The Trump administration has announced plans to create a force of 30,000 troops to protect territory inside Syria now held by America’s Kurdish allies, and the president of NATO ally Turkey is, unsurprisingly, hopping mad about it. “A country we call an ally is insisting on forming a terror army on our borders,” responded Recep Tayyip Erdogan. “What can that terror army target but Turkey? Our mission is to strangle it before it’s even born.” Watch this story.
Erdogan’s fury centers mainly on his fear that Syrian Kurds will provide inspiration and tangible support for Kurdish separatists inside Turkey. But this US decision merely exacerbates Erdogan’s anger on other issues, such as the dispute over Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish preacher living in Pennsylvania whom Erdogan blames for fomenting unrest inside Turkey. The US refuses to extradite him. But the larger reason US-Turkish tensions will grow in 2018 is the prospect of early elections in Turkey later this year, which Erdogan intends to win in part by playing to anti-Western sentiment among his most reliable voters.More from GZERO Media
REUTERS/Corinne Dufka
On April 27, 1994, Black South Africans went to the polls, marking an end to years of white minority rule and the institutionalized racial segregation known as apartheid. But the “rainbow nation” still faces many challenges, with racial equality and economic development remaining out of reach.
“Putin was my mistake. Getting rid of him is my responsibility.” It’s clear by the time the character Boris Berezovsky utters that chilling line in the new Broadway play “Patriots” that any attempt to stop Russian President Vladimir Putin’s rise would be futile, perhaps even fatal. The show opened for a limited run in New York on April 22.
Campus protests are a major story this week over the Israeli operation in Gaza and the Biden administration's support for it. These are leading to accusations of anti-Semitism on college campuses, and things like canceling college graduation ceremonies at several schools. Will this be an issue of the November elections?
Alex Kliment
An agreement late Thursday night to continue talking, disagreeing, and protesting – without divesting or policing – came in stark contrast to the images of hundreds of students and professors being arrested on several other US college campuses on Thursday.
REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
Some of the conservative justices (three of whom were appointed by Trump) expressed concern that allowing former presidents to be criminally prosecuted could present a burden to future commanders-in-chief.
Abed Rahim Khatib/Reuters
“We are afraid of what will happen in Rafah. The level of alert is very high,” Ibrahim Khraishi, the Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations, said Thursday.
REUTERS/Pedro Valtierra
Haiti’s Prime Minister Ariel Henry formally resigned on Thursday as a new transitional body charged with forming the country’s next government was sworn in.
Mark Schiefelbein/Pool via REUTERS
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken brought up concerns over China's support for Russia with his counterpart Wang Yi in Beijing on Friday, before meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Alex Kliment
Of the many complex, painful issues contributing to the tension stemming from the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre and the ongoing Israeli attacks in Gaza, dividing groups into two basic camps, pro-Israel and pro-Palestine, is only making this worse. GZERO Publisher Evan Solomon explains the need to solve this category problem.
© 2020 GZERO Media. All Rights Reserved | A Eurasia Group media company.