Latest in Opinion Highlight
Latest in Opinion
Leaders miss the chance of a lifetime
Over the past three days, after years of build-up, world leaders have been getting down to the business of setting some of the most important priorities for the next 15 years. At stake is $2.5tr in development aid, and countless trillions in national budgets. Unfortunately, because of politicking and a desire to please everyone, this …
Notes from America: Why Ahmed got arrested and Malala got a Nobel prize
Ahmed Mohamed, the young inventor, and Malala Yousafzai, the young women rights advocate, both have a story. However, each story has a different narrative and a different ending. Ahmed and Malala are both Muslims and were both victims of ignorance, bigotry and a self-righteous mindset, and they both became household names. Ahmed was a victim …
The voices not heard at the UN
In the corridors at the UN summit in New York, it is evident that everyone wants different things out of the next set of global development goals
Pope focuses minds on poverty: Now it’s time to change approach
Just coming out of the Assembly Hall at the UN headquarters in New York, and the excitement about the Pope’s address is palpable. He talked to leaders from around the world who are here to sign off on the new development goals that will replace the Millennium Development Goals. It was great and appropriate that …
Yara and Sanaa are out, now release the rest!
23 September 2015 will be a day to remember for activists in Egypt and across the globe. It all began on the afternoon of this day, when we started hearing rumours of a pardon for Egypt’s political prisoners to be issued by Al-Sisi. Subsequently, several national and regional media sources confirmed that Al-Sisi pardoned 100 …
Prisoner release draws attention to anti-terrorism laws
Wednesday’s pardon of 100 prisoners by Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi is drawing mixed reactions from around the world, even as it focuses renewed attention on the controversial anti-terrorism laws under which some of the released prisoners had been held. The human rights group Amnesty International hailed the announcement of the prisoner release as “welcome news” …
Notes from America: Muslims celebrate Eid at the biggest shopping mall in America
America has a Muslim problem, professed the republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump. Muslim-bashing has become a GOP platform, where everyone is trying to outdo each other on how Islamophopic he/she is. Now it is time for Muslims in America to go out and unapologetically celebrate the Eid Al-Adha (Feast of the sacrifice), where in post-9/11 …
Arab League’s inaction is shameful
Everyone is talking about the refugee crisis overwhelming Europe; everyone apart from the League of Arab States that is. To date it has had little to say on the topic and, as far as I can tell, has no plan to help alleviate the problem. Why have there not been any emergency summits announced? Where …
Middle Eastern conflicts spill onto Spanish football pitch
Inevitably, the mass exodus of refugees from conflict areas was going to provoke the spilling into Europe of multiple disputes in the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa. Spanish football is the first to feel the weight of the baggage that has turned vast numbers into destitute refugees. Kurdish rebels have accused a Syrian coach …
Religious support for Qatari labour reforms puts Gulf states on the spot
A panel in Doha of religious scholars, officials of Qatar’s government-sponsored human rights committee, and international labour activists has called on Qatar to radically alter its controversial labour policies. The call serves to support Qatari government promises of labour reform in response to World Cup-related international criticism, and increases moral pressures on Gulf states …
Militant football fans are on a roll across Eurasia
Militant football fans are on a roll in the Middle East, Europe and Southeast Asia. Fans in Turkey and Egypt have defeated legal efforts to criminalise them as terrorists while Malaysian ultras are tackling corruption in and mismanagement of their country’s football association. In Germany, the pitch anticipated the government’s shift in policy towards the …
Opinion: Fed regulators are afraid of their own courage
The Fed continues to hold off on turning around interest rates. The decision is the right one because it is based on economic reality and it helps many emerging economies, DW’s Andreas Rostek writes. In German, the phrase “afraid of their own courage” is used for people who hold back when they could probably do …
Notes from America: The tragic journey of Aylan Kurdi
Killing an Arab! “Standing on the beach With a gun in my hand Staring at the sea Staring at the sand Staring down the barrel At the Arab on the ground I can see his open mouth But I hear no sound…” The song for the British band “The Cure” was inspired by Albert Camus’s …
‘I eulogise justice for you, my dear brother’
Tarek Tito’s letter to his detained brother Mahmoud Mohamed
A Russian sense of urgency is needed in Syria
By Duke Omara It is becoming increasingly clear that the civil war in Syria is now at a stalemate, as no one side seems to have been able to strike a decisive blow against its adversaries. The regime of Bashar Al-Assad appears to have exhausted most of the military advantages that come with being a …
Merkel’s reasons for accepting refugees
There is no doubt that Germany’s stakes went up when it opened the door to become a new welcoming home to more than a million refugees, particularly from Syria. Unlike what many believe, among those refugees there are many who are not Syrian. Merkel opened the door to a million refugees, knowing very well …
Egypt deserves better than to be toyed with
We were all glad that Mehleb’s government had stepped down, but our happiness had nothing to do with the man, whom we respect, and his appreciated efforts during a tough period and before he became Prime Minster, at a time when any sane person would have refused such a post. It has nothing to do …
Opinion: Europe’s grand challenge – Africa’s future
Africa’s population will be five times Europe’s by mid-century. Will the continent become a permanent source of desperate migrants, or a fabulous investment opportunity? Europe needs to engage, massively. The wave of migrants coming into Europe at the moment has a proximate cause – sectarian war and chaos in the Middle East – but it …
Hamas diplomatic activism: Modified strategies and new alliances
By Fadi Elhusseini Many observers saw in Tony Blair’s meeting with head of Hamas’ political bureau Khaled Meshaal a breakthrough that may take Hamas out of the bottleneck and may lead to a long-term truce between the movement and Israel. Yet, with the ensuing meetings Meshaal held, it appears that the crux of the issue …
Egypt throws the dice with partial lifting of stadia ban
The Egyptian interior ministry, in a potential signal that the country’s military-backed regime recognises that its choking off of all public space could backfire, has agreed to allow fans to attend international matches played by the national team and Egyptian clubs. In doing so, the ministry de facto acknowledged that it has put itself …
Egypt looks for long-term payoff on the New Suez Canal
By Oxford Business Group The expansion of Egypt’s strategically vital Suez Canal, completed in early August, could be a significant step towards solidifying its position as a logistics and trade centre, leveraging its location astride major East-West shipping routes. The goal of boosting traffic on the 163 km long canal – a key source of …
Where a crane falls, questions rise
107 are dead and 238 injured in the wake of a major collapse of a giant building crane near the holy site of the Kaaba in Mecca, Saudi Arabia in the evening hours of 11 September. Initial news reports put the blame on severe weather that swept through the Saudi kingdom, with amateur videos, shot …
Their pain is our shame
By Khalaf Ahmad Al Habtoor What does it say about our part of the world that our Syrian brothers and sisters feel the need to flee to a place where they are not wanted? To a place where they are being humiliated and insulted! What does it say about our wealthy Arab World, blessed with …
Israel’s fault lines spill onto the football pitch
Israel’s multiple fault lines – secular vs religious, Jewish vs Palestine, and controversial calls for a boycott of the Jewish state – are exploding on the football pitch. The spill-over comes as President Reuven Rivlin warned in a recent speech that Israel was being fragmented by four tribes that view each other’s worldview as a …
The government and the people: When will there be reconciliation?
By Nevine Kamel A short conversation with the doorman made me wonder – when will the government succeed in reconciling with its people? When can the Egyptian citizen trust his government? I asked Khattab, the doorman: “Haven’t you felt the current development of the country’s conditions? Haven’t you felt safer and more stable?” …
Is Egyptian society a truly religious one?
A helicopter view of our society would certainly show that Egyptians are apparently strongly attached to their religions. Hundreds of visible mosques and churches, many of them built over 1,000 years ago, have earned Cairo the name of ‘the city of a thousand minarets’. There is no doubt that the practice of religion in Egypt …
Notes from America: Ayatollah Google!
“The control of information is something the elite always do, particularly in a despotic form of government. Information, knowledge, is power. If you can control information, you can control people,” explained American writer Tom Clancy. If information were power, then Google would be the most powerful institution on the planet. No other organisation had changed …
The real tragedy of ignoring conflict
The three-year-old boy the world has come to know as Aylan Kurdi is now buried with his older brother and mother in his hometown of Kobani in Syria. It’s hard to imagine a tragedy so profound and so heart wrenching as the sight of his lifeless body lying face down on a beach in Turkey, …
Cultural treasures are also victims of war
The “Islamic State” militant group recently smashed several art pieces at the Palmyra UNESCO World Heritage site, in the Syrian city of that name. Even more brutally, they beheaded 82-year-old Khaled Al-Assad, one of Syria’s most respected archaeologists, who had been the keeper of Palmyra for more than 50 years. In Yemen, the damage to three out of …
The Egyptian Lie
In the personal realm a lie is but a simple three letter word that can be destructive. When interjected with bureaucracies, businesses and nation states the lie undercuts the ultimate necessity in the relationship between citizen and state: trust. If the past 10 days are any indication Cairo has a serious and growing trust issue. …