World News Insights: Opinion Articles

Indonesia wants Tesla Inc. to make cars — and batteries — locally. That might be the smartest bet Elon Musk can make, and it won’t be so hard. “What we want is the electric car, not the battery. For Tesla, we want them to build electric cars in Indonesia,” President Joko Widodo said in an…

Indonesian President Joko Widodo has long put domestic concerns ahead of diplomacy. He’s now about to host one of the most significant geopolitical gatherings in years. On Thursday, he told Bloomberg News that Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping plan to attend the Group of 20 summit. For…

Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi forced the political class to face up to its historical responsibilities after turning his call for dialogue into a concrete initiative. His initiative could create a dent in the wall of political intransigence that has plagued the political process in Iraq…

It was almost exactly 20 years ago when Kemal Dervis told a group of reporters in Ankara that in “in 20 years”, Türkiye would be one of Europe’s two biggest economies alongside Federal Germany. Shortly after that remark, however, Dervis’s brief tenure as Türkiye’s “economic miracle worker” in…

For the first time in history, China’s two largest technology companies posted a decline in revenue as the nation faces unprecedented growth hurdles and an uncertain outlook. But 2,000 miles away, even bigger challenges await one of Southeast Asia’s biggest companies. Sea Ltd., which operates…

Tens of millions of workers had to adjust to working remotely at the onset of the pandemic, and over two years later we continue to debate the right balance between in-person and virtual work. Workers and their employers are still experimenting to see what works best, making the most of an…

In the eyes of Hong Kong’s new leader John Lee, the city has a publicity problem. It has a great story to tell, and just needs to do a better job of showcasing its achievements to the world. “We should not belittle ourselves,” Lee told lawmakers a few days after taking office last month, saying he…

For weeks, Bassam al-Sheikh Hussein did not believe that his savings and life’s work had disappeared. He trusted the authorities and the “the Lira is fine” propaganda campaign. He deposited the money he had worked 20 years to save in the bank that used to welcome him kindly! However, after the…

SoftBank Group Corp. Chief Executive Officer Masayoshi Son and Credit Suisse AG Chairman Axel Lehmann doubtless wish their respective firms had never met disgraced financier Lex Greensill. But hopefully they — and the finance industry at large — can learn lessons from the scandal that ensued. …

You can’t step into the same river twice, the philosopher Heraclitus said in a different context. If he were alive in the era of anthropogenic climate change, he might add that you may no longer even have that river to step into. And even if you do, you might not want to, because its fluids could…

There’s a perfectly good reason to break open the secrets of social-media giants. Over the past decade, governments have watched helplessly as their democratic processes were disrupted by misinformation and hate speech on sites like Meta Platforms Inc.’s Facebook, Alphabet Inc.’s YouTube and…

Industrial China is alive and well despite concerns of an economic slowdown. It just doesn’t look like it did before — or at least, what everyone is used to. Data this past week showed a dismal picture: Industrial output rose 3.8% from a year earlier, which was below expectations, fixed…