World News Insights: Opinion Articles

The bursting of social media’s ad-funded bubble is creating big market waves. Meta Platforms Inc. is less valuable than Home Depot Inc., Snap Inc. is worth less than Deutsche Bank AG (which underwrote its IPO), and Twitter is now privately owned by Elon Musk after almost a decade of cumulative…

In February 2020, in the midst of a vitriolic presidential election, an idealistic group of donors from across the ideological spectrum met to plan an ambitious new project. They called themselves the New Pluralists and pledged to spend a whopping $100 million over the next decade to fight…

While the protests in Iran have no open leadership, they do have remarkable symbolism. This symbolism speaks to the protesters’ awareness and focus, which is seen in the slogans raised by the young Iranian women, as well as men, taking to the streets. Indeed, their symbolism has become a…

The Aounist “philosophy of strength” has run its course, ending up powerless and lying flat on a haystack. Anger and bluster were not enough to conceal this terrible fact. The “strong president,” his “strong rule,” “the ascension of the candidate who is strongest within his sect to the…

Since Elon Musk became the owner of Twitter last week, there’s been a brouhaha over his plans for it, especially the possibility of various fees, like one for verification badges. Those are the blue check marks that let people know an account belongs to whom it says it belongs. They have mostly…

After long rounds of negotiations following the Climate Summit in Glasgow last year, world leaders will meet tomorrow in Sharm El-Sheikh at the 27th summit (COP27). After two days of speeches, in which states present their visions and set their conditions, with leaders setting the stage for…

Tesla Inc. would have delivered more cars in the most recent quarter but for a shortage of boats. It’s having problems finding vessel capacity out of Shanghai. No wonder: China recently overtook Germany as the world’s second-largest auto exporter. China’s auto exports rose over 50% in the first…

Artificial intelligence has been moving so fast that even the scientists are finding it hard to keep up. In the past year, machine learning algorithms have started to generate rudimentary movies and stunning fake photographs. They’re even writing code. In the future, we’ll probably look back on…

Elon Musk is now the proud owner of Twitter. The danger here is not that we have a rogue billionaire in our midst — that has happened before, and it will happen again — but that this one will be in control of what he has rightly referred to as our “digital town square.” Musk is the face of 21st…

The protests that have been ongoing in Iran for the past two months are not expected to lead to radical changes to the nature of the Iranian regime in the short or even medium term. However, the protests sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini, which have turned into a social movement, have begun…

The Brazilian elections have just concluded. Former President Lula has accomplished a dramatic comeback by winning the elections for the Brazilian presidency. Elections that received the most international attention of all Brazilian elections since the restoration of democracy in 1985. This is…

The kitchen is the same, as is the chef. The ingredients are also the same. But when the witches’ brew is served in the restaurant, Chez Ayatollah, would-be clients reject it in disgust. This is the image that comes to mind as the Islamic Republic in Iran struggles to crush the latest popular…