Green party conference continues with cost of living on the agenda – UK politics live

• Gustavo de Arístegui analyzed geopolitical tensions on September 28, focusing on a foundational crisis within the UN Assembly and US-Iran relations. • The analysis notes that Iranian initiatives aim to remove secondary sanctions—penalties on non-US companies trading with Iran—without offering verifiable nuclear concessions.

• Governments, UN entities, and private sector representatives met recently to call for stronger cooperation to address a rapidly changing global information landscape. • The event was co-hosted by Brazil, the UN Secretariat, the UN development Programme, and UNESCO to discuss implementing the Global Digital Compact.

Authorities crack down on trade they says risks spiralling out of control – but operators say they are being targeted unfairlyOn the edge of Piazza Navona, one of the grandest squares in central Rome, Barry and Linda, visitors from Texas in the US, stepped out of a golf cart. They planned to cross the square on foot, perhaps stopping to admire Lorenzo Bernini’s 17th-century Fountain of the Four Rivers, before being picked up by their driver at the opposite end.The couple had already done a walking tour on day one of their trip, and had been so exasperated by a stifling three-hour shuffle along a corridor towards the Sistine Chapel on day two that by the third day they wanted to give their tired feet a rest. Continue reading...

Congress members say pricing practices at 7-Eleven and Circle K stores underscore everyday Americans’ affordability strugglesFive US House members have called out pricing practices at the US’s two largest convenience store chains in response to an investigation by the Guardian.The Guardian found that 7-Eleven and Circle K stores frequently charge customers more at the register or pump for snacks, gas and other items than the prices they promise on the shelf or on outdoor fuel signs. Continue reading...

Frank Strada facing mounting questions after Pike survives injection with lethal drugs in TennesseeTennessee’s prison chief is under fire for the failed execution of Christa Pike, which lawyers say was the fifth “botched” execution under his leadership across two states since 2022.Frank Strada, the commissioner of the Tennessee department of correction, has faced mounting questions about the state’s highly secretive death penalty protocols since Wednesday evening when Pike became the first death row prisoner in the US to to be injected with lethal drugs and survive. Continue reading...

Western Libya’s GNU say working with Saddam Haftar ‘impossible’ as US-backed merger plan breaks downAllegations that the son of the Libyan warlord Khalifa Haftar oversaw a “terror cell” that launched drone attacks on fuel storage facilities and power stations in western Libya have upended plans for the Tripoli-based government of national unity (GNU) to continue cooperating with Haftar on a plan to unify the country.Saddam Haftar, the deputy commander of the so-called Libyan National Army (LNA), has increasingly been seen by the US as an important figure in its plans to unify Libyan security, judicial and political institutions. Continue reading...

Revelation comes amid mounting concern over online prediction market’s effects on integrity of financial systemUK authorities are being urged to intervene after it emerged that the online prediction market Polymarket has been taking thousands of dollars worth of bets over whether HSBC and Lloyds will fail.Polymarket – the US-owned company which holds bets on anything from football matches, to the existence of aliens, to when a bomb drops on a city – has allowed users to take $77,507 (£58,530) worth of positions on whether the world’s biggest banks will go under by the end of this year. Continue reading...

Sunday’s poll pits the leftist incumbent Lula against the son of a former far-right president convicted of staging a coup‘No one disrespects Our Lady’: fears for Brazil’s patron saint grip country ahead of electionShortly after his controversial speech to the United Nations general assembly in September, Donald Trump gathered a dozen like-minded Latin American leaders and boasted that rightwing candidates had won all seven presidential elections held in the region since he began his second term.“Everybody I’ve endorsed has won,” the US president said in New York to most of the leaders of the Shield of the Americas, an anti-drug cartel coalition of 15 countries governed by the right or far right. Continue reading...

Attorney general says ‘terrorist attack’ was attempted by suspect who is said to have been barred from flying by Oman because of extremist viewsThe co-pilot of flydubai flight FZ1073 attempted to carry out a “terrorist attack” during the flight, the United ⁠Arab Emirates prosecutor general said on Saturday, according to a state news agency.The UAE statement cited the prosecutor general as saying the co-pilot also tried to take control of the plane during Wednesday’s attack on the Israel-bound flight. Passengers and crew intervened to subdue the co-pilot and stabilise the plane. Officials said the co-pilot’s actions nearly crashed the flight with 182 people on board by sending it into a sharp plunge. Continue reading...

Companies race to switch households to ‘voice over internet protocol’ services by the end of JanuaryBT has been accused of “bullying” customers by temporarily cutting off their broadband to pressure them to upgrade to a digital landline, as providers race to switch households over before the January deadline.Telecoms companies have so far migrated 16-17m lines from the old copper network to digital voice over internet protocol (VoiP), which uses a broadband connection instead, in the biggest technological upgrade since the early 00s, when analogue TV was switched off. Continue reading...

Who is really in charge – the people or the markets? In the first episode of Radical Thinking, a new series from the Guardian, senior economics commentator Aditya Chakrabortty speaks to the former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis. What was it like during the eurozone crisis when Varoufakis went head to head with those who wanted to stop his reforms?Watch Radical Thinking with Aditya Chakrabortty here. Continue reading...