World News Insights: Opinion Articles

Electric vehicles, and the technology surrounding them, are all the rage. Everyone loves to talk about rising sales and a greener future. Yet for all that attention, there seems to be very little concern about safety. This week, the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration rejected a…

In the new Iranian administration, under President Ebrahim Raisi, it seems that the foreign ministry is given priority over other bodies of the regime while it is working in parallel with the IRGC. The travels of Hossein Amirabdollahian, the new foreign minister, and the brazen positions he has…

Three Arab countries' citizens are preparing to head to the polls. They could be followed by a fourth, Tunisia, if President Kais Saied's plan to bring Tunisian politics in order goes smoothly. Iraq is holding parliamentary elections in two days. After the Iraqi elections, Libyans will head to the…

A new pill to treat people with Covid-19 may be given emergency use authorization by the US Food and Drug Administration before year’s end. The data from a late-stage clinical trial suggest that the drug, molnupiravir, can protect patients who are treated within the first five days of feeling…

Katherine Tai, the US trade representative, delivered a grim message about our trade conflict with China in a recent speech. The tariffs on Chinese imports that President Donald Trump imposed have harmed some US businesses. They have not induced the Chinese government to change the practices that…

I am increasingly disturbed by what I call “mask apartheid.” If you have attended a conference or public event recently, you may have noticed it: The wealthier attendees are not usually wearing masks, but the poorer servers and staff almost always are. Even if the attendees are wearing masks at…

Is it because they are still learning the ropes or are have they understood that they can no longer afford a change of course? The question concerns President Ibrahim Raisi’s new team in the Islamic Republic in Iran sending conflicting signals. At one level, we have the usual blood-curdling…

Two Syrian delegations visited Washington last week. They don’t share a vision for solving the Syrian war and they met Americans but they didn’t meet each other. The Syrian National Coalition delegation leader later told Asharq Al-Awsat that there was differentiation in the American treatment of…

Sudan and Tunisia were relatively successful in their attempts to rid themselves of tyranny through popular revolutions that toppled regimes that had empowered the security services and army while suppressing freedoms for decades. Today, the two countries are both in deep political crises that…

The world of logistics and manufacturing is in a state of disarray. A record number of ships are stuck outside Los Angeles and Long Beach, Calif. Shortages of everything from vessels to truck drivers and raw materials abound. With freight rates soaring, the ocean-shipping industry is beginning to…

Disney+ could never play “Squid Game.” By now, many viewers have probably heard of Netflix Inc.’s creepy series out of South Korea, which has become a streaming sensation in recent weeks. A “dystopian survival story kind of like ‘Hunger Games,’” is how Netflix’s co-chief executive officer, Ted…

Bitcoin is a virtual currency with a very physical footprint in the form of the big, power-hungry facilities that have sprouted up to mine it. The size of this footprint and its impact on the environment have become a hotly contested issue: The network’s power consumption this year will likely be a…