Politics

One month after the WSJ reported that Israel had been secretly funding the Syrian rebel opposition to Assad's regime for years in hopes of keeping the Syrian political situation unstable and preventing the Syrian - and Iranian - regime's military from becoming a substantial threat, overnight Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told reporters after his meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday that Israel opposes the cease-fire agreement in southern Syria that the United States and Russia reached "because it perpetuates the Iranian presence in the country."

Following a lawsuit by government watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), the Obama administration released their visitor logs (dating back to 2009), but the Trump White House announced in April that they would break with the practice.

However, as The Hill reports, CREW on Monday announced that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will turn over visitor logs to Trump’s property by Sept. 8 as part of ongoing litigation to the group, who in turn will make them public.

It started two weeks ago, when Turkey warned publicly it was preparing for military intervention in Syria, while accusing the US of creating a "terrorist army" (it wasn't referring to ISIS, but US-backed Syrian Kurdish militia YPG). As a reminder, YPG forms a major part of the U.S.-backed campaign to capture Islamic State's stronghold of Raqqa, and whose forces are seen as a terrorist organization by Turkey. The group currently controls a pocket of territory in Afrin, about 200 km (125 miles) west of Raqqa.

Trust in government serves as a vital driving force for a country's economic development, increases the effectiveness of governmental decisions, as well as leading to greater compliance with regulations and the tax system. As Statista's Niall McCarthy notes, the level of confidence in a country's government is generally determined by whether people think their government is reliable, if it can protect its citizens from risk and whether or not it is capable of effectively delivering public services.

Authored by Federico Pieraccini via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

The meeting between Trump and Putin at the G20 in Hamburg injects new hope into the complicated relationship between the United States and Russia. Only time can confirm whether there is any basis for this hope.