Latest in Opinion Highlight
Latest in Opinion
What do strategies fighting terrorism and extremism rely on?
In light of the strategy of fighting terrorism and extremism, regardless of whether you support or oppose this strategy, we all notice that terrorism is expanding. The strategy was widened to include not only armed terrorists but also any one holding the “Rabaa” sign, even if they do not participate in or provoke direct violence. …
A word of advice to Al-Sisi: Prompt reform to prevent chaos
By Mohammed Nosseir President Al-Sisi ran a very successful election campaign, persuading millions of Egyptians to vote for him in order to save the country from the Muslim Brotherhood. So far, the president appears not to heed the fact that Egyptians initially revolted against the lack of justice, freedom and dignity that existed for almost …
Notes from America; The killing of Muslims won’t be televised
By Ahmed Tharwat It’s so sad to hear people saying we should “Kill Jews” or “Kill Palestinians”. “As if that’s going to solve anything SMH (shaking My head)” tweeted Deah Barakat, a 23-year-old student who was shot, according to his father, execution style, along with his wife, Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha, 21, and her sister, Razan …
Bilateral Agreements with Russia: Elimination of the US dollar
By Ahmed M El-Wahsh In light of recent events and happenings across Cairo – from the Tahrir memorial to the deaths at the Air Defence Stadium and Vladimir Putin’s visit – Egypt faces an unsettling currency change against its Egyptian pound to the American dollar. With that being said, the Russian leader met with Abdel …
Invest in better energy technology to fight climate change
By Dr. Bjørn Lomborg Climate change has certainly received immense exposure among the most eminent issues of the 21st century so far. The United Nations (UN) Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon argues that it is “an existential challenge for the whole human race”. On the other hand, when over seven million people were asked by the UN what …
Football deaths raise stakes for Egypt’s general-turned-president Al-Sisi
By James M. Dorsey The death of at least 40 militants, highly politicised, and street battle-hardened Egyptian football fans in clashes with security forces raises the stakes for General-turned-President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi’s efforts to suppress political dissent. The incident is one of the worst in Egyptian sporting history and the latest in a number of …
Yellow card for Al-Sisi?
By Amr Khalifa Over thirty Egyptians did not return home last night and Mohamed Ibrahim, Minister of Interior, shoulders responsibility. You can be certain the honorable minister is not the only party culpable in the second disaster of its kind to strike Egyptian football in the last three years, 74 lives having been extinguished in …
What are the existing strategies in the face of terrorism and extremism?
The terrorist events that took place in Sinai on 29 January 2015 have raised major concerns and debates. Concerns were very obvious on TV screens, in newspapers, within political forces, and perhaps also ruling circles. These concerns, in my opinion, are justified. A year and a half after the first Rafah incident which targeted a …
Keen to project a progressive image, the UAE picks its battles
By James M. Dorsey Projecting an image of being politically and culturally on the cutting edge, the United Arab Emirates carefully picks its battles. Participation in the US-led coalition against the Islamic State in Iraq and Al-Sham (ISIS) has projected the United Arab Emirates as a military force to be reckoned with. Football is the …
Notes from America: How American football…explains America
By Ahmed Tharwat Last Sunday, more than 140 million Americans congregated in living rooms, bars, restaurants to eat, drink and watch the Super Bowl XLIX (49). This is the biggest sporting event of the year, with highest TV rating (39.1 points); the game day ticket price averaging $10,466, it brought more than $500M economic value (debatable) to …
Don’t fall for Nasrallah’s bluff
Nasrallah’s pompous speech rejecting the “rules of engagement” ignores the reality of Hezbollah’s difficult geo-strategic situation in Syria and the fear of a second front with Israel
Free trade could make every Egyptian $897 richer yearly
By Bjørn Lomborg With one simple policy – more free trade – we could make the world $500tr better off and lift 160m people out of extreme poverty. If there is one question we have to ask ourselves, it is: why don’t we? In 2000, the international community agreed a set of important targets to …
Satire and bullets
By Odysseus Tsagarakis The recent massacre at Charlie Hebdo demonstrates, I think, that unrestrained freedom of expression can have disastrous consequences. Its cartoonists, as is well known, published offensive drawings of the Prophet Mohammad. In western societies, we cherish freedom of speech. The problem is that all too often we exceed the golden rule, the “pan …
Qatar asks for time to implement labour reforms
By James M. Dorsey Qatari sports executives, in a bid to refute calls for depriving Qatar of its 2022 World Cup hosting rights, have asked their human rights and trade union critics as well as world football body FIFA to give them more time to address criticism of the Gulf state’s kafala or sponsorship system …
LNG: The way forward
By Ahmed M El-Wahsh Euro-commodity brokers earned a large share of meticulously watched endeavours to source Egypt with approximately $2bn worth of liquefied natural gas [LNG] as they exert great efforts to develop into a sector, which is characteristically governed by large oil corporations. The following three leading companies; Trafigura, Noble Group and Vitol will …
Egypt appoints controversial UAE hired gun as elections monitor
By James M. Dorsey Egyptian-general-turned-president Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi’s efforts to lend legitimacy to parliamentary elections scheduled for this spring have gotten off to a murky start with the appointment of a controversial, reportedly United Arab Emirates-backed, human rights NGO as one of five foreign election monitors. The appointment of Norway-based Global Network for Rights and Development (GNRD) alongside four …
We are all Shaimaa Al-Sabbagh
Martyr Shaimaa Al-Sabbagh was not, of course, the first victim after 30 June. We do not know exactly how many innocent Egyptians have been killed since 30 June. By that, we mean unarmed and peaceful citizens killed, without any use of direct violence in clashing with the authorities, which would, only in this case, result …
United States: A tale of morals and cruelty
By Mohammed Nosseir There is no doubt that the United States of America is by far the most controversial nation among Arabs. Consecutive US Administrations have somehow managed to cultivate an intense love-hate relationship with millions of Arabs. The valid question ‘Why do they hate us?’, raised in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, can …
Sisi: Sinking Sinai
If a shaken public – and rest assured, based on many indications, the public is both shaken and angry – is to trust that its leaders have a rational, well-constructed plan there must be both transparency and accountability
Notes from America: Unlike the Egyptian sniper, ‘American Sniper’ is glorified
By Ahmed Tharwat A day before the fourth anniversary of the 25 January Revolution, a 32- year -old mother, activist and poet Shaimaa Al-Sabbagh carried a wreath of flowers and went to Tahrir Square to commemorate the victims who lost their lives over the last four years. She did not know that this would be her last walk …
Public health challenges in the Middle East
By Dr Cesar Chelala Despite modest growth and poverty reduction, some important gains in the health status of the population have been achieved in the Middle East, thanks to improvements in technology, health service delivery and public health programmes. However, the whole region still faces important public health challenges. For example, although the region has decreasing …
Violence against women and children costs Egypt $147bn yearly
By Bjørn Lomborg Violence holds a huge cost for our world. Globally, the cost runs to more than 11% of the world’s GDP. But this is not mostly about the highly visible violence that dominates TV and news. Civil wars and conflicts rumble far too long in far too many places like Syria and the …
The significance of Shaimaa’s death
By Wael Eskandar I’ve thought a lot about why the death of Shaimaa Al-Sabbagh has been more painful than many of the unjustified recent deaths we’ve encountered recently. It could be because she’s close to my circles, or because she looked pretty or because of the innocence of attempting to place a wreath of flowers …
Return on equity and bank profitability: Could this exercise help Egyptian economy?
By Ahmed M El-Wahsh Return on Equity (RoE) is an internal performance measure of a bank’s profitability from the shareholder’s point of view, typically measured by the ‘Net Income’ per dollar of ‘Equity Capital’. It is often considered as the most popular measure of performance, as it is easily available to the analysts, proposes a …
Building the Arab knowledge economy
By Omar Khedr Beginning on 28 January, Cairo will play host to publishers, authors, literary agents, as well as avid readers from around the world. Brought together by the Cairo International Book Fair, the oldest and largest book fair in the Arab World, these participants will explore potential partnerships, learn best practices from each other, …
Desalination and the solar solution
By Ahmed S. Nada Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, the late Richard Smalley, once ranked the “top 10 problems of humanity for the next 50 years”. Interestingly, energy and water came in first and second on that list. His rationale for energy featuring at the top was that most, if not all, of the other problems …
AFC official ‘happy’ to bar women spectators from stadia
By James M. Dorsey The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) has dropped any pretention of standing up for universal standards for equality in sports by endorsing bans on women attending football matches in stadia. In doing so, the AFC has confirmed policies adopted by the Asian group, as well as world football body FIFA, that effectively …
Cleaner cooking, electricity can improve millions’ lives
By Dr Bjørn Lomborg Nutritious food, clean water and basic healthcare for all may be obvious high-priority targets for the international community, but we shouldn’t ignore energy. Reliable and affordable energy is as vital for today’s developing and emerging economies as it was before the Industrial Revolution. Driven mostly by its five-fold increase in coal …
Notes from America: The day Egypt lost its virginity
By Ahmed Tharwat This is the story of Jihan and Rasha; two young activists whose lives were shattered forever. The story of the forced virginity test that was performed on young Egyptian women activists by military security during the height of the revolution. The virginity test allegations first surfaced after a 9 March, 2011 rally …
Police Day and human rights
How can the January revolution die if its main cause still lives?