World News Insights: Opinion Articles

After more than three decades a debate that started during the Iran-Iraq war seems to be making a comeback in Tehran: Should the Islamic Republic take the final steps towards building a nuclear arsenal? The original debate that took behind the scenes was prompted by the revelation that, with…

The internet is the most comprehensive compendium of human knowledge ever assembled, but is its size a feature or a bug? Does its very immensity undermine its utility as a source of information? How often is it burying valuable data under lots of junk? Say you search for some famous or semifamous…

A week from now, the Lebanese parliament will turn into an electoral body that should elect a new president by the thirty-first of October to replace Michel Aoun, whose term ends that day. Legally, legislation is suspended until a new president is voted in. However, realistically, the political…

Not long ago, many people were predicting a long, hot summer of inflation. To their surprise — and, for some Republicans, dismay — that isn’t happening. Overall consumer prices were flat in July, and nowcasts — estimates based on preliminary data — suggest that inflation will remain low in August. …

A lot has been written about the broader meaning of the attack this month on Salman Rushdie, for which a Muslim religious fanatic has been charged with attempted murder. Not enough has been said about the evil of the regime that presumably inspired the deed and so many others like it — or of what…

In Pakistani politics, nothing gets done by halves. A few months ago, one of ex-Prime Minister Imran Khan’s former cabinet ministers, Shahbaz Gill, warned lower-ranking military officers against following “illegal orders” from their superiors. The remarks were taken as an attempt to divide the…

This week South Korea and the United States commenced several huge, live-fire military exercises for the first time in several years in a clear signal to Pyongyang. Known collectively as the Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises, they will flex the military muscles of the two allies at sea, in the air, on…

The US, because of its several layers, obliges us to look at it from several angles. The US that concluded the nuclear agreement with Iran and may go back to this agreement has left the world, particularly us in the Arab world, worried, just like the US that had turned a blind eye to the chemical…

As the father of daughters, I can’t bear to imagine what far-right philosopher Alexander Dugin must be going through after his daughter, Darya, was blown up in a car bombing on Aug. 20. I suspect the video of Dugin grabbing his head in despair at the scene of the killing, and his tears as he…

The history of warfare has no precedent for what is happening right now in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine. Never before has a nuclear power plant been on the front line of a major war, and indeed a main object of the warring parties’ strategies. How Russia, Ukraine and the rest of the world handle this…

On the surface, it’s just a smartphone — little more than a very slick, rather pricey, well-built gadget. But the iPhone is much more than that, and this year the world could do with having one released just a little earlier than usual. That’s because the global smartphone market is in a funk, with…

If you’re looking for an iconic example of humanity’s ability to harness nature to produce clean energy on a massive scale, it’s hard to ignore the Three Gorges Dam. Built through the 2000s just as China’s rise was at its most headlong, the world’s largest power station can generate 22.5…