Author: Reporter

Even with hopes running high, so much can go wrong when a country ousts a longtime dictator and tries to start anew. The Middle Eastern and North African nations that attempted to transition to democracy in recent years can attest to that. Now it is Syria’s turn to try to get it right. It is hard to draw lessons from the experiences of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, and Sudan since the wave of Arab Spring uprisings that began in 2011, as each country’s dynamics are different, But there are common themes. In some cases, “the Revolution” was lost when...

With cataclysmic wildfires raging across Los Angeles, President-elect Donald Trump has not offered any sympathy to the traumatized victims, something any human being would do let alone someone soon to take the highest political office in the nation Instead, he has boasted that he could do a better job managing the crisis, spewing falsehoods and casting blame on the state’s Democratic governor. Trump has lashed out at his longtime political foe Governor Gavin Newsom’s forest management policies and shoved outright lies about how the state’s fish conservation efforts were responsible for fire hydrants running dry in urban areas. Referring...

As a former and potentially future president, Donald Trump hailed what would become Project 2025 as a road map for “exactly what our movement will do” with another crack at the White House. As the blueprint for a hard-right turn in America became a liability during the 2024 campaign, Trump pulled an about-face. He denied knowing anything about the “ridiculous and abysmal” plans written in part by his first-term aides and allies. Now, after being elected the 47th president on November 5, Trump is stocking his second administration with key players in the detailed effort he temporarily shunned. Most...

South Korean opposition parties introduced a bill on January 9 calling for an independent investigation into the impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol’s brief martial law declaration, as thousands of his supporters and critics held tense rallies near his residence ahead of his potential detention. The bill, jointly submitted by six parties, including the main liberal opposition Democratic Party, proposes that a special prosecutor investigate whether Yoon’s martial law decree on December 3 constituted an attempted rebellion. The bill also calls for an investigation into opposition claims that Yoon sought to provoke a clash with North Korea by allegedly flying...