World News Insights: Opinion Articles

As a shorthand phrase “the war in Ukraine” may please headline writers and politicians keen on facile simplifications. The phrase gives the impression that the war is going on in a remote place called Ukraine and only tangentially affects the rest of the world. The rest of the world is divided into…

One of the world’s biggest battery companies is mulling a reversal on a $1.3 billion project to churn out electric vehicle powerpacks in Arizona. South Korea’s LG Energy Solution Ltd. cited surging costs and slowing demand as it now rethinks the investment announced in April. That’s a blow to…

Responding to news indicating that he backed off from his electoral promise to relinquish Saudi Arabia, US President Joe Biden initially replied by saying that he might visit Israel but probably not the Kingdom. Later, following the leak of further confirmed news on a potential visit to Riyadh, he…

Billionaires who get on the wrong side of the law aren’t an easy object of sympathy. The trial of Xiao Jianhua merits attention, though, even if its subject may not be deserving. The circumstances and conduct of the case have ramifications that go beyond the fate of this one Chinese-Canadian tycoon…

This time last year I visited Bab Al-Hawa, the last crossing on the Turkish-Syrian border through which the UN is authorized to deliver vital aid into north-west Syria. I saw first-hand how important the UN’s role is for getting aid to millions of Syrians on Turkey’s border. UN aid access is a…

The global cybersecurity community was set alight this week by news that data on more than 1 billion people were leaked from a Shanghai police database. The implications could be wide-ranging, yet the most astounding aspect of this case may be the fact that it likely wasn’t a hack that caused it,…

In times of economic uncertainty, it used to pay to check with the bond market to see what signals it was sending. Is the economy headed into a recession? See whether yields are declining. Is inflation about to accelerate? See whether yields are rising. Bonds were the economy’s crystal ball. Now,…

Five years ago, India’s federal and state governments struck a historic deal. From July 1, 2017, a uniform tax on goods and services — marketed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi as “One Nation, One Tax, One Market” — replaced a bewildering array of local sales and entry levies. But the many…

The dynamics and laws of the US domestic policy are unique and different from its foreign policy. The Supreme Court has eliminated the federal constitutional right to abortion, abandoning decades of precedent and stirring up further domestic discord. This step is deemed an embarrassment for the US…

Will the Arab Levant, stretching from Iraq in the East to Egypt in the West, remain an inhabitable region? This alarmist title is not intended to incite alarm. The goal, on the contrary, is to attempt to understand the dark, intractable times our region is going through. But we can’t deny the…

Since Joe Biden assumed the US presidency, his administration has been rushing to revive the nuclear deal with Tehran. This resulted in internal and foreign criticism being leveled against US Special Representative for Iran Robert Malley for his desire to strike an agreement with Iran at any cost. …

One of the longstanding worries about the technologies of artificial intelligence is that they will enable surveillance, autocracy and maybe even totalitarianism. These views no longer seem so convincing. The world’s autocratic states are not exactly turning these technologies to their advantage,…