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1. Ratko Mladić died in prison last week in The Hague. Two pieces about that:

a) one by Guy de Launey for Monocle with which to set the scene, The ‘Butcher of Bosnia’ is dead – but divisions live on in the Balkans https://monocle.com/affairs/ratko-mladic-the-butcher-of-bosnia-death-divisions-continue-balkans/ (You may need to register to read for free.)

b) and a prescient collection of essays from British Council & UK International Development – prescient given the differing reactions to Mladić’s death across the region this week, Different Memories, Shared Futures: Towards Inclusive Memorialisation in the Western Balkans – https://www.britishcouncil.rs/en/programmes/education/activities-under-project-different-memories-shared-futures-towards-inclusive-memorialisation/conversations-remembrance-politics-memory-trauma-identity-polarised-societies PDF below.

Memorials can acknowledge suffering, but they can also reinforce division. Commemorations can create empathy, but they can also deepen competitive victimhood. Historical truth can establish facts, yet facts alone rarely determine how societies choose to live together afterwards.

Thanks to Eilidh Hamilton for that one!

2. The next free monthly IATEFL webinar is this coming Saturday, 5th September at 15:00 UK time, Why Climate‑Only Sustainability Fails Our Learners with Cecilia Lemos Harmer. Registration and more information here https://www.iatefl.org/event-details/#/?id=861

Many ELT ‘sustainability’ lessons focus solely on environmental topics. But there are other aspects such as social sustainability, which considers the skills needed for ensuring healthy and equitable communities for present and future generations. By exploring key issues like social justice and inclusivity, we can positively impact learner engagement and motivation. This session, using the Cambridge Sustainability Framework for ELT, reframes sustainability through the human lens, and will offer practical ready-to-use activities that explore how socially sustainable teaching creates more inclusive and empowering classrooms. You will leave with concrete strategies and activities for making sustainability relevant to your learners.

3. Here’s the press release for the Ipsos Education Monitor for 2026, Great Britain least likely of 31 countries to see university degrees as essential or good value https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/great-britain-least-likely-31-countries-see-university-degrees-essential-or-good-value

New polling data from the 2026 Ipsos Education Monitor, conducted across 31 countries between 19 June and 3 July 2026, reveals a distinct wave of public scepticism across Great Britain regarding the economic return of higher education amidst persistent cost-of-living pressures, tuition fee debates, and student debt burdens.

And here’s the report itself, https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/2026-08/Education%20Monitor%202026.pdf PDF below.

4. No, this blog was not written with the help of AI, although I have been tempted to see how AI would ‘improve’ it – and indeed succumbed to that temptation this time round for the first time: see the confession at the foot of this piece. In the meantime, though, here’s three recent pieces about the impact of AI:

a) A gift article from The New York Times on the use Harvard University is making of avatars of its teaching staff, Harvard Is Selling a $699 Course Taught by A.I. Clones of Its Faculty https://tinyurl.com/y2cveyup

b) Another gift article, this one from The (London) Times about the use students may or may not be making of AI at university, ‘My college accused me of using AI to cheat. So I sued — and won’ https://www.thetimes.com/us/news-today/article/college-cheating-ai-plagiarism-legal-us-hts98p02r

c) A piece from The Guardian with wider implications, Sharp rise in incidents of AI escaping users’ control, research finds https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/aug/29/sharp-rise-in-incidents-of-ai-escaping-users-control-research-finds

5. And, finally, meteorologically, have you ever wondered what was the weather like on the day you were born? https://weather-replay.climate.copernicus.eu/ It’s an EU-funded database but it seems to have the weather for the whole world back to 1940. Not a surprise, perhaps, that in North Yorkshire it was raining on the day I was born. Thanks to Mark Stephens CBE for this one!

CONFESSION: I did in the end ask Claude to check this over. They corrected the date at the top from 25th August to 1st September, explained that I can’t attach files to a newsletter and how to tag someone (with an @, not a #), and tidied up my numbering. They also corrected the depth of the database in Item 5 from 1941 to 1940, and suggested a re-wording of Item 1b) to make it clear why I was claiming that the British Council/UK International Development essays were prescient – none of which I have a problem with, so I shall probably get Claude to read posts through regularly in future!