World News Insights: Opinion Articles

Afghanistan is in free fall. Since the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan, the economy has imploded and people are being crushed in the collapse. Cash for basic transactions has dried up, the Afghani currency is plummeting, and trade is wrecked by lack of confidence in the financial sector. A…

Those who were under the illusion that the transition to a green economy and cleaner production would be a simple matter, discovered upon implementation that the issue is complex, tantamount to fixing a problem only for a new one to arise. This is because addressing the accumulated environmental…

The year 2021 ended, with all its upheaval, as a new year began with hopes that it would not be like its predecessor, and that it would provide people in all four parts of the world and in its five (or six) continents an opportunity to return to a normal life. The “new normal” is an expression…

The crises, wars and conflicts, which are undermining peace and stability in the world, are also threatening the Middle East and Arab world that are hotbeds for tensions and constant confrontations. The tensions are expected to deepen given the series of conflicts that have accumulated over the…

One of cryptocurrencies' biggest selling points is that they allow people to break away from traditional banking systems. Now banks are hoping to convince you otherwise. As US regulators look more closely at the world of crypto, it's likely that American banks will soon be following their big…

The tech world was locked in a debate this week about the potential for Web3, a decentralized version of the internet underpinned by digital currency that proponents would like to see replace the current, corporate-dominated Web2. Rarely will you see geeks argue with such a religious fervor on…

Over years of following American politics, I’d come to regard Joe Biden as harmless — a back-slapper without strong conviction, given to exaggeration and the occasional outright lie, but no worse than average for a career politician and no threat to the republic. Lately I’ve been wondering if I…

Many might consider this title controversial, but it has personal and public dimensions to this author. On a personal level, it is no secret that my relationship with Iran starts at home, with my father, his relations with the revolution’s leadership early on and his ties to state institutions…

Until earlier this month, Kazakhstan, the largest of Central Asian republics to become independent after the dissolution of the Soviet Empire 30 years ago, appeared the most stable entity in the region. Under President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s iron-fist leadership it had avoided the religious…

On Christmas eve, Gazprom, the Russian state-owned natural gas giant, tweeted a rather unfestive message: Gas inventories in Europe were depleting quickly. Since then, Gazprom has been reminding the world of the trend every few days. “It should be noted that gas reserves in Europe’s UGS …

For more than two weeks, the government of Xian, a Chinese city of 13 million people, has confined residents to their homes as it tries to extinguish a Covid outbreak amounting to fewer than 2,000 infections. It's a continuation of the “zero-Covid” policy that crushed the initial outbreak in Wuhan…

Contemplating Orbs: Imperialism Edition Vladimir Putin might aspire to be the reincarnation of Peter the Great, but another model of an OG empire-builder he might want to consider is James Monroe. America’s fifth president bought Florida for roughly the modern-day price of Max Scherzer’s MLB…