Celebrations erupted across Belgrade as Serbia's student-backed movement claimed a major victory over Aleksandar Vucic's long-standing ruling party. The result follows nearly two years of protests after a railway station collapse in Novi Sad killed 16 people in 2024.

BREAKING: Brazil’s left-wing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva won the presidential run-off against right-wing Senator Flavio Bolsonaro on Sunday, the electoral authority said, securing a fourth non-consecutive term. 🟠 LIVE updates: aje.news/vs1cfu

Asked about the Iran War's effect on defense stocks, Lockheed Martin CEO says: "Investors need to know and understand that this demand is not fleeting — it's permanent."

In today’s Guardian, Gaby Hinsliff warns that Russia, Iran and China are coming for us, and worries we may have to sacrifice our liberal principles and become a “securocracy” to ward off these Eastern malevolents. Aside from a bit of hand-wringing, the column would sit comfortably in the Telegraph or the Daily Mail. It’s a classic example of the liberal press being used to prepare the public for war, and to justify the erosion of civil liberties at home. The article is overflowing with inconsistencies and tropes. US bombers have spent the summer flying from a British airbase to bomb Iran, and the Guardian tells us that Britain “wants no part in the war” but that “we cannot quite escape the consequences”. Then the alleged plot against RAF Fairford, in which Burnham says there are “strong indications that Iran played a part”. None of these “indications”, of course, have been stated. I rather suspect Tehran has bigger fish to fry right now. But even if the allegation turned out to be true, the substantive point is that Britain is a potential target because of its participation in Trump’s criminal war. Stop that, and any threat disappears instantly. The same goes for Russia. Britain has spent the last four and a half years as one of the most enthusiastic sponsors of the proxy war in Ukraine, and now feigns surprise that Moscow isn’t terribly favourably disposed to us. Again, stop the war and the threat disappears. “Russia, Iran and China” are threats to Britain only to the extent that Britain has made them threats. Reviving a George W Bush-style “Axis of Evil” serves solely to justify the drive to war, the vast increase in military spending that Trump is demanding of his NATO vassals, and the erosion of civil liberties at home. Hinsliff slips in a sentence or two warning against xenophobia, and reminds us that Jewish refugees were interned as “enemy aliens” in 1939. Well done – liberal consciences duly eased. But the whole thrust of the piece is to prepare the Guardian readership for a harsher, more paranoid, more militarised Britain. It accepts the war and the enemy list, and simply asks that the repression come with “safeguards”. In summary, this is part of a wider attempt to reconcile liberalism with the rising tide of militarism and fascism.

I am concerned at the prolonged standoff in portadown which is ultimately in nobody’s interests. I have been working with all those involved to find a mutually acceptable solution. 1/2