World News Insights: Opinion Articles

The people behind Bitcoin, the No. 1 cryptocurrency by market value (and renown), are under heavy pressure to reduce its carbon footprint — the planet-warming emissions from burning fossil fuels for electricity to run the network’s computations, known as mining. I spoke with people on both sides of…

Barbara Lazear Ascher’s husband gave her the news in the most straightforward way. “Looks like pancreatic cancer,” he told her matter-of-factly after the test results came back. She and their friends gave him a wonderful death. They had theme parties with matching drinks. “Dying was intimate,…

Rapid antigen tests have been among the tools many public health experts and politicians have to ease into “living with Covid.” But many people are still skeptical about the tests’ reliability. The bigger problem may be with the advice people are getting on how to use them. It’s never been clear…

Deploying sanctions against Russian oligarchs and banks was a no-brainer. Now comes the far thornier question about how far to go in canceling Vladimir Putin’s Russia — not just politically connected elites but the athletes, artists and other symbolic ambassadors of the regime. The All England…

Last Sunday, I wrote about the lie of an axis of “resistance” and “confrontation” in an article entitled From Mashaal to Nasrallah. It is a longstanding lie whose credibility fluctuates like stock prices, except that this fluctuation is propelled by the fortunes of constant campaigning and attempts…

The terrorist Haqqani group, a terrorist wing of the Taliban, has been responsible for the bloodiest suicide attacks on the people of Afghanistan and the foreign forces stationed in this country during the past two decades. When the United States gave up Afghanistan to Taliban, Haqqanis entered…

Remember Azovstal. Some phrase like that could soon take the part of “Remember the Alamo” in Ukraine’s heroic war of self-defense against Russia. Azovstal is a giant steel plant in Mariupol, the city in eastern Ukraine that Russian forces are pounding into submission and, in effect, extinction…

Two world wars had raged within three decades, costing over 100 million lives, when history’s most destructive weapon was deployed in August 1945. The horrific prospect of nuclear-fueled, mutually assured destruction has kept superpowers in check since then, and a cyber equivalent may be just what…

One of the biggest questions of the Ukraine war concerns tensions half a world away: What lessons will China draw from the Russian invasion? Western observers hope that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s faltering invasion of Ukraine will convince China to go slow — that it will discourage…

Until even two weeks ago, most political analysts regarded France as the current leader of the European Union with President Emmanuel Macron the point-man in dealing with the crisis triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Macron gave some credence to that analysis with almost daily calls to…

May 9th, the day that marks the anniversary of victory over Nazi Germany, which Russia usually celebrates with large military parades and a speech by President Vladimir Putin, is still the date Moscow is expected to announce major progress in its war on Ukraine. However, this May 9th, which is…

When it comes to conducting international relations the West has a tendency to over-reach, this is particularly true when it is engaged in armed conflict. Included amongst them are the instances where the West over-promised and under-delivered as was the case in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya…