Latest in Opinion Highlight
Latest in Opinion
The IMF after Strauss-Kahn
By Harold James PRINCETON: How the mighty International Monetary Fund has fallen. More than a decade ago, the French magazine Paris Match carried a picture of the Fund’s then Managing Director, Michel Camdessus, with the title: “The Most Powerful Frenchman in the World.” Today, his successor, Dominique Strauss-Kahn (DSK), handcuffed and grave in ubiquitous front-page photos, …
France’s judicial revolution
By Raphaël Hadas-Lebel PARIS: A new and important acronym has entered the French political lexicon: QPC, which stands for the rather austere-sounding “Priority preliminary ruling on the question of constitutionality.” Under QPC, which was part of the constitutional reforms that France implemented in July 2008, any citizen involved in legal proceedings can now contest the constitutionality …
Finkelstein preaches to the choir at AUC
By Sarah Grebowski Norman Finkelstein knows his audience, as he revealed Monday night in his lecture at the American University in Cairo. His comments on Israel’s sense of rationality dripped with sarcasm. He got laughs when he joked that the number of cockroaches in his New York apartment pales in comparison to the number of footnotes …
France’s judicial revolution
By Raphaël Hadas-Lebel PARIS: A new and important acronym has entered the French political lexicon: QPC, which stands for the rather austere-sounding “Priority preliminary ruling on the question of constitutionality.” Under QPC, which was part of the constitutional reforms that France implemented in July 2008, any citizen involved in legal proceedings can now contest the constitutionality …
Dialogue fosters moderation
By Ghassan Khatib While examining the possible consequences of the reconciliation agreement between Fatah and Hamas, it is important to understand that Hamas is like any other political entity: it includes within its ranks different tendencies. These, in turn, can be developed or stunted, creating moderation or radicalization. The recent history of Hamas has shown that …
The front line of democracy
By Radek Sikorski BENGHAZI: This week, I flew to Benghazi to meet Libya’s Transitional National Council (TNC), a visit coordinated with European Union High Representative Catherine Ashton and NATO allies. I was the first Western foreign minister to travel to Libya since the crisis began. What I saw reminded me of my country 20 years ago, …
The ideological challenge for Iranian democrats
By Nader Hashemi The trigger event that launched the Arab democratic uprisings of 2011 can be traced back to the small Tunisian town of Sidi Bouzid. It was here that Muhammad Bouazizi, a poor street peddler, engaged in act of self-immolation after being humiliated and brutalized by a policewoman. His death sparked a series of democratic …
Changing realities: An opportunity for Israel and its neighbors
By Ghanem Nuseibeh and Naava Mashiah LONDON/GENEVA: The uprisings in the Middle East are plunging the region into uncharted territory. But, as international and other regional powers scramble to adjust to the changing realities, they are also an opportunity for Israel and Arab countries to forge mutually beneficial economic ties and to coalesce around common regional …
The Arab Spring and Al-Qaeda’s irrelevance
By Khaled Hroub CAMBRIDGE: The Arab revolutions have challenged many conceptions about change in the Arab world. They have also challenged perspectives regarding several key players in the region, including Al-Qaeda and other extremist organizations whose ideologies have been undermined by recent events. Osama bin Laden’s death may yet play a role in destabilizing Al-Qaeda but …
Economists and democracy
By Dani Rodrik CAMBRIDGE: I have been presenting my new book “The Globalization Paradox” to different groups of late. By now I am used to all types of comments from the audience. But at a recent book-launch event, the economist assigned to discuss the book surprised me with an unexpected criticism. “Rodrik wants to make the …
The blackboard monopolists
By Raghuram Rajan and Brian Barry CHICAGO: US President Barack Obama, like many Western leaders nowadays, made improving education one of his main promises to voters during his election campaign. But other domestic issues — health-care reform, budget battles, and high unemployment — have understandably loomed larger. And the United States is not alone: education reform …
Egyptian women and sectarian strife
By Rania Al Malky CAIRO: A pernicious misogynistic streak has been evident in the social attitude and media language that has emerged in relation to the so-called “woman-induced” sectarian violence that has plagued Egypt over the past few months. As a disclaimer, I must confess that one of the main reasons I decided to tackle the …
Democracy’s dawn in Tunisia and Egypt?
By Alfred Stepan CAIRO: With protests fading in Tunis and seeming to have peaked in Cairo, it is time to ask whether Tunisia and Egypt will complete democratic transitions. I have been visiting both countries, where many democratic activists have been comparing their situation with the more than 20 successful and failed democratic-transition attempts throughout the …
Jews extend Quran to Muslims
By Habeeb Alli TORONTO, Canada: I’m thrilled again to have been a part of recent history — while someone burned the Quran in the United States, another presented us with a Quran in an expression of solidarity. I told this to my congregation during a Friday service and they were all moved by the gesture. For …
The Full Brady
By Barry Eichengreen BERKELEY: Financial markets are increasingly certain that a Greek debt restructuring is coming, and European policymakers fear the worst. “In the worst case,” as Juergen Stark, a member of the European Central Bank board, has put it, “a debt restructuring of a eurozone member could put the consequences of Lehman’s bankruptcy in the …
Abeer, the ‘felol’ and the Imbaba blame game
By Sarah El Sirgany CAIRO: It’s easy to find a person to blame for everything that goes wrong. In the Imbaba clashes, this person is Abeer Fakhry, the woman whose rumored holdup in a church for converting to Islam, sparked sectarian clashes that escalated beyond control. When 12 people are killed, a church is burnt and …
Protection of civilians: lessons from Libya and Ivory Coast
By Yves Daccord GENEVA: In the past two months the United Nations Security Council authorized military intervention in Libya and also in the Ivory Coast. On both occasions, it justified its decision on the basis of protecting civilians and preventing further civilian deaths. On May 10, the UN Security Council met in New York to discuss …
South of the Revolution
By Kandeh Yumkella and Rob Davies PRETORIA: Over dinner in Algiers recently, we asked each other whether the youth-led revolutions unfolding in northern Africa presage the awakening of economic lions throughout the continent. Could the changes unfolding in the Arab north usher in an Africa-wide industrial revolution? If so, it would mean shifting from production of …
When prevention is better than relief
By Peter Singer PRINCETON: When the earthquake and tsunami hit Japan in March, Brian Tucker was in Padang, Indonesia. Tucker was working with a colleague to design a refuge that could save thousands of lives if — or rather, when — a tsunami like the one in 1797 that came out of the Indian Ocean, some …
Beyond the surface of Egypt’s sectarian clashes
By Sarah Khorshid CAIRO: I am confident that Islam prohibits attacking churches and harming innocent civilians, and hence Egyptian Muslims should not be put forced to defend themselves or their religion. The sectarian tensions in Egypt, which were highlighted on Saturday by the violence that left 12 Muslims and Christians dead and hundreds wounded in clashes …
Dial 9-1-1: Hold the phone
By Philip Whitfield Lightening the mood at a tête-à-tête with the Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai coming up to 25 years after Chairman Mao’s fall from grace, Henry Kissinger asked what he thought was Mao’s contribution. Zhou replied: Too early to say. With seemingly almost everyone prepared to write off the Mubaraks, bear in mind the family’s …
Moving past bin Laden
By Sydney Smith WASHINGTON, DC: The last ten years have been marked by the events of 9/11, which Osama bin Laden set in motion. The next ten years, however, need not be lived in his shadow. Bin Laden’s death, like his life, is already proving controversial. World leaders have been quick to laud his demise as …
Palestinian unity agreement is a golden opportunity for all
By Khaled Diab JERUSALEM: The Egyptian-brokered Palestinian “national unity” agreement between the two main Palestinian factions, Fatah and Hamas, took the world by surprise when it was announced on 27 April. Palestinians hope this internal peace deal — officially inaugurated in Cairo last Wednesday — will bring an end to years of infighting and conflict, and …
The future for FDI in post-revolutionary Egypt?
By John Adams During the upheavals of the revolution Egypt witnessed one of the largest flights of capital ever seen in such a short period of time. Billions of dollars left the country. Many foreign companies took fright and will now be in the process of re-evaluating their “Egypt strategy”. This can go one of two …
The next global challenge
By Jean-Luc Butel For the past two years, researchers in India have been undertaking an ambitious effort to count the number of people across the country suffering from diabetes. The importance of this initiative extends well beyond one chronic disease. The results will also illuminate the extent to which non-communicable diseases- from heart disease to stroke …
The renewable future
By Achim Steiner, Helen Clark and Kandeh Yumkella NAIROBI: Renewable energy triggers sharply polarized views. For some, it is a costly white elephant; for others, it is humanity’s savior, promising to emancipate us (and our environment) from the “folly” of fossil fuels. So a hardheaded, credible, and, above all, impartial analysis, which would provide a much-needed …
Debt and taxes in the Eurozone
By Daniel Gros BRUSSELS: The current crisis in the eurozone is known around the world as the “euro sovereign-debt crisis.” But the crisis is really about foreign debt, not sovereign debt. The importance of foreign debt is well illustrated by the case of Portugal: although the country’s public-debt and deficit ratios are broadly similar to those …
A European opening for the Arab World
By Volker Perthes BERLIN: The people of Tunisia and Egypt have shown that democracy in Arab countries need not come at the barrel of a Western gun. But, while the drive for democratic change has been local and authentic, there is no guarantee of a successful political transition: democratically elected governments will have to address the …
Beyond Bin Laden
By Richard Haass NEW YORK: The killing of Osama bin Laden by United States special forces constitutes a significant victory over global terrorism. But it is a milestone, not a turning point, in what remains an ongoing struggle with no foreseeable end. The significance of what was accomplished stems in part from Bin Laden’s symbolic importance. …
Count on it: Open the Box
By Philip Whitfield Free and fair elections aren’t assured by access to the ballot box. They’re secured by counting the ballots openly with invigilators on hand to verify that each voter’s intention is honestly tallied up. The Constitutional Referendum vote was a step in the right direction. Now let’s go the whole hog. Here’s the plan. …