World News Insights: Opinion Articles

Three times in the modern era, Japan has reacted to profound international shifts with a sweeping remake of its foreign policy — in ways that drastically altered global history. The nation is now undergoing a leadership transition, as the job of prime minister passes from Yoshihide Suga to Fumio…

Hal Brands

Michel Aoun’s reign is a “strong reign,” as the famous slogan goes. “Strength” is almost the only word in the president’s program. “Strong Lebanon” is the name of the parliamentary bloc founded by Aoun, to whom it remains loyal. Bringing up his military past from time to time reinforces this…

Hazem Saghieh

In true Jupiterian style, French President Emmanuel Macron said nothing publicly when the AUKUS debacle erupted, letting his ministers and European partners do the talking after Australia scrapped a $66 billion submarine deal with Paris in favor of an American-led alliance in the Indo-Pacific. …

Lionel Laurent

The current state of the global semiconductor market has been alternatively labeled by auto makers, politicians and executives as a shortage, a crisis, and even a squeeze. For the companies at the center of it all, the only word to describe what we’re seeing is a chip boom. It’s inexplicable, then,…

Tim Culpan

South Korea’s dystopian drama “Squid Game” is poised to become Netflix Inc.’s biggest hit ever. The destitute and desperate enter a bloody contest where they play a series of traditional children’s games with just two outcomes: death or a $40 million cash prize. A blend of “The Hunger Games” and…

Shuli Ren

The drubbing inflicted on Germany’s Christian Democratic Union in the country’s recent elections is a sign that, alongside Chancellor Angela Merkel’s 16-year stint in power, something larger is coming to an end. Aside from NATO, the Christian Democratic Union is the most venerable postwar…

Christopher Caldwell

We may be witnessing the End of the Middle East. Needless to say, the Middle East never disappears. It will continue to exist and allure us. An era, however, when the Middle East is the top priority and the biggest concern for the world powers, is almost over. New agendas from the East,…

Satoshi Ikeuchi

Iran’s military exercises near border areas with Azerbaijan – some of its largest military movements since the late 1980s – indicates Tehran’s growing unease with wider developments in the region. In fact, the maneuvers reflect Tehran’s growing sense of insecurity, rather than a projection of power…

Dr. Neil Quilliam

According to a recent poll by the government-affiliated Russian Public Opinion Research Center, one in two Russians fears a prospect of nuclear war to one degree or another. Anxiety associated with the possibility of a local conflict with Ukraine or the West in Syria escalating into World War III…

Anton Mardasov

The cash crunch faced by property developer China Evergrande Group in recent weeks has drawn comparison to the 2008 financial crisis, when seemingly minor turbulence in real-estate finance blew up into an economy-destroying hurricane. There’s an even better candidate for a 2008-style emergency in…

David Fickling

This is one of a series of interviews by Bloomberg Opinion columnists on how to solve the world’s most pressing policy challenges. It has been edited for length and clarity.Clara Ferreira Marques: Your latest book, “Cuba: An American History”, is a sweeping narrative that illuminates Cuba’s tangled…

Clara Ferreira Marques

The woman behind Facebook’s most damning-ever leak of internal documents has a name: Frances Haugen. On Monday, ahead of Facebook’s worst site-wide outage for some time, details about Haugen emerged. She was a product manager on the company’s “civic integrity team,” where she systematically…

Parmy Olson