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At stake in Khashoggi affair: control of the Arab world’s narrative

The disappearance and alleged murder of Saudi journalist and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi has done more than strike fear in the hearts of Arab journalists and intellectuals everywhere. The affair’s outcome, they say, holds in its balance the future of access to information across the Middle East. Arab academics and press freedom advocates warn of dire consequences if the United States and the West fail to hold Mr. Khashoggi’s killers accountable.

In Florida's kaleidoscopic politics, a window into America's future

For Hannah Klein and William Joel Bravo, paid canvassers for the liberal NextGen America, that’s half the challenge – getting people to open the door and engage. “I believe that as a woman, it is my moral obligation to vote for anyone but Donald Trump,” says Batlle, a Cuban-American native of Miami who works as a paralegal. President Trump isn’t literally on the ballot Nov. 6, but really, he is.

Russia's once shadowy spies cast into the light. Why now?

For lovers of spy lore, the past few years have brought unprecedented glimpses behind the curtain of international espionage. In part thanks to the unpreparedness of many intelligence agencies to grasp the implications of rapidly advancing information technology and the ubiquity of social media, more than one has seen some of its most precious secrets spilled over newspaper front pages. The latest to suffer this fate is Russia's largest spy agency, the Main Directorate of the Russian General Chief of Staff – still widely known by its traditional acronym, GRU.

Helping Saudis be led by truth, not fear

This bit of wisdom may help explain why someone in Saudi Arabia’s ruling monarchy may have wanted to silence a political critic in exile, Jamal Khashoggi, without understanding the dire consequences abroad. As facts emerge about a probable Saudi hand in Mr. Khashoggi’s disappearance in Istanbul, Turkey, on Oct. 2, one obvious response is this: What might lessen the fear of dissenting ideas among the rulers in Riyadh? Since 2016, Saudi Arabia’s effective ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, has clearly defined himself as a reformist leader, at least in social and religious areas, but also someone who brooks no dissent.