World News Insights: Opinion Articles

The pandemic catapulted Zoom Video Communications Inc. from a scrappy upstart into a more than $115 billion video-conferencing behemoth, central to the lives of millions of remote workers and other socially distant users. Now, as Covid-19 vaccination rates allow for more of a return to normal, the…

At first glance, it seems a strange or contrived comparison, as there is no link, neither in terms of context nor content, between the Cairo Agreement signed in 1969 and the blast that went off a year and a few days ago. Sponsored by Gamal Abdel Nasser in all his glory, the Cairo Agreement…

Global investors are shocked to have discovered that China is run by Communists. Shares of online education companies collapsed last week after the government all but outlawed the industry, and internet behemoth Tencent Holdings Ltd. shed more than $50 billion of value at one point on Tuesday after…

The first seven months of the Biden presidency have been easy compared with what’s coming down the pike. Key provisions of Covid relief legislation came to an end on Aug. 1, with more set to follow — including a cessation of moratoriums on evictions and mortgage foreclosures, termination of…

In 1990, V.S. Naipaul delivered a celebrated lecture on the subject of “Our Universal Civilization.” The Berlin Wall had fallen, liberal democracy was ascendant, and Naipaul wanted to reflect on what the universal civilization — by which he meant the West — meant for someone like him, a Hindu son…

In the fall of 1965, Ralph Nader, then 31, published a blistering attack on the poor safety record of the American automobile. Tens of thousands of Americans were dying needlessly every year on the nation’s highways, and the blame lay with the federal government, Mr. Nader argued in his first book,…

FC Barcelona’s inability to retain Lionel Messi is not just indicative of how badly the giant of Spanish soccer has been mismanaged. It also underscores the foibles of fan ownership. The club announced on Thursday that Messi, the talismanic superstar who has driven the club to 10 La Liga and…

Corporate America has ample evidence of Covid-19’s fury. New cases, hospitalizations and daily death tolls have surged as the delta variant barrels across workplaces and communities. The emergence of an even more contagious and lethal mutation of the virus is possible, too. Yet most business…

For much of the pandemic, Britain provided a cautionary tale in how not to manage a crisis. It charted some of the world’s worst death rates, a care home infection fest and a series of policy reversals that sorely tested public trust. Should it now be the country the US looks to as an example of…

As part of efforts to pay for President Joe Biden’s proposed $3.5 trillion spending plan and ahead of a burst in expected infrastructure outlays, Senate Democrats are proposing the US impose tariffs on carbon-intensive imports. This idea resembles the European Union’s newly unveiled border…

In international politics, what do you do when you don’t know what to do but wish to appear to be doing something? The answer is: you convene an international conference. The gimmick started with the notorious Versailles Conference after the First World War that morphed into a series of…

A certain school of thought holds long-term targets as meaningless, as the people making them will no longer be in their job by the time they are proved right or wrong. That’s especially the case for a two-term limited US president. But when it comes to Joe Biden and electric vehicles, it hardly…