World roundup: May 2 2025

Stories from Syria, China, Australia, and elsewhere

TODAY IN HISTORY

May 2, 1611: This is probably the date upon which English printer Robert Barker produced the very first edition of the King James Version of the Bible. I say “probably” because it’s the date you most often find cited for the KJV’s publication but as far as I know there’s no documentary evidence backing that up. Regardless, the KJV proved to be a monumental achievement that not only stands as probably the most important vernacular (meaning I’m excluding the Latin Vulgate) translation of the Bible but also a fundamental text in the development of the modern English language. So it’s probably worth commemorating.

The frontispiece to the 1611 first edition of the KJV (Church of England via Wikimedia Commons)

May 2, 2011: Not long after midnight (local time), according to the official narrative, a team of US special forces operators raids a house in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad, in the process killing al-Qaeda boss Osama bin Laden. There have been more than a few alternative theories offered about bin Laden’s death, partly to try to explain how America’s Most Wanted Man was able to spend years living in the Pakistani equivalent of West Point without our good pals in Islamabad ever finding out and/or letting us know. The official story has relevance, since it’s the version of events most people believe. Anyway, the good news is that we all lived happily every after.

INTERNATIONAL

Reporters Without Borders’ (RSF, no not that one the other one) World Press Freedom Index 2025, released on Friday, paints perhaps the bleakest picture of any annual report in the organization’s history. For what RSF says is the “first time in the history of the index,” it rated the international conditions for practicing journalism as “poor” in half of the countries around the world and only gave satisfactory scores to fewer than 25 percent of them. The report cites the media economic landscape and the overall political landscape—particularly under the Trump 2 administration—as reasons for the lowered scores. The report also emphasizes the situation in Gaza, which remains the deadliest place in the world for journalists.

OPEC+ member states have decided to hold their monthly videoconference on Saturday rather than Monday as previously scheduled. You might expect that this is because The Gang is panicking over falling oil prices (most indexes have dropped into the $60s per barrel), but in fact the expectation is that members will agree to additional production increases that would presumably cause prices to drop even further. Any attempt at explaining this rationale is speculative, but it does seem like the Saudi government—the main driver of OPEC+ policy—has decided that it’s willing to absorb low oil prices and budget deficits if it brings down energy costs and makes Trump happy.

MIDDLE EAST

SYRIA

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights is reporting that a drone strike in southern Syria’s Suwayda province killed at least four Druze militia fighters on Friday. Given the events of this week (see below) there’s some question as to whether this was a Syrian or Israeli drone, though state media is pointing the finger squarely at Israel. Later on Friday the SOHR reported that “more than 20” Israeli strikes had hit military sites across Syria in one of the most extensive barrages since the ouster of former Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad in December. I haven’t seen any word as to casualties.

The office of Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa criticized the Israeli military’s (IDF) overnight airstrikes near the presidential palace in Damascus as “a dangerous escalation against state institutions” on Friday. He has been comparatively quiet about the sectarian attacks on Syria Druze that provided the Israeli government with a ready justification for those strikes. Sharaa’s government has reportedly signed a “de-escalation” agreement with Druze community leaders that has placed government security forces in the Damascus suburb of Jaramana and the town of Sahnaya, two flashpoints in this week’s violence, and will reportedly see Druze militias turning “heavy weapons” over to the government. There may also be a security deployment into Suwayda, though it’s unclear how that would be received locally and Israeli officials have previously characterized any deployment of Syrian forces into that part of the country as a red line.