Latest in Opinion Highlight
Latest in Opinion
A perfect storm of butterflies
By Philip Whitfield CAIRO: History and prose join at the hip. Richard, Duke of Gloucester’s opening words in Shakespeare’s Richard III: Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this sun (sic) of York, reveals olid jealousy to dethrone his brother Henry. Some of Shakespeare’s most puissant words appropriated a momentous event, a …
The Middle East’s slow-motion revolution
By El Hassan Bin Talal AMMAN: There seem to be a thousand and one interpretations of the changes sweeping across the countries of the Middle East and North Africa. One response that is often heard is a note of cautious optimism, captured in US President Barack Obama recent speech at the State Department when he referred …
Can Egyptian solidarity inspire Israelis and Palestinians?
By Khaled Diab JERUSALEM: It was not a good start to 2011. The massive explosion during midnight mass that tore through St. Mark and St. Peter’s Church in Alexandria, killing 21 worshippers and injuring dozens, marked a turn for the worse in the situation surrounding Egypt’s Coptic minority. However, my despair was replaced with measured hope …
Asia after the Afghan War
By Yuriko Koike TOKYO: July will mark two milestones in America’s sometimes-tortured relations with Asia. One is the beginning of the end of the nearly decade-long struggle in Afghanistan — the longest war in United States history — as President Barack Obama announces the first troop withdrawals. The other is the 40th anniversary of Henry Kissinger’s …
Together we must fight piracy
By Lene Espersen Piracy can’t be condemned too strongly. Piracy is a breach to the most fundamental principles of the modern civilization. In the worst hit areas off the Horn of Africa no seafarers – be it on a merchant ship or even a yacht — can be safe at sea. Today more than 600 seafarers …
The Andean engagé
By Jorge Castañeda MEXICO CITY: The role of the politically committed intellectual has a long and ubiquitous history. The Spanish-French novelist and screenwriter Jorge Semprún, who died recently, was for many years a member of the Spanish Communist Party’s Central Committee, and subsequently served as Minister of Culture in Spain’s first post-Franco Socialist government. Dissidents like …
How capitalist is America?
By Mark J. Roe CAMBRIDGE: If capitalism’s border is with socialism, we know why the world properly sees the United States as strongly capitalist. State ownership is low, and is viewed as aberrational when it occurs (such as the government takeovers of General Motors and Chrysler in recent years, from which officials are rushing to exit). …
In Libya, it will be worth it
By Murad Fayad It was February 15, exactly a week after my graduation project presentation. I was again giving my cousin, who lives in Egypt and was here on a visit, reasons why a revolution like the one that had succeeded in Egypt would probably not happen here in Libya. February 17 was the date chosen …
Who’s in cahoots with whom?
By Philip Whitfield CAIRO: Remember the double entendre? Hercule Poirot: Love is not everything. Jacqueline De Bellefort: Oh, but it is. Poirot: It is terrible mademoiselle all that I have missed in life. Jacqueline: Good night Mr. Poirot. John Guillemin’s 1978 cut of Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile elegizes ironically no less poignantly than 2011’s …
On religion and public Space
By Eboo Patel and Samantha Kirby When a suicide bomb exploded as worshippers left New Year’s mass at a Coptic church in Alexandria, 21 people died and 79 were wounded. It’s hard to imagine a more grim, ghastly, or tragic way to ring in a new decade. But during Coptic Christmas later that month, Egyptian Muslims …
A confused western intervention
By Roberto Aliboni While strategically sensible, the western intervention in Libya to implement United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973 is confused in many respects. In particular, the western nations seem poorly aware or convinced of the intervention’s rationale; they oscillate between agreement and disagreement, so that the most relevant problem is that political leadership is conspicuously …
Let them eat t-shirts: The WSJ’s four-minute solution
By David Faris The neoliberal critique of post-revolutionary Egyptian politics is emerging, and the argument goes something like this: by caving in to demands for social justice, subsidies and welfare, the transitional government is effectively continuing the failed policies of its authoritarian predecessor. High-profile figures like Hussein Salem are being sought for extradition or prosecuted but …
Army’s poll on presidential hopefuls unacceptable and unethical, says expert
By Heba Fahmy CAIRO: Presidential hopeful ex-IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei swept Egypt’s ruling army’s Facebook poll on preferred presidential hopefuls, winning 36 percent of almost 70,000 votes at press time. But not everyone approved the army’s decision to create the poll in the first place. “This poll is completely unacceptable and uncalled for and can even …
Libya intervention interrogated
By Asli Bali The Libya intervention is important for three reasons. First and foremost, its potential consequences for the people of Libya give urgency to the current stalemate. Second, the intervention may have profound implications for the “Arab Spring” in the rest of the region. Finally, the intervention is important because of the precedent that has …
Much ado about very little
By Chuck Freilich President Barack Obama’s recent speech on the “Arab spring” was billed as a bold vision of American policy towards a Middle East undergoing revolutionary change, a first conceptually comprehensive statement of the US view of the dramatic events in the region. In the end, it was much ado about very little. Denuded of …
The economic governance the EU needs
By Guy Verhofstadt BRUSSELS: Two lessons have emerged from Europe’s financial crisis. First, there is no substitute for timely and coordinated action when the single currency is under pressure. Second, all eurozone countries are effectively in the same boat. If the boat springs a leak, everyone sinks. A quicker and more concerted response might have limited …
Yogyakarta ruler’s tolerance an example for Indonesia
By Ahmad Suaedy JAKARTA: In Yogyakarta, the cultural center of the island of Java in Indonesia, the governor, Sultan Hamengkubuwono X, has set an interesting precedent by refusing to ban the Ahmadiyah religious group. The group was founded by a 19th century Indian religious leader, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, who claimed he was the promised Messiah foretold …
Towards KG1 democracy in Egypt
By Rania Al Malky CAIRO: The debate over the pros and cons of holding legislative elections as early as next September has polarized Egypt’s political class, and in turn the newly politicized Egyptian street, both negatively and positively. The camp lobbying to postpone the elections — self-proclaimed liberals made up of a handful of parties under …
America’s Dangerous Debt Ceiling Debate
By Mohamed El-Erian NEWPORT BEACH: It has been raised more than 70 times in the last 50 years, mostly without commotion. It must be raised again this summer if the United States government is to continue paying its bills on time. But now America’s debt ceiling has become the subject of intense political posturing and touch-and-go …
Muslim women speak for themselves
By Asma Uddin WASHINGTON, DC: We all have important causes to which we are innately drawn. My cause has always been twofold: women’s equality and Islam. A few years ago I launched Altmuslimah.com, a website devoted to creating a forum for open and honest discussion about gender issues in Islam from all perspectives, Muslim and non-Muslim, …
Fixing Our Broken Oceans
By Achim Steiner and Joshua S. Reichert NAIROBI: Many people know that oceans cover more than 70 percent of the world’s surface, and that marine fisheries provide food for billions of people. What is less known is that the high seas — the areas of the world’s oceans that lie beyond the limits of national jurisdiction, …
The women of the Arab spring: from protesters to parliamentarians?
By Natana DeLong-Bas BOSTON, Massachusetts: What do Asmaa Mahfouz, Munira Fakhro and Tawakul Karman all have in common? They are all strong, capable women defying the popular Western image of the oppressed, repressed, suppressed Muslim woman hidden behind a black chador or blue burqa, helplessly waiting for Western liberation. The biggest challenge these women face is …
Religion, out of place?
By Maria José Rosado-Nunes Brazil is seen as a country of diverse and profound faith. But though religion is an important reference point in the lives of the population, the extent of religious diversity in this sprawling country is not nearly so pervasive as belief itself. Though globally, the image of Brazil is connected to African …
Erdoğan’s Economic Revolution
By Ibrahim Ozturk ISTANBUL: Since 2002, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) has been governing Turkey with remarkable success in economic terms. Indeed, its record is almost unique in Turkey’s modern history, comparable only with the rule of the Democratic Party (DP), which came to power in the 1950’s, at the start of multi-party parliamentary democracy …
A Post-Crisis World of Risk
By Michael Spence MILAN: The global economy’s most striking feature nowadays is the magnitude and interconnectedness of the macro risks that it faces. The post-crisis period has produced a multi-speed world, as the major advanced economies — with the notable exception of Germany — struggle with low growth and high unemployment, while the main emerging-market economies …
Conservatives and Renaissance parties coalesce
By Reem Abdellatif CAIRO: political parties Al-Muhafzeen (Conservatives) and Al-Nahda (Renaissance) announced on Wednesday they will unify in order to “strengthen and enhance” their chances in the elections. Mostafa Abdel-Aziz, former head of the Conservatives, which was founded in 2006, announced that he will be stepping down as president of the party and will relinquish all …
Tahrir Square’s ‘conspicuous’ flaw
By Philip Whitfield CAIRO: Jack Welch built what became the most valuable company in the world making tangible things. Welch was a kid with hope in his heart and an empty pocketbook when he left community school. Today, his net worth is more than $700 million. He grew GE from a $12 billion American company in …
NATO and the New Turkey
By Sinan Ulgen ISTANBUL: Turkey joined NATO at the beginning of the Cold War to gain United States protection in the event of a Soviet attack. Back then, Turkey was clearly on the frontline; today, however, its leaders are assertively pursuing an independent foreign and security policy, and their growing confidence is now testing the Alliance’s …
How to set goals
By Bjørn Lomborg COPENHAGEN: At this century’s start, leaders from every country agreed to pursue the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals. The ambition was to improve significantly the lot of the planet’s most disadvantaged citizens before 2015. The intention was laudable, but 11 years on, progress in achieving the MDGs has been uneven. As decision-makers start …
Israel’s choice vis-à-vis Palestine’s bid for statehood
By Jerome Segal COLLEGE PARK, Maryland: Having despaired of productive negotiations with the Netanyahu government and having lost confidence in the Obama administration, the Palestinians are expected to seek recognition of the State of Palestine from the UN General Assembly (UNGA) in September. Attaining recognition from the General Assembly will be easy, but once recognition is …