Flagship

Syrian rebels end Assad regime

Syrian rebels took Damascus and toppled Bashar al-Assad’s regime in a lightning offensive, reshaping the Middle East. The overthrow ended the Assad family’s 53-year rule and capped 13 years of brutal civil war. As government forces melted away, footage from Damascus showed rebel groups entering the presidential palace, escorting the prime minister from his home in a sign of the formal transition of power, and freeing bewildered Syrian prisoners who had been jailed under Assad’s rule. The fallen president fled to Moscow, where he was given asylum, Russian media reported, while Syrians around the world rejoiced. “There was a nightmare, and it’s gone,” one man who had fled to Lebanon said.

Transition of power remains unclear

Bashar al-Assad’s rapid ouster in Syria raises the specter of a power vacuum in the Middle East and further chaos for an already volatile region, analysts warned. What happens next is largely dependent on how the rebels, a collection of factions that have clashed with one another, “divvy up the spoils of victory — and power,” the Financial Times’ Middle East editor wrote. The leader of the most powerful rebel force has sought to portray his formerly al-Qaeda-aligned group as more moderate, and previously said he wasn’t interested in fighting the West. The US, however, considers his organization a terrorist group, raising questions about how the West might engage with Syria if he were in power.

Assad’s fall reshapes global dynamics

The downfall of Assad’s regime heralds a reshuffling of global power dynamics. Russia and Iran have the most to lose: Tehran long used Syria as a key node in its Axis of Resistance, while Russia has military bases in Syria that provide strategic access to the Mediterranean. Both Tehran and Moscow backed Assad, but were too stretched by conflicts in Lebanon and Ukraine to do so this time. Turkey, meanwhile, is ascendant: Its support for the rebels could mean Ankara has the most influence over what the post-Assad Syria looks like, The Wall Street Journal wrote. Gulf nations were less sanguine: “There is a lot of trauma in the region. Good news transforms into bad news very quickly,” a Qatari official said.

Trump returns to geopolitical stage

US President-elect Donald Trump made his return to the world stage at the reopening of Paris’ Notre-Dame Cathedral. Trump took the opportunity presented by the visit to France and the fall of Syria’s Russia-backed government to pressure Moscow to negotiate an end to the Ukraine war, saying Kyiv was ready to make a deal — although the comments drew a cautious response from the Ukrainian side. Trump also met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and France’s Emmanuel Macron to discuss a potential resolution. The president-elect has repeatedly said he would secure peace for Ukraine, even as Kyiv’s European allies worry he could push an agreement that’s more favorable to the Kremlin.

Trump outlines first priorities

Donald Trump outlined sweeping plans to overhaul US immigration policy. In an interview with NBC’s Meet The Press, the president-elect doubled down on his campaign pledge to carry out mass deportations from day one, suggesting Trump is preparing an “aggressive opening” to his second term, The New York Times wrote. Trump also said he would end automatic US citizenship for children born in the country — a move that would immediately be challenged in the courts — but signaled openness to finding a path for undocumented immigrants who came to the US as children, known as Dreamers, to stay. Elsewhere in the same interview, Trump seemed to address concerns over the independence of the Federal Reserve, saying he has no plans to replace Fed Chair Jerome Powell.

SKorea leader survives impeachment

South Koreans gathered in mass protests against President Yoon Suk Yeol, who survived an impeachment bid Saturday after he attempted to enforce martial law last week. Yoon’s party boycotted the ballot, calling instead for an “orderly resignation” in an attempt to stem any further electoral fallout, although the opposition has said they will try to hold another impeachment vote as soon as Wednesday. In an interview prior to the failed vote, Bank of Korea Governor Rhee Chang-yong warned the upheaval would delay “critical structural reforms” to help the country’s stagnating economy, but insisted the financial impact would be “short-lived and relatively muted.” Rather, he argued, intensified Chinese competition and impending US tariffs pose greater threats.

Economic anger ousts Ghana ruling party

Ghana’s former president is set to return to power after defeating the ruling party candidate in national elections. The outgoing vice president conceded the loss Sunday following a vote that, like many global elections this year, was defined by citizens’ anger over the handling of the economy. The country is mired in its worst cost-of-living crisis in decades, triggered by a 2022 default on its $30 billion sovereign debt. A surge in illegal mining and gold smuggling is also eroding the West African nation’s economy, Semafor Africa’s Alexis Akwagyiram wrote, but there’s little incentive for the next government to crack down, “because it funds political machines and enriches traditional rulers.”

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Scientists try to crack antimatter mystery

A truck loaded with antimatter is about to make a first-of-its-kind journey. The most expensive material on Earth, antimatter is incredibly difficult to handle because if it comes into contact with normal matter, both are annihilated, a reaction that unleashes powerful electromagnetic radiation. Produced at European particle accelerator CERN, scientists there are going to attempt moving antimatter within CERN itself, and then plan to send parcels of the stuff further afield for other physicists to study. The hope is for a breakthrough in the mystery of why antimatter has largely disappeared from the universe. “Antimatter has so much to tell us. That is why we are doing this,” a CERN scientist told The Guardian.

Ice lake found to hold life

Scientists found liquid water — and, surprisingly, life — at the bottom of a frozen Antarctic lake. The splendidly named Lake Enigma has an average temperature of -14°Celsius (6.8°Fahrenheit), and scientists had long assumed it was completely frozen all the way down. But in 2019, researchers discovered a 40-foot basin of liquid water beneath a thick layer of ice. Since then, scientists have drilled the ice to collect water samples, revealing the basin is home to a previously unknown species of bacteria. The lake is isolated from other environments by its ice cover, and researchers believe the bacteria living there now may be descended from a presumably thriving ecosystem that existed before it first froze over, some 14 million years ago.

Texas eyes uranium mines for nuclear

Texas is reviving uranium mining in a bid to become the “nuclear capital of the world.” Two companies have licences to mine uranium at sites across the US state, including some disused mines, The Texas Tribune reported. While some locals are concerned about pollution from the mines, the state’s government has overridden those concerns in favor of the firms. Meanwhile, several major US tech firms have moved to Texas recently, and the sector wants to use nuclear reactors to power its energy-hungry data centers: Google, Microsoft, and Amazon have all announced plans to support nuclear plants. Several new reactors are planned in Texas, although none are likely to come online until near the end of the decade.

Dec. 9:

• Eurozone finance ministers meet to draft budgets and adopt recommendations for 2025.
• A US judge hears objections to The Onion’s purchase of Alex Jones’ Infowars website.
• The second season of Netflix’s Squid Game premieres in Seoul.

A Scottish university is developing an “immersive virtual museum” that could change the way we view art, The Art Newspaper wrote. Set to launch in April 2025, the University of Glasgow’s extended reality app allows users to “teleport” around virtual museums with no display cases, enabling them to “handle” precious objects that, in the real world, lie behind glass. The digital “artifacts” are created using photogrammetry — a technique that stitches together hundreds of images to make a single 3D facsimile that can then be magnified or shrunk or spun around. While extended reality cannot replicate a real museum, it can offer “an entirely different experience with different benefits,” one academic said.

OPEC+ postponed raising its oil production quota until April 2025, signaling concern over weakened global demand and Donald Trump’s pro-oil agenda, Semafor’s Tim McDonnell reported. Experts told McDonnell that “nobody wants a price war, but OPEC won’t be content forever to watch its market share frittered away in small increments.”