World News Insights: Opinion Articles

The supply chain has huffed and puffed, but it hasn’t knocked industrial demand down — at least not yet. A dangerous combination of logistics logjams, widespread parts shortages, hiring difficulties and rising inflation had threatened to make this earnings season a particularly ugly one for the…

China recently sank to new depths, sending the Haidou 1, a remote-controlled submarine, 10,908 meters into the murky waters of the Mariana Trench. That’s exactly one meter past the submersible’s previous world-record mark. For the engineers and oceanographers involved, the feat means bragging…

The first step toward understanding the Great Supply Chain Disruption of 2021 is to recognize that the phrase itself is not quite accurate. Supply chains are not disrupted so much as overloaded, and the effects are more national than global. This understanding has implications not only for US…

One hundred years after Greater Lebanon’s establishment in 1920 and eighty years on from the country attaining its independence, in 1943, based on the Lebanese framework known as the national pact, which was built on the formula of equally shared representation between Muslims and Christians and…

Digital businesses are helplessly losing their Indian customers. And nobody knows how many will eventually return and after how long. From smartphone apps to websites, anyone with a regular, card-based payment arrangement with subscribers has run into a roadblock put up by the central bank. For…

Intel Corp.’s future is looking a bit grim. Late Thursday, the chipmaker posted worse-than-expected sales results with adjusted revenue of $18.1 billion in the quarter ended in September, up 5% compared with the prior year, and below the $18.24 billion median estimate of analysts surveyed by…

A friend in need is, as Beijing well knows, a friend indeed. In the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, as the West turned inward, China sent African nations protective equipment and test kits, enlisting support from Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. co-founder Jack Ma. Beijing promised vaccines and…

Desperately trying to retain a modicum of relevancy in the Syrian imbroglio, the United Nations has shaken an old ghost out of slumber to claim a few headlines. The UN Special Envoy on Syria Geir Pedersen has brought the so-called “Constitution Committee” out of its two-year hibernation to “start…

Two years after the October 17 protests began in Lebanon, the scene has gone back to normal. The revolution, whose participants had claimed they wanted to evade the fatal curse of civil wars, it seems, with all its crowds, supporters, songs and slogans, very far from today’s reality of armed…

Google has long been an also-ran in the smartphone world. But as of this week, the Alphabet Inc. unit may have finally figured out how to compete with its iPhone-making rival: custom silicon. On Tuesday, Google unveiled the Pixel 6 and the Pixel 6 Pro, both featuring a new Google-designed main…

Facebook Inc. may be preparing a fresh coat of paint for itself. A report in technology news site the Verge, citing a source with direct knowledge, says that the company is planning to change its name next week to reflect its new focus on building the metaverse — a new digital network for…

Once again Britain has one of the highest rates of Covid infection anywhere. The UK just reported its biggest single day Covid case increase in three months and a 16% increase in confirmed cases in the week to Oct. 18. The government has warned of a bad winter. While deaths from Covid are now…