Latest in Opinion Highlight
Latest in Opinion
Al-Sisi’s risky economic gamble: Egypt’s challenge lies in its present reality, not its potentiality
By Mohammed Nosseir The Egyptian government recently held a very successful Economic Summit. Although the conference was mentored by an Arab country and managed by an international agency, the credit for its success still goes to the Egyptian government for its open-mindedness in this respect. Nevertheless, in my opinion, attracting foreign direct investment (FDI) has …
Gulf alliances: Regional states hedge their bets
By James M. Dorsey The current Saudi-led intervention in Yemen, designed to prevent Iranian-backed forces from gaining power, symbolises the Gulf’s new assertiveness. This is unfolding as the various Gulf states seek to hedge their bets with different strategies that complement rather than replace the regional US security umbrella. Qatar, this month, signed a military …
Yemen: Decisive storm or divisive storm?
By Waleed R. Derhem Ten days into the beginning of “Decisive Storm”, and we are still divided on who are the good guys and who are the bad guys. Led by Saudi Arabia, the coalition forces continue to strike the military facilities and the strategic locations under the control of the Houthis, and will continue to …
Benefits of a deal with Iran
By Dr Cesar Chelala In the charged atmosphere between the US and DN, the benefits of the deal with Iran have been obscured by a war rhetoric that does very little for peace and development in that conflictive region. To the calls for bombing Iran from the likes of Netanyahu and US Senator McCain, a significant number of experts in …
Better in Egypt: Starbucks talks about race campaign
By Ahmed Tharwat Howard Schultz is the CEO of Starbucks, a coffee company that as he describes it, “is a third place away from home and work where Americans can come and enjoy drinking a good cup of coffee sitting down”. Before Starbucks, Americans usually drank coffee on the run and everyone drank the same …
UAE and Egypt work hand-in-hand for a better Egypt
By Dr Sultan Ahmed Al-Jaber, Minister of State for the United Arab Emirates The past month has reinforced for the international community the importance of Egypt to the region and to the world. With the conclusion of the Arab League Summit and the Egypt Economic Development Conference (EEDC), Egypt has once again emerged as the region’s leading …
The most deadly environmental issue
By Dr. Bjørn Lomborg Air quality has improved dramatically in rich countries over the past century. Around 1880, when the air was worst in London, it is estimated that 9,000 people died each year from air pollution, about one of every seven deaths. Today, London air is cleaner than it has been since medieval times. …
New momentum in response to the Syria crisis – we must seize the moment
By Sima Bahous We are entering the fifth year of crisis in Syria, with no end in sight. Instability is threatening neighbouring countries, and indeed the whole region. A political solution that could put an end to this unprecedented crisis remains on the distant horizon. Thus far, the crisis has profoundly scarred the lives of …
Contours of future Israeli-Palestinian battles emerge on the football pitch
By James M. Dorsey Legal and diplomatic battles in United Nations organisations and international sport associations involving charges of war crimes and efforts to suspend membership of one or the other are likely to shape future Israeli-Palestinian relations in the wake of last month’s electoral victory by Benjamin Netanyahu. The contours of the coming battles …
In India, women fighting for justice
By Dr Cesar Chelala In Bundelkhand, one of the poorest areas of the Uttar Pradesh region in Northern India, a 48-year-old woman is breaking stereotypes, and giving woman a chance to fight for their rights, and even for their survival. This is no small feat in a country plagued by discrimination against women and by inequality. …
Notes from America: Three shots of tee
By Ahmed Tharwat In sports, as in life, as you grow older, the game gets slower and the ball gets smaller (pun intended). For me, I moved from playing football to tennis, and now to the game of golf. As a kid growing up in Egypt, I had never had the chance to play this elusive …
Can the Arab League answer critical questions?
At first, the notion of Arabism appeared to liberate the Levant from the Ottoman Empire. However, after the 1952 revolution, [Gamal] Abdel Nasser re-defined the Arab nationalism to fight traditional colonialism following its retreat after the two great powers (UK and France) fell back as a result of World War II. The national ideologies presented …
My visit to the Family Court in Abshway
By Anita Nirody, UNDP Resident Representative This week, I visited Abshway district in the Fayoum Governorate for the launch of the Legal Aid Office in the Abshway Family court. My visit was within the context of a project that the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Egypt is implementing with the Ministry of Justice. UNDP …
Egypt: A Divided Republic
Old neighbours who once enjoyed daily cups of tea are turning on one another, some Christians are being accused of being Muslim Brotherhood sympathisers and some mothers are turning against sons
Coming up with smart ways to end poverty
By Bjørn Lomborg Extreme poverty – or living on less than $1.25 a day – is a continuing problem for far too many people today. In Egypt for instance, such poverty still afflicts about 1.3 million people, according to the World Bank. It is also arguably one of the most important challenges to address because …
The New Capital: The Good, Bad and Cairo
By Ahmed El-Wahsh Over the past few days, the Egyptian government has unveiled to the world and surprisingly enough, its own Egyptian nationals, that there shall be a change of its capital state. It will be moving from Cairo to a patch of uninhabited land 50km to the East of the Fifth Settlement. According to …
Football riots reflect long-standing discontent in Iran’s predominantly Arab Khuzestan
By James M. Dorsey Long-simmering discontent in Ahwaz, the football-crazy, predominantly ethnic Arab capital of Iran’s Khuzestan province that Iraqi president Saddam Hussein unsuccessfully tried to exploit when he launched the Iran-Iraq war in 1980, exploded on the pitch earlier this month during an Asian championship League qualifier between the city’s state-owned Foolad FC and …
Solar electricity: Contributing to grid stability
By Ahmed S. Nada, First Solar Governments, utility companies and private enterprises around the world have rapidly been embracing the potential to tap into our most abundant energy resource – the sun – and for good reason: the amount of sunlight that reaches the Earth’s surface every six minutes is sufficient to produce more electricity …
Notes from America: The man with big ideas
By Ahmed Tharwat Thomas Friedman, New York Times foreign affairs columnist, winner of three Pulitzer prizes, writer of several bestselling books, is a man known for his big ideas. Friedman never ceases to amaze us with a new ‘big idea’ every now and then, from the bizarre to the ridiculous. For example, Friedman created the …
Attempts to ban Egyptian militant football fan group gather momentum
By James M. Dorsey An Egyptian prosecutor has set the stage for the banning of a group of hard-core, militant football fans by charging them with accepting money and explosives from the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood to stage last month’s Cairo football riot in which 22 people were killed. The Prosecutor General, Hisham Barakat, said the …
Post-2015: Over 14 million newborns can be saved with smart targets
By Dr. Bjørn Lomborg In a world where there are so many worthwhile targets demanding our attention, we need to focus on those where we have the best chance of doing the most good. How about saving more than 14 million newborn by 2030? That’s a pretty eye-catching figure, but one which the author of a …
Doctors are targets in brutal Syrian war
By Dr Cesar Chelala After four years of hostilities, the Syrian war doesn’t show any signs of abating, and the needs for all kind of assistance grow more urgent every day. The situation is even more complex as medical and paramedical personnel have become targets of repression by the government. As a result, thousands of …
FIFA president Blatter signals mounting pressure on Qatar to tackle migrant worker problems
By James M. Dorsey A warning by world soccer body FIFA president Sepp Blatter following talks this weekend with Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani that Qatar needs to do more to improve the working and living conditions of its migrant workers is the latest signal that Qatar will have to take …
On the urgency of stopping recruitment of European and North African girls and women to jihad
By Moha Ennaji There have been several reports of European and North African women travelling to Syria to join up with jihadists there. The precise number of girls and women seeking to join the terrorist groups is unclear, but some analysts estimate that roughly 20% of recruits from Europe and North Africa are women, often …
Netanyahu’s Congress Speech: Manipulating the Middle East’s security architecture
By James M. Dorsey A satirical video of Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu’s speech to the US Congress captures the essence of his message and his political strategy on the eve of Israeli elections. “There are three things we must always remember: First Iran, and second Iran, and third Iran, Iran, Iran, again and again; …
Netanyahu’s Nuclear Speech: Crisis speech or cold Obama assassination?
A silent battle took place before and during the speech that lasted for 40 minutes, Netanyahu’s third speech in the Congress since 1996. The silent battle was between Democrats and Republicans, who possess the majority of empty seats and never hesitated to stand up repeatedly and clap. About 50 Democrat representatives interrupted the Israeli Prime …
Lessons from the Algerian experience
By Mahmoud Abu Bakr Since the incidents of July 2013 and the ouster of President Mohamed Morsi, which led to the expulsion of the Muslim Brotherhood regime from power in Egypt, different media did not stop making comparisons between what occurred in Egypt and what happened in Algeria in the early ‘90s, when the elections …
International sports associations caught between dollar signs and human rights ideals
By James M. Dorsey A just published study highlights how commerce and glitz are reinforcing support for autocracy by international sports associations, and undermining the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) newly found resolve to hold potential host cities to human rights standards to which world football body FIFA pays. The study by Andrew Zimbalist, Circus Maximus: The Economic …
Is the US against children’s rights?
By Dr Cesar Chelala In the 26th year of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) Somalia recently became the 195th state party to ratify the convention. As South Sudan is expected to ratify the Convention later his year, the US would be the only country in the world that hasn’t yet ratified the CRC. The Convention is an …
Good nutrition makes healthy children and productive adults
By Bjørn Lomborg The world faces many problems, and feeding a growing population adequately is certainly one of them. The good news is that we are well on track to halving the proportion of people suffering chronic hunger between 1990 and 2015. The bad news is that still leaves over 800 million people who go …