It’s highly unlikely that President Trump will adopt Erik Prince’s proposal to privatise the war in Afghanistan. Prince’s plan, first published as on op-ed in the Wall Street Journal in May, triggered a heated discussion that remains ongoing. The piece was especially provocative coming from the nominally reserved WSJ. (More…)
Ahrar al-Sham’s decision to replace its top command this week offers a glimpse at how the outgunned rebel group is adjusting to the ascendancy of al-Qaida-linked factions in Syria, and the changing nature of the insurgency against president Bashar al-Assad. (More…)
Throughout the refugee crisis, European news media has focused on Syrians, often at the expense of other significant groups of migrants. Among these are Afghans seeking asylum in the EU, who made up 15% of total applicants in 2016. Afghans were also the second largest refugee group by nationality and were the biggest before the Syrian Civil War. (More…)
I have become unstuck in time. My family, friends, and teachers keep pestering me about what I will do after I graduate. A college education is often seen as an investment in one’s individual future. But the very institution that taught me about the conservation methods that will sustain our planet is planning to invest $3 billion in fossil fuels for short-term economic gain. (More…)
Since the snap election UKIP has entered a new terrain of wilderness. Not only does the party lack its raison d’être, it lacks leadership and a message. No longer do we hear UKIP described as “the fourth party” of British politics. (More…)
Civilians and activists once detained by the Syrian government for joining 2011 protests against President Bashar al-Assad are again facing arbitrary detention and torture in secret jails. But this time, their captors are Syria’s hard-line militant groups. (More…)
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been savage in his criticisms of the EU. “The European Union’s court, the European Court of Justice, my esteemed brothers,” Erdoğan exclaimed after an ECJ ruling in March allowing employers to ban the headscarf, “have started a Crusade against the Crescent.” (More…)
It is now over a year since Theresa May came to power. She did come to high office on the back of an electoral victory. Nor was she even elected by Tory members. May was simply in the right place at the right time. But now she is in the wrong place at the wrong time. (More…)
European policy-makers must address cultural and political anxieties about Islam and refugees head on, rather than ceding the public debate to the far right and their self-defeating policies, argues Behzad Yaghmaian. (More…)
Thousands of pilots of migrant boats have been jailed in Italy. Ilaria Sesana takes a closer look at their stories and finds prosecutions that criminalize escaping migrants amid a growing campaign to change the courts’ approach to the “scafisti.” (More…)
This has been one of the more unfortunate weeks of late for the Trump Administration. For a regime that has been shambling from disaster to crisis, that’s really saying something. (More…)
We’ve all seen them on social media. And we’ve all shared them. A photo or a cartoon posted with a message superimposed on it in big, white capital letters. Often it’s an in-joke, a piece of satire, or even a political statement. All memes really say one thing: share this post. (More…)