As the global community marked International Human Rights Day earlier this month, millions of Afghan women and girls remained trapped in their homes, cast out of their schools, work and public life by repressive Taliban policy. Last year, in response to these then-already-ongoing human rights violations, the US government announced new sanctions against Taliban officials [...]
Exactly three years ago, I came back to Russia after treatment following my poisoning. I was arrested at the airport. And for three years, I’ve been in prison. And for three years I’ve been answering the same question. Prisoners ask it simply and directly. Prison officials inquire about it cautiously, with the recorders turned off. [...]
Though the fall of Syria’s Assad would appear gainful for Israel prima facie, a potential nuclear threat from Iran not only remains, but is plausibly greater than before. One reason for such a counter-intuitive suggestion is that Tehran is now more likely to feel “cornered” in certain crisis circumstances (both foreseeable and unforeseeable) and to [...]
On December 1, President Joseph Biden announced a pardon for his son, Hunter Biden, on charges of gun and tax violations, reversing his pledge not to pardon him if convicted. In his statement, the president wrote: Today, I signed a pardon for my son Hunter … The charges in his cases came about only after [...]
Note: This is part two of a three-part series on the proposed handover of the Chagos Archipelago from the UK to Mauritius. Part one — Why the Proposed UK-Mauritius Handover Would Be a Strategic Blow to Western Security — can be found here. Part three — How the Proposed UK-Mauritius Handover Could be Halted by [...]
My grandfather told me once I was meant to be the heiress of a family-owned winery. Inside the courthouse gates, the ghosts of unfinished stories sit beside me in the cold, marble-columned silence. My grandfather’s voice echoes in my mind, recounting a spiel riddled with missing pieces about a winery that was never mine — [...]
The lightning-fast overthrow of Bashar al-Assad by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in late 2024 has dramatically changed the regional balance of power in Syria. After years of military dominance patronized by Iran, Russia and Hezbollah, the regime of Assad crumbled due to a combination of internal decay, declining morale among his forces, and strategic miscalculations. [...]
The sudden collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria marks a turning point for the country, but the path forward will require a carefully managed political transition, accountability for war crimes, and implementation of UN Resolution 2254 to ensure a stable and representative government. The end of an era The fall of Bashar al-Assad was [...]
As the dust settles after the fall of the Assad regime, a significant chapter is closing in the tragic narrative of the Syrian conflict. The civil war, which erupted in 2011 following the brutal crackdown on peaceful student protests in Daraa, has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives and displaced millions. Yet, with the regime’s [...]
Note: This is part one of a three-part series on the proposed handover of the Chagos Archipelago from the UK to Mauritius. Part two — Why the Proposed UK-Mauritius Handover Is Not Required by International Law — can be found here. Part three — How the Proposed UK-Mauritius Handover Could be Halted by the British [...]
