Today, the United Nations estimates that 77 million people – more than 1 percent of the world’s population – are displaced within their own countries, having been forced to flee their homes by armed conflicts, violence, urbanization, development, and natural disasters. This is more than the population of France, the United Kingdom, or Turkey. These …

On Tuesday, to cap two days of miraculously upbeat discussions about the state of Egypt’s economy in the midst of a global crisis at the annual Euromoney Conference, as the Egyptian stock market continued to take a dive, we ran a lead story titled “Nazif’s closing remarks echo peppy tone of Euromoney. “Singing in thematic …

Credit crunch, mortgage crises, Interest rates, debt, foreclosures, bankruptcy and mergers are all familiar words to hear nowadays. These are reflections and indications of the failure of the current financial system worldwide. A quick review to the current chaos witnessed in economies worldwide motivated some scholars and commentators to analyze the system more closely. Looking …

ARIZONA: Being the “other is a fairly new concept for me. While I’ve never liked being referred to as “the other daughter , I’m accustomed to the label of “the other Fed Fund trader , “the other parent volunteer or “the other Sunday School teacher . And I’m certainly proud of the fact that I’ve …

MEXICO CITY: Although many Americans believe immigration is a domestic issue that should be excluded from talks with other governments, this is not a view held by other nations – or by the United States. Indeed, the US negotiated its first immigration deal in 1907, maintained for more than two decades a controversial treaty with …

Vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin likes to portray herself as an average American working mother. But how many typical moms get $150,000 worth of merchandise from stylish stores and have strangers pay for it? This week s revelation about the purchases was just one more surprise in the fast rise and apparent fall of the Republican …

OLYMPIA, WASHINGTON: Barack Obama and John McCain are the two contenders in America’s presidential election this year, but the campaign has also been dominated by two very different women, Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin. Indeed, many observers believe that women will determine the election’s outcome. So, to paraphrase Sigmund Freud, “What do American women want? …

PARIS: After his visit to Jenin accompanied by Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner became more optimistic, despite the existing tribulations in the Palestinian territories. Fayyad is a trustworthy official. He has undertaken many reforms despite the tragic conditions under occupation. Kouchner has had the chance to see on the ground …

WASHINGTON, DC: When Turkey was granted official-candidate status for EU membership in 1999, neither the EU nor Turkey thought that the transition would be an easy or rapid one. And it has not been. Out of the 35 chapters – necessary benchmarks for accession determined by the EU – only six have been opened and …

If anything in Egypt is worth learning from the global financial crisis, it is that the current structure of the Egyptian economy and the mindset sustaining it needs fundamental change. Economists divide states according to the sources of income upon which they rely. There are “exoteric states (states predominately based on revenue accruing directly from …

JERUSALEM: I was born American. Thirty-five years ago, I chose to become Israeli. My choice in no way reflects a lack of affection for the United States. But patriotism is monogamous: I am an Israeli patriot, and a platonic friend of the land of my birth. I have never voted in a U.S. election and …

YEREVAN: Once again, the issue of bombing or sanctioning Iran has resurfaced. For years, debate about Iran has oscillated between two bad alternatives. Some are convinced that a nuclear Iran is the worst of all possible scenarios, worse even than the fall-out from a pre-emptive strike. But neither a nuclear-armed Iran nor air strikes against …

DHAKA: Sold to a dance bar owner and forced to work in the “flesh trade , Zarina (whose name has been changed to protect her identity), a 16-year-old girl and daughter of a day labourer from Krishnapur in southeast Bangladesh, was a recent victim of human trafficking. This illegal trade has assumed dangerous proportions in …

In order to assess the magnitude and influence of bloggers within the Muslim Brotherhood group we must first know how far the group is interested in the blogging community and their ideas and the size of support that bloggers are receiving from the group’s reformist leaders. We can surely say that the group had to …

The trillion-dollar commitments made so far by governments, with the exception of Britain’s, have been biased toward restoring market confidence instead of healing the core of what ails banks. So it might be a good idea for them to look to Asia to help them get the job done, and to do it right, both …

The American University in Cairo’s (AUC) recently built campus in New Cairo has provided Egyptian students the ability to have a genuine “American university experience in Egypt. In doing so, however, it has greatly limited the opportunities for its foreign students to engage with the many aspects of Egyptian society and culture once plentiful at …

SINGAPORE: Martti Ahtisaari is a great man. He deserves the Nobel Peace Prize for his life work. But it was a mistake for the Norwegian Nobel Committee to cite his work in Aceh as a reason for giving him the prize. As a recent story by Agence France Presse put it, Ahtisaari’s “most notable achievement …

A mix of confusion and indifference was the main characteristic of the Egyptian government s handling of the global financial crisis before Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak s meeting with economic ministers and the Central Bank governor. Some of those ministers showed extreme indifference by attending a conference of little significance in Washington, when the crisis …

Is it over? With more than two weeks to go before Americans go to the polls on Nov. 4, do we already know the result? Could be. Democrat Barack Obama seems to have the race sewn-up. His lead is big and growing. CNN combines a range of survey results in a poll of polls and …

BLOOMINGTON, INDIANA: Winston Churchill once said that, in wartime, truth was so precious that it needed to be surrounded by a “bodyguard of lies. In America’s presidential campaign – and, sadly, within Iraq itself nowadays – the Iraq War may not be surrounded by a bodyguard of lies, but it has certainly picked up a …

NEW YORK: Campaigns, be they political or military, are waged to be won, and the current American presidential campaign is no exception. The Democratic and Republican candidates are doing all they can to distinguish themselves from an unpopular incumbent president and from one another in the remaining weeks before Americans vote. For good reason, much …

It seems that our disturbed world lacks anyone who meets the criteria to win the Nobel Peace Prize which must be given to someone who has actually achieved peace in an issue that concerns the whole world and could contribute to its stability. Despite the good choice the foundation made in awarding the Nobel Prize …

Washington, DC: King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia stated in a recent speech that Muslims cannot keep remaining silent while other Muslims continue to cause harm to Islam. Abu Dhabi’s Al-Ittihad newspaper followed up Monday with an opinion piece expanding on the king’s speech in an article titled, “Who is Harming Islam? The Emirates newspaper described …

BUENOS AIRES: Three-quarters of Americans now disapprove of President George W. Bush’s performance. Given this, and the fact that the policies and values of John McCain and his vice-presidential nominee, Sarah Palin, are almost identical to those of Bush, you would expect Obama to be leading in the polls by a wider margin than he …

Is Egyptian democracy an oxymoron? Allow me to rephrase that: where does Egypt’s ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) place the emphasis – on “national , “democratic , “party or on the ever-present qualifying adjective “ruling ? One cannot ignore the fact that since its inception by then President Anwar Sadat in 1977, who is credited …

WASHINGTON, DC: Wandering seven long years in the mountains of Afghanistan with hardly an end in sight, the United States has just been offered a most fortuitous fix. It likely eludes America’s current president and queuing candidates, Barack Obama and John McCain, but not for long. The fix is found in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Long …

NEW YORK: When the Republic of Korea was established in 1948, Korea was one of the poorest countries in the world. GDP per capita was $67 in 1953, immediately following the Korean War, and rose to only $79 in 1960. At that time, North Korea’s economy was much stronger than that of the South. Natural …

WASHINGTON, DC: Twenty-eight million copies of the DVD “Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West were distributed in direct mail and newspaper insert campaigns to swing states throughout America in the weeks surrounding the 7th anniversary of 9/11. The film claims to be an educational documentary about the threat of terrorism in the name of …

A year ago, I wrote about the phenomenon of the Brotherhood bloggers and predicted then that bloggers would represent a real problem to the group unless it dealt with them seriously, but no one listened. Today, I feel compelled to go back and talk about this phenomenon after I witnessed several developments. We are not …

NEW DELHI: The ratification by the United States Congress of the historic India-US Nuclear Agreement marks a remarkable new development in world affairs. Initially signed in July 2005, the agreement is a major milestone in the growing partnership between the world’s oldest and largest democracies. That agreement signals recognition of what may be called “the …