World News Insights: Opinion Articles

Winning or losing in armed conflicts is a relative and dynamic proposition. Relative because it is dependent on how the opposing side defines victory and defeat. Dynamic because the goals of the protagonists usually shift to accommodate either all or some of the following factors: evolving…

The tension between Saudi Arabia and the United States is no secret, as are the recent features of rapprochement. It seems that the detente in relations between Riyadh and Washington is taking a different shape and is being prepared slowly. All this is happening through the remarkable and…

When someone like Boris Bondarev, a Russian counselor to the United Nations in Geneva, slams the door on his employer, the Russian Foreign Ministry, and on his home country, it’s only natural to wonder if Vladimir Putin’s system is showing cracks three months into the dictator’s disgraceful Ukraine…

We have always asked a persistent question: Who leads the other... politics or the economy? Through rapid developments and data, many tend to consider the economy as a leader. Personally, when I went through many files, I had a tendency to draw the same conclusion. However, what I have seen…

Prices of gasoline and diesel fuel are crazy high and oil refiners are earning stupendous profits. But the refiners, who convert crude oil into consumable products, aren’t price gouging — that is, they aren’t deliberately charging an unfairly high price. Highlighting that combination of facts…

Despite my best efforts to stay young at heart, I have somehow reached the point in my life — 42 years old, dad, mostly sedentary — where I feel perpetually assaulted by small changes in my daily routine. This was certainly an expected development, but one I feel relatively powerless against…

The sultans of Silicon Valley are in a political snit, with some billionaires suddenly turning against Democrats. It’s not just Elon Musk. Other prominent players, including Jeff Bezos, have lashed out at the Biden administration, and we now know that Oracle’s Larry Ellison participated in a call…

Since the initial Omicron wave receded and inflation replaced Covid-19 in the headlines, the debate over reopening has largely been settled in favor of the reopeners. But the debate over the wisdom of reopening and unmasking hasn’t gone away. As Covid cases rise again, there is still a vocal…

I have an experienced Lebanese politician’s comment about the elections in mind. The ‘excess’ of comments and analyses since the date of the elections was announced has overcome Hezbollah’s ‘excess’ of force. In truth, much has been written about these elections, in terms of predictions and…

Russia could not have foreseen such strong military resistance on the ground. The resolve and solidarity in the West and sanctions have also been well beyond Russia’s expectations. Russia has finally broken the defenses in Mariupol's Azovstal steelworks. Ukrainian soldiers have left the grounds…

One of my Lebanese friends and a reader of Asharq Al-Awsat has blamed me. He said: “You go to Berlin to write about the situation of Ukrainian and Syrian refugees. Do you think our conditions are better than theirs? Haven’t you been told that cancer medicines are lacking? That the number of those…

High school teacher S. Jeeva has spent two days in the baking sun lining up for cooking gas in the north of Sri Lanka’s capital. He’s been standing with thousands of others waiting for a delivery that, so far, hasn’t come. Meanwhile, many of his students, who will sit for important national exams…