World News Insights: Opinion Articles

When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, newsrooms across the world scrambled to send their reporters to the front lines. Journalists gave the international public firsthand experience of the conflict. Air raid sirens blared during live on-air reports. Reporters flinched at nearby explosions. They…

It was an extremely brief but very loud battle. It took Iran two weeks to retaliate against Israel, and Iran achieved nothing. Not a single roof fell, and the Israelis did not suffer a single casualty. A lot of suspense was generated in the build-up to the attack. Israel's targeting of the Iranian…

Putting to one side the catchy, upbeat rhetoric about “shaking the ground under the feet of the Zionists,” “undermining the foundations of occupation” and so on, Iran’s response to the consulate strike can be interpreted in one of two ways: * One is that this was a military failure. The attack…

John Bolton has called for Israel to respond to Iran’s massive, failed weekend missile barrage by destroying its nuclear fuel facilities. In one sense, that’s no surprise; the former US national security adviser has rarely seen a problem he didn’t think could be bombed into submission. Yet he’s far…

The Iranian regime’s comical retaliation against Israel was a costly strategic mistake that cannot be easily or quickly corrected. Tehran launched about 300 drones and a few missiles without inflicting significant damage. Its strategic mistake was to focus more on safeguarding its image than its…

We were surprised when inflation rose. We were surprised when inflation fell. And we were surprised again when inflation stopped falling. The message of all these surprises is that we — including professional economists — really don’t have a strong grasp on why prices go up and down. The…

I know in advance, given the tense— if not explosive— current political circumstances, that this article will be condemned in some quarters, and be met with bewilderment and discomfort in others. Nonetheless, anything less than a blunt conversation would be inappropriate. The region finds itself in…

It is perhaps acceptable, during national wars, to calibrate cultural life to wartime necessities. Accordingly - and only as an exception and for a limited period of time - some expressions seen to potentially benefit the side fighting the nation and its people could be banned. However, it is…

The night of April 13-14, 2024 has taken up a distinguished position in the memory of the region. It has been a long time that newsrooms were so fervent to learn the latest developments. Perhaps the night of March 19-20, 2003 - when American rockets rained down on Baghdad to oust Saddam Hussein -…

An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind, as Mahatma Gandhi allegedly said. After Iran’s massive retaliation for the Israeli strike against Iran’s diplomatic compound in Damascus, it now falls to US President Joe Biden to prevent subsequent rounds of escalation from blinding the entire Middle…

Can technology alone stop the collapse of natural systems, without addressing the root of the problem and changing production and consumption patterns? This question surfaces whenever scientists announce a breakthrough such as developing genetically modified plants and animals to withstand climate…

Our all-American belief that money really does buy happiness is roughly correct for about 85 percent of us. We know this thanks to the latest and perhaps final work of Daniel Kahneman, the Nobel Prize winner who insisted on the value of working with those with whom we disagree. Professor Kahneman,…