Bashar Hafez al-Assad (born in Damascus, September 11, 1965) is the current president of the Syrian Arab Republic, ruling since July 17, 2000 after succeeding his father, Hafez al-Assad. He has also been the president of the Syrian Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party since July 24, 2000, also upon succeeding his father.
Al-Assad graduated from Damascus University Medical School in 1988, and began working as a military doctor in the Syrian Arab Army. Four years later, he attended postgraduate studies in London, specializing in Ophthalmology. In 1994 his older brother, Basel, was killed in a traffic accident. Bashar returned to Syria to resume his brother's role as heir apparent. He entered the military academy, and took charge of the Syrian occupation of Lebanon in 1998. In December 2000, Assad married Asma al-Assad, a computer science graduate and economic analyst at Deutsche Bank and JP Morgan.
At the beginning of his mandate, he proposed a policy of democratic change and a liberal economic opening. After 2012, he revived his liberal policies by promoting privatizations and winning new international partners such as China. He also started to promote tourism on the Syrian Mediterranean coasts.
Faced with the threat of the idea of preemptive war carried out by the US administration, the instability in Lebanon (where Syria maintained a strong military presence) and the constant tensions with neighboring Israel, Bashar al-Assad tried to have a reformist discourse that could satisfy the wishes of the European Union and the United States.
Since 2011, with the beginning of the Syrian Civil War, different Arab countries, the European Union, the United States, Turkey and other governments have demanded the resignation of Bashar al-Assad, while governments of other countries such as Iran, Russia, China, North Korea, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Cuba condemn or do not support foreign intervention or a change of government in Syria.
Today he is still the President of Syria and the government controls the majority of the country, thanks mainly to Russian support and intervention in the war against ISIS, and is slowly being accepted by international organizations such as the Arab League and the UN, which had denounced him at the beginning of the civil war.
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Bees and ants spring to mind. Particularly with bees, they'll kill their boss if she underperforms. Termites are also eusocial, and cockroaches no less. But maybe comparing ourselves to termites is bad optics outside of the most rabid entomological circles.
I got so many eusocial facts for you
In large colonies, up to 80 percent of an ant colony does absolutely nothing but sit around all day vibing, most likely just being there in case a big job needs doing
They coordinate moving large objects by having all involved ants pushing against the heavy thing to keep it lifted, and each new ant that joins the task gives the object a pull towards the colony center. The whole group then pushes in the direction of the latest pull, and so each one that joins makes their path back to the colony more accurate, or fixes errors.
Soldiers, the really big guys, mostly police potentially egg-producing workers and exist to fill tight tunnels in war. But there are also big workers called majors that mostly just coordinate workers and help them with tasks, including just letting tired workers ride them around
The little marauder ants are riding the big one and they clean her while they ride her around.
How can anyone not love these lil dudes
Maybe bees are ok, people understand bees are necessary. But bugs are seen as a thing to be killed, so not a good thing to be compared to.
Valid. Damn shame, too. Some ants literally link up to form bridges or do agriculture in the form of growing edible fungus. But people tend to hate bugs.
Ants teach new paths to forage sites to each other by forming pairs that "tandem walk" which involves one ant that knows the path (usually older) leading another ant in little spurts of walking. The older ant stops every few steps to let the follower check out their surroundings before leading them another few steps forward.
It's a cool bug fact
Beavers are pretty cool, they're always building and developing. I think any socialist movement needs to emphasize labor positively (AKA, no bullshit jobs nor underpaid ones). Like, "We aren't lazy - we're busy beavers! - but we aren't gonna put up with being exploited."
Plus, they are
Important to environments. Just generally look cool as animals.