World News Insights: Opinion Articles

In one of the more arresting videos that circulated after the fall of Kabul, a journalist follows a collection of Taliban fighters into a hangar containing abandoned, disabled US helicopters. Except that the fighters don’t look like our idea of the Taliban: In their gear and guns and helmets …

The story is not about Afghanistan. We are not talking here about Russia, China or a major European state. That is, we are not talking about a country that sleeps on a nuclear arsenal or an economy that influences its surroundings or the world. Afghanistan is a normal country. The world can forget…

In a parliamentary system, a politician could say: I will run for the presidency, and if I don't win, I will resign from politics. Another could say: I will run for this position, and if I don't win, I will rethink the strategy I had followed. Politicians can say many things, just not what Jair…

You’d be forgiven for thinking that it’s smooth sailing ahead for the OPEC+ oil producer group. The 23 members concluded their meeting last week in less than an hour, agreeing to raise output again in October. There were no signs of the tensions that had marred earlier gatherings, just a quick…

Since breaking above $100 a metric ton in May, the price of coal at Australia’s Newcastle port — a benchmark for Asia, which consumes about three-quarters of the world’s soot — has gone almost vertical, hitting a record $173.10 a ton Thursday. The key regional contract for liquefied natural gas,…

To listen to the debate in Europe over the chaotic retreat of United States troops from Afghanistan is to be struck by what a huge vocabulary Europeans have developed over the centuries for describing military calamities. What we just witnessed has already been described as a débâcle, a débandade,…

The advent of gaming, especially computer gaming, marks a fundamental break in human affairs. Gaming is profoundly transforming two central aspects of the modern world: culture and regulation. There will be no turning back. When it comes to culture, the West has been in a dialogue with itself…

Lost wars are supposed to provoke soul-searching. In America, they usually bring historical revisionism instead. When once-good wars go bad, Americans tend to conclude that there was never anything redeeming about them in the first place. This impulse is already coloring the debate over…

Delta Air Lines Inc. announced Wednesday that it would impose a $200 monthly surcharge on employees who aren’t inoculated against Covid-19, pioneering an alternative to the vaccine mandates issued by other corporations as they seek to limit the spread of the highly contagious delta variant while…

Kamala Harris’ historic visit to Vietnam — the first time a US vice president has visited the country since the end of the war — has got me thinking about the relationship between the two countries. Both nations’ interests would be served by a closer economic partnership. But making such a…

A year and a half into the pandemic, Americans are more confused than ever about the risks they face, and that goes for experts and lay people alike. Cases and hospitalizations are going up in almost every state, but the messages we’re getting are mixed about the risks to the fully vaccinated. …

That is what the world needs today, especially amid all that has happened and continues to happen in it, from conflicts to disputes, intersections of interests, and wars. It is in need of a moment of contemplation and relaxation to push it to think of humanity’s place, human beings’ worth and the…