World News Insights: Opinion Articles

President Joe Biden’s student-debt plan is bad policy in too many ways to count. But is it also bad politics? Apparently he and his advisers think not, given that he announced this initiative just before the midterm elections. No disrespect to their expertise, but I wonder if they have…

Moderna Inc. dropped a lawsuit on Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE, claiming the technology in their Covid-19 shots infringes on its messenger RNA patents. The legal battle will surely be protracted and expensive. What it won’t do is slow the pace of innovation in mRNA, if gene editing tool Crispr’s…

The details of the back and forths in Vienna are becoming increasingly obscure, worrying those involved in the negotiations and eating at their composure. Apprehensions are rising of an American slip up in the negotiations that could turn what should have been an effort to solve a crisis into…

It is now almost four weeks since al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed in an American drone strike on the balcony of a residence in the diplomatic quarter of the Afghan capital Kabul. The strike represented the end of a decades-long search for Zawahiri, a veteran figure of al-Qaeda’s…

Today’s Take: Capping Russia’s Oil Revenues The US administration is pushing ahead with a plan to limit the Kremlin’s revenues from oil exports by imposing a price cap on Russia’s overseas shipments. The idea is far from garnering support from Moscow’s biggest customers in Asia, but it is focusing…

All indicators are flashing red for Europe. Warnings about a winter recession are growing louder, the single currency is slipping and the energy market is already in crisis mode. But European governments are still running three steps behind — in large part because they spend too much time…

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…