Latest in Opinion Highlight
Latest in Opinion
The autism generation
By Allen Frances SAN DIEGO: Not long ago, autism was among the rarest of disorders, afflicting only one child in every 2,000-5,000. This changed dramatically with the publication in 1994 of DSM IV (the manual of psychiatric diagnosis widely used around the world). Soon, rates exploded to about 1 per 100. And a large study in …
The battle of the bonds
By Robert Skidelsky LONDON: Everyone knows that Greece will default on its external debt. The only question concerns the best way to arrange it so that no one really understands that Greece is actually defaulting. On this topic, there is no shortage of expert plans — among them bond buy-backs, bond swaps, and the creation of …
Responsibility will rest with the Quartet
By Akiva Eldar The creation of the Quartet by US President George W. Bush was a unique and interesting attempt to develop an effective international mechanism that is not subject to the problematic rules of the game of the United Nations. The new forum was supposed to expand America’s wingspan without the burden of the Security …
Driving toward gender equality in Saudi Arabia
By Natana DeLong-Bas BOSTON, Massachusetts: Should women drive or not drive? That is the question many in Saudi Arabia are asking today. When Manal Al-Sharif posted a video of herself driving on YouTube and launched her Women2Drive campaign on Facebook, she drew the eyes of the world yet again to the status of Saudi women. Driving …
Call it an ‘Arab Spring’ if you will, but a revolution is underway
By Rosemary Hollis The suddenness and speed with which popular protests dispatched President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia and toppled the regime of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt were breathtaking. The sense that the whole Arab world was in the grip of a revolution was exhilarating and governments everywhere scrambled to find the appropriate response. …
The West and the current dynamics in Egypt
By Sara Khorshid CAIRO: Even after Arab revolutions and massive protests rocked the world and proved numerous Western pundits and politicians wrong, many in the US and Europe continue to view the region only through Western eyes, underrating the perspectives of the Arab people, their will and interests. Consider some Western ‘experts’’ take on Egypt. International …
Trends and dynamics
By Abdel Monem Said Aly The story of the “Arab spring” is still unfolding. Complex trends and dynamics can be observed in a variety of countries that are going through different stages of rapid change. Some revolutions in the region have already toppled regimes, as in Egypt and Tunisia, which are undergoing a painful process of …
A PALESTINIAN VIEW: An urgent need for intervention
By Ghassan Khatib Palestinian politicians and analysts were divided in their understanding and evaluation of last week’s Quartet failure to agree on a statement promoting the resumption of a Palestinian-Israeli political process. Some Palestinians expressed disappointment and frustration because disagreements within the Quartet that prevented consensus indicate that the international community is not going to be …
Small economies, big problems, and global interdependence
By Kemal Dervis WASHINGTON, DC: Greece’s GDP, at about $300 billion, represents approximately 0.5 percent of world output. Its $470 billion public debt is very large relative to the Greek economy’s size, but less than 1 percent of global debt — and less than half is held by private banks (mainly Greek). Barclays Capital estimates that …
Europe’s Italian muse?
By Emma Bonino and Marco De Andreis ROME: The euro contagion triggered by Greece’s sovereign-debt crisis has now infected Italy. Silvio Berlusconi’s government, together with a fiscally conscious opposition, managed to secure — in only a few days — parliamentary approval of a package of measures worth more than €50 billion, in order to restore market …
The Saudi-led counter-revolution
By Oraib Al-Rantawi For decades, the Arab region was in a state of regression and helplessness, until a series of uprisings and revolutions erupted early this year. To date, these have resulted in toppling two regimes, Egypt and Tunisia, and threatening three, Libya, Yemen and Syria, with a similar destiny. Other regimes have felt obliged to …
PALESTINIAN VIEW: The Quartet and unimplemented peace
By Nagi Shurrab In 2002, the Quartet was formed alongside the initiation of the roadmap, which imposes mutual and parallel obligations on Palestinians and Israelis. Palestinians were asked to cease all forms of violence and armed resistance, and Israelis were asked to stop building settlements, in stages leading to the creation of a Palestinian state and …
Adapt or die
By Michael Spence MILAN: In rapidly growing emerging markets, a combination of internal economic forces, supportive policies, and the shifting nature of the global economy drive high-speed and far-reaching change. The transformation of economic structures occurs so quickly that it is virtually impossible not to notice — though the complexity of the change is, at times, …
Young British Muslims contribute more than you might think
By Sughra Ahmed LEICESTER, UK: Many young British Muslims – who comprise over 50 per cent of the Muslim population in the UK – feel confronted by a world that objectifies and stereotypes them as anti-social or troublemakers who do not contribute to a productive society. In recent years, these youth have felt the need to …
Khaled Saeid: Justice and dignity
By Philip Whitfield ALEXANDRIA: The scene of the crime is surprisingly unassuming. Hassan Messbah and his assistant Ahmed Nasr are calm, reflective and unwavering as third-party observers to the killing that took place in the SpaceNet Internet Café just over a year ago. We go through the motions that led to the death of Khaled Saeid. …
Securing food in volatile markets: From rhetoric to action?
By Stefan Tangermann Spiking food prices, and their impact on hunger, were finally given the attention they deserve at a recent summit of agriculture ministers from the G-20 group of major economies. However, while the action plan from their June 22-23 meeting in Paris contains much to applaud, it is also notable for some glaring omissions …
Green bootleggers and Baptists
By Bjørn Lomborg NEW YORK: In May, the United Nations’ International Panel on Climate Change made media waves with a new report on renewable energy. As in the past, the IPCC first issued a short summary; only later would it reveal all of the data. So it was left up to the IPCC’s spin-doctors to present …
Arab UK Festival celebrates multiculturalism
By Nada Akl LONDON: In recent years, multiculturalism in Europe has sometimes been framed as negative, the cause of trouble and the marker of societies undergoing an identity crisis. But multiculturalism, as a result of migration, should be seen as a desirable value in any society. On June 26 in Camden at the Arab UK Festival, …
EDITORIAL: Egypt’s ‘silent majority’ put their foot in it
By Rania Al Malky CAIRO: First, a disclaimer: As a journalist and an editor for the past 13 years, my commitment to freedom of thought and speech is unshakable. But does this mean that I don’t often question the limits of this freedom? Clearly not. Where does freedom of expression end and incitement to hatred, xenophobia …
Libya after Qaddafi
By Omar Ashour BENGHAZI: Middle Eastern autocrats routinely warn their people of rivers of blood, Western occupation, poverty, chaos, and Al Qaeda if their regimes are toppled. Those threats were heard in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, Syria, and — rendered in black-comedy style — in Libya. But there is a strong belief across the region that …
Banishing starvation
By Franz Fischler VIENNA: Of the world’s almost seven billion people, about one billion are starving, owing to a long list of unfortunate local events and circumstances, together with steadily increasing demand, unpredictable weather patterns, and poor financial management. And food shortages could grow much worse, as world population is expected to reach nine billion by …
More questions than answers about Egypt’s electoral law
By David Faris Hundreds of thousands of Egyptians took to the scorching streets beginning July 8, seeking justice for those killed and injured during the revolution and long-overdue reforms of the Ministry of Interior, among other things. Their steadfastness has already forced Essam Sharif’s government to announce some concessions, and more may be coming. Yet even …
Shoura Council speaker behind ‘battle of the camel’: probe
By AFP CAIRO: Egypt’s upper house speaker under ousted president Hosni Mubarak was the mastermind behind organized attacks by loyalists riding camels on anti-regime protesters, investigators said on Thursday. A fact-finding committee looking into the uprising’s most bizarre scene when Mubarak loyalists charged protesters on horses and camels, said Safwat El-Sherif had orchestrated the plan, …
Egypt: Taking matters into its own hands
By Oxford Business Group With its recently passed budget for the 2011/12 fiscal year, Egypt has established a revised set of ambitious targets for tackling its public expenditures. Having rebuffed aid offers from several international organizations and countries, the move is a sign that the country will steer clear of a rising budget deficit on its …
A PALESTINIAN VIEW: A question of will, not semantics
By Ghassan Khatib The content of the article “Buying into Palestinian statehood” by a group of prominent Israelis represents a new, mature and responsible level of debate between Israelis and Palestinians — even when compared to official exchanges between the two sides. Recently, discussion either ignores the substantive aspects of the conflict and escapes to ideology …
General Marshall on the Aegean
By Barry Eichengreen BERKELEY: It should now be clear to even the most blinkered observer that the Greek economy is in desperate need of help. Unemployment is 16 percent and rising. Even after a year of excruciating spending cuts, the budget deficit still exceeds 10 percent of GDP. Residents don’t pay taxes. The system of property …
British women’s jihad against violence
By Sara Khan LONDON: Open any newspaper in the UK today and the two topics which govern any discussion on Muslims are women and extremism. Unsurprisingly, Muslim women feel these topics are inadequately addressed by Muslims themselves. Time and again, extremists — claiming to speak in the name of God — successfully dominate the discourse on …
Blogging for change in Palestine
By Ziad Khalil Abu Zayyad JERUSALEM: I was born in Jerusalem in the 1980s into the reality of occupation. My father had been politically active in the 1970s and my uncle is a former cabinet minister. As for myself, during my teenage years I became head of my high school union, which joined other Palestinian movements …
Arab spring or summer of discontent?
By John Defterios Protests have rekindled in Cairo’s Tahrir Square on a grand scale. Hundreds were injured and expressed their frustration at what they see at the snail’s pace of change after the Arab uprisings that started in Tunis six months ago. It is a good time to take stock at the half year point since …
Root causes behind Israeli-Palestinian Impasse
By Alon Ben-Meir On the surface, the current stalemate in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process seems illogical. After all, each side knows, with the exception of the Netanyahu government, that the basic framework of a negotiated settlement: a two-state solution based on the 1967 border with land swaps that keep the major settlement blocs inside Israel proper. …