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New Syrian flag emoji just dropped in the latest iOS update 🇸🇾

Looking for the April Fools story in the Guardian & there are so many that stretch credulity yet turn out to be true. Was so sure I’d found it with the one about the Met tasering people in the Quakers meeting house. The search for something too far-fetched for 2025 continues

They. Hate. Our. Beef. Because. Our. Beef. Is. Beautiful.

Interview: How The Economist’s narrative journalism brand 1843 is gaining more recognition than ever despite its closure as a print magazine in 2020 pressgazette.co.uk/publishers/mag…

This is so funny it is actually worth watching the whole subpar season just to appreciate it

So proud to work with Kylie Warner. We always knew she was one of the most talented young people in magazine journalism, but now it’s ASME official! asme.memberclicks.net/asme-next-awar…

Britain lifts all #Syria Sanctions

If you were told you had been secretly surveilled by a dictatorship and some of your best friends had been reporting on you, would you want to read the file? Riveting Alice Su 蘇奕安 piece on Taiwan’s reckoning with newly unearthed archives economist.com/1843/2025/05/0…

Two years ago, I heard that Taiwan's govt had unearthed surveillance files from the secret police of its authoritarian era. They were finally becoming open to the public, nearly four decades after Taiwan's democratisation. I wanted to see what was inside: economist.com/1843/2025/05/0…

A powerful article on the Stasi-like network of spying deployed by the KMT against Taiwanese citizens into the 1980's. Unlike in the film "The Lives of Others," there are few resolutions in the stories told here. The Economist, "The Terrible Secrets of Taiwan's Stasi Files"

Sharaa’s government has gone all in on getting sanctions removed, often to the detriment of dealing with domestic issues. This is a huge victory for him and the Syrian people. His government must now start dealing with a number of crises at home, before they get out of control.

“We love you (Trump)” — meme circulating on social media and WhatsApp in Syria, based on old posters of Bashar al-Assad

"Hizbullah gaslit us!" Supporters are cursing it, and opponents sense an opportunity. Liz Sly profiles the most successful militia in the world as it hits an existential crossroad economist.com/1843/2025/05/1…

A must read: The rise, fall and contested future of Hizbullah by ⁦Liz Sly⁩ economist.com/1843/2025/05/1…

"The rise, fall & contested future of #Hezbollah" This is a really brilliant long-form piece by Liz Sly -- well worth reading to anyone interested in #Lebanon, #Syria or wider regional dynamics. economist.com/1843/2025/05/1…

Why does Kenya produce so many of the world's champion marathon runners, and why do so many of them die young? Fascinating, sad piece by Jonathan W. Rosen economist.com/1843/2025/05/3…

“In the summer of 2012,  Bassam al-Hassan, a shadowy adviser in Mr Assad’s inner circle, learned that Mr Tice was in the suburbs of Damascus. He set in motion a plan to seize him…” Shining a light on americas missing man in Syria Latest from Latakia: economist.com/middle-east-an…

If nothing else, Israel is forcing a generational turnover in IRGC leadership. The ruling generation has been ideologically inflexible but also bore the scars of the Iran-Iraq war. That made them wary of direct, open conflict. The incoming generation might not be as cautious

I don't think this was 'softening up' Iran for talks, I think this is Israel trying to destroy as much of the programme as it can, while also weakening the military to limit Iranian capacity to respond. Open question as to whether aim is also political destabilisation of Iran.

Also this—American involvement in a war based on whether or not it's playing well on Fox News