World News Insights: Opinion Articles

Just as the UK government dangles the possibility of Brits traveling to more Mediterranean hotspots, European countries could begin imposing more restrictions on visitors. This week has seen a slew of positive news for English holidaymakers. The UK added Malta and Spain’s Balearic Islands to the…

First, we must affirm that, to reestablish trust among Middle Eastern states as a basis, and, on the other hand, trust between our region and the rest of the world is not an easy task. This would not seem such an intractable problem had it not been for the complexities surrounding the region and…

Hopefully with the departure of Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu a political era may have come to an end. An era in which fear was exploited to feed the political ambition of leaders and, where politics was ultimately about self-promotion not national service. Having said that, it is…

As the European Union’s leaders gather in Brussels this week to take stock of the bloc’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the feel-good narrative is gathering steam. The shambolic start to vaccine distribution is a distant memory, with about half the EU’s population having received at least…

As the US vaccine rollout accelerates, almost all Covid restrictions have been lifted for those who have been inoculated and it’s increasingly more common to see bare faces than a sea of face masks. But there’s one glaring exception: Airplanes, airports and other forms of public transportation…

In the wake of the meeting between Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin last week, British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace mooted the possibility of a summit between Boris Johnson and Putin — provided the Russian president ceases “malign activity.” France and Germany were hoping to resume Russia-EU summitry…

On January 18, the ruling establishment (Supreme Leader’s Office) shut down the space for political deviance that had been around for 30 years, during which political life in Iran consisted of a competition between two political trends (reformist and conservative) and the foundations for the Second…

Now what? This is the question Iranians ask these days as they try to absorb the shock of the latest elections which has propelled another turban into the presidency of the Islamic Republic. Leaving aside the first two whose ephemeral career was too short to merit attention, the Islamic…

Just last week I argued that cryptocurrency is here to stay. Now I’d like to explain to some of my crypto friends why parts of the mainstream economics and financial world do not take them more seriously. To put it bluntly: Many of you do not understand monetary economics very well. There are…

Whenever one writes about Afghanistan, the words smell of blood, explosion, and a lack of security. Besides security threats, explosions, and the news of Taliban terrorists entering cities, now kidnappings which do not discriminate between women, men, or children, have become a lateral problem of…

Russian President Vladimir Putin rarely appeals directly to citizens of the West for acceptance of and friendly cooperation with Russia. Ever since his famous speech at the 2007 Munich Security Conference, his tone has been more defiant than conciliatory. And yet on June 22, the 80th anniversary of…

Recently, we have seen stances and developments successively emerge that indicate an international willingness to provide support for a plan to get Lebanon out of the pit it has been pushed into if the political class were to demonstrate that it had been taking any sort of course towards serious…