After years of diplomatic isolation and restrictions on movement, 395,000 Jordanian citizens visited Syria in 2025. Families, young people and independent travellers cross the border for short stays, cultural visits or family reunions. The project to reactivate the historic Hegiaz railway within the year. A recovery that contrasts with the crisis in tourism in Amman, victim of regional crises.
Four years after the invasion of Ukraine, Hungary and Slovakia's veto has divided the European Union over the twentieth package of economic measures against Russia. This is a new chapter in the long history of sanctions that began in the Soviet era and reached its peak in the 1970s and 1980s. The central importance of the Druzhba (‘Friendship’) oil pipeline inaugurated in 1960.
Regional tensions are being followed with close attention and concern in Lebanon. As diplomatic manoeuvring between Washington and Tehran intensifies, rumours of war are multiplying. Lebanese sources warn that the parties “are playing with fire”. For Iran, the very survival of the regime depends on it. The risk of Hezbollah's involvement is very real.
More than 4.7 million people were eligible to vote in yesterday’s election to the Lao National Assembly, dominated by the Lao People's Revolutionary Party to. On the same day, the death of activist Bao Mo Khaen, known for his outspoken denunciations of corruption and restrictions on freedom of expression, was confirmed. Before the vote, one of the few non-party lawmakers dropped out.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) is due to rule on the charges of crimes against humanity involving the former Philippine president over killings he allegedly ordered during the war on drugs. Now in his eighties, Duterte has been under arrest in the Netherlands for almost a year, but his figure continues to be a source of division back home. Meanwhile, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Türk has called on the Philippines to rejoin the Rome Statute.
Sister Fransiska Imakulata was contacted by a woman held captive in a nightclub in Maumere. She and Sikka police freed the victims, who were found without papers. After their release, the women were taken to a safe house run by TRUK-F, an NGO of which the woman religious is president, before they were returned to their families in West Java.
