In a quiet corner of Damascus, on a warm September afternoon, an unassuming meeting took place that carried with it the weight of possibility. Inside the offices of Syria’s Ministry of Information, Minister Khaled Zaarour sat down with Stefan Schulz, the head of the German Agency for International Cooperation’s (GIZ) BRIDGE program, a project dedicated to strengthening the capacities of Syrian civil society. The setting was neither grand nor ceremonial; it was a working meeting, the kind that happens every day in ministries around the world. Yet, in a country that has endured more than a decade of conflict and…

Trieste, elegant Italian city on the Adriatic, has always been a place of crossroads. For centuries, empires, languages, and trade routes converged here. It is fitting that the city recently played host to 12 news agencies from Southeast Europe, all members of the Association of Balkan News Agencies of Southeast Europe (ABNA-se), including Italy’s ANSA. These organizations gathered not for a routine trade meeting, but to make a clear, collective pledge: to stand against fake news, defend press freedom, and protect the public’s right to reliable information. The occasion was the 34th ABNA-se General Assembly and a conference titled “Balkans…