Egypt’s psychotherapists are in business. Not only will they be hired by poor unfortunate souls driven to the edge by stress, noise, air pollution, injustice, oppression and corruption, but one big smelly affair has been added to the mix: ubiquitous piles of nauseating garbage lining every street corner and square in its sprawling capital. To …
The current weakness and fragmentation of opposition parties and the nonchalance of public opinion suggest that perhaps nothing can disrupt the plan to groom Gamal Mubarak to the presidency in Egypt but a charismatic figure whose exemplary character can awaken people and mobilize them in defiance of the state. Egypt, one can argue, is in …
KUWAIT CITY: A friend in New York recently asked me what Ramadan was like. Borrowing a chapter from my three-year-old son’s playbook, I tried to explain it in constructs that would be familiar to her. I asked her to imagine a traditional American Thanksgiving with all her extended family present, where they fasted from dawn …
WASHINGTON, DC: Eight years into what was once called the Global War on Terror , Western policymakers show a growing recognition that combating violent extremists requires more creative tools. In struggles of this sort, military solutions can have the unintended consequence of exacerbating radicalization rather than reversing it. American policies abroad are often identified as …
RAMALLAH: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to approve new Jewish settlements on the eve of a possible settlement freeze is the latest round in a cycle that has been repeated so many times over the past 40 years that it would seem mundane if it were not so dangerous. The cycle goes something like …
I do not know why the Party Affairs Committee refused to give legal license to Al-Wasat Party. The reasons for the decision were not convincing at all. The announced reason behind the rejection is that Al-Wasat’s program offers nothing new to the political arena in Egypt. However, there were hidden reasons behind the decision. Since …
KNOXVILLE, Tennessee: On June 3, ten female basketball players – ages 14 to 16 -and three coaches from Iraq came to America for the first time. For us, two American women who believe that sports can connect people of different cultures, their arrival fulfilled one of our long-term dreams to connect Iraqis with Americans. In …
STRASBOURG: After almost two decades as a failed state torn by civil war, perhaps the world should begin to admit that Somalia – as it is currently constructed – is beyond repair. Some of the country, however, can meet at least a basic standard of governance. The northernmost region, Somaliland, situated strategically at the opening …
WASHINGTON, DC: This year, which marks the eighth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, has prompted many conversations on how the world has changed since. Many of these changes are bleak indeed: relations between America and the Muslim world suffered from wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and terrorist attacks from London to Madrid, and from …
NEW YORK: Striving to revive the world economy while simultaneously responding to the global climate crisis has raised a knotty question: are statistics giving us the right “signals about what to do? In our performance-oriented world, measurement issues have taken on increased importance: what we measure affects what we do. If we have poor measures, …
GAZA: Fateh s sixth congress, which took place earlier this month, was a milestone in the movement’s history and perhaps for the Palestinian people as a whole. Apart from the fact that it was the first Fateh conference to take place on Palestinian soil, it also elected an intriguing mix of veteran and new popular …
James Petras message: freedom is not “vital ! One of the most shocking analyses of the situation in Iran is by the renowned controversial Left writer and academic, James Petras. In his piece “Iranian Elections: ‘The Stolen Elections’ Hoax , Petras conclusively denies any wrongdoings in the Iranian elections and confidently goes into the detail …
STOCKHOLM: Pushing the “reset button on diplomatic relations is a popular endeavor nowadays. President Barack Obama just journeyed to Moscow in order to “reset strained United States-Russian ties. The European Union, though not in need of a “reset because of strained ties with its eastern neighbors, is involved in a deep strategic reconstruction of those …
The electoral coup and the subsequent uprising and suppression of the revolting voters in Iran have prompted all sorts of analyses in Western media from both the Right and the Left. The Right, mostly inspired by the neo-con ideology and reactionary perspectives, dreams of the re-creation of the Shah’s Iran, looks for pro-American/pro-Israeli allies among …
WEST BANK: Sitting in my Tokyo apartment two years ago and planning a worldwide trip, I only considered travelling through Lebanon, Syria and Jordan as a means to get from Turkey to Egypt. The thought of travelling through the Middle East both terrified and intrigued me. The majority of the news I heard from Tel …
BEIRUT: When will President Obama abandon the Bush doctrine of isolating Hamas? During a press conference in Gaza City a few weeks ago, Ismail Haniya, the Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip, declared: “If there is a real project that aims at resolving the Palestinian cause on establishing a Palestinian state on 1967 borders, under …
ROME: Many separatist movements in Europe have resorted to various violent terrorist acts since the second half of the twentieth century. From the 1960’s onwards, bombs and death were the order of the day in regions like Northern Ireland, Corsica (France), South Tyrol (Italy), and the Basque country (Spain). Indeed, the specter of violent separatism …
TEL AVIV: No matter how important rising oil powers outside the Middle East are becoming, the region will continue to be the world’s main source of energy for years to come. Unlike Russia, the Middle East’s OPEC members act as a cartel that produces well under capacity. At current production rates, Russia will be out …
COPENHAGEN: Our current approach to solving global warming will not work. It is flawed economically, because carbon taxes will cost a fortune and do little, and it is flawed politically, because negotiations to reduce CO2 emissions will become ever more fraught and divisive. And even if you disagree on both counts, the current approach is …
JERUSALEM: All over the western world, community empowerment programs encourage resident participation by involving community leaders and organizers in decisions about the city in which they live. What could be better than the authorities and residents coming together to take joint responsibility for municipal challenges? It seems that in East Jerusalem, all this is not …
The National Council for Human Rights has finally come out of its deep slumber. As a government body, few expected the incisive critical tone it used in the recent report on Egypt s human rights situation the council presented to the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC), an inter-governmental body of 192 members established in …
NEW YORK: The recent decision by Myanmar’s government to sentence pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi to a further 18 months’ house arrest shows how difficult it is to deal with that country’s ruling generals. Yet the first steps toward a new approach may already have been taken. The clearest sign comes from the Association …
In June 2010, Canada will host the G8 summit in Huntsville, Ontario. One of the most contentious issues will be climate change and a possible discussion on concrete targets for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The world’s eyes will be on Ottawa and its dismal track record when it comes to meaningful action on this global …
AMMAN: I had to rub my eyes a few times to be sure that what I was seeing was real. The setting: downtown Ramallah. The event: International Youth Day. The participants were wearing white T-shirts with logos on the front and back, and red hats. Palestinians from all over the West Bank were participating in …
JERUSALEM: Mike Huckabee recently made a virulently anti-Zionist remark – and the Jews who accompanied him on his tour of east Jerusalem cheered. “It concerns me when there are some in the United States who would want to tell Israel that it cannot allow people to live in their own country, wherever they want, declared …
NEW YORK: Mohammed Al-Hanashi was a 31-year-old Yemeni citizen who was held at Guantánamo Bay without charge for seven years. On June 3, while I was visiting Guantánamo with other journalists, the press office there issued a terse announcement that Al-Hanashi had had been found dead in his cell – an “apparent suicide. Because my …
PRINCETON: The recent release of Abdel Basset Ali Al-Megrahi, the only person convicted of blowing up Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, sparked outrage. Around the same time, the Philadelphia Eagles, an American football team, offered a second chance to former star Michael Vick, who was convicted of running a dog-fighting operation …
BERLIN: Iran is in the process of wasting the biggest historical opportunity the country has had since the revolution of 1979, and perhaps even in the last hundred years. This opportunity is called Barack Obama. It is Obama’s policy of reaching out to Iran that offers the country this unique opportunity – if, and it’s …
NEW YORK: Moods and fashions in Japan often arrive like tsunamis, typhoons, or landslides. After more than 50 years of almost uninterrupted power, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has been buried in a general election. Once before, in 1993, change came when a coalition of opposition parties briefly took power, but the LDP still …
WASHINGTON, DC: The aftermath of the Scottish government’s recent release of Abdel Baset Al-Megrahi, the former Libyan intelligence agent who was given a life sentence for the 1988 bombing of PanAm flight 103 over Lockerbie, is a case study of the deep misunderstanding and miscommunication that exists between much of the Muslim world and the …
