Ishaan Tharoor tells the story of America in 2017, if it happened somewhere else.

Trump's global impact

Under Trump, the United States has withdrawn from the Paris climate accord, and he has pushed to build a wall on the border with Mexico and to ban refugees from certain countries.

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Eleven countries face a broad suspension from the U.S. refugee program. Even people with potentially deadly — yet treatable — illnesses are being blocked. Some refugees with severe medical conditions have died while waiting for the admissions to resume, advocates told Kevin Sieff.

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Four other important stories

1. As the fighting in Syria ebbs, horrifying tales emerge

The Washington Post has 17 bureaus around the world and 24 foreign correspondents. One of Middle East correspondent Louisa Loveluck's most powerful stories this year was an investigation into the torture of prisoners inside Syria's military hospitals that she described as “the most haunting experience of my reporting career.”

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“I’d heard rumors of terrible goings on inside the facilities for years, including one particularly shocking account of a sick prisoner being executed in his hospital bed. It was the stuff of nightmares. So terrible that until I began to meet survivors, I had struggled to believe the stories were true.”

2. Old tensions on the rise again

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For North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, 2017 has been a very good year.

As 2017 draws to a close, Kim can reflect on a year in which he not only kept his resolutions, but also exceeded them: A missile that can fly 8,000 miles to reach Washington? Check. A hydrogen bomb 17 times the size of the one the United States dropped on Hiroshima? Check. The whole world paying attention to him and taking him seriously? Double check.

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Just a few years ago, North Korea's weapons program was treated like a bad joke, better known for its duds, misfires and fakes than its ability to threaten the United States. But this year, the program stopped being funny.

The Russia factor

British ships and a helicopter were dispatched over the Christmas holiday weekend to track an “upsurge” of Russian naval vessels passing near British waters, the British navy said Tuesday, as British and NATO leaders warned of Russian naval activity at levels unseen since the Cold War.

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Russian submarines have dramatically stepped up activity around undersea data cables in the North Atlantic, part of a more aggressive naval posture that has driven NATO to revive a Cold War-era command, according to senior military officials interviewed by Michael Birnbaum.

The warnings came as investigators are still trying to determine the extent of Russian meddling in the U.S. elections last year. The miscalculations and bureaucratic inertia that left the United States vulnerable to the election interference trace back to decisions made at the end of the Cold War, when senior policymakers assumed that Moscow would be a partner and largely pulled the United States out of information warfare, write Adam Entous, Ellen Nakashima and Greg Jaffe.

But signs that the information warfare was not over emerged years ago, for instance when Kremlin-funded RT television began to broadcast. Now, it has launched a French version despite similar concerns in France about election meddling. James McAuley asks: Will anyone watch?

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3. A year of humanitarian crises . . .

The International Committee of the Red Cross reported last week that 1 million Yemenis have contracted cholera in the past 18 months. More than 2,000 have died, according to the United Nations. It's the largest cholera outbreak in world history, writes Amanda Erickson.

Meanwhile, inflation has skyrocketed in Venezuela, where many goods have become unaffordable. Venezuelans are calling this “Infeliz Navidad,” or Unhappy Christmas. The past six months have brought the kind of shocking price surges that the world last saw in Zimbabwe in 2008, according to Anthony Faiola.

4. . . . and of political miscalculations in Europe.

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After an almost surreal parliamentary election finished with a record turnout last week, the Spanish government in Madrid and the Catalan secessionists in Barcelona awoke to find themselves right back where they started — stuck with each other and hating it. The pro-independence parties, already squabbling, will struggle to figure out whether they can form a governing coalition. But the law requires that a new government be in place by late January, write William Booth and Pamela Rolfe.

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Similar uncertainty can be felt across the rest of Europe, where German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been struggling to form a coalition, the British government is trying to negotiate an almost impossible deal to leave the European Union and French President Emmanuel Macron appears to have fled the domestic political stage to shine abroad.

2018 probably won't be any less dramatic.