World News Insights: Opinion Articles

In 1990 Congress passed an amendment to the Clean Air Act of 1970, among other things taking action against acid rain, urban smog and ozone. The legislation was highly successful, greatly reducing pollution at far lower cost than business interest groups had predicted. I sometimes see people…

With the price of Walt Disney Co.’s Disney+ and Hulu streaming services rising sharply in the next few months, following Netflix’s price increases earlier this year, budget-conscious consumers may soon be culling the streaming outlets they pay for. As they do, services that should get more…

The world’s biggest car company had a rough quarter, and its supply-chain problems aren’t going away any time soon. That’s a warning for other large manufacturers — and their stakeholders. Toyota Motor Corp.’s profits fell 18% for the quarter ended June. Much of the hit came from raw material…

Does an industrial-sized dog whistle go off when advocates boast about cryptocurrency’s ability to evade US government sanctions? Back in March, a founder of Tornado Cash — a so-called “mixer” service that masks cryptocurrency transactions by mixing them with others — told Bloomberg it would be …

Most members of the generation who witnessed late Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait on August 2, 1990 consider it an unforgettable day, and deservedly so. It always evokes a disquieting anxiety that haunts the Arab Gulf region, particularly in Kuwait itself, albeit it being a…

One thing has become clear over the years; Western values are vague. They are adapted to agendas and interests dictated by different contexts and challenges, with what is suitable today considered criminal tomorrow and vice versa. To give one of many examples, the West has imposed taxes on oil…

My British friend said he was sad because drought had hit his country. It pains him to see the dying trees and wilting flowers. He believes that successive governments had not done their job. They should have adopted more mature policies on the environment and climate change. He believes…

“Nearly three dozen people in China have been sickened by a newly identified virus.” Nope, that isn’t a throwback to 2020. Scientists have identified a new virus named Langya henipavirus, or LayV. The good news is that we’re talking about just 35 cases since 2018, and it doesn’t look like human…

Strained supply chains, inflationary pressures in the pipeline and worries about the health of the labor market. Sound familiar? This is the US in 1945 as President Harry S. Truman tried to engineer an end to World War II and minimize disruptions that would accompany peace. The role of the…

When President Biden announced the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan last year, one of his main justifications was that Al Qaeda had been so “degraded” that the United States no longer needed to maintain a military presence in a country once used as a Qaeda sanctuary. Mr. Biden also vowed to…

In 1978, Czech playwright Vaclav Havel smuggled a long text he had written, “The Power of the Powerless,” in which he discusses life and forms of civil resistance under the communist regime in former Czechoslovakia. In the text, the eventual leader of the revolution tells the story of a grocer who…

There isn’t much good news in the world these days, so it’s worth taking time to appreciate the delightful implosion of soon-to-be former Prime Minister Boris Johnson. His 2019 landslide victory against the hapless Jeremy Corbyn of the Labor Party seemed to be ushering in a long period of right…