The Greens have been branded the UK's first openly antisemitic party after members voted for a 'Zionism is Racism' motion calling for a single Palestinian state and the abolition of Israel.

The post Greens Labelled ‘First Openly Antisemitic Party in the UK’ as Members Approve Zionism is Racism Motion appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

The Bishop of Leeds is urging Catholics to 'live simply' to protect the planet. But why are bishops banging on about climate change when they're supposed to be saving souls? asks Roger Watson.

The post Saving the Planet, One Pastoral Letter at a Time appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

By Robert Inlakesh | MintPress News | October 2, 2026

Scrambling to halt the ongoing offensive of Yemen’s Armed Forces, Israel and Saudi Arabia have strengthened ties through a joint covert campaign aimed at salvaging what remains of their supremacy in the Red Sea region. Tel Aviv and Riyadh’s losses of key military strongholds in Yemen’s Western coast, has ushered in a new era of soft-normalisation.

Saudi Arabia has carried out hundreds of airstrikes in Yemen, resulting in thousands of casualties since its renewed bombing campaign began this July. It now heavily relies on Israeli targeting intelligence backing in order to conduct dozens of strikes across Yemeni territory on a daily basis, including attacks on civilian market places and residential buildings.

Meanwhile, Israeli officials heaped praise on Riyadh this Wednesday for facilitating the first ever commercial flight between Israel and Saudi, following the Kingdom’s intervention to aid Israeli passengers on-board a Flydubai plane that was forced to undergo an emergency landing.

In contrast, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) initiated the renewal of the Saudi-Yemen war, by bombing the runway of Sana’a International Airport in order to prevent an Iranian civilian jetliner from landing inside the country. This measure was taken to enforce a long-standing aerial blockade on Yemen, while Israeli aircraft freely use Saudi airspace.

British taxpayers have already paid for nearly 1,000 free hijabs for Channel migrants this year, with the total likely to hit 1,500.

The post UK Hands Out More Than 1,000 Free Hijabs to Channel Migrants at Taxpayer Expense appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

An Edwardian-era spiritualist faces down skeptics in a fraught, eerie séance

Ukraine’s record on reform during Russia’s war is stronger than much recent criticism suggests. By September, Kyiv had completed 84 of 95 milestones due under the Ukraine Plan. Yet progress on a smaller group of rule-of-law commitments has been strikingly weaker. The difference between the two tells Brussels much about where Ukraine’s European transformation is encountering resistance.

Ukraine’s reform record currently produces two figures that appear difficult to reconcile.

Under the Ukraine Plan, Kyiv had completed 84 of the 95 milestones due by late September — around 88 per cent. The result was strong enough for EU governments to approve another payment of almost €3 billion under the Ukraine Facility.

Three months earlier, however, a coalition of Ukrainian organisations monitoring ten rule-of-law and anti-corruption commitments agreed with Brussels had awarded progress just 15 points out of 100.

Neither figure is wrong. They measure different programmes.

The first covers a broad reform and investment agenda extending from the judiciary and financial markets to energy, agriculture, transport, human capital and the business environment. The second examines a deliberately narrow collection of reforms concerning prosecutors, criminal investigations, anti-corruption agencies and judicial governance.

Put together, they raise a more useful question than whether Ukraine is “reforming” or “not reforming”.

Why has a country capable of delivering most of a demanding EU programme during a major war found this particular group of reforms so much harder to complete?

Russia’s aggression provides part of the answer. Ukraine has been attempting an institutional transformation while mobilising its population, financing its armed forces, repairing infrastructure and keeping a functioning state under repeated Russian missile and drone attacks. No previous EU candidate has operated under comparable conditions.

But the ten reforms where progress has been weakest have something else in common. Most concern institutions that can investigate senior officials, prosecute corruption, scrutinise appointments or otherwise place limits on the exercise of political authority.

That is what makes the comparison important.

A strong overall record

The wider reform record should not be understated.

When the European Commission released €2.9 billion to Ukraine on 2 October, it specifically credited Kyiv with implementing reforms covering the judiciary, financial markets, human capital, the business environment, energy, transport, agriculture and the green transition.

Total EU support provided under the Ukraine Plan has now exceeded €32 billion. More than €17 billion in further budget support remains potentially available during 2026, provided Ukraine fulfils the corresponding conditions.

The money is particularly important because the Ukrainian state is directing such a large share of its own resources towards defence. European financing helps keep the civilian state operating while Ukraine fights Russia.

The Ukraine Facility has therefore become more than an aid mechanism. It gives Brussels a means of measuring reform against specific commitments and releasing money when they are met.

That system has generally worked.

It also makes the areas where progress is weaker much easier to identify.

The 15/100 assessment published in June concerned ten priorities agreed in December 2025 between Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos and then deputy prime minister Taras Kachka. The score came from Ukrainian civil society, not the European Commission, and cannot legitimately be presented as Ukraine’s overall EU reform score.

It had nevertheless risen only six points from an assessment of nine out of 100 in April.

Among the unfinished commitments were changes to criminal procedure affecting high-level corruption cases, stronger guarantees for the independence and effectiveness of NABU and SAPO, reform of the State Bureau of Investigation, new arrangements surrounding the Prosecutor General, competitive recruitment within the prosecution service and further changes to judicial governance.

These are among the most difficult reforms Ukraine has undertaken since 2014 because they concern who has the authority to investigate whom.

The July 2025 episode changed the argument

The events surrounding NABU and SAPO in July 2025 remain central to understanding why Brussels is paying such close attention.

Ukraine had spent years building a specialised anti-corruption system intended to make investigations of senior political figures less vulnerable to interference from the conventional prosecutorial hierarchy.

NABU conducts investigations. SAPO provides specialised prosecution. The High Anti-Corruption Court hears the cases.

The system has never been free from political controversy, nor has its performance been beyond criticism. But its independence became an important part of Ukraine’s relationship with the EU and other international partners.

Then, in July 2025, parliament passed legislation placing NABU and SAPO under substantially greater authority of the politically appointed Prosecutor General. Zelenskyy signed it.

The decision produced an unusually sharp reaction inside Ukraine. Demonstrators took to the streets despite martial law, while European partners made clear that the legislation threatened reforms regarded as fundamental to the country’s European integration.

As EU Today reported during the crisis, the dispute went far beyond the technical division of powers between prosecutors and investigators.

Kyiv reversed course within days. Parliament restored the independence of the two bodies.

The reversal demonstrated that Ukraine’s political system still contained powerful corrective forces. Civil society mobilised, public opposition was visible and international pressure had an effect.

Yet the episode also established that the independence of institutions created specifically to investigate high-level corruption could still become the subject of direct political intervention.

That changed the context in which subsequent reform commitments are being judged.

The European Commission’s 2025 report on Ukraine recorded both sides of the episode. It acknowledged the restoration of NABU and SAPO independence, while warning that undue pressure on anti-corruption agencies remained a concern.

The Commission also identified practical weaknesses. NABU still required better access to timely and impartial forensic examinations, while SAPO needed stronger powers in cases involving members of parliament.

This is why simply retaining NABU and SAPO is no longer sufficient evidence that this part of the reform process is secure. Brussels is looking at whether they can operate when investigations become politically difficult.

Follow the institutions

The same issue appears elsewhere.

Ukraine agreed to review the procedure for appointing and dismissing the Prosecutor General, drawing on European standards and the Venice Commission. It also committed itself to transparent and competitive recruitment for senior positions throughout the prosecution service.

The significance is obvious. The Prosecutor General occupies a pivotal position in the Ukrainian criminal-justice system. The method by which that office is filled — and the circumstances in which its occupant can be removed — affect the credibility of every politically sensitive prosecution beneath it.

Progress has been slow.

There is a similar problem with the State Bureau of Investigation, which handles cases involving senior officials and law-enforcement personnel. Kyiv agreed to an independent assessment of the bureau followed by reform of its legal and institutional framework.

Again, the issue is not administrative tidiness. An agency responsible for investigating state officials has little value as a check on government if its own leadership or investigative decisions are susceptible to political influence.

Criminal procedure provides another example.

Ukraine committed itself to changing provisions under which corruption proceedings can eventually be closed because deadlines for pre-trial investigations have expired, as well as addressing limitation periods for corruption offences.

Draft legislation has appeared. Bills No. 15333 and 15334 were registered in parliament, and NABU and the Ministry of Justice have worked on amendments.

But the process has taken months.

For a simple criminal case, procedural deadlines may appear an obscure legal question. Top-level corruption investigations are different. They can involve offshore structures, large quantities of financial evidence, foreign jurisdictions and prolonged litigation. If the clock eventually disposes of a case that investigators and prosecutors cannot bring to judgment quickly enough, the anti-corruption architecture fails at the point where it is supposed to produce results.

The same pattern is visible in judicial reform and the new Anti-Corruption Strategy for 2026–2030. Work is taking place, legislation is being prepared and institutions are consulting one another. Some changes have been completed.

Others remain somewhere between agreement and implementation.

This is precisely the stage of accession at which that distinction begins to count.

When Ukraine and Moldova moved further into the EU accession process, the significance of the Fundamentals cluster was that progress would increasingly depend on the functioning of institutions rather than declarations of political intent.

Ukraine has no shortage of declarations of European intent. What the Commission needs to establish is whether the machinery beneath them works.

The limits of the wartime argument

Any assessment that ignores Russia’s war would be unserious.

Full-scale aggression has inevitably changed the Ukrainian state. Decisions that might take months in peacetime sometimes have to be taken within days. Military information cannot be handled according to ordinary transparency rules. Elections cannot proceed under normal conditions. The executive carries responsibilities that no Ukrainian government faced before 2022.

Reform is also competing for administrative capacity with mobilisation, defence procurement, reconstruction, energy emergencies and the daily consequences of Russian attacks.

This has to be taken into account when Brussels sets timetables and assesses progress.

It is less convincing when applied indiscriminately.

Competitive recruitment of prosecutors does not interfere with the defence of Ukraine. Neither does an independent procedure for selecting the Prosecutor General. NABU’s ability to investigate senior officials does not prevent the armed forces from conducting operations, while closing procedural loopholes in corruption cases has no obvious adverse effect on wartime decision-making.

There is therefore a boundary between powers required to fight Russia and powers that are simply easier for government to retain during wartime.

Finding that boundary is becoming one of the more difficult questions in Ukraine’s relationship with the EU.

This does not support the sweeping claim that every important Ukrainian institution has been placed under political control. The evidence does not justify it.

It does show why Brussels is concentrating increasingly on institutional independence.

The problem with wartime centralisation is rarely that it begins without justification. Governments fighting wars need authority. The longer an emergency lasts, however, the more important it becomes to distinguish measures required by national security from arrangements that have become politically convenient.

Ukraine has now lived under full-scale war for more than four years. Institutions created for the post-war European state are being shaped while the wartime state still exists.

That makes the current reform period unusually consequential.

Conditionality becomes Brussels’ leverage

The EU has one powerful instrument with which to influence the outcome: money.

The Commission is already using it.

The almost €3 billion approved in September followed the completion of agreed Ukraine Plan milestones. The next payments depend on further commitments being met.

As EU Today reported when the Ukraine Plan was amended, additional financing has come with additional rule-of-law and anti-corruption requirements.

There is a limit to how far Brussels can push this. Ukraine is fighting a Russian war of aggression that also poses a direct security threat to Europe. Destabilising the Ukrainian budget in order to demonstrate the rigour of EU conditionality would make little strategic sense.

Kyiv is well aware of that.

But Brussels cannot simply waive the conditions either. Doing so would weaken reformers inside Ukraine, reduce EU influence over the accession process and make it more difficult to explain enormous long-term transfers to European taxpayers.

The result is already visible: continued financial support accompanied by increasingly detailed scrutiny of how reforms are implemented.

That approach is likely to become tougher as accession advances.

There is another reason for it.

Ukraine will eventually have to manage reconstruction on a scale Europe has not seen for decades. European governments, international financial institutions and private investors will be asked to commit hundreds of billions of euros. Confidence in prosecutors, courts, public procurement and anti-corruption agencies will affect how much money arrives and on what terms.

Strong institutions are therefore not a concession Ukraine makes to Brussels in exchange for membership.

They are part of the infrastructure required for Ukraine’s recovery.

The same applies to the war itself. Corruption in defence procurement, reconstruction or public administration gives Russia opportunities to damage confidence in the Ukrainian state and strain relations between Kyiv and its partners. Moscow has every interest in amplifying genuine scandals alongside fabricated ones.

The most effective answer is not tighter political management of damaging information. It is institutions capable of investigating misconduct credibly.

That is also why the role of Ukrainian civil society deserves attention.

The organisations producing critical assessments of Kyiv’s reforms are operating in a country under attack. Many have supported Ukraine’s European integration for years. Their reports can be disputed and their scoring methodologies examined, but criticism of government performance is not evidence of disloyalty.

The ability to produce such criticism is itself one of the features separating the Ukrainian political system from the authoritarian model Russia represents.

Ukraine’s reform record consequently looks neither like the failure portrayed by some critics nor the uninterrupted success sometimes presented by its defenders.

The broader record is impressive. Completing 84 of 95 Ukraine Plan milestones while fighting a major war is not a trivial achievement, and the EU would not have continued releasing billions of euros if the reform programme existed only on paper.

The difficulty appears further down, where institutional reform begins to affect the ability of political authorities to influence prosecutors, investigators and judicial appointments.

The NABU-SAPO confrontation made that problem impossible to ignore. The subsequent reversal showed that Ukraine also possesses the political and civic capacity to correct course.

What happens next will matter more than either episode.

Bills that have remained in parliament will have to become law. Reviews of the SBI and prosecution service will have to produce institutional changes. Competitive appointment procedures will have to work when the preferred candidate of those in power does not win. Anti-corruption bodies will have to be allowed to pursue cases when their targets are politically connected.

These are less visible achievements than opening accession negotiations or announcing another EU funding package.

They are also much closer to what EU membership ultimately requires.

Russia has forced Ukraine to build an exceptionally powerful wartime state. European integration requires Kyiv to ensure that some of that power can eventually be constrained by institutions that do not depend on whoever occupies the presidential administration.

The figures that currently look contradictory — 84 out of 95 and 15 out of 100 — are therefore telling different parts of the same story.

Ukraine has shown that it can reform during the war.

The harder test is whether it can complete reforms precisely where doing so reduces political discretion.

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has ruled out an agreement requiring Athens to recognise British Museum ownership of the Parthenon Sculptures, using a landmark exchange of cultural objects with Bulgaria to restate Greece’s position.

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has said Greece will not “borrow” the Parthenon Sculptures under an arrangement requiring Athens to recognise British Museum ownership, as Greece and Bulgaria completed an exchange of historic remains and religious artefacts following decades of negotiations.

Mitsotakis made the remarks on Saturday, 3 October, during a ceremony at the Museum of Byzantine Culture in Thessaloniki attended by Bulgarian Prime Minister Rumen Radev.

Under the agreement, Greece transferred to Bulgaria human remains identified as those of medieval Bulgarian ruler Tsar Samuel, together with material recovered from four sarcophagi at the Basilica of Saint Achilleios in the Prespa region.

Bulgaria returned 48 ecclesiastical objects removed from northern Greece during the First World War.

The Greek prime minister’s office said the returned objects include icons, crosses, vestments, reliquaries and an episcopal throne. They were removed in 1917 from religious institutions in the Serres region.

The artefacts will initially be displayed at the Museum of Byzantine Culture before being returned to the monasteries and church authorities from which they originated. The Greek government said the 48 objects will remain on display until 5 November.

The remains handed to Bulgaria were discovered during archaeological excavations at Saint Achilleios in the 1960s and later identified as belonging to Samuel, who ruled the First Bulgarian Empire between 997 and 1014.

Bulgaria organised a state ceremony following their return. The Bulgarian government described the transfer as the return of one of the country’s most significant medieval rulers.

The exchange concludes negotiations stretching back decades, although both governments have agreed to continue discussions about other objects of mutual historical interest.

Mitsotakis used the Thessaloniki ceremony to link the agreement to another, far more prominent dispute over cultural property: the Parthenon Sculptures held in London.

He said cultural diplomacy had demonstrated that disputes over objects removed during earlier periods of conflict could be addressed through negotiation, referring also to previous arrangements involving fragments of the Parthenon returned from Sicily.

The Greek government continues to seek the reunification in Athens of the surviving Parthenon Sculptures.

The central obstacle remains ownership.

The British Museum states that Lord Elgin removed the sculptures between 1801 and 1805 with the permission of the Ottoman authorities then governing Athens. His actions were examined by a parliamentary committee before the collection was acquired for the museum in 1816.

Greece disputes the legitimacy of their removal and argues that surviving elements of the monument should be reunited at the Acropolis Museum.

That difference has direct consequences for any proposal based on loans.

Under the British Museum trustees’ published position, the museum is prepared to consider lending objects from its collection, including the Parthenon Sculptures, but requires a borrowing institution to acknowledge the museum’s ownership.

Successive Greek governments have refused to meet that condition.

Mitsotakis reiterated that position on Saturday, arguing that Greece cannot borrow an object which it considers its own.

The dispute has continued despite negotiations between Athens and the British Museum.

In February, the UK government told Parliament that the chairman of the British Museum remained in discussions with the Greek government over a possible partnership involving reciprocal loans.

The British government has maintained that operational decisions concerning the sculptures belong to the museum’s trustees.

EU Today has followed the dispute for several years. In 2023, then British prime minister Rishi Sunak cancelled a scheduled meeting with Mitsotakis after the Greek leader publicly raised the return of the sculptures.

The dispute subsequently produced an unusual diplomatic argument between two NATO allies, although discussions between Greek representatives and the British Museum continued.

The Greece-Bulgaria agreement concluded on Saturday differs substantially from the Parthenon case in both its legal history and the circumstances under which the objects were removed.

Athens nevertheless sees the exchange as evidence that governments can settle disputes over cultural property without abandoning their respective interpretations of history.

For Bulgaria, the return of Samuel’s remains has considerable national significance. For Greece, the recovery of the ecclesiastical objects resolves a century-old question concerning material removed during the First World War.

The Parthenon Sculptures remain considerably more complicated.

Talks continue, but the fundamental disagreement identified again by Mitsotakis in Thessaloniki has not changed: London considers the sculptures legally owned by the British Museum, while Athens considers them parts of a Greek monument which should be permanently reunited.

As long as that difference remains, a conventional loan arrangement offers no straightforward solution.

The recent comments from a Government Minister dismissing pubs and black Labradors as "far Right" only confirm that Labour is fast becoming an army of power-mad killjoys, says Alexander McKibbin.

The post Labour is Becoming an Army of Power-Mad Killjoys appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

Student 'blockades' ostensibly called to protest the dilapidated condition of French high schools have degenerated into an orgy of urban violence in which those same schools have been destroyed, says John Rosenthal.

The post French Students Burn Down Schools to Protest School Decay appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

There was a time when moderation was a virtue and the middle ground, wisdom. Hyperbole was no more than a literary or rhetorical device. But not anymore. We live at the extremes. Raising everything to its highest possible level is the zeitgeist fate has handed us, and it comes with a suffix that colonizes the internet: maxxing. A highly versatile suffix: placed after the right word it means that, whatever you do, you are giving it your all.

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© CASSIDY ARAIZA ( New York Times / Europa Press / CONTACTO )

Lili Reinhart isn’t interested in being a celebrity… and the 30-year-old actress has proven this throughout her career. The moment her name started making headlines for her starring role as Betty Cooper in the TV series Riverdale (2017-2023), control over what she wanted (and didn’t want) in her life seemed to slip from her grasp. And, as her fame grew, she also had to confront her insecurities: subjected to constant media exposure, her life suddenly belonged to the public.

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© Variety (Variety via Getty Images)

from The Jimmy Dore Show: TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/