World News Insights: Opinion Articles

Moroccan Rayan took us to his timing. His story haunted our days. We stuck to our television screens and phones. He stole the spotlight from everything else. His fate seemed like a test of our humanity. From faraway places, people became involved in his father’s pain and his mother’s sorrows…

After Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping’s meeting in Beijing last Friday, China and Russia declared that the two countries “oppose any future expansion of NATO.” They also decried the influence of the US and the role that NATO and the AUKUS defense alliance have…

Parmy Olson: With the plunge in Meta Platforms Inc.’s stock this week, shareholders are focusing scrutiny on Facebook’s decision to re-brand itself and stake its future on the metaverse: a 3D, immersive world where we talk and do things as avatars. Second Life had all this when it launched…

In the final weeks of World War I, a German general sent a telegram to his Austrian allies summarizing the situation. It was, he wrote, “serious, but not catastrophic.” The reply came back: “Here the situation is catastrophic, but not serious.” It’s a joke, of course. But it captures, in a…

How to respond to climate change is often postulated as the central question of our time, and while that’s undeniably important, I have another nomination: How will we stop our new and often splendid technologies from being weaponized against us? I use the term weaponization quite literally —…

There is a foundational contradiction, rarely ever referred to, in the narrative Hezbollah and its supporters have developed about themselves. They say, at the same time, sometimes with the same phrase, that they are defending Lebanon. They have volunteered to take this task upon themselves, paying…

“In the beginning was the Word.” John was exaggerating in his Gospel — there had been rather a lot going on even before words. But he was on to something. Whenever humanity took a leap, words weren’t far. They first became the Next Big Thing during the Stone Age. Once we started enunciating and…

If Russia invades Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin will face an immediate and difficult choice: how far to go. Most analysts believe he will probably move forward with an invasion, but is likely to have his military stop within the pro-Russian enclaves of southeastern Ukraine. This would allow him…

I was surprised to see the news this week that the F.D.A. may be getting closer to authorizing a Covid vaccine for children under 5. Why surprised? Because Pfizer and its partner, BioNTech, put out a less-than-crystal-clear news release in December, helpfully encapsulated by The Times’s Apoorva…

When scientists in South Africa noticed an uptick in Covid-19 cases in the Gauteng Province last November, they began investigating the source. These researchers and others in Botswana quickly discovered the Omicron variant and heroically shared their discovery with the rest of the world. And yet…

Two weeks ago, ISIS launched its biggest attack in Syria and Iraq since its territorial defeat nearly three years ago, in March 2019. According to the Syrian Democratic Forces, as many as 300 ISIS militants launched an assault on al-Sina Prison in Hasakeh city late on January 20. Two suicide…

History is a powerful weapon: Just ask Vladimir Putin, who is using it as part of his escalating campaign to undermine an independent Ukraine. And Putin isn’t the only leader who is invoking — and abusing — the past as a means of asserting global influence. Geopolitical authority often begins with…