Latest in Opinion Highlight
Latest in Opinion
Reset Turkey/EU Relations
By Javier Solana MADRID: Just five months ago, Osama bin Laden was alive, Hosni Mubarak was firmly in control in Egypt, and Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali ruled Tunisia with an iron hand. Today, popular rebellion and political change have spread throughout the region. We have witnessed brutal repression of protests in Syria and Yemen, Saudi troops …
Are Saudi women next?
By Mai Yamani LONDON: The unexpected visibility and assertiveness of women in the revolutions unfolding across the Arab world — in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, Syria, and elsewhere — has helped propel what has become variously known as the “Arab awakening” or “Arab Spring.” Major changes have occurred in the minds and lives of women, …
The ASEAN Heart of Asia
By Sirin Pitsuwan JAKARTA: The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) stands at a defining moment. Its member states are constantly being evaluated for their economic potential and desirability as a market for investments, goods, and services. At the same time, their effort to forge a community free from external intervention is shaping a new regional …
Does anything matter?
By Peter Singer OXFORD: Can moral judgments be true or false? Or is ethics, at bottom, a purely subjective matter, for individuals to choose, or perhaps relative to the culture of the society in which one lives? We might have just found out the answer. Among philosophers, the view that moral judgments state objective truths has …
Education reform: A generation in waiting
By Sally Jeffery, Duncan Lampard and Jumana Salti Significant and growing numbers of young people across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) are being inadequately educated and are emerging from education systems with little or no employment prospects. The evidence of underperformance in education systems in many countries in the region is well documented; low …
Iran’s Greatest Spiritual Leader
By Melody Moezzi Iran’s officially recognized “spiritual leader” today may be Ayatollah Khamenei, but for hundreds of years before the current establishment of mullahs and ayatollahs, Iranians of all creeds have looked to another spiritual leader: Jalal ad-Din Rumi. While this 13th century Persian Sufi poet is known in much of the West as “Rumi,” he …
Will Greece make it?
By Dani Rodrik CAMBRIDGE: Greece has bought some time with a new package of financial support, but the country is not out of the woods yet. It remains to be seen whether the souped-up austerity policies that Prime Minister George Papandreou’s government has promised will prove to be politically acceptable and sustainable. History suggests some grounds …
Squaring Asia’s nuclear triangle
By Yuriko Koike TOKYO: Just before the fourth trilateral summit between Japan, China, and South Korea began on May 21, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, and Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan jointly visited the areas affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake, offering encouragement to the disaster’s victims living in evacuation centers. …
Why is the Egyptian public so misinformed about Israel?
By Amr Yossef CAIRO: In an earlier commentary in the Daily News Egypt (May 30, 2011), I have argued that underlying the recent rise of anti-Israeli attitudes in Egypt are three myths — “Israel wants to weaken Egypt,” “Israel wants to occupy Egypt,” and “Israel is all powerful” — that appear to continue dominating public opinion. …
Out of Arabia
By Issandr El Amrani Seen from the Middle East, the American debate on US foreign policy in the region is frequently tiresome, even if it can often have radical consequences on the lives of millions. President Barack Obama’s latest speech on the Middle East on May 19 generated a shrug from the region that is neither …
India gives
By Shashi Tharoor NEW DELHI: The recent India-Africa summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, at which India’s government pledged $5 billion in aid to African countries, drew attention to a largely overlooked phenomenon — India’s emergence as a source, rather than a recipient, of foreign aid. For decades after independence — when Britain left the subcontinent one …
The voice is Obama’s; the hands are Bush’s
By Joel Beinin US President Barack Obama’s June 2009 speech in Cairo was widely received as a sincere expression of his desire for a “new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world.” He acknowledged the historic injuries of colonialism, quoted the Quranic injunction to “speak always the truth,” recognized the plight of the …
Money magic
By Raghuram Rajan CHICAGO: Economic growth in the United States seems to be slowing again. This might reflect temporary factors, like the Japanese tsunami, which disrupted supply chains and caused some factories to suspend operations. Also, high oil prices have taken a toll on disposable income, impeding growth in consumption demand. This has led to a …
Human rights, not rocket science
By Rania Al Malky CAIRO: Last Monday was the first anniversary commemorating the brutal killing of 28-year-old Khaled Saeid in Alexandria. The photo of the young man whose badly disfigured face galvanized a critical mass of Egyptians against police brutality, transporting their virtual activism to the real world and who has yet to be avenged in …
Obama’s emerging philosophy of self-determination
By Daniel Kurtzer President Barack Obama’s May 19, 2011 speech at the State Department — which evoked a highly negative reaction from Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu for what was said about the Middle East peace process — was actually designed to lay out American thinking regarding the so-called “Arab Spring”. The president outlined traditional American interests …
Israeli leaders must lead the public to peace
By Dahlia Scheindlin TEL AVIV: US President Barack Obama’s speech to the US State Department in May should have made Israelis happy. While presenting a new vision of US policy toward the Middle East, his Israeli-Palestinian policy was all about continuity. Obama urged a return to negotiations, just like Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He insisted …
How to kill a dollar
By Barry Eichengreen BERKELEY: The dollar has had its ups and downs, but the downs have clearly dominated of late. The greenback has lost more than a quarter of its value against other currencies, adjusted for inflation, over the last decade. It is down by nearly 5 percent since the beginning of 2011, matching the lowest …
How new is Egypt’s ‘new’ foreign policy?
By Barak Barfi CAIRO: In the months since Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s resignation, his successors have signaled a shift in foreign policy by reaching out to former adversaries. Egypt’s government has welcomed Iranian diplomats and embraced the Palestinian group Hamas. Many interpret such moves as clear evidence of Egypt’s desire for a diplomacy that is not …
Secularism to the rescue of the Arab Spring
By Fadi Hakura Spring has come early this year to the Arab world. Climate change has awakened the once comatose Middle East from the stupor of singular leaderships. A new dawn of democracy and freedom is sprouting from Morocco to Oman. Or so we are told. Weather forecasting is a tricky business. Future projections can be …
Moving from politics to people in Israel-Palestine
By Ronit Avni WASHINGTON, DC: Responding to the rising tide across the Arab world in his recent speech on May 19, US President Barack Obama aptly directed his focus away from politicians and toward the people, from the “raw power of the dictator” to the “dignity of the street vendor.” It was a convincing argument, driving …
Lessons learned and lived
By Sarah Tonsy Upon attending a symposium on “The Non-violent Revolution in Egypt: Learned Lessons,” that took place on June 6-7, 2011 at Cairo University, I learned and realized many things about Egypt’s current situation. Years of trial and error are still to come before the government becomes representative of the people. Presidents will be elected …
Victimhood narratives of Afghanistan and Pakistan
By Huma Yusuf WASHINGTON, DC: There’s a reason they say that people who live in glass houses should not throw stones. Eventually, someone throws a few rocks your way. And you suddenly find yourself surrounded by shards of broken glass, wondering what hit you. The question then becomes whether you have it in you to pick …
OCI plans buyback of 440,000 shares
CAIRO: Orascom Construction Industries (OCI), Egypt’s biggest listed firm, said on Thursday it planned to buy back 440,000 treasury shares on the bourse, or their equivalent in global depository receipts (GDRs). In a statement to the Cairo stock exchange, OCI said the buyback would take place between June 14 and July 13, and that the …
A problem with Egypt’s credit card?
By Philip Whitfield Why are the media so coy? In war reporters’ lingo the leader of an army carted off the battlefield is toast. That’s what’s happened in Yemen. The headline in the Economist Gone for good? was nearest to the truth. President Ali Abdullah Saleh is unlikely ever to return to Yemen the Guardian’s Brian …
The iron wall
By Tamar Hermann Since the Saudi peace initiative (later rebranded the Arab Peace Initiative) was put on the table in 2002, it is repeatedly referred to by Palestinian and Arab speakers, by international leaders and commentators and by Israeli activists and experts (mostly of the political left) as unequivocal and convincing evidence of the fundamental flaw …
South Sudan’s gathering storm
By John Bradshaw and Michael Newton WASHINGTON, DC: With General Radko Mladić now in the dock in The Hague to face charges stemming from the atrocities committed by troops under his command during the Bosnian War, the contrast with events in Southern Sudan could not be more appalling. Sudan’s government, led by President Omar Hassan Ahmad …
The right of others to disagree
By Sheikh Ibrahim Ramadan BEIRUT: Among the things I remember from my mother, may she rest in peace, is a meaningful story attributed to the Prophet Abraham. The story goes as follows: Abraham never liked to eat except with guests, to the extent that he would frequent popular places with the hopes of finding a fellow …
Has economic power replaced military might?
By Joseph Nye CAMBRIDGE: At the Cold War’s end, some pundits proclaimed that “geo-economics” had replaced geopolitics. Economic power would become the key to success in world politics, a change that many people thought would usher in a world dominated by Japan and Germany. Today, some interpret the rise in China’s share of world output as …
A French cure for the resource curse
By George Soros NEW YORK: The campaign to ensure that companies engaged in extractive activities disclose all of their payments in their host countries is gaining momentum — and France is leading the effort. President Nicolas Sarkozy should be applauded for supporting a new initiative promoting strict transparency standards for petroleum, gas, and mining companies listed …
Nigeria, slouching toward nationhood
By Ike Okonta ABUJA: Nigerians like political theater, particularly if it is loud, colorful, and has a rich cast of “good” and “bad” characters. Such melodrama abounded from November 2009, when ailing President Umaru Yar’Adua was flown out of the country for treatment, until the just-concluded general elections, Nigeria’s fourth since military rule ended in 1999. …