The Monocle Minute

The end came quickly. Nearly 14 years after the first protests erupted against Bashar al-Assad, armed opposition groups captured the Syrian capital, Damascus, following a ten-day lightning advance. Russia’s foreign ministry confirmed yesterday that Assad has left the country. What comes next will depend on the ability of Syria’s new rulers to lead and heal a complex and traumatised society – and on the aims of Turkey, now the major regional power.

Much of Syria is now in the hands of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a group that originated as an al-Qaeda affiliate. In recent years its leader, Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani, has strived to rebrand the group, presenting it as an organisation that can both respect Syria’s minorities and meet the administrative challenges of running a state. So far, the former is being upheld. However, two key areas remain outside HTS’s control: the Kurdish-controlled northeast and a strip of coastal territory including the cities of Latakia and Tartus, the heartland of Assad’s Alawite minority and home to Russia’s naval base on the Mediterranean.

The Kurdish leadership has already hailed the end of Assad and is in a position of strength to cut a deal with HTS. But it will be far harder for a HTS-led government to control the coast; Alawites within Assad’s security forces have spearheaded the regime’s atrocities since 2011, and the minority is terrified of Islamist rule and revenge.

Turkey is the main backer of the rebel groups although its links with HTS are hazy. As Russian ships leave Tartus and Iranian-backed militias pull out, Turkey is emerging as the major external power. Turkey already hosts about 3.6 million Syrian refugees and has endured its own security problems as the conflict blew back across its border. It is in Ankara’s interests to ensure a return to stability.

Hannah Lucinda Smith is Monocle’s Istanbul correspondent, for more on the situation in Syria tune in to ‘The Globalist’ at 07.00 London time on Monocle Radio.

Vietnam is building a new high-speed rail line – the first of its kind in the Southeast Asian nation – to link Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. Hitting top speeds of 350km/h, it will cut travel time between the two cities from almost 30 hours to just five. Construction of the $67bn (€61.5bn) budget project is expected to begin in 2027 and transform travel across the country. Chinese companies, which could eventually take part as partial contractors, are welcoming the news.

China, Vietnam’s top trading partner, would be a natural choice to help provide technology and funding for the project. But last year’s signing of a US-Vietnam strategic partnership dampened relations between Hanoi and Beijing. French companies such as Alstom, Thales, Colas Rail and RATP, which already supply Vietnam’s rail network with everything from rolling stock to signalling systems, could also be potential collaborators.

More than 50 years in the making, Milan’s Palazzo Citterio modern art museum has finally opened its doors to the public. Announced in 1972, the project was beset with delays from the get-go, especially around the renovation of the 18th-century building that houses it and the death of the lead architect, James Stirling, in the early 1990s. But its completion caps off the city’s Grande Brera museum complex, where it takes pride of place alongside the Pinacoteca di Brera and Braidense National Library.

It’s a destination that city authorities hope will position Milan as a cultural capital in the same echelon as Florence and Rome. Over the past decade, Italy has undergone an ambitious shift in how its government relates to cultural institutions; giving them freer rein to manage their own finances and find ways to boost visitor numbers. It has worked for the Uffizi Gallery – which saw more than five million visitors in 2023 – and the hope is that Milan can now get in on the action.

The edition of The Observer that thumped onto doorsteps around the UK yesterday was a historic one. The sale of the world’s oldest Sunday newspaper to the “slow news” start-up Tortoise Media was approved just prior to the weekend by the Scott Trust and Guardian Media Group, the two companies that own the 233-year-old title. It followed a 48-hour strike by the paper’s journalists, who are concerned that the move will endanger their jobs. But the newspaper’s owners were keen to offload what had long been a loss-making endeavour.

At a time when legacy-media brands are being snapped up by investors, especially in the UK, it is easy to mourn a venerable title such as The Observer going the same way. But its sale had an air of inevitability. The hope is that Tortoise, which is led by former BBC executive James Harding, can find a way to make the paper’s physical offering profitable while building a firmer footing for the brand online.

At the southernmost tip of Mumbai is Colaba, a former island that’s now one of four peninsulas dangling from India’s most populous megacity into the Arabian Sea. Once a haven for jackals and pirates, Colaba became a mercantile enclave that blossomed into a jewel of the British Raj in the late 19th century. Today, its architectural splendour, old-world charm and artistic sensibility mean that it sits apart from the bustle and chaos of the wider metropolis.

Colaba Causeway, the area’s main drag, has an eclectic inventory of shops, from hole-in-the-wall purveyors of bric-a-brac, where tables are piled high with silver goblets, vintage glasses and Kolhapuri sandals, to nearby high-end boutiques such as Amit Aggarwal’s flagship and international multi-brand boutique Le Mill. There are minimalist cafés and sleek wine bars reminiscent of Copenhagen or Melbourne, as well as old video shops and impossibly pokey office buildings where ceiling fans beat lazily day and night.

Dig deeper into Mumbai’s Colaba inMonocle’s December/January issue, which is on newsstands now.

New ideas, bright predictions and the trends that will shape the year to come: Monocle’s The Forecast will help you get in the groove as we move into 2025. With in-depth reporting about luxury fashion’s new star apprentices, the places where the film industry is flourishing and which cities entrepreneurs are flocking to, you’ll be full of inspiration for the months ahead. Plus: what the future holds for the world’s greenest petrostate and why you should use more Post-its.