I presented "Transnational Crime and the State: Criminal Insurgencies, Crime Wars, Gangs, Mafias, and Cartels" to an international seminar sponsored by the Secretaria de Estado de Segurança Pública do Distrito Federal in Brasilia. on 27 November 2019 lnkd.in/gZiEZAq

UN Condemns Deadly Wave of Drone Strikes in War-Torn Sudan @un_news_centre: allafrica.com/stories/202610… #Sudan

Targeted curfews in Paris and northern France helped keep the peace overnight following violent weekend unrest that saw 2,400 arrests, Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said Tuesday. jpost.com/international/arti…

Police resources in England and Wales have been on a bumpy ride over the past 30 years. From a low point of 178,000 in 2000, the total workforce soared to a peak of nearly 245,000 in 2010. Numbers then dropped sharply to under 199,000 in 2017, before a partial recovery to nearly 236,600 in 2024. In the past two years, numbers have drifted downwards again. The workforce now totals just over 234,400. Police officer numbers have tracked those ups and downs. After a 2009 peak of nearly 143,800, by the end of Theresa May’s premiership in 2018, England and Wales had fewer officers than in 1998. Boris Johnson’s Uplift Programme directed funding into a major recruitment drive, and officer numbers soared to a record peak of over 147,700 in 2024. That level has been difficult to maintain, both financially and in terms of recruitment and retention. The number of officers has now slipped under 145,900. 📈Chart shows Total England & Wales police workforce 1996 to 2026 (FTE at financial year end) - source Police Workforce England and Wales Statistics, UK Home Office Read more analysis in the article from Policing Insight's Ian Wiggett: [SUBSCRIBER ARTICLE] policinginsight.com/feature/… 💡 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐥𝐞𝐬 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐭𝐡𝐞 '𝐔𝐊 𝐩𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐞 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐜𝐞 𝐝𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐨𝐩𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭' 𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬. From austerity cuts to recruitment boosts and subsequent spikes in early service leavers, police officer numbers in England and Wales over the past decade have been a focus of concern. In this series launched in 2020, Ian Wiggett maps police workforce development in England and Wales since 2010, identifying major trends and significant challenges. In 2026 the series has been expanded to include police workforce statistics for Scotland and Northern Ireland. policinginsight.com/series/u… @Wiggett_IE @ukhomeoffice

In 1938 and 1939, over 3,500 Jewish refugees from Nazi oppression sheltered at Kitchener Camp:

#Brazil 🇧🇷: “Red Commando” (#CV 🚩) raided a Favela controlled by “Terceiro Comando Puro” (#TCP) in #RiodeJaneiro. CV captured Tanfoglio TA90, Taurus PT92, Glock and Improvised grenade. Note the CV members with FN FAL (Para) pattern rifles, G3A3 pattern rifles and Ghillie suits.

Why The Next Phase of Drone Warfare Will Be Defined By The Weapons Built To Stop Them In #Ukraine, exquisite hardware that dominated battlefields for a century has been turned into an expensive liability by cheap airframes carrying improvised payloads. A few hundred dollars’ worth of quadcopter now routinely kills a few million dollars’ worth of tank. While drone warfare has quickly surpassed ‘emerging’ status, the purpose-built weapons to fight drones have lagged behind the threat. The counter-drone industry promised lasers and microwaves that fire for pennies, restoring the cost-exchange ratio #drones inverted. This year, many of those systems finally saw their first meaningful deployments. None of them has reversed the ratio. The pennies-per-shot advertised by the industry is a measure of the cheapest element in a system whose real expense sits in the sensors and cameras needed to acquire the target and expensive hardware to enable the kill.

Breaking News: Alberta voted to remain in Canada, rejecting a campaign to try to separate the oil-rich province from the country. nyti.ms/4yYBCTH

As France erupts, Europe's far right gains from fuel-price anger ahead of elections bit.ly/47w2KNO

High schoolers, students: the twilight of macronism Hundreds of thousands of young people work hard to earn their high school diplomas, but there is nothing planned to welcome them into higher education thomaspiketty.wordpress.com/…

France had been simmering for weeks before the country came to a boil on Saturday. The disorder is the collision of several grievances, which are detailed below 👇 telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2…

Lycéens, étudiants: le crépuscule du macronisme Des centaines de milliers de jeunes ont travaillé dur pour obtenir leur baccalauréat, mais que rien n’a été prévu pour les accueillir dans le supérieur thomaspiketty.wordpress.com/…

BREAKING: French police have encountered rioters and looters armed with AK47s and Scorpion submachine guns on the streets of Paris, Marseille and Lyon. The information comes from the Le Journal du Dimanche journalist Laura Tchekov, who says that her newspaper has received this information from sources within the DGSI, France’s main internal security agency. The weapons were carried by minors and young adults described as being part of organized crime groups but sometimes also close to the Islamist movement in France. The journalist says that not all armed rioters were arrested and that several of them remain on free foot. It’s believed that police officers refrained from making arrests as they thought they could be both outmanned and outgunned at the moment and that hundreds of people were on the streets, creating a risk of a shoot-out that could have resulted in a large number of wounded and dead.

Extreme beliefs? Fine – but keep it peaceful | @johncoyne14 | bit.ly/47u5ueK

German soldiers operating a Goliath, a remote-controlled demolition vehicle in 1944

Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets in Belgium, France, Italy and Portugal to protest rising living costs, low wages and housing shortages, putting pressure on governments across the European Union. 🔗 aje.news/cdsep1

Paris police issue overnight curfew in 2 areas of French capital to try to prevent further disorder chicagotribune.com/2026/10/1…

Mass protests have spread across France, Belgium, Italy, Portugal and Spain to protest Europe's high cost of living.

#Today #US #NewMexico State Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham:

Italy: Anti-mafia authorities seized assets worth around 10 million euros from a businessman previously convicted for mafia association and considered linked to the Contini clan. The confiscated assets include four high-value real estate properties, five companies (including one managing a popular nightlife venue in the Coroglio area of Naples), and 28 financial accounts. The seizure followed financial investigations revealing a significant mismatch between the businessman’s declared income and his substantial holdings, which led the court to order asset forfeiture under anti-mafia legislation.