Politics

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.

Authored by Paul Roderick Gregory via Forbes.com,

Just over a month ago, we expressed amazement at just how sophisticated, efficient and pervasive the 'Russian hacking' community had become after CNN reported - citing unnamed government officials of course - that they had managed to hack into a Qatari News Agency and post a 'fake' news story all in an attempt to drive a wedge between the U.S., Qatar and some of it's Gulf Arab neighbors, one which culminated - at least according to the CNN narrative - with the Qatari crisis in which an alliance of Arab states led by Saudi Arabia isolated and blockaded the nat gas rich nation.