why keep doing this?” The marcher smiled and answered simply: “So we remember where we came from, and why we are still connected.”

So I ask you, reader: what stories does your city carry that belong to others? What rituals of remembrance could bridge divides where politics have failed? In Valladolid, under the gentle Spanish sky, an Irish rebel found a different kind of home—one built from empathy, ceremony, and an enduring sense that history needs witnesses.

Ireland to block Israeli ministers’ entry, Taoiseach announces

hanad

September 27, 2025

Ireland to prevent entry of Israeli ministers - Taoiseach — Micheál Martin highlighted the wars in Ukraine and Gaza

A Small Nation, a Big Moral Line

In a packed United Nations General Assembly, Ireland’s Taoiseach, Micheál Martin, stood and made a decision that felt deliberately personal: to bar members of the Israeli government implicated in what he called the “unfolding disaster in Gaza” from setting foot on Irish soil.

“We will act to prevent those members of the Government of Israel who have been instrumental in fomenting the unfolding disaster in Gaza from entering our country,” Martin declared, his words landing like a deliberate stone in an already turbulent pond.

The statement was more than diplomacy; it was a declaration of conscience. For a nation of just five million people that has often punched above its weight in global fora, this moment marred the traditional comfort of neutral platitudes and entered the harder terrain of moral clarity and consequence.

Gaza: Modern Warfare Against the Defenceless

Martin did not mince words. He described Gaza as the product of the most modern, best-equipped armed forces being used against a trapped and largely defenceless population. He invoked the UN Commission of Inquiry’s findings and underscored the gravity of the word “genocide,” reminding delegates that the International Court of Justice obliges states to “use all means to prevent it.”

“We cannot say we were not aware,” Martin warned—an admonition that asked leaders, and the public, to look beyond diplomatic niceties and into the daily reality of civilians caught in conflict.

UN agencies and relief workers, he said, have been at the frontline of preserving life in Gaza. He singled out UNRWA and praised medics and journalists risking everything to bear witness. “What is happening in Gaza cannot be justified or defended. It is an affront to human dignity and decency,” he said.

For many listening, the images were familiar and unbearable: hospitals struggling to function, children malnourished, schools and mosques damaged, and aid consignments stalled at borders. “Babies starving to death while aid rots at the border,” the Taoiseach said, a line that has haunted international headlines and humanitarian briefings since October 2023.

Voices from the Ground

“You stand by the window and you count the ambulances,” a Gaza-based aid worker told me in a phone call arranged through a colleague. “You keep wondering how many more nights families will sleep without food. We cannot keep doing more with less.”

A Dublin activist, who has organized weekly vigils outside the Department of Foreign Affairs, responded to Martin’s words with a measured hope. “It means the government heard the suffering. Words are not enough, but they are the first step toward meaningful pressure,” she said.

Accountability, Ceasefire, and the Limits of Power

Martin’s speech walked a tightrope. He condemned Hamas for the horrors of 7 October 2023—a “monstrous war crime,” he said—while insisting that no crime, however awful, can justify the wholesale destruction of a people or the use of starvation as a weapon. He also argued that Hamas should have no role in a future Palestinian government, even as he stood firmly with Palestinian civilians.

His platform in New York was not merely rhetorical. He reminded the Assembly that Ireland intervened in South Africa’s case at the ICJ, formally recognized the State of Palestine, and is moving to ban imports from the occupied territories—a concrete legal and trade posture that signals Ireland’s willingness to align policy with principle.

And yet, Martin acknowledged the paradox: small states may speak loudly, but they have limited tools to compel action. “Those providing Israel with the means necessary to prosecute its war must reflect on the implications and the effects on the Palestinian people,” he said, calling on influential nations to use whatever leverage they possess “urgently and to maximum effect.”

Global Patterns: A Wider Fraying

The Taoiseach’s remarks were not confined to Gaza. He sounded alarms about other theatres of human suffering—Ukraine, Sudan, Afghanistan—and warned of a dangerous trend: the erosion of international norms. He described Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a deliberate breach of the UN charter and celebrated the “coalition of the willing”—31 countries that pledged strengthened support for Kyiv.

He spoke of the Taliban’s rollback of women’s rights and of the human catastrophe in Sudan, warning that these are not isolated failures but symptoms of a global backslide toward a world where “might is right.” His final plea was for the United Nations to be reasserted as the place where collective will outmuscles narrow interests: “If the UN falters,” he said, “it is because we as leaders have let it down.”

Protests, Walkouts, and Diplomacy in Motion

The Assembly stage took on a theater of its own last week. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denounced countries that had recognized Palestinian statehood, and scores of delegates walked out ahead of his speech. Ireland was not in the hall when Netanyahu spoke; the Department of Foreign Affairs confirmed the country was absent for that address.

Such gestures—walkouts, absences, sanctions or travel bans—are themselves a form of speech, albeit a noisy and imperfect one. They tell a story about the limits of diplomacy: sometimes we act within institutions, sometimes we choose to step away in protest.

What Does This Mean for Ordinary People?

For families in Gaza, none of these procedural debates will stop the immediate suffering. For the citizens of Israel, debate over which officials can travel and where will be read through a prism of security and solidarity. For Irish people, it’s a reminder that foreign policy is as much about values as it is about trade.

Since joining the UN in 1955, Ireland has made the organization the cornerstone of its foreign policy.
Ireland plans to run for a seat on the Human Rights Council for 2027–2029—another sign it intends to press the human-rights argument on the global stage.
Support for UNIFIL and continued attention to Northern Ireland’s legacy show an Ireland seeking consistency across a messy international tapestry.

Questions to Sit With

What does it mean for international law when states choose to act unilaterally on moral grounds? Is there a point at which words must become sanctions, legislation, or other coercive tools? And who ultimately bears responsibility when institutions designed to protect people—like the UN—struggle to enforce their own rules?

The Taoiseach’s speech asked more than it answered. It invited reflection on the obligations of small states, the power of conscience in foreign policy, and the human stories that sit behind legal formulations. It also invited a simple, unnerving question: if the world cannot prevent mass suffering where it is plainly visible, where else might we be failing?

In the end, the Irish intervention at the UN was a reminder that morality in international affairs is not abstract. It is lived in streets and hospitals and border crossings. It is stitched into the decisions of leaders who can choose to speak—and to act.

For readers around the world: what would you expect your leaders to do when confronted with the kinds of allegations Ireland raised—legal, ethical, and practical? When does solidarity become obligation? When does speech become action?

Obama: Ignoring Gaza’s dire humanitarian crisis is unacceptable

hanad

September 27, 2025

'Unacceptable' to ignore human crisis in Gaza - Obama — Former US president Barack Obama spoke at a discussion at the 3Arena in Dublin

A Night in Dublin: Obama, the Weight of History, and the Hum of a World Unraveling

There are evenings when a city seems to hold its breath. Dublin did that the night Barack Obama took the stage at the 3Arena, not as a former president looking for applause, but as a man asking tough, uncomfortable questions.

At the heart of his message was a plea that has the force of both moral urgency and political common sense: pounding away at places that are already shattered carries no military logic — and ignoring the human suffering unfolding there is a moral failure.

The scene

The arena was full—7,500 people, the sold-out crowd murmuring like a single organism. You could feel the city in the room: accents from the western seaboard rubbing shoulders with tourists from elsewhere, the crowd’s laughter seeded with weary seriousness. He was introduced by Fintan O’Toole, who steered the conversation with a soft but probing touch. For a few hours, politics became intimate, like a fireside conversation magnified to stadium scale.

Outside, the city council had already made headlines, awarding Obama the Freedom of Dublin days earlier — a ceremony that was not without controversy. A segment of councillors boycotted in protest of the massive US military aid package to Israel that many in Ireland and beyond see as the single largest of its kind: a roughly $38 billion memorandum of understanding agreed mid-decade to run over a decade. Inside the arena, though, the reception was warm. No street protests, no shouting. A lone phone, carelessly left on in the audience, became the only interruption — and the former president pointed it out with a wry smile that loosened the room’s tension.

On Gaza, history, and the architecture of grievance

Obama spoke about Gaza not from the abstract podium of policy analysis but from a place of moral clarity. He described children starving, a human crisis that cannot be folded neatly into military calculus. He argued, gently but firmly, that a starting point for any hope of peace is an honest confronting of the past by both sides.

“You cannot help people listen if you refuse to acknowledge their truths,” he said, summarizing a difficult idea with a storyteller’s economy. It was not a neutral commentary. It was insistence: Israelis carry a history of persecution that led to the profound need for a safe homeland; Palestinians carry the enduring trauma of displacement and occupation. To erase either truth is to give space to dehumanization.

He warned that the politics of simplification — the “us versus them” narratives — are not accidental. They are profitable. They are consolidating. “Sometimes leaders have a vested interest in a perpetual state of grievance,” he observed, “because it keeps them in power.”

A tension in the room

There was an honesty in how he handled the complexity. He rejected Hamas’s brutality and cynicism — noting that tactics which imperil an entire people cannot be excused — while also insisting that the Palestinian anger born of dispossession cannot simply be written off. The effect was to refuse easy moral arithmetic: both sides have committed and suffered, and neither absolves the other.

A woman near me, a teacher from Rathmines who spent years volunteering in refugee relief, whispered, “He’s saying what a lot of people can’t: that pain needs naming.” A young law student added, “It’s rare to hear a politician press both sides so firmly on truth.”

Democracy, norms, and the slow corrosion of trust

The conversation pivoted to democracy — not an abstract ideal but a fragile practice. Obama reminded the audience that no democracy is perfect and that institutions can erode incrementally. He spoke of the danger of politicizing the military and justice systems, and how such erosion is not a distant possibility but already visible in parts of the world.

“When the loyalty of soldiers or prosecutors shifts from country to party, you lose the arbiter that holds a pluralistic society together,” he said. The remark landed like a stone in still water. People nodded. Some looked down, thinking of headlines and court cases that have dominated recent news cycles in multiple countries.

He also pointed to a modern crisis of attention: social media’s business model favors outrage because outrage hooks eyeballs. Add to that a new technological accelerator — artificial intelligence — and you have a turbocharged environment where truth and fabrication can be indistinguishable.

An older man in a tweed cap, who’d worked in Dublin’s docks for forty years, chuckled darkly and said to his companion, “Back in my day it was newspapers you trusted… now it’s anyone who yells loudest.”

Capitalism, nationalism, and the ghosts of the twentieth century

One of the sharper lines from the night likened contemporary nationalisms to a revival of the “blood-and-soil” rhetoric that helped birth the most destructive ideologies of the last century. He reminded the audience that economic systems can be startlingly compatible with authoritarian impulses; profit motives and illiberal politics can find uneasy common cause.

That earned a round of thoughtful applause. Some in the crowd — entrepreneurs, students, retirees — exchanged glances, the kind that suggest recognition rather than agreement. It’s a complicated accusation: to say that markets and authoritarianism can coexist is to force us to confront the responsibilities of citizens and consumers alike.

What do we do next?

Obama avoided grand promises. He did not produce a magic formula to fix social media, end occupation, or restore fraying norms. Instead he asked for something harder: sustained civic engagement. He encouraged consumers to use their choices — pressuring platforms and advertisers, changing habits — and urged people to put down devices and reclaim conversational space.

“Censorship by the state is not the answer,” he warned. “Nor is lethargy.”

Outside the 3Arena, Dublin’s late summer air was crisp. A street vendor selling kebabs and chips reflected on the evening: “It felt like he was trying to get us to imagine being in each other’s shoes—not easy, but we need to start somewhere.”

Places to sit with the weight of a speech

After the applause faded and the lights came up, the conversation kept going on the tram home, in cafés, in the city’s parks. That’s the mark of a good evening of public conversation: it doesn’t tidy the world; it enlarges it.

So I’ll leave you with this: if truth is complicated, if history is messy, and if politics is a fight for stories as much as territory, then what story do you think deserves to be told—and heard—next?

We live in a moment where the small acts of listening and the hard work of naming grievances can be profoundly political. That was the invitation in Dublin: to move beyond easy certainties and to imagine, however imperfectly, a path that keeps human dignity at the center.

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