World News Insights: Opinion Articles

The Food and Drug Administration has authorized a fourth dose of Covid-19 vaccines — a second booster — for people 50 and older. But is a fourth dose really necessary, or beneficial? This is a question that health officials worldwide are scrambling to answer. European regulators have said there…

For those looking to buy a second home as an investment, take a pass on Hong Kong. Maintenance costs are rising. Your tenant is probably working from home, cooking, washing and cleaning a lot more than before Covid. Appliances break. And good luck finding a plumber or electrician. Repair men are…

How the Ukrainian crisis unfolds and ultimately ends may well shape the future of the international system. That will depend also on who will emerge stronger from the conflict. Will it be Russia or the US and its allies? What is clear however is that Ukraine and its people will be the greatest…

Julian Borger, a British writer and world affairs editor at The Guardian, joined the debate on how the Russian war on Ukraine could reconfigure international alliances. His theory, most of which was written in question form, suggests a schism splitting the United States and its Western allies from…

If you’re reading this newsletter from Europe, your circadian rhythm is perhaps a little skewed today. The clocks say one thing, but your body is an hour out. The arrival of daylight saving time — introduced as a nationwide policy for the first time in 1916, initially by Germany and Austria and…

One morning last week a young man in a light-blue sport coat with AirPods in his ears and no mask on his face boarded my bus in Los Angeles and sat down. Then he looked around at all the masked faces, got up, walked to the front of the bus to grab a free mask from the dispenser, put it on and…

In a letter to shareholders last week, Larry Fink, the chief executive of BlackRock, the world’s largest asset management company, issued a striking warning about a shift he perceived in the global economic order. Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine had compelled governments and private companies…

The most important lesson of the Covid pandemic is that the only constant is change. Variants spread, cases surge and abate, treatments change and knowledge expands. This means that we — the public, elected officials and public health leaders — need to learn constantly and adapt quickly, acting on…

The Gulf Cooperation Council is hosting intra-Yemeni consultations over the next few days, which could be a critical turning point. These consultations could advance peace if the participants want it to and engage in honest and determined dialogue aimed at advancing Yemen’s interests rather than…

Hong Kong appears to have accepted defeat. Chief Executive Carrie Lam set out a blueprint for undoing the stringent social distancing measures and border curbs that severely curtailed residents’ daily lives for the past two years. Despite the government’s Covid-zero measures, 3.6 million of the…

In the never-ending quest to make the world a better place, a new idea is beginning to draw more attention: educational migration. If you want to assist someone in a poor country, why not spend extra money and help them get a good college education in the West? Part of the appeal of educational…

The annual World Happiness Report came out this month and, sure enough, the usual rich Nordic and northern European countries clustered at the top. Finland and Denmark ranked as the happiest and second-happiest corners of the planet, and the top eight were all in northern Europe. Afghanistan,…