World News Insights: Opinion Articles

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…

The French elections have raised grave concerns: its two traditional centrist parties, the Socialists and the De Guellists, are evaporating into thin air. The specter of Marine Le Pen making her way to the Elysee cannot be entirely dismissed. Nonetheless, let us begin in a different place and…

Analysts trying to evaluate the prospects for a revival of Hong Kong’s economic fortunes under a new chief executive might be better off discarding their political science manuals and consulting Lewis Carroll’s “Through the Looking Glass.” Assessing whether events will follow the course authorities…

California has become the focus of a battle over how companies should address the lack of diversity on their boards: Should they actively seek out directors who aren’t White males, or should they simply seek to treat all candidates equally? A Superior Court judge has ruled in favor of the latter…

Those are “the 26 words that created the internet,” says Jeff Kosseff, an associate professor of cybersecurity law at the United States Naval Academy, who wrote a book with that title that came out in 2019. The fruitful words come from Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. That brief…

In 2017, Emmanuel Macron was “a meteor born under a lucky star.” A former banker without experience in elective office, he benefited during his first presidential campaign from President François Hollande choosing not to seek re-election, while the conservative candidate and front-runner, François…

Oops. Looks like Elon Musk isn’t joining Twitter Inc.’s board after all. Less than a week after Chief Executive Officer Parag Agrawal excitedly tweeted that the world’s richest man would get a seat, he’s now been forced to backpedal after saying Musk declined the offer. Musk was supposed to…