Latest in Opinion Highlight
Latest in Opinion
United Nations Security Council: A flash of accountability?
Some consider the sudden show of accountability in Egypt’s political sphere has been contrived as a one-off display to aid Egypt’s bid to become a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. Amidst massive regional instability, the Al-Sisi administration is pushing to become recognised as key player for international security, and announced its candidature …
Fear, Oppression and the Egyptian Pen
By Amr Khalifa To be an Egyptian journalist on World Press Freedom Day (3 May), one must have a healthy sense of ironic juxtaposition. In Egypt, as most journalists and readers know, the words freedom and journalism, particularly under the harsh light of the Al-Sisi regime, in the same sentence elicit a loud and bitter …
Press freedom or plain scoop-hunting?
Apparent press freedom struggle between Arabic-language press and Ministry of Interior in face of journalists’ arrests
How much longer can Al-Sisi manage to manipulate Egyptian politics?
By Mohammed Nosseir People may think that authoritarian rule is an easy task. However, the truth is quite the opposite; it is a far more complicated undertaking than democratic rule. Whereas democratic rule is a collective work, in which responsibilities are shared among the President, members of Parliament, governmental institutions and others, authoritarian rule requires …
Providing legal identity to all a great step for good governance
By Dr. Bjørn Lomborg Corruption last year cost the world more than $1tr. That is $1tr we can’t use to get better health care, education, food and environment. A study shows that corruption in Egypt costs each citizen about EGP 2,715 each year. And corruption is only part of the problem of poor governance – many …
Notes From America: The Falafel Wars
By Ahmed Tharwat In my last flight to Paris, I was fortunate to be sitting next to a young man who seemed cautious; with an excessive head turning motion. He seemed like he was waiting for something to come or to happen. We avoided each other for a few thousand miles, until I started playing …
Alleged AFC cover-up effort highlights Asian football’s lack of proper governance
By James M. Dorsey A senior executive of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) allegedly requested in 2012 at least one of his subordinates to tamper with or hide documents related to enquiries by independent auditors and FIFA into management of the group by Mohammed Bin Hammam, the AFC’s ousted president and vice president of the …
Global football’s backslapping, backstabbing backroom deal-making politics
By James M. Dorsey Presidential elections and tournament hosting in the world of football appear to be seldom won on the merits of a candidate or bidder’s proposition. Instead, the outcome of polls and bids are frequently the result of backslapping, backstabbing backroom politicking between global football managers and political leaders. World football is about …
Itihadiya: A deserved sentence for a huge crime
By Khaled Okasha The crime that took place in front of and inside the Itihadiya Palace, a few months after Mohamed Morsi’s rule, raised a sort of panic and early concern for a wide number of Egyptians. Several court rulings have recently been issued against the murder of a group of peaceful protesters, as well …
Certain entropy
Since the revolution and until a few months ago, with every news item published, Egyptians of all walks of life would begin analysing and discussing the significance of said news item. Different opinions and agitated discussions would be heard on the streets, on social media and with friends. Analyses floated around, mostly made up of …
The poor against Piketty
By Hernando de Soto Thomas Piketty’s, Capital in the 21st Century, has attracted worldwide attention, not because he crusades against inequality – many of us do that – but because of its central thesis; based on his reading of the 19th and 20th centuries: that capital “mechanically produces arbitrary, unsustainable inequalities” inevitably leading the world to misery, violence …
Notes from America: The world is run by ‘generals’
By Ahmed Tharwat Harry S. Truman once said: “The ‘C’ students run the world.” That was a long time ago, and now the world is run by “Generals” – still “C” Students – in two different camps. The first camp is usually run by military generals like Saddam, Gaddafi, Nasser, Sadat, Mubarak, Al-Sisi, Mugabe, Barre, …
Connecting the dots of the Middle East: Restoring Egypt’s stature in the region
By Ramy Oraby A few days after the Arab League Summit in Egypt, Saudi Arabian long standing Foreign Minister Saud El-Faisal directly accused Iran of backing “Houthis militias and [Ali Abdallah] Saleh” to destabilise Yemen. A clear statement marking a new unprecedented level of the Saudi-Iranian confrontation that adds more fuel to already flaming domestic …
Build better roads to feed more people
By Dr. Bjørn Lomborg Almost one-quarter of all food in the world is lost each year, from harvesting and storage to wastage in the consumer’s kitchen. In sub-Saharan Africa, about 21% of all food is wasted. If we could halve the sub-Saharan waste, we could feed an extra 100 million people. We can expect almost a …
Israel chides club for racism in bid to fend off FIFA suspension
By James M. Dorsey Israel’s Equal Employment Opportunities Commission (EEOC) has demanded that notoriously racist club, Beitar Jerusalem, the bad boy of Israeli football, retract recent statements that it would maintain its policy of not hiring Palestinian players because of opposition by the team’s militant, racist fan base. The demand comes as Israel is fighting …
Yemen: The little army that could
By Dr Cesar Chelala In his book Century of the Wind, the late Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano tells how in 1927 the US Marines landed in Nicaragua to quell a revolutionary revolt by Augusto César Sandino, who led a ragtag army of Nicaraguan peasants to fight the invasion. Armed primarily with machetes and 19th century rifles, Sandino’s army fought …
Egyptian death sentence for football fans puts president’s iron grip to the test
By James M. Dorsey Egyptian-general-turned-president Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi’s iron grip on dissent is likely to be put to the test with the sentencing to death of 11 football fans for involvement in a politically loaded football brawl three years ago that left 74 militant supporters of storied Cairo club Al-Ahly SC dead. The brawl and …
Notes from America: The flag
By Ahmed Tharwat The American flag consists of 13 horizontal stripes, seven red alternating with six white. The stripes represent the original 13 colonies and the stars represent the 50 states of the Union. It has three colours; red symbolises hardiness and valour, white symbolises purity and innocence, and blue represents vigilance, perseverance and justice. As …
Egypt hurt by being completely security-driven
By Mohammed Nosseir Security is the name of the game in Egypt! All of the country’s key entities – government organisations, private sector corporations, universities, NGOs, sports clubs or even social cafés are influenced and driven by the state’s security mindset. Security entities are by far the most powerful organisations in Egypt, making the Minister …
Women’s rights do not sell
In late 2013, the Thomson Reuters Foundation conducted its third annual poll on women’s rights in Arab states. 336 specialists designed the poll to assess the extent to which states adhere to key provisions of the UN Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), which most Arab League states have signed, ratified or …
10 lessons from the Ebola epidemic
By Dr Cesar Chelala As the Ebola outbreak continues claiming victims – albeit at a reduced rate – it is time to reflect on what we have learned so far in dealing with this serious infection. Although its impact is mainly in a relatively reduced geographical area, the fact that a few cases happened in …
Egypt moves closer to labelling football fans as terrorists
By James M. Dorsey Egypt has moved closer to banning as terrorist organisations militant football groups that form the backbone of opposition to autocratic rule, with the arrest and pre-trial detention of five alleged members of the Ultras White Knights (UWK), the highly-politicised, street battle-hardened support group of storied Cairo club Zamalek SC. The five …
Deadlier than Ebola
By Dr Bjørn Lomborg Ebola has received much of the attention in 2014, killing about 8,000 people. Over the same period of time, however, about 4 million people died from AIDS, tuberculosis (TB) and malaria. The truth is that, despite great progress in healthcare, much of the world is still blighted by preventable disease, with …
Towards a new European neighbourhood policy
By James Moran, Head of the EU Delegation in Egypt Given our historical ties, the common challenges we face and the opportunities for the future, the EU’s partnership with Egypt is more important than ever. Over the past ten years, relations have been conducted primarily within the framework of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), which …
Iranian Arab football pitch emerges as flashpoint in Saudi-Iranian proxy war
By James M. Dorsey A football pitch in the Iranian city of Ahvaz, home to Iran’s Arab minority, has emerged as a flashpoint of anti-government protest, at a time of rising Arab-Iranian tensions over the status of Shi’a Muslim minorities in the Arab world, the crisis in Yemen, and the outlines of a multilateral agreement …
Notes from America: Muslim men and their beards
By Ahmed Tharwat “He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man.” ― William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing Facial hair in Islam is complicated, and the politics of wearing a beard brings lots of heated debate and political wrangling. Besides the religious and Shari’a …
Sisi State vs Sinai State
Five months ago, after another massive attack, Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi declared the situation to be an existential struggle. Months later, Al-Sisi is a student in desperate need of a Sinai strategy tutorial. North Sinai experienced three attacks on 12 April: the first, left six dead in an IED attack on an Egyptian personnel carrier, the second …
ILO victory boosts Qatari hopes of defeating efforts to deprive it of World Cup
By James M. Dorsey A resolution by the International Labour Organization (ILO) to postpone until November a decision to investigate Qatar on charges of violating the Forced Labour and Labour Inspection Conventions is likely to boost the Gulf state’s ability to defeat any attempt to strip it of the right to host the 2022 World …
How does a ‘cool’ guy turn into an extremist?
By Mahmoud Abu Baker At the end of the ‘90s, everywhere I went I was asked the same boring question as a journalist living in Algeria. It is a question that haunted the people who asked me and exhausted me: Is it true that Islamist groups are the ones behind all the terrorist crimes in …
Broadband: A hidden treasure that could make every Egyptian $3,140 richer
By Bjørn Lomborg Where should the global community focus its attention over the next fifteen years? Health, nutrition and education may seem like obvious top priorities but, more surprisingly, there is also a strong case for broadband access to be considered. Tripling mobile internet access from 21% to 60% in developing countries over the next …