Latest in Opinion Highlight
Latest in Opinion
Inching closer to unity
By Joharah Baker It was inevitable that the surge of change that has overtaken the Arab world would eventually spill into Palestine. What began as Palestinian marches in solidarity with their Tunisian and Egyptian brethren has since turned into specific Palestinian demands. Unfortunately, unlike the masses in Egypt’s Tahrir Square, the Palestinians’ good intentions did not, …
Will next time be different?
By Raghuram Rajan CHICAGO: Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff, in their excellent, eponymous book on debt crises, argue that the most dangerous words in any language are “This time is different.” Perhaps the next most dangerous words are “Next time will be different.” These words are often uttered when politicians and central banks want to bail …
Europe’s missing green vision
By Jules Kortenhorst THE HAGUE: European heads of state, energy ministers, and the European Union are actively debating climate and energy policy at a series of summits in the coming weeks. If the decisions they take are to matter, the leaders must work to understand the changing nature of such policies — and the enormous opportunity …
Saudi Arabian matters
By John Defterios Two so called “Days of Rage” have been etched in the month of March in Saudi Arabian calendars. One just passed without major upheaval, but with a high level of intervention by interior security forces and imams advising followers not to take to the streets in protest. These scheduled protests are bookends on …
The heart and soul of change
By Ramin Jahanbegloo When the East European dissidents of the 1980s were struggling against communist authoritarian regimes, they returned to the concept of civil society. What Eastern European intellectuals and civic actors understood by civil society was not just the eighteenth century concept of the rule of law, but also the notion of horizontal self-organized groups …
Seeking ‘stability’
By Chris Toensing Stability is the least understood and most derided of the trio of strategic interests pursued by the United States in the Middle East since it became the region’s sole superpower. Vexing, because it is patently obvious code for coziness with kings, presidents-for-life and other unsavory autocrats. Perplexing, because it seems to involve only …
Withdrawing from the war on drugs
By Fernando Henrique Cardoso GENEVA: Switzerland’s direct democracy allows citizens who have gathered enough petition signatures to challenge government policies and laws in nationwide referenda. After a spate of AIDS deaths during the 1980’s, the Swiss came face to face with a problem that has destroyed millions of lives in the United States, Russia, Latin America, …
Thailand in yellow and red
By Thitinan Pongsudhirak BANGKOK: After three consecutive years of deadly street protests, Thailand has arrived at the point where it will need to hold new elections, as the current term of its national assembly expires this December. Indeed, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has indicated that he will call for the dissolution of the lower house by …
Dead parrot trade talks
By Jagdish Bhagwati NEW YORK:The Doha Round of Multilateral Trade Negotiations (MTN) is the first negotiation to take place under the auspices of the World Trade Organization (WTO), founded in 1995. The eight previous rounds of global trade talks were conducted under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), following its creation in 1947. The …
Arab and Jewish women in Israel should join forces
By Maram Masrawi WAHAT Al SALAM/NEVE SHALOM, Israel: There are those who argue that the representation of Arab Israeli women in recent years in various television “reality” programs testifies to a profound change within Arab Israeli society in general, and among Arab Israeli women in particular. Admittedly, when Arab women can be seen walking around in …
Editorial: The referendum: One step forward
By Rania Al Malky CAIRO: Regardless of how over 40 million Egyptians will vote in today’s referendum on constitutional amendments, and whichever way the results take us, this referendum marks a decisive moment in Egypt’s transition to democracy. True that the Supreme Military Council has imposed a publishing ban today and yesterday on any attempts to …
An American expat’s letter to America: Let the rhetoric end!
By Abdallah Schleifer CAIRO: The UN Security Council has voted for a no-fly zone over Libya. Hours before that vote the embattled Libyan leader Qaddafi threatened to throw everything he had into the battle for Benghazi, to end it before any no-fly had begun; to be “merciless” when his forces stormed Benghazi. He also threatened to …
Dead parrot trade talks
NEW YORK:The Doha Round of Multilateral Trade Negotiations (MTN) is the first negotiation to take place under the auspices of the World Trade Organization (WTO), founded in 1995. The eight previous rounds of global trade talks were conducted under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), following its creation in 1947. The previous MTN, …
Not up to the task
By Yossi Beilin The Obama administration had no contingency plan for addressing revolutions in the Middle East. Intelligence officials explained that regime changes were possible: this particular country faced dangers of one kind, while that country faced different dangers. But all in all, the likelihood of change was not great and the regimes could be expected …
A wakeup call for Americans
By Adel Syed LOS ANGELES, California: Last month, the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) Relief sponsored a fundraising dinner in Yorba Linda, California to raise money for women’s shelters and hunger relief across the United States. Families, including young children and elders, arrived to the event, and attempted to remain unscathed by epithets being shouted …
Asia’s chains that bind
By Yuriko Koike TOKYO: Asian manufacturers have always migrated in search of cheaper labor. Until recently, China seemed their ultimate destination, claiming an ever larger share of investment by Asia’s huge production networks. But three developments in China — rising wage inflation, the coming of a new five-year plan that will seek to shift dramatically the …
Jobs and structure in the global economy
By Michael Spence and Sandile Hlatshwayo NEW YORK: The global economy is at a crossroads as the major emerging markets (and developing countries more broadly) become systemically important, both for macroeconomic and financial stability and in their impact on other economies, including the advanced countries. Consider, for example, what has occurred over the past 20 years …
The forgotten half of the African sky
By Juliet Torome NAIROBI: In Kenya, my home country, there is a popular saying that when two elephants fight, it’s the grass that suffers. Nowhere is that more evident than in the numerous conflicts Africa has seen in the past 50 years. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, marauding gangs purporting to be freedom fighters, and …
Imagining a new Mediterranean world
By Mustapha Tlili NEW YORK: Mediterranean countries are experiencing turbulence unseen since the era of decolonization and independence. Popular revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt have swept away entrenched autocracies. Libya’s Muammar El-Qaddafi is holding on by the skin of his teeth, and political leaders in Algeria and Morocco are scrambling to maintain authority. Can a Mediterranean …
Decoding Egypt: How Mubarak’s mindset contributed to his downfall
By Nael Shama If political regimes can be compared to movies, then Mubarak’s Egypt was like an uneventful long one whose unanticipated thrilling end offered a delayed consolation to its disgruntled audience. After three decades of lifeless politics, the final, dramatic 18 days of Mubarak’s rule was a breathtaking saga of hope, fear, tears and jubilation. …
A truly Islamic state protects Christians
By Rowan Williams LONDON: In the history of some countries there comes a period when political and factional murder becomes almost routine — Russia at the beginning of the 20th century, Germany and its neighbors in the early 1930s. It has invariably been the precursor of a breakdown of legal and political order and of long-term …
Commentary: Is post-revolution the time for entrepreneurship?
By Dr Hala Hattab CAIRO: It might seem farfetched to encourage people to go entrepreneurial and start businesses given the current status of Egypt, with a general state of political and economic unrest. In general, people are either pushed into entrepreneurship by negative situational factors or pulled by an attractive opportunity. The former is the prevailing …
European diplomacy’s first test
By Giles Merritt BRUSSELS: It took eight years of ill-tempered political wrangling to create the European Union’s new diplomatic service, but its fate — and that of its chief, Catherine Ashton — may well be decided over the next few weeks. The Union’s failure so far to respond adequately to the crisis engulfing the Arab world …
Peace now for Palestine
By Marwan Muasher and Javier Solana MADRID/WASHINGTON, DC: As revolutionary change sweeps across the Arab world, it is easy to think that now is not the time to push for peace between Israel and Palestine. Until the dust settles on the new Middle East, the old roadmaps seem dated, and conventional wisdom holds that progress toward …
Japan’s nuclear morality tale
By Brahma Chellaney NEW DELHI: The troubles of the Fukushima nuclear-power plant — and other reactors — in northeast Japan have dealt a severe blow to the global nuclear industry, a powerful cartel of less than a dozen major state-owned or state-guided firms that have been trumpeting a nuclear-power renaissance. But the risks that seaside reactors …
“It’s dignity, stupid”
By Rana Jarbou In the Fall of 2006 post the July war in Lebanon, the March 14 alliance came out with an “I love life” campaign on Lebanon’s billboards with a common slogan that says “we want to live”. The March 8th alliance came out countering the slogans. In a photo, the billboard looks almost identical …
Equal and full citizenship must replace sectarianism
By Sheikh Ali Gomaa CAIRO: All Egyptians — Christian and Muslim — have a fundamental right to live in safety. Acts of sectarian violence such as have been witnessed in Egypt in recent days are an affront to the entire nation and must be met with a unified front. The future of Egypt depends on the …
The crisis of microfinance
By Shashi Tharoor NEW DELHI: The recent ouster of the Nobel Prize-winning Bangladeshi economist Mohammed Yunus as managing director of the Grameen Bank, which blazed a trail for microfinance in developing countries, has thrown a spotlight on the crisis engulfing a business that was once seen as a harbinger of hope for millions. Yunus’ tussle with …
Slowing China
By Barry Eichengreen BERKELEY: With the world’s rich countries still hung over from the financial crisis, the global economy has come to depend on emerging markets to drive growth. Increasingly, machinery exporters, energy suppliers, and raw-materials producers alike look to China and other fast-growing developing countries as the key source of incremental demand. But Chinese officials …
The EU’s band-aid on a bullet hole
By Daniel Gros BRUSSELS: Is the euro crisis any closer to a resolution? Europe’s leaders have promised to devise by the end of this month a comprehensive package not only to end the crisis, but also to preserve the euro’s stability. Unfortunately, they are unlikely to succeed, because most of the elements of the package revealed …