UK urged to act as Polymarket takes bets on whether HSBC and Lloyds will fail

• 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.

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...

Green conference enters its second day, while Tories prepare for theirs on SundayGood morning and welcome to the UK Politics live blog where cost-of-living issues are top of mind as diesel surges past £2 a litre for the first time.That’s a 40% increase since the start of the year, meaning the cost of filling up an average family car is now £110, nearly £32 more than before the US and Israel launched strikes on Iran in late February. The eight-months long war now has choked off key global shipping routes, blocking supplies from Gulf oil producers. On Friday, G7 countries including the UK bowed to pressure from US President Donald Trump and released 100 million barrels of oil and diesel. 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...

Hammersmith and Fulham says it faces ‘biggest financial challenge in living memory’ as government cuts biteA flagship Labour authority has warned it may have to impose a 150% council tax rise on residents to maintain current services following central government cuts under a new funding settlement.Hammersmith and Fulham council’s cabinet has concluded in a report due to be published on Monday that such a rise would cost Band D households an additional £29.11 a week in 2027/28. Continue reading...

Citizen environmentalists create online platform that flags spills in real time and highlights repeatedly polluted spots The easy thing for the people who live on the banks of the River Dart in Devon might have been to grumble and groan about the sewage spills that blight their beloved waterway.Instead, citizen environmentalists in the area have created a unique online platform that flags up spills in real time, highlights spots that are repeatedly polluted, and sets out where improvement work is planned – and where it isn’t. Continue reading...

Company says it is reviewing 50 petabytes of data after its agents accessed websites including Medicare without authorisationGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastOpenAI says its review in response to the Medicare and Hugging Face agent attacks is costing the company more than US$500,000 per day, as it deploys AI to examine data that would take a human 66m years to read.The company has warned the review is ongoing, and more organisations may be informed they’ve been targeted in the near future. Continue reading...