How Syria’s Revolution Was Misunderstood, by Its Rulers and the World
Syria’s revolution was first crushed, and then misread. Five recent books on the long uprising and its surprising aftermath show how elites, ideologues and foreign observers alike failed to see the people at its heart.
A Suicide Breaks Through the Silence
Passant Soliman was an Egyptian mother, blogger, model and law school graduate who ended her life while hundreds watched on her Facebook livestream. In a country where suicide is almost always shrouded in denial and moral condemnation, her death has sparked a wave of sympathy.
Life Under Israeli Occupation in Syria’s Quneitra
Over a year after the collapse of the Assad regime, Israeli forces have moved deep into and beyond the demilitarized buffer zone established by the 1974 disengagement agreement. Residents in Quneitra describe the quiet calculus of accommodation under the occupiers.
Amid US Pressure and a Deepening Crisis, Cubans Are Braced for Change
Prolonged blackouts, water shortages and crippling inflation have thrown Cuba into crisis. With the Trump administration threatening intervention, ordinary Cubans are caught in a bind: They want a different future, but remain wary of who will deliver it — and how.
The Ethics of Bearing Witness
Investigative journalist Barbara Matejčić and author Jasmin Mujanović join Faisal Al Yafai on the podcast to discuss Matejčić's investigation into a Reuters photograph of a 1992 execution in Bosnia, and the ethical boundaries of war reporting.