World News Insights: Opinion Articles

In war, belligerents often make major, inflated promises to the population: tomorrow, after our victory, a new era begins. They make this commitment in one way or another through the political and military leaders of the war, and sometimes, intellectuals tie themselves to the cause of the war as…

In a few weeks’ time, Mark Zuckerberg will announce a new virtual reality headset from Meta Platforms Inc. Embarrassingly, we already know what it will look like. A video of the purported device has been doing the rounds online after someone found one in a hotel room. Yet none of that should matter…

I recently saw one of the most absurd LinkedIn posts — and odds are good that you may have, too. Alex Cohen, a product manager for Carbon Health, relayed the story of how he saved money for his startup while on a business trip. Instead of ordering room service, Cohen says, he bought some raw…

The young Iranian woman Mahsa Amini died under torture at the hands of Tehran police. The punishment that led to her death was not for murder, terrorism, or espionage. This little 22-year-old girl went from Kurdistan with her family to visit relatives in Tehran, and her crime was that she had not…

In my three-decade career with Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, China was never seen as a major threat. If we lost sleep at night, it was over more immediate challenges such as Soviet expansionism and transnational terrorism. China’s halting emergence from the chaotic Mao Zedong era and…

Barry Lopez, nature writer extraordinaire, once remarked that one of the first things he did when arriving in a new landscape was lace up his shoes and have a stroll. But Mr. Lopez didn’t walk the way most of us walk. Open ended, without rush, bird books in his suitcase and his entire body tuned…

A young and innocent girl was hunted down on the streets of Tehran. In her innocent dreams, Mahsa Amini never thought the entire Iran will rise up in her name. The blows received by this young and lonely girl felt like they had been aimed at the entire Iranian people. The blood that came from…

Today is her final date. It is not in her habit to miss a date or to break a promise. The heart betrayed her and it is in the habit of betraying. The soil in which she will be buried has been waiting for days during which she received messages from admirers, who have stood in endless queues of…

The world is fretting over the demise of global supply chains and the threat of deglobalization, with the US trying to lure manufacturing activity back home — or at least closer. Yet supply chains have actually evolved for the better in some places — particularly in Asia — despite all the…

She died in her happy place. It was a photograph of herself and Prince Philip at Balmoral, wrapped in a tartan picnic blanket beside the hills of her beloved Loch Muick, that she chose to release on the eve of his funeral last year. Balmoral is where it is said he proposed to her and where,…

Just over a century ago, Lytton Strachey, a literary lion of the Bloomsbury Group, tried to sum up the impact of Queen Victoria’s death. She had succeeded in her 63-year reign in becoming profoundly “familiar,” he wrote, occupying “with satisfying ease a distinct and memorable place.” Consequently,…

With this week’s retirement of Roger Federer coming hard on the heels of last week’s news that Serena Williams had played her final match, encomia have rung out from every corner lamenting the loss of the two greatest tennis players in history. But were they? In every sport, we constantly hear…