Latest in Tag: opinion Highlight
Latest in Tag: opinion
Should Egypt be governed by majority rule or by rule of law?
By Mohammed Nosseir The term âmajorityâ could be a very pleasant one, used to refer to a segment of any given society. In reality, rulers and citizens tend to commit a number of mistakes based on a false assumption known as âmajority ruleâ. This is what has been happening in our attempt to develop a …
Education: The global antidote to poverty, disease and terrorism
By Dr Cesar Chelala Despite enormous technological advances, humanity continues to grapple with three enormous burdens: poverty, disease and terrorism (both individual and state-sponsored.) Although the policies aimed at solving those problems are different, there is one approach that can help lower the negative effect of all three: education. There is a clear connection between …
Path to sanity: Political humour in Egypt
By Amr Khalifa âA girl writes she is every Egyptian young manâs dream. She thinks she is a visa to Kuwait.â via _El_haram . Welcome to Twitter political humour, a humour that lays bare an Egypt consecutive regimes have sought to paint as rosier than its reality. Conflict, bloody and otherwise, has a deep impact …
Reshaping the Middle East: UAE leads the counterrevolution
By James M. Dorsey War planes from oil-rich Gulf states play a supporting role in the US-led air campaign to counter the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. Despite their massive weapons acquisitions in recent years the Gulf statesâ participation may make little military difference in the war against the jihadists, but it serves everyoneâs …
The lie behind the Gaza Reconstruction Conference
By Ricard Gonzalez A good-hearted global citizen would assume that the amount of money raised in an international conference of donors under the title âfor the reconstruction of Gazaâ is for that purpose. However, they would be wrong. The official declaration of the conference that took place in Cairo last Sunday, stated that the donor …
The capitalist cure for terrorism
Military might alone wonât defeat Islamic State and its ilk. The US needs to promote economic empowerment
The public health impact of domestic violence
By Dr Cesar Chelala Physical or sexual violence is a serious public health problem that affects more than one-third of all women globally, as was established in a report by the World Health Organization (WHO) in partnership with the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and the South African Medical Research Council. The findings of the report …
Gulf proxy war: UAE seeks to further damage Qatarâs already tarnished image
By James M. Dorsey The United Arab Emirates and Qatar are locked in a propaganda war with public relations agencies and front organisations as proxies that is backfiring on both Gulf states. Disclosures of the proxy war have hit Qatar at a time that its image as the host of the 2022 World Cup is …
From New York with Love to Sisi
By Amr Khalifa Sometime last week, on the Ismailiyia-Cairo highway, there was a man hung by rope from a billboard. Painful, but precise, the image rendered an imperfect Egyptian economic/political landscape. That postcard of desperation was the furthest thing from the minds of Sisi supporters at the other end of the world at the UN. …
What would Einstein have said about Gaza?
By Dr CĂ©sar Chelala On 9 April 1948, 120 fighters from the Irgun and Lehi Zionist paramilitary groups attacked Deir Yassin, near Jerusalem, a Palestinian-Arab village of approximately 600 people. During the assault, around 107 villagers were killed, including women and children. In addition, several villagers were taken prisoner, and were later jeered, spat at, and …
An inconvenient war
By Ahmed El-Ashram I look around and I see an unprecedented level of despair in the eyes of many friends; an overt level of frustration of how their lives have unluckily coincided with the mishappenings of recent years. Many wish they were not there to witness the toxic politics, the economic misfortune and the precarious …
Israel mobilises to deprive Qatar of the World Cup
By James M. Dorsey One group has been conspicuously absent in the battle for greater transparency of global football governance symbolised by multiple corruption scandals and match-fixing: football fans, a key stakeholder with a vested interest in demanding a thorough cleansing of the management of the sport. That, however, may be changing as Israel appears …
Middle East Realism â How power completely overcomes values
By Mohammed Nosseir What matters in the Middle East is the reality on the ground. Having good ideas and some moral values â but no power â makes you a useless entity, while possessing power but no ethical values can sustain your presence for a lengthy period and enable you to gain more ground. This …
Fighting the Islamic State: What about the day after?
By James M. Dorsey The beheading of a second American journalist and the likely execution of a British national have left US President Barak Obama and other Western leaders few options but to step up military operations against Islamist jihadists in Iraq and expand the battle into Syria. The focus on confronting the militant jihadists …
Is the New York Times always a credible source?
By Khalid Mahmoud The New York Times wrote a report last week detailing how Egypt, in cooperation the United Arab Emirates, conducted a joint airstrike against Islamist militias in Libya. The report, written by the newspaperâs Office Director in Cairo, David Kirkpatrick, and Editor Eric Smith, went on to tell the details of the airstrike, …
Egyptâs banning of ultras constitutes effort to outlaw legitimate opposition
By James M. Dorsey An expected decision by Egyptian football authorities to ban as terrorist organisations groups of militant football fans builds on the definition by Arab autocrats of legitimate, democratic opposition forces as violent threats to their grip on power. By leaving youth with ever fewer, if any, options for venting pent-up anger and …
Egypt’s media and the normality of broadcasting your phone-calls
By Mohamed Selim During the two past weeks, Egypt was gripped by yet another case of media sciolism. Al Kahera Wal Nas, âCairo and the Peopleâ, a private satellite channel broadcasted from Cairo’s Media Production City (MPC), has been the subject of controversy in a dangerously polarised country. Its programme, The Black Box, presented by a …
Islamic State: an ideological challenge to Saudi Arabia
By James M. Dorsey The meteoric rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and its declaration of an Islamic State straddling the two Arab countries raises the spectre of a militant Islamist state in the heart of the Middle East East close to the borders of US allies like Israel, Jordan and …
The MB, AQ, ISIS and Al-Azhar’s crisis
By Mohamed Selim The unfortunate daily events that are unfolding in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Egypt, Yemen, Tunisia and Libya, are prompting the question: when will the entire region fall into the hands of radical Islamists? The demise of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) reign in Egypt at the hands of its military has caused the re-emergence of …
Egyptâs identity: Hovering between love and rule of law
By Mohammed Nosseir Egyptian rulers gamble when they think that they can manipulate the national identity to serve their political goals. Each ruler has his own perception of the Egyptian identity that he wants to impose on society either through expressing love or by applying harsh laws that aim at fine-tuning citizens to fit into a …
How uncertainty managed to negatively affect the Egyptian economy
By Mohammed Nosseir Egypt is in need of a coherent economic vision complemented by explicit economic policies. Undermining both, or using economic initiatives as substitutes and surprising citizens with an assortment of mega investment projects (even if they are beneficial) will not do our country any good. In a very short period, Al-Sisi has managed …
Greater respect for international humanitarian law needed â 150 years after Geneva Convention
By Didier Burkhalter and Peter Maurer  150 years ago this past Friday, the first Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field was adopted, enshrining the idea in international law that even in times of war, a certain degree of humanity must be …
Tourism insights from around the world
By Omar Khedr Changing perceptions and successfully rebounding an entire industry is generally a herculean challenge. Â Representing approximately 6.5% of Egyptâs total Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as well as being an important source of foreign exchange, Egyptâs travel and tourism industry forms a vital bedrock of her economy. The industry benefits from several competitive advantages. …
Peacemaking Egypt!
Since Hamas seized control of the Gaza strip, three notable spells of war have engulfed one of the most densely populated parts of the world. The latest of such outbreaks have been by far the deadliest of the three armed conflicts; more than 1,800 people have perished since Israel launched its operation on 8 July. …
Egypt keeps changing suits â but its mindset remains intact
By Mohammed Nosseir Egypt has not changed a bit! It claims to have gone through two revolutions in less than three years and it has managed to have four different rulers since Mubarak was toppled from power, and has been shaped by the diverse styles of its successive rulers. However, the same mindset that was …
When poetry mirrors war
By Cesar Chelala I am returning home from a memorial to an old and dear friend, Marijke Velzeboer Salcedo. Marijke was a remarkable woman on many counts: a wonderful mother, wife and friend. She was a talented and energetic woman whose work on behalf of women for United Nations agencies contributed to the improvement in …
Close your eyes
By Wael Eskander A young black girl is raped and abused by two racist white men, who are then shot by the girlâs father during their trial. This is the premise of âA Time to Killâ, a book by John Grisham. In the courtroom drama the lawyer attempts to convince the jury to release the …
Misunderstanding Africa
By Robert Tashima  Gold, oil, timber, cocoa: these four words could sum up the essence of African economic development over the 20th century. Investors dug mines, brought in derricks, and chopped down trees, but with few exceptions that was largely it. The impact of this was significant. Per capita GDP declined in the 1980s, …
Qatar invests in Israeli football despite Gaza and war of words with Jerusalem
By James M. Dorsey Qatar is emerging for the second time in a decade as the only Arab state without a peace treaty and diplomatic relations to have invested in Israel. Qatarâs latest investment in Israeli Palestinian football comes against a backdrop of a war of words between the two countries over the Gulf stateâs …
What are the socio-cultural dimensions behind the phenomenon of harassment? (Part 6)
Through the last five articles we noted what we call the characteristics of slums and determined that there are four main attributes of these neighbourhoods. The most important of these characteristics are that the residents of slums are poor and marginalised, the area lacks prior planning and services and is newly constructed. We clarified how …