From the outside, away from reading the numbers and the details, the results of the parliamentary elections that were conducted lately seem very positive.

In 2008, our nation broke through a barrier, electing an African-American to be president of the United States. In 2016, another barrier may very well be broken. All polls indicate that a woman or a Latino has a very good chance of being elected to be our 45th president. But there is another barrier -- an important one in the eyes of the world -- that is almost certain not to be smashed. Barring an unprecedented political upheaval, the next president of the United States will be a Christian, just like virtually all of his (or her) predecessors. The only exceptions may have been Thomas Jefferson, who abandoned orthodox Christianity, and Abraham Lincoln, who often spoke of God and frequently quoted the Bible, but who never joined a church.

The Muslim Brotherhood remains caught at the centre of the problems that dominate Egyptian politics. Regime hardliners believe that all the ills of Egypt could somehow be traced to an elaborate conspiracy by the Muslim Brotherhood to destabilise the country.

Many young Egyptians dream of a better life. The trouble is that most want to achieve it by leaving Egypt; this was not always the case. In 2011, many youths living comfortably abroad decided to dream of a better Egypt, not just by wishing it but by risking their lives and careers and coming back to contribute to a revolution they thought could bring about these dreams. Numerous Egyptians rediscovered their roots by taking to the streets in thousands, to offer a glimpse of an Egypt with integrity, with a dream of reclaiming a country that is rightfully theirs.

On Wednesday, December 16, the Cabinet approved several amendments to Law 62/1975 on illicit gains,stating the fight against corruption to be the reason behind such amendments. But in my opinion this is the wrong approach to combating corruption and is unlikely to yield any results.

This week has seen an event that reveals the nature of what is politically going on in Egypt. It pertains to the State Support Coalition, whose name was changed to the Egypt Support Coalition. Endless meetings and discussions were held on satellite channels between those who are in favor of the coalition and those warning against it. And the peak of this melodramatic scene was the ostentatious claim that the coalition has reached a majority of 400 deputies that will control parliament, as was planned by certain state institutions.

The Muslim Brotherhood has always kept its internal problems secret from the media and even from its own grassroots. But since 2005, blogs on the internet served as an outlet for the young members of the group to express themselves and criticize the thoughts and political positions of the group, as many of them withdrew from the group and adopted their own liberal or leftist ideas. The group's leaders managed to get rid of those who criticized them at that time, stressing that the internal affairs should not be divulged to the media, even by leading figures like Al-Erian or Abul Fottouh.

A few weeks ago, I wrote on my Facebook page about the discomfort I felt at the appearance of someone calling himself an “economic expert”, giving his opinions on the constitutionality of the parliament, the political parties in Egypt, and the new French Mistrals delivered to Egypt’s navy. Professor Abdel-Latif Mahmoud, the former head of the Advanced Materials Research at the Canadian Ministry of National Defence, commented below my post stating:

Once again the Renaissance Dam occupies the forefront in the water issues and Egypt’s foreign relations after the conclusion of the Egyptian-Sudanese-Ethiopian negotiations in Khartoum without reaching an agreement regarding the Dam’s hanging issues.

When I arrived in Chicago with a delegation from the Tourism Ministry, I was greeted by the Egyptian consul, Mohamed Abul Dahab, who is anxious to introduce the ancient Egyptian civilization to the United States. He always encourages Americans to visit Egypt, for he knows that the charm of the ancient Egyptian civilization and its artifacts can very well revive American tourism to Egypt.

The For the Love of Egypt list said it has formed a coalition of 400 members in the House of Representatives to support the Egyptian state. This is very strange. For all members of Parliament and all citizens in Egypt, except the traitors, should support the Egyptian state anyway.

The new parliament will be fully formed next week, after the runoff elections in four districts and the selection of the 27 parliamentarians appointed by the president. But this moment is clouded by expectations, questions, and suspicions about how well the incoming parliament will express the hopes and aspirations of the Egyptian people.

Egyptian law enforcement authorities and the Egyptian Football Association (EFA), in a reflection of fears that stadia in Egypt could once more emerge as platforms for anti-government protest, have extended a ban on spectators attending matches that has been in place for much of the last five years.

Is Donald Trump a fascist? To answer that question it is helpful to examine three interrelated phenomena: the history of European fascism, the rise of far-right nationalist parties around the West today and what historian Richard Hofstadter famously termed "the paranoid style in American politics."

The first person to use the term nostalgia was Swiss researcher Johannes Hofer in a letter in 1688. He noticed that Swiss soldiers fighting in France and Italy suffered from homesickness, and so he combined two Greek words, nostos, meaning to return home (used prolifically by the poet Homer in The Iliad), and algos, meaning pain.

Extremism | What would your reaction be if you found out that a Canadian citizen who works for the police or a political party was a member of a secret international organization? How would you feel is this individual’s first loyalty was to a non-Canadian group and they were receiving commands to implement the plans of this secret organization? I think you would be very worried and you would be looking for ways to protect Canada from this secret organization. One such secret organization in Canada is the Muslim Brotherhood. It is important to recognize that this group is the well spring from which most of the Islamacist terrorist organizations have grown. We will have more on this in the next article.

When the El-Nadim Center for Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence says that 13 people died in places of detention in November, including nine as a result of torture, three as a result of medical negligence and one suicide case, we should be alerted.

The issue of Islam in the United States at present has three aspects. First, the unprecedented hostile positions of US presidential candidates towards Islam as a religion, including racist rhetoric demanding restrictions on Muslim Americans. Second, the real or imagined or manufactured reasons that fuel growing Islamophobia. Third, the constitutional framework regarding Islam in the US.

Strangely enough, some members of the new Parliament who managed to sneak into it through hybrid blocs and coalitions brag that they have formed a grand coalition supportive of the state within Parliament.

For months, numerous voices—mine included—have urged the President to turn to economic experts instead of relying solely on trusted advisors, to pull the national economy out of its torpor and stop the slide into recession, inflation, and declining investments.

Finally the parliamentary elections are over, and in a couple of weeks, we will witness the very first session of the first post-30 June uprising parliament. Concluding the parliamentary elections is one more step in the realisation of the transitional roadmap announced after the ousting of former president Mohamed Morsi on 3 July 2013.