Music: Arooj Aftab — ‘Insaaf’
Trump’s choice of Gaetz to be AG revealed their mutual contempt for the law and women
David Firestone writes: There is so much repellently sleazy behavior documented in the House Ethics Committee report about Matt Gaetz that a reader has to stop every few pages to look away and focus on what still seems astounding: This is the man that Donald Trump wanted to be the attorney general of the United States, the highest-ranking law enforcement official in the land, the leader of the Department of Justice. Trump wanted to give that position to a man…
Musk + Trump = Mump regime
Timothy Snyder writes: For a new world we need new words. Facing the coming Musk-Trump regime, we will have to be creative. It will not be enough just to rely on the standard terms that come to easily to our lips and pens (“administration,” “presidency”, and the like). That normalizes the abnormal. And to repeat unreflectively the words that Musk and Trump and other mumpers use is to take part in the transformation that they bring. Opposition requires clarity…
How Israel’s plan to carve up Syria was thwarted by Assad’s downfall
David Hearst writes: The overthrow of Bashar al-Assad’s government thwarted an Israeli plan to divide Syria into three blocks in order to sever its ties with Iran and Hezbollah, according to regional security sources briefed about the plot. Israel planned to establish military and strategic ties with the Kurds in the northeast and the Druze in the south, leaving Assad in power in Damascus under Emirati funding and control. This would have also served to limit Turkey’s influence in Syria…
Israel’s massive attack on free Syria — background and motivations
Michael Karadjis writes: It didn’t take long: from the moment the Assad regime collapsed and the rebels entered Damascus, Israel’s massive land and air attack began. As long as all these arms depots, military airports, intelligence centres, scientific research centres, air bases, air defence systems, ammunition manufacturing facilities, “small stockpiles of chemical weapons,” and Syria’s entire naval force were safely in the hands of the Assad regime, Israel never touched them. As Syrian revolutionary commentator Rami puts it, Israel has…
Syria: The rise of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham
In this episode of Centre Stage, Patrick Haenni, an author and researcher specialising in Syria, shares his expertise on Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. Haenni discusses HTS’s origins and ideological transformation and reveals how the armed group played a key role in achieving what no other faction could — ending the Assad regime.
Push to ban highly profitable TV drug ads will face strong resistance
The New York Times reports: Since the late 1990s, drug companies have spent tens of billions of dollars on television ads, drumming up demand for their products with cheerful jingles and scenes of dancing patients. Now, some people up for top jobs in the incoming Trump administration are attacking such ads, setting up a clash with a powerful industry that has long had the courts on its side. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President-elect Donald J. Trump’s choice for health secretary,…
The race to translate animal communication into human language
Arik Kershenbaum writes: In 2025 we will see AI and machine learning leveraged to make real progress in understanding animal communication, answering a question that has puzzled humans as long as we have existed: “What are animals saying to each other?” The recent Coller-Dolittle Prize, offering cash prizes up to half-a-million dollars for scientists who “crack the code” is an indication of a bullish confidence that recent technological developments in machine learning and large language models (LLMs) are placing this…
Music: Okvsho — ‘LS Shuffle’
With Assad’s fall, Putin’s dream of world domination is turning into a nightmare
Peter Pomerantsev writes: As Bashar al-Assad fell, Russian nationalist military bloggers turned on the Kremlin. “Ten years of our presence,” fumed the “Two Majors” Telegram channel to its more than one million subscribers, “dead Russian soldiers, billions of spent roubles and thousands of tonnes of ammunition, they must be compensated somehow.” Some didn’t shy away from lambasting Vladimir Putin. “The adventure in Syria, initiated by Putin personally, seems to be coming to an end. And it ends ignominiously, like all…
Syria has been liberated from Russia and Iran – but outsiders still threaten its new freedom
Robin Yassin-Kassab writes: The liberation of Syria was long hoped for, but unexpected. Over the past weeks, Syrians have experienced the full range of human emotions, with the exception of boredom. On the first two Assad-free Fridays, millions of celebrants swelled the streets to chant and sing and speak formerly forbidden truths. There was a huge presence of women, who had been less visible during the years of war. Relatives are meeting again and assuaging their pain as hundreds of…
Assad’s fall is the Middle East’s 1989
Lina Khatib writes: The spectacularly rapid fall of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad and his regime is the Middle East’s 1989. Like the fall of the Berlin Wall, the end of 54 years of Assad family rule signals an earthquake in the regional order—with tremors that will be felt for decades to come. Just as 1989 was marked by a series of falling dominoes in Poland, Hungary, East Germany, and elsewhere, the collapse of the Syrian regime is part of a chain…
In the post-Assad Middle East, Iran’s loss is Turkey’s gain
Vali Nasr writes: Israel’s celebration for all but ending Iran’s presence in the Levant will be cut short by the challenges inherent in facing a Turkish sphere of influence there. An ascendant HTS-led government, once it consolidates power in Syria, will reject Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights and will likely not remain neutral on the plight of the Palestinians. Its Sunni Arab links with Palestinians are more organic than those of Iran and Hezbollah. The menace on Israel’s borders…
How America lost control of the bird flu, setting the stage for another pandemic
By Amy Maxmen, December 20, 2024 Keith Poulsen’s jaw dropped when farmers showed him images on their cellphones at the World Dairy Expo in Wisconsin in October. A livestock veterinarian at the University of Wisconsin, Poulsen had seen sick cows before, with their noses dripping and udders slack. But the scale of the farmers’ efforts to treat the sick cows stunned him. They showed videos of systems they built to hydrate hundreds of cattle at once. In 14-hour shifts, dairy…
Trump signals plans to use all levers of power against the media
The Washington Post reports: For many years, Donald Trump repeatedly threatened to sue the press but often didn’t follow through. When he did, he almost always lost. But Trump’s recent settlement with ABC News and a cascade of lawsuits and other complaints against media entities from him and his allies signal a ramped-up campaign from the president-elect. Together, the action has spurred concerns that his efforts could drastically undermine the institutions tasked with reporting on his coming administration, which Trump…
Optimism survives even in beleaguered Venezuela
Anne Applebaum writes: Late last year, Venezuela’s democratic opposition set out to choose, jointly, someone who could challenge Nicolás Maduro, the country’s autocratic president, in an election that was sure to be violent and unfair. Hundreds of thousands of participants from different political parties voted in a primary held across Venezuela and in exile communities abroad. Although they risked harassment and arrest, people donated space in private homes and offices to make the vote possible. Others stood in line for…