Global stories you may have missed
With Signal-gate dominating domestic headlines, here are four underreported global events that likely flew under the radar.
Syria
Syria has been in flux since the fall of the al-Assad regime in December 2024. New president Ahmed al-Sharaa has been busy — touring capitals, giving interviews, and posing with the UN chief.
But behind the optics, the real power lies with the Syrian Salvation Government (SSG), a group established in 2017 by al-Sharaa’s faction, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), to govern rebel-held areas.
The SSG has built a surprisingly complex bureaucracy. As the Jamestown Foundation describes, it handles infrastructure, education, and healthcare — leaving HTS focused on military and political control. This technocratic setup co-opts local elites, creating ministries and committees for everything from schooling to olive oil taxes. It stabilizes HTS’s rule not just through force, but by giving Syria’s educated class a stake in the system.
Still, the SSG’s independence is largely fiction. Al-Sharaa’s provisional constitution, enacted in March 2025, gives him sweeping control over emerging institutions, despite pledges of judicial reform. Civil police now train in shari’ah law, while a new intelligence agency — modeled on Assad’s notorious mukhabarat — cracks down on dissent. The recent massacre of 1,500 Alawites signals an extremist turn, dashing early hopes for a liberal post-Assad Syria.
What began as a technocratic bid for legitimacy now props up an Islamist authoritarian order. For Syria’s wary diaspora, one question remains: is this real stability, or just a jihadist regime dressed in bureaucratic respectability?
East Africa
The Jamestown Foundation also notes rising tensions in East Africa, where Egypt and Ethiopia are locked in a dangerous rivalry.
The flashpoint: Ethiopia’s January 2024 deal with Somaliland, a breakaway republic. The agreement gave Ethiopia Red Sea port access and rights to establish military bases, in exchange for potential recognition — a move Egypt sees as a threat to its dominance over the Suez Canal.
In response, Egypt signed a defense pact with Somalia in August 2024, sending arms, troops, and support to Mogadishu. The goal: counter Ethiopia’s influence and undermine Somaliland’s independence push. Beneath it all lies a deeper fight over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), which Egypt fears will choke off the Nile — its economic and cultural lifeline.
Mexico
In Jalisco, Mexico, two former police officers were arrested over ties to the Izaguirre Ranch — a suspected cartel “ranch of horror” in Teuchitlan. Initially raided in September 2024, the site was ignored for months until March 5, when a civilian group, Guerreros Buscadores, uncovered bones, shoes, and clothing, exposing failures in the original investigation.
With 124,000 unresolved disappearances since 2006, Mexico’s citizen-led searchers, not government officials, are the ones forcing action. The case has sparked public outrage and protests, spotlighting the cartels’ deep reach into a paralyzed civil state.
Turkey
Turkey erupted into its largest protests since 2013, sparked by the March 19, 2025, detention of Istanbul’s mayor, Ekrem Imamoglu, a key rival to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Widely seen as politically motivated, his arrest on corruption charges — formally enacted on March 23 after a court ordered him jailed pending trial — triggered six nights of unrest across Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, and beyond. Over 1,100 people were detained, including journalists, as police clashed with demonstrators wielding stones and fireworks.