World News Insights: Opinion Articles

Most of us were brought up with the folk wisdom that exercise is the best medicine, and often it’s true. But not for people who are suffering from long Covid and other post-viral syndromes. For them, overexertion can severely aggravate their conditions, whose symptoms may include fatigue and brain…

Throughout the Trump era it was a frequent theme of liberal commentary that their political party represented a clear American majority, thwarted by our antidemocratic institutions and condemned to live under the rule of the conservative minority. In the political context of 2016-20, this belief…

Since the emergence of Vladimir Putin’s Russia and China’s rise under Xi’s leadership, skepticism shadowed the liberal system and its validity as a global model. These doubts were also heard from within Western liberal circles, with the appearance of the populist movement and the extremist right,…

If you are under 45 and live in America or Europe, the odds are this past year has been your first real experience with inflation. Other than a blip in 2008, inflation has barely topped 3% in the last 30 years. But now inflation is back; up more than 8% last month, and it may get worse before it…

The Covid-19 pandemic would look very different if scientists had been able to develop a treatment sooner. The death rates are likely to have been far lower, and it may have been harder for myths and misinformation to spread the way they did. In the early days of the pandemic, I expected a…

The qualifiers keep coming for the global recovery. Cuts to growth projections arrive almost weekly and recession warnings are starting to multiply. A slump isn’t yet the base case, but it sure would be nice if China could lend a hand. That doesn’t look likely. While China’s gross domestic…

The federal judge who on Monday struck down the CDC’s mask mandate in airports, airplanes and other public transit did President Joe Biden and the Democratic Party a favor. This lingering non-pharmaceutical intervention, at a time when mask rules have been dropped in virtually every other…

The saying goes: “If you wait by the river long enough, the bodies of your enemies will float by.” In our region, we could change it to: If you use your head, you will see lies exposed before you, an abundance of them, and the most prominent of them is that there is an axis “resisting” and …

When ISIS’s territorial “state” was defeated in Syria more than three years ago, the world celebrated a historic achievement. For five years, a coalition of more than 80 countries had combined resources to roll back ISIS in Syria and Iraq and counter the terrorist group’s presence on the Internet,…

It is now clear that Russia has failed to inflict a speedy and crushing defeat on Ukraine. It has suffered too many casualties including loss of top generals. The Russian General, who was in charge in Syria, has now assumed command in Ukraine. His reputation leads to concern that things on the…

It was November 1989. The Berlin Wall had fallen. Asharq Al-Awsat dispatched me to cover the events there. I saw western journalists celebrate wildly. The event was huge, important and unprecedented. When I returned to the hotel, which was located close to the wall, I - the journalist from the…

W. Somerset Maugham’s 1925 novel “The Painted Veil” features a harrowing description of a cholera outbreak in a provincial Chinese city. “The great city lay in terror; and death, sudden and ruthless, hurried through its tortuous streets … The people were dying at the rate of a hundred a day, and…