World News Insights: Opinion Articles

What environment do we want and what organization can lead international environmental action? On the verge of the fiftieth anniversary of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), conceived at the United Nations Conference on Human Environment in Stockholm in June 1972, many questions remain…

It is too early to say we are seeing the beginning of World War III, of an international catastrophe whose consequences no one can foresee, or that the current crisis will end in the way that Vladimir Putin successfully gobbled up Crimea in August 2014 after the sanctions imposed by Barack Obama…

The Russian assault on Ukraine must be seen not only as a vicious aggression against a sovereign state violating international law, but a challenge to the entire Western-led global security order since World War II. As such this is the biggest challenge to that order since the Cuban Missile Crisis…

Kyiv’s residents have watched shells rain down on the city these past days as they did in 1941, then at the start of a brutal war in which Ukraine endured unthinkable suffering. As images circulate of families huddled in basements and in the city’s subway for safety while rocket strikes light up…

In the pandemic’s third year, we are beginning to discern the total picture of Covid-19’s damage. Beneath the coronavirus’s own staggering death toll and the suffering it has inflicted lie many layers of collateral damage. One of the largest of these is Covid’s disruption to cancer prevention and…

It’s too soon yet to know whether President Joe Biden will get any short-term, “rally around the flag” boost in his approval rating from the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But after a very tough six months, it looks like his low numbers have stabilized for now, and perhaps even recovered a little. My…

In 2020, for the first time in 69 years, the US exported more energy than it imported. The numbers for 2021 aren’t all in yet, but everything is pointing to an even bigger energy surplus. The long journey that began during the 1973 oil crisis with President Richard Nixon’s “Project Independence”…

History is repeating itself. The world underwent this dark period eight decades ago. A man has risen to power carrying delusions of grandeur and dreams of expansion beyond his country’s territory, which no longer fits his ambitions. On top of that, he carries a score to settle with the legacy of…

Has Vladimir Putin dealt a fatal blow to the world that was born from the collapse of the Berlin War and over the rubble of the Soviet Union? Did he permanently close the chapter of the world's sole great power and "American policeman"? Has he closed the chapter of the stable Europe whose nations'…

At first glance, he latest twists and turns in the Ukraine poker game might present Russian President Vladimir Putin as the winner. After all he is reaping what he sowed eight years ago when he incited ethnic Russian secessionists to set up breakaway “people’s republics” in parts of Ukrainian…

Here are a few early thoughts on the Russian invasion of Ukraine: As always, be skeptical of the information you see (and, if you’re on social media, amplify). Some will be wrong because it’s deliberate misinformation. Some will be wrong because reporting during military action is always…

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.’s slowest quarter on record comes amid a prolonged crackdown on China’s major technology companies. It’s easy to conflate the two. But the increased regulatory burden is overshadowed by even harsher problems. Chief among them: peak customer. It’s a reminder that the…