World News Insights: Opinion Articles

In the third and final essay of his small book ‘The Genealogy of Morals’ (1887), Friedrich Nietzsche deals with what he called the “ascetic ideal,” which is embodied in priests and is most perfectly manifested in saints. Indeed, priests volunteer to inflict pain on themselves through solitude,…

The uprising of January 25, 2011 presented Egypt with few opportunities and many threats. Twelve years on, Egypt has managed to avoid the worst of the dangers posed by this so-called spring but failed to seize the opportunities, ending up in a similar position to that which it had been in before…

As the world is just beginning to recover from the devastation of Covid-19, it is facing the possibility of a pandemic of a far more deadly pathogen. Bird flu — known more formally as avian influenza — has long hovered on the horizons of scientists’ fears. This pathogen, especially the H5N1…

Two amending annexes to the two gas exploration and production agreements in Lebanese waters were signed over the past month, Qatar Energy entered a partnership with the French company TotalEnergies and the Italian petroleum company Eni. A mere few hundred meters away from the place where the…

In 1919, British economist John Maynard Keynes took a stand that was both brave and wise. A member of the British delegation in Versailles, he abhorred the concessions imposed on Germany by the Allies and the scale of the compensation - the burdens of which would fall on innocent German civilians -…

Important issues may occasionally slip between the fingers of the journalist and the opportunity to reclaim them may be lost forever. They may be lost for several reasons, such as conditions that were never met, the constraints of working at the office, the political circumstances and the reticence…

After months of indecision, hand-wringing and uncertainty, Germany last week committed to send Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine. The delay was a measure of the decision’s significance. For a country long wary of active military involvement in conflicts, the release of its most advanced war machine for…

We are facing two international cases that show a shocking and frightening lack of seriousness and disrespect for international laws and regulations, and confirm that the world is changing and is even sliding into dangerous crises, from Asia to Europe and even the United States. The first case…

A recent international report placed Lebanon among top countries that have made progress in switching to solar energy to produce electricity, by increasing capacity exponentially within three years. Some considered this an international recognition of a great national success, overlooking the fact…

Writing for ‘Egypt Today,’ Egyptian sociologist Saad Eddin Ibrahim claims that Egypt, the poorest country in the Arab world besides Yemen and Sudan, is currently home to 10 million refugees, 5 million from Sudan, 3 million from Syria, 1 million from Iraq, and half a million from Palestine. He…

The alien invasion has begun. Some experts say that when artificial intelligence takes off, it’s going to be like Martians landing on the National Mall. So far, our mind children, as the roboticist Hans Moravec called our artificially intelligent offspring, are in the toddler phase, as we ooh…

The Iranians have refocused their narrative on the Kurdish opposition, accusing it of collaborating with Iran’s enemies and plotting against the Islamic regime. In fact, government media has accused the opposition in Iraqi Kurdistan of being implicated, by order of a foreign security apparatus, in…