World News Insights: Opinion Articles

When the leaders of Russia, Turkey, and Iran convened in Tehran on July 19, they did so amid significant international attention and expectation. While the war in Ukraine may have set the backdrop to the Tehran Summit, one topic of acute focus was Syria but after a day of bilateral and multilateral…

Long-awaited funding for the CHIPS Act is a win for a cabal of US chipmakers and foreign companies, but largely ignores the nation’s true semiconductor leaders who have been propping up the domestic sector for two decades. Three-quarters of the $52 billion allocated to the industry by Congress…

For the big internet companies that make their living from selling advertising, these are troubled times. As happens in any kind of economic slowdown, businesses cut ad spending quickly. For Amazon.com Inc., though, whose e-commerce business is getting hammered, advertising is proving to be a…

Are crowded airports and hotels ruining your summer vacation plans? A cruise to the North Pole on the world’s first and only luxury icebreaker might be just the antidote. The custom-built tourist ship Le Commandant Charcot plowed through sea ice on July 13 to make its first successful…

The 27 national leaders of the European Union love to extol the solidarity that binds their countries together. Even the words signal destiny. “Union” comes via French from the Latin unus for “one,” and solidarity from solidus for “firm, whole and undivided.” Like a good marriage, the bloc is…

With the rush to electric vehicle adoption, charging networks are being rolled out across countries, government-backing is growing and automakers are promising a host of green cars. Yet, even if all this happens, it’s worth wondering how power grids will handle the demand for all this electricity. …

The US economy is not currently in a recession. No, two quarters of negative growth aren’t, whatever you may have heard, the “official” or “technical” definition of a recession; that determination is made by a committee that has always relied on several indicators, especially job growth. And as…

«How can one help the Iranian people restore their normal life?” This was the question that a Japanese friend put to me in 2019 in what at the time seemed to be a casual chat in a Persian restaurant in London. Three years later I have just learned that the question had been something more than a…

The Russian government has said that it will‌ withdraw from the International Space Station‌ “after 2024.” Instead of choosing multilateral cooperation, it plans to build its own station and send cosmonauts there to continue space research and exploration. Russia’s announcement sounds ominous —…

In the five months since Russia launched its war in Ukraine, the United States has pledged about $24 billion in military aid to Ukraine. That’s more than four times Ukraine’s 2021 defense budget. America’s partners in Europe and beyond have pledged an additional $12 billion, according to the Kiel…

The Lebanese are waiting for many things these days: they are waiting in line at bakeries to receive their share of bread. They are waiting for a war against Israel to erupt, a scenario that a man on a screen promises will save them from the catastrophic situation they find themselves in. They…

This week, the Democratic Republic of Congo — Africa’s second-largest nation and the sixth-most heavily forested country in the world — is auctioning off large sections of those forests to oil and gas companies. The decision has enraged climate activists: The vast tracts of equatorial forest and…