World News Insights: Opinion Articles

The sanctions announced by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on organizations documenting Israeli war crimes and human rights violations in the Gaza Strip were striking. This announcement came just days after the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Summit, which had brought China, Russia, and India…

A limp caudillo. That was a phrase I once applied to Donald Trump’s pretense to be a strongman, in a first term that was actually characterized by the imperial presidency’s retreat. Barack Obama and George W. Bush were far more successful at consolidating presidential power, and Trump 1.0 mostly…

Returning to Beirut from a trip to Damascus, I recalled what I once heard, “Damascus and Baghdad paid in recent decades the price of reckless decisions, while Beirut paid the price of a lack of ability to take decisions.” It has been 15 years since I last took this road, and I remember the…

Everyone is warning against an Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip, condemning it and denouncing statements made by (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu and members of his extremist cabinet. But the real question here is the one I posed to an Arab diplomat: "Don’t you see that the invasion…

The drums of war are playing in the Libyan capital, Tripoli. Are we on the brink of another devastating conflict? Fighting in Tripoli is neither new nor surprising. Conflict has been raging, leaving the city on a knife’s edge every night and morning, since 2011. Nonetheless, this time feels…

Last week, China hit the world headlines with two events that could change the perception of its role and place in the global system in either negative or positive way. The first event was the summit of the so-called Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) that brought together heads of state…

Even US President Donald Trump seems to have lost his patience with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, offering him both a note and a piece of advice. He said: “They’re gonna have to get that war over with. But it is hurting Israel. There’s no question about it. They may be winning the war,…

This week, the debate over the so-called “parallel government” returned to the fore in Sudan. In an attempt to present themselves as an alternative political authority, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) released a video of their commander, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, also known as Hemedti, and members of…

The Israeli strike that killed the Houthis’ prime minister and most of his ministers affirmed what had previously been affirmed by the assassinations of Iranian military leaders and scientists, and before them, of Hezbollah and Hamas’s leaders and senior security and military cadres. These weapons,…

The recent Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Summit held in the Chinese city of Tianjin placed the Arab region, particularly the Gulf, at the heart of the processes reshaping the balance of power in Eurasia. Presided over by Chinese President Xi Jinping and attended by Russian President…

Today, Libyans are revisiting the painful memory of the September Revolution and the turmoil of the February uprising. It is remembered against the background of a deep sentimental struggle over nostalgia. On one side are those who support the February 2011 uprising that toppled Colonel Muammar…

I have been living in Britain since the late 1970s, but I have never witnessed what I am seeing today. Some roundabouts in London have been painted with the red cross of St. George - England’s historic and religious emblem, which also features, alongside the cross of St. Andrew for Scotland and the…