After fourteen years of war and the toppling of the Assad regime on December, 8th 2024, Syria faces an unparalleled reconstruction task. One third of the country’s capital stock is damaged or destroyed, and the estimated rebuilding bill accumulated to hundreds of billions of dollars. The World Bank’s “best estimate” is about $216 billion   (roughly ten times of Syria’s 2024 GDP), while other assessments put it as high as $250–400 billion. Syria’s economy has contracted sharpl

Friedrich Merz,   German Chancellor (Christian Democratic Union), has once again stirred up a public outcry following his recent speech on large-scale deportations of migrants in Germany. Recently, Merz preached about the necessity of changing the "cityscape" in Germany - a term describing the appearance of a city in order to legitimize his planned mass deportations of immigrants. His statement has caused major reputational backlash within German society and represents once

On a cold, winter’s evening in 2008, I landed in a country empty and mysterious to me, with nothing but sand dunes as far as the eye could see. I was with my mother, and we were going there to live with my father. Eighteen winters have come and gone since then and, in that time, most of my childhood memories have faded, save for a few captured in grainy, nostalgic videos and photographs. Despite this, I still remember distinctly how my father held me in his arms, having not s

At the beginning of October, the Gazette’s board approached me and asked that I write a piece on disability, in conjunction with the month’s theme. I said “sure,” and set about thinking up an idea for an article about disability.  I kept coming up blank. In truth, I don’t think about disability all that much. It does not come up in my daily life as something to consider. I do not speak often about it with friends, family, or any communities I’m part of–including here at GU-