Ukraine’s Zelensky visits Damascus
It’s hard to think of two world leaders with more unlikely life paths than Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky, a former comedian who played a president on TV only to become the actual president of a country under assault from a nuclear superpower, and Syrian leader Ahmad al-Sharaa, a former Al-Qaeda jihadist who toppled the Assad regime and now jet-sets to Western capitals, shoots hoops with US generals, and spits game at prime time news hosts. But on Sunday, the two men met as al-Sharaa rolled out the red carpet for Zelensky in Damascus. What was on the agenda? Al-Sharaa is keen to show that the fragile new Syria is no longer a client state of Russia, while Zelensky is shopping his country’s elite drone warfare experience to Middle Eastern leaders who are deeply interested in the subject, as Iran continues to pummel the region with drones in retaliation for US-Israeli airstrikes.
Migrants missing after shipwreck in the Mediterranean
At least 70 migrants are missing after their boat capsized trying to cross the Mediterranean to Europe on Saturday. The 32 survivors, from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Egypt, were picked up by Italian and Liberian merchant ships and said that they were part of a group of over 100 people that left Libya on a lightweight vessel. Survivors reported rough weather, with high waves that ultimately knocked the boat over. If the missing are confirmed dead, it would mark one of the worst tragedies involving migrants on the Mediterranean. The shipwreck is far from an isolated event. More than 33,450 migrants have died or gone missing crossing the Mediterranean since the United Nations began tracking in 2014, during the European migrant crisis. At least 725 people have gone missing this year alone.
Can a new international force help stabilize Haiti?
In Haiti, a new international stabilization force is beginning to trickle in this week to tackle gang violence that’s plagued the Caribbean nation for years. The United Nations-backed force is replacing a group of police officers led by Kenya that has been in place since 2024 but has failed to rein in gangs, which control over 80% of the capital. Since the 5,500-person contingent won’t be fully staffed until the fall, and Kenyan forces have been withdrawing over the last month, many fear that gangs will take advantage of the transition period to further consolidate control. Those anxieties were highlighted over the weekend when gangs swept through rural towns in the Artibonite region, leaving around 70 people dead.
