Israel is exploiting the vacuum left by southern Syria’s sectarian clashes and a weak state

By Rob Geist Pinfold, Lecturer in International Security, King's College London

Several days of bitter sectarian fighting in the south of Syria has brought the fledgling government in Damascus dangerously close to direct conflict with Israel, after Israeli warplanes launched strikes against government buildings in the Syrian capital, Damascus, on July 16.

The United Nations and a number of countries condemned the attacks, which the UN secretary general, Antonio Guterres, said were “escalatory airstrikes”. Yet…

Read complete article

~	Cambodia: Scamming crisis survivors must be protected amid police crackdown

~	How the ‘big, beautiful bill’ will deepen the racial wealth gap – a law scholar explains how it reduces poor families’ ability to afford food and health care

~	‘People who spent years saving lives are now struggling to survive’ – how we witnessed Trump’s USAID cuts devastate health programmes in Kenya

~	Cynthia Erivo will be the most talked about Jesus of 2025 – but women have long retold the gospel

~	A brief art history of adultery

~	It doesn’t have to be welfare versus warfare. Changes that make tax fairer could fund both

~	Exercise could ease symptoms for people with chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL) – new study

~	Testosterone gel: what happens if it rubs off on other people

~	Cognitive warfare: why wars without bombs or bullets are a legal blind spot

~	Decoding hints that Xi Jinping may be under pressure to relinquish some of his power