The BRICS alliance began life as something between a Goldman Sachs marketing gimmick and a drunken bet among emerging market traders. “I’ll wager you a case of champagne these four economies will dominate by 2050!” Fast-forward two decades, and what started as an investment banker’s acronym has somehow morphed into a geopolitical bloc with expansionist ambitions. The recent addition of new members under the “BRICS+” banner suggests this is no longer just about economics. This is about building an alternative world order where the rules are made by autocrats and petrostates. ...

The received wisdom—trotted out at Davos panels, EU Commission summits, and in the more sentimental columns of the Financial Times—is that Europe, having learned its lessons from two world wars, has spent the past eight decades basking in a glow of enlightened tranquillity. No more trenches, no more blitzes. Just a polite consensus of democratic cooperation, cross-border trade, and the occasional fracas over mackerel quotas. How charming. And how utterly wrong. ...

In 2025, the financial sector continues its courtship with generative AI, hoping it will finally make compliance less of a bureaucratic slog. According to Global Relay’s State of AI in Surveillance Report 2025, attitudes are thawing: there’s been a 19% drop in firms reluctant to implement AI. Apparently, nothing eases doubts like the promise of automated paperwork and plausible deniability. Still, not all is rosy. Explainability remains elusive, regulators are breathing down necks, and integration often resembles a Frankensteinian patchwork. Innovation, it seems, comes with a compliance hangover. ...

Behind the rise of mass surveillance, predictive policing, and the steady erosion of privacy stands an unlikely enabler: Accenture, the world’s largest consultancy firm (because nothing says “trustworthy” like emerging from the ashes of Enron’s auditors). The Accenture Files—a major new investigation by the Progressive International, Expose Accenture, and the Movement Research Unit—exposes how this corporate giant has embedded itself at the heart of security states worldwide. Through confidential documents and insider testimony, the report reveals Accenture’s pivotal role in building the infrastructure of repression, from biometric databases tracking billions to algorithms that criminalise marginalised communities before they’ve even had their morning coffee. ...

How I lost my mind (and won an AI war) for a depressed octopus office worker: a tale of shrimp, sharks, and prompt-engineering madness. Chapter 1: The vision To understand what fake imagery can look like, one has to do it. So I investigated these AI image creators. And browsing around it began, as all terrible ideas do, with a whisper: “What if under water, but capitalism?” Armed with nothing but a keyboard and a dream of a silly image, I set out to create the ultimate underwater dystopian office scene—a place where octopuses ring up kelp groceries, clownfish drown in paperwork, and shrimp riot against the 1% (plankton). ...

Neoliberalism crept into Europe wearing a sharp suit and talking about efficiency. It promised a leaner, meaner state, less red tape, more growth, and a brighter future. What it delivered was stagnant wages, crumbling services, and Jeff Bezos in a rocket. For Europe, the cost has been clear: growing inequality, weakened public institutions, and a sense that someone, somewhere, has sold the family silver—and is now renting it back to us with interest. ...

European democracy, once sold to us as government for the people, increasingly resembles government for the shareholders. The slogans haven’t changed—“freedom”, “fairness”, “choice”—but behind the scenes, the boardroom has quietly replaced the ballot box as the place where real decisions are made. It’s not that politicians have stopped caring what the public thinks. It’s just that donors, lobbyists, and corporate advisors tend to shout louder—and arrive with champagne. This isn’t a conspiracy. It’s a business model. ...

When European leaders speak of “security”, it’s worth asking: security for whom, exactly? Not for the millions navigating crumbling health systems or housing crises. Not for those struggling to afford heating or fresh food. No, the current drive to rearm Europe has little to do with public safety and far more to do with shareholder satisfaction. As Grace Blakeley has sharply noted, the sudden rediscovery of defence budgets has less to do with strategic necessity and more with economic opportunity—for the right kind of people, of course. Not your neighbour. Not your nurse. But certainly your nearest weapons manufacturer. ...

For decades, European politics has resembled a Punch and Judy show, only with fewer laughs and more austerity. On one side, the market-worshipping neo-liberals clutching their spreadsheets and “fiscal responsibility.” On the other, vaguely embarrassed centrists who occasionally tut at inequality but still vote for trade deals written by Exxon lawyers. The stage is well-lit. The audience, increasingly, is not impressed. But while corporate power has captured institutions from Westminster to Brussels, it hasn’t silenced resistance. Across the continent, citizens, thinkers, activists and even the odd rogue economist are challenging the capture—not just with slogans, but with blueprints for change. This isn’t about utopia. It’s about damage control, dignity, and doing better than a system that currently functions like a vending machine for billionaires. ...

As Israel’s slaughter in Gaza grinds on—now in its twentieth month, with over 45,000 dead, most of them women and children, and nearly every hospital, school, and home reduced to rubble—one might expect Europe, that self-proclaimed bastion of human rights, to muster more than a few limp statements of concern. Instead, the European Union has perfected the art of hand-wringing paralysis, offering little more than performative sympathy while continuing to arm, fund, and politically shield Israel. It is a masterclass in moral evasion, dressed up as diplomacy. ...