Monalisa Freiha

The recent wave of protests in Iran was triggered by a sharp surge in the U.S. dollar exchange rate - or, more precisely, by the sudden collapse of the national currency. The initial spark came from bazaars and shopping centers, where merchants went on strike and shuttered their shops, before the unrest quickly spread nationwide.

The most daring American operations to change a political regime since the Iraq invasion in 2003 culminate in a year-long campaign launched by U.S. President Donald Trump against Caracas, under the pretext of combatting the flooding of the United States with cocaine and fentanyl. This campaign placed Trump in an open confrontation with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, as a leader of an intertwined network of smuggling and organized crime.

Conflicting developments emerging from Yemen are clouding the trajectory of a crisis that has erupted between the internationally recognized Yemeni government and the Southern Transitional Council (STC), further complicating an already intertwined political and military landscape.