World News Insights: Opinion Articles

So now we know: Pandemic-related restrictions were devastating to the project of educating our kids. The Education Department dropped the news last week that America’s experiment with remote learning has reduced young children’s standardized test scores to levels not seen in two decades. Although…

Walk down any street and it’s a familiar scene: people craning their necks as they look at their phones. But in the not-too-distant future we’ll probably just stare at digital information hovering over the world in front of us, taking in a blend of the digital and real worlds, all thanks to…

When airline passengers watch in horror as their flight status blinks from “delayed” to “canceled,” two competing visions are likely to pop into their heads. One is pitchforks and torches. The other is a couple of hundred other travelers scrambling to get on the next available flight. Linger too…

As US markets were closed to mark the Labor Day holiday, the dollar index surged to a new three-decade high. This is a reminder that the dollar is a relative, rather than an absolute, price — that is, it measures the value of the dollar relative to other currencies. But this also signals that…

China’s economy is faltering and so is its currency. The yuan’s drop to a two-year low has led to hand-wringing that emerging markets have lost an anchor. The slide is regarded with foreboding in Asia and trepidation as far away as Africa and Latin America, where China has sought to extend its…

This September has brought major developments to the fore, with more pivotal events yet looming. The most significant and dangerous of them may be the outcomes of bloody turmoil and violence in the streets of Baghdad between supporters of Shiite leader Moqtada al-Sadr and his opponents in the Iran…

It was an exciting sight. Communists and allies from Asia, Africa, Europe and Latin America filled the Kremlin’s great hall. Present were also NATO generals and their allies. They sensed that this was an important day that would go down in history. Delegations from the vast empire came to swear…

As problematic as the West Balkans may be, the East Balkans is also marred by problems. On August 30, Türkiye celebrated the 100 anniversary of the crushing victory of the Turkish army against the invading Greek army. The Greeks regard this episode of their history as “the Asia Minor disaster”…

With unemployment low, inflation high and interest rates on the rise, the time is right to bring back an old idea: bipartisan talks to reduce the federal budget deficit. I know: Try to contain your excitement. But it wasn’t so long ago — about a decade — that the US was consumed by a mania for…

President Joe Biden is right that American democracy is under threat. Unfortunately, he seems not to know why, or what to do about it. The president’s prime-time speech on Thursday was a typical Biden performance — rambling repetition, theatrical intensity, all soul-baring emphasis and next to…

The number of Israeli attacks targeting Iran and its militias in Syria is difficult to count. There may be a strike between the time of writing and the day this article is published; beyond a doubt, however, that Israel is continuing and escalating its attacks, and there is no indication that it…

Much has made eulogizing Mikhail Gorbachev tempting over the past few years, a noble man who died politically the day he left the Kremlin though his biological death only followed later. The few times he made public appearances over the past few years, he seemed ill. His body was extremely frail…