World News Insights: Opinion Articles

Headline numbers for ASML Holding NV look bad, but what they really show is a global powerhouse struggling to handle its own unassailable popularity. The Dutch maker of semiconductor-manufacturing equipment forecast second-quarter revenue 10% below analyst estimates. Distraught investors, who’ve…

When Emmanuel Macron last faced off against far-right foe Marine Le Pen for the French presidency in 2017, her call to follow the UK out of the European Union was in tune with the populist times. Yet it failed to win over voters worried about the chaos that would ensue. A French Brexit is off…

After a judge overturned a CDC mandate that US airlines require passengers to wear masks on airplanes, the TSA immediately stopped enforcing masking in airports. One viral video even showed a flight attendant walking down an airplane aisle asking people to throw their masks away. But with Covid…

Let us suppose, for a moment, that the Lebanese general elections take place and that Hezbollah and its allies manage to achieve a parliamentary majority. In this event, we imagine the media would cover the outcome with emphatic headlines like: Elections Consolidate Legitimacy of Resistance…

Texas-based InspectIR Systems’ breath test for Covid-19 — the first such test to get emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration — will probably have limited use at first. But it is nevertheless an important step toward expanding the toolkit available to prevent outbreaks of…

It has been eight decades since the Battle for Guadalcanal was fought between Allied Forces and the Japanese Imperial Army. Today, the Solomon Islands are again at the center of a Pacific power game — one that pits the US and its strategic partners against their latest adversary, China. News…

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…